> “ Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems. If he was not only the distributor of classified materi

> “ Assange is accused of going beyond leaking into assisting Chelsea Manning get pass security systems. If he was not only the distributor of classified material, but actively participated in expropriating it, he’s on the wrong side of the law.” This is not actually true for whistleblowing. Manning’s conviction was an illegal conviction given that the exfiltrated evidence unequivocally shows criminal murder, among other crimes, on behalf of the United States. It is not theft or illegal access or possession if it is indeed whistleblowing. You’d have to prove that the criminal murder was not in fact criminal before any action taken to exfiltrate it can be considered a crime. On top of all this, there is no evidence that Assange illegally exfiltrated it. It is illegal for charges to be brought based on the available evidence. Of course, the fact the charges are illegal or that the conviction was illegal in Manning’s case unfortunately doesn’t matter in the United States where political actors will go unpunished for perpetrating such crimes.