27 ms·

The US is using the Guardian to justify jailing Assange for life

383 points by k1m 6y ago

curiousgal 6y ago
I personally don't think of him as a journalist, at least not anymore.
- k1m 6y ago
  You don't think of Assange as a journalist? Could you explain why?
  - strathmeyer 6y ago
    Are people too young to know who Assange is or something? Did you considered this article journalism?? It was a hit piece.
    - k1m 6y ago
      Could you elaborate?
      - dr-detroit 6y ago
        Assange literally said he's shilling for the red team “We believe it would be much better for GOP to win,” he typed into a private Twitter direct message group to an assortment of WikiLeaks’ Twittard humunculus retard supporters and probably a few millions bots because most of social media is bots
- emsy 6y ago
  If Assange isn’t a journalist, then there are certainly no journalists left in MSM.
  - buran77 6y ago
    It's very ironic that people justify imprisoning Assange for doing something for which only journalists are protected but when it comes to acts nobody is protected from (like the ones exposed by Assange) it's all crickets. And I'm not talking about some random person commenting on the internet, I'm talking about all the judges, prosecutors, politicians, etc. who feel this way or support this way.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      > It's very ironic that people justify imprisoning Assange for doing something for which only journalists are protected but when it comes to acts nobody is protected from (like the ones exposed by Assange) it's all crickets. what do you mean by this? I'm not aware of any special protections for journalists. I'm not a journalist myself, but if I understand correctly, it would not be illegal for me to publish classified material if I received it second hand, since I don't myself have clearance or an obligation to protect the material. if I offered any kind of assistance to get more material, I would be headed into dangerous water. is this not correct?
      - buran77 6y ago
        Around the world journalists do enjoy some protections that a regular person would not have. Those are unfortunately being eroded by new laws focusing more on punishing anyone bringing crimes to the public's attention, rather than punishing those responsible for the crimes being exposed in the first place. Similarly, a whistleblower would normally have more protections than someone simply stealing company secrets. Another area where the focus is on stamping out any kind of leaks instead of addressing the target of those leaks. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/26/journalists-and-whistleblowers-will-go-to-jail-under-new-national-security-laws https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/26/journa... [2] https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/Protection/AmericanUniversitySchool.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/Protection/Am...
Out_of_Characte 6y ago
Journalists have always had a higher status in the west because of their function in a democratic country. Assange proves that there is little in the way to prosecute journalists, even in the west. lives are risked everyday in countries like China to show the world what is going on behind all the propoganda. Yet today, Assange is locked away while the media has chosen to be the silent wingmen of the dictatorship that is the militairy-industrial complex.
- christophilus 6y ago
  We’re in dangerous territory, here. But we have been for a long time. The role of journalism has largely been democratized via the internet. But the rights of journalism have not followed suit. So, we’re in a pretty bad spot, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better, as power strictures and incentives are mostly aligned to the current direction.
- noarchy 6y ago
  Mainstream journalism is elitist, is the problem. They seem to see entities like Wikileaks as fake journalism, that circumvents their gatekeeping. Assange isn't a hero to them, so they won't come to his defence.
  - WhompingWindows 6y ago
    Is it possible to not be elitist while also being highly educated and expert?
    - diabeticApe 6y ago
      Let me tell you something about highly educated experts. As a highly educated expert i attended a fairly well respected 4 year University where i was taught how to use tactics like framing to persuade my audience to view a situation how i wanted them to perceive it. I was taught that the same set of facts could be weaved into two totally different stories at my choosing. I was taught that Karl Marx fortold the death of capitalism and freedom in favor of the "fight of the proletariat". In other words a bunch of crap that any self righteousness ignorant prick with a bunch of money could pick up and use to screw over the world and enrich themselves. There's nothing inherently good about being "elite". It just makes better liars and more clever traitors.
aronpye 6y ago
No one is above the law.
- non-entity 6y ago
  Except for those which Assange embarrassed, of course.
  - e12e 6y ago
    The only reason they're merely embarrassed rather than servibg time for war crimes is precisely because they're above the law...
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Umm, I believe the US government is in the process of demonstrating that they are indeed above the law. Unless the judge and court in this instance reverse course completely, throw out most of the last two weeks as political maneuvering, and restart a fair and publicly accessible hearing, that is exactly what's happening.
- coldcode 6y ago
  Lots of people are above the law, half the US Federal government at the moment is arguing they are. Also any entire government spying apparatus has always been above the law by definition. Being in the military and fighting a war can be defined as being above the law (from the other side's point of view). Law defined in one locality can easily be illegal in another, so you can both be legal and illegal at the same time. Plus illegality is often about wether the declarer can prosecute under a law; if no one has standing or has the power to prosecute, then the law is rather hollow.
fennecfoxen 6y ago
> That is why journalism is protected in the US by the First Amendment. Jettison that and one can no longer claim to live in a free society... US officials initially pretended that they were not seeking to prosecute the Wikileaks founder for journalism – in fact, they denied he was a journalist. Uhh. This article obsesses slightly about Journalist vs Not but they aren’t a class that gets special protection under the US Constitution. There is no category of privilege or freedom based on that status and they are not registered by any central authority that authorizes the benefits of its protection. The First Amendment protects any jerk with an opinion and a printing press, in the style of Thomas Paine, and any collaborators. Legally, the question of whether Assange is a journalist is basically immaterial.
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  Indeed. The journalist interviews, researches (using available materials, uses proper requests to obtain available materials), produces an article or story. A journalist who commits, or encourages or facilitates others to commit, crimes in the pursuit of their goals is still a criminal.
  - k1m 6y ago
    > A journalist who commits, or encourages or facilitates others to commit, crimes in the pursuit of their goals is still a criminal. This is exactly what the prosecution tried to say, but it's not that easy. Did you read the testimony of investigative journalist Nicky Hager: '[Prosecutor] Lewis: You have as a journalist merely been the passive recipient of official information. Presumably you have never done anything criminal to obtain government information? 'Hager: You said “passive”. That is not the way we work. Journalists not only actively work our sources. We go out and find our sources. The information might come in documents. It might come on a memory stick. In most cases our sources are breaking the law. Our duty is to help protect them from being caught. We actively help them cover their backs sometimes.' https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-13/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
    - 6y ago
stareatgoats 6y ago
"Publishing evidence of state crimes, as Assange’s Wikileaks organisation has done, is covered by both free speech and public interest defences. Publishing evidence furnished by whistleblowers is at the heart of any journalism that aspires to hold power to account and in check". Damn right. The treatment of Assange has dealt a terrible blow to the possibility of exposing criminal doings in the military, corporations, political parties, whatever. It sets the example that whistleblowers will not be protected. So how did we end up here? Maybe many reasons but primarily I think maybe the Assange case is indicative of what might happen if you enter into the business of exposing corruption, and not restrict your exposures to one direction only. It will by necessity alienate any powerful interests that might protect you. As it stands, only principled people side with Assange, people who insist that core democratic principles should trump the shortsighted interests of the state. Such people are few and far between nowadays, but are normally thought to be populating the courts, at least at higher levels, which is the last straw we can cling to. But with a partisan press that has turned their backs on Assange there is hardly any pressure on the courts to do the right thing.
- CapitalistCartr 6y ago
  Such people have always been in short supply. Self-interest, usually ego-stroking, trumps principles with most people most of the time.
  - brobdingnagians 6y ago
    But civilizations where such people prevailed had an enormous impact on the world. It turns out that a society with enough of them ends up in a golden age.
    - Rury 6y ago
      Yeah, but those times might just be exceptions to the natural order of things. Naturally, it's always easier to get others to understand problems and viewpoints when matters are simple. When things are more complex, it's more difficult to get others to come to a common agreement or understanding. As so, the reason the world might seem more polarized today, (or why principled people always seem to be short in supply), might simply be due to the sheer complexity of the world which acts to divide everyone. And it's likely getting worse as the modern world becomes more complex. Such people who prevailed and brought upon prior golden ages, likely did so against the odds, as otherwise golden ages would be norm.
bakuninsbart 6y ago
For those interested, this interview with Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture is very illuminating: https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...
jagged-chisel 6y ago
I think perhaps I'm missing something in this whole fiasco. Many of the comments here read as if he's only charged with exercising free speech. Has someone actually read the charges to see what Assange is accused of? Surely it's something more than "publishing secret documents." Are they accusing him of exercising free speech, or accusing him of actual crimes?
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Are they accusing him of exercising free speech, or accusing him of actual crimes? They're accusing him of helping and encouraging the "stealing" of state secrets, which he then exposed.
- alexisread 6y ago
  See other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24577565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24577565 And follow the trial updates to see the issues. Day 17 is particularly risible.
- lxn 6y ago
  I haven't read the charges. I'm not even sure if they are public. They were also changed a few times. Based on what I read (might be biased) he's charged for helping Chelsea Manning getting the documents (hacking) and publishing the documents before they were fully redacted to remove names and things that could help identify people - to protect the safety of people involved (common practice). This is debatable because he worked hard to redact name (together with the big newspapers), but other people published the raw documents before him and in the end Wiki Leaks release raw documents as well. All this is pieced together based on Craig Murray's blog [1], which is often flagged here on HN. [1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk https://www.craigmurray.org.uk
  - dhimes 6y ago
    And Dick Cheney was never even charged with outing Valerie Plame.
- me_me_me 6y ago
colpabar 6y ago
Remember when CNN said that trump retweeting a gif of a pro wrestling match with the CNN logo photoshopped into it was a threat to journalists, and then when the US was trying to prosecute a journalist who committed no crimes on US soil, they said nothing?
- oxymoran 6y ago
  Remember when they smeared Assange as a Russian asset because they published the DNC and Podesta emails? Kind of hard for them to back him now. What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    You can be both a foreign asset and a journalist. If the US government is good, then conspiring with it's enemies to discredit the US would be wrong. But if the US government is bad, well, the US government has no moral right to prosecute, but that doesn't matter from a power perspective. There's no legal way to fix a broken legal system, just as an inconsistent logical system can't overcome itself.
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      >There's no legal way to fix a broken legal system, just as an inconsistent logical system can't overcome itself. Legal systems are not actually that rigid, see for example the long tradition of SCOTUS overturning case precedent including their own. See also the large number of elected judges in the US, who could be replaced directly by people.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    > Kind of hard for them to back him now. Weird how we've gone from expecting journalists to cover multiple sides of a story to this. And by weird I mean horrifying
  - eternalban 6y ago
    > What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. You mean ends don't justify means? That has proven to be a hardsell to ideologues. Principle moral failing of the modern man is adopting this 'universal moral and ethical waiver' as their guiding light (regardless of affected ideological garb).
oxymoran 6y ago
The left wing media disavowed Assange and labeled him a Russian asset when Wikileaks published the DNC and Podesta emails. They painted themselves into a corner on this, so their best option is to ignore it at this point. Also, while I despise the fact that the Trump administration is doing this, let’s not forget that the Obama and Bush administration oversaw a mass surveillance program and the Obama administration threatened Snowden’s life and painted him as a Russian asset. We have been building towards authoritarianism for 1-2 decades now.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  We've been building towards authoritarianism since the 1950s when the Cold War started and the reactionaries created the Communist boogeyman.
  - comrade232132 6y ago
    The "communist boogeyman" is objective, observable fact. Communism led to the death of over 100M people. Communists operated at a high level in the US government. Communists are burning American cities right now, in 2020. Every single attempt at implementing communism has led to violence and oppression at a massive scale. You may not like it. You may desperately want to deflect. You may employ whataboutism, a term literally coined to describe the behavior of communist mouthpieces, to cast blame elsewhere. But that's just how it is. If "reactionaries" are the only people offering substantive resistance to communism, then we need a hell of a lot more of them.
    - dr-detroit 6y ago
      Everyone who disagrees with you is involved in a magical communist conspiracy?
  - rtx 6y ago
    Don't down play suffering of millions by calling communists boogeyman. They are real at should be opposed at every possible juncture.
  - 6y ago
mattoxic 6y ago
Assange did not help a rival state to gain an advantage... Um, except of course Putin's Russia.
- knl 6y ago
  If that is true, shouldn't the current administration just let him go? Because, you know, the head of the administration just loves Putin?
  - tgv 6y ago
    I can think of four reasons: A. It's only speculated that Trump has some sort of special relation with Putin; it's by no means certain, and if so, this might not be part of their relation. B. A relation between Trump and Putin doesn't have to mean much for the rest of the administration. C. Assange is just a pawn. D. Why would Trump draw even more attention to himself?
    - darksaints 6y ago
      When Iran coordinated attacks on American soldiers, Trump almost started World War III. When Russia coordinated and put bounties on American soldiers' heads, Trump tried getting Putin invited to the G7 summit. Saying that Trump has a special relationship with Putin isn't even close to speculation. It's an easily observable understatement of the decade.
      - ogre_magi 6y ago
        > When Russia coordinated and put bounties on American soldiers' heads, Trump tried getting Putin invited to the G7 summit. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-pentagon-officials-russian-bounty-program-corroborated/story?id=71694167 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-pentagon-officials-russi...
        jessaustin 6y ago
        I like how the slug in the url omits the word "not" that's in the actual page headline. This is a word that really changes the meaning of a statement.
throwaway738 6y ago
Is anyone surprised the Guardian is not going out of their way to help Assange? Assange and Wikileaks dumped the entire set of files, without redactions, while the Guardian, Der Spiegel, NYTimes were spending time and resources trying to redact them, and releasing them as they were ready, and Assange went around and blamed it on the Guardian. He exposed them to destruction of reputation and liability that would probably have crippled and ended them if he hadn't backed off those claims. Also, non redaction of documents, actively encouraging leaking, and actively doctoring documents are all things that Wikileaks (specifically Assange, according to the other co founders) have done and would be a massive game ending problem for any news organization if they as an organization engaged in such activities.
- k1m 6y ago
  > Assange and Wikileaks dumped the entire set of files, without redactions, while the Guardian, Der Spiegel, NYTimes were spending time and resources trying to redact them Sorry, this is plainly false. This article and the testimony of people involved with Wikileaks (see Craig Murray's reporting for that) show that Assange was actually incredibly careful and diligent in redacting. It was the newspapers that were eager and impatient to publish. It was a Guardian journalist's recklessness that let everyone see the unredacted cables, not Assange's.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nojito 6y ago
    This is blatantly false. Wikileaks released personally identifiable information for numerous at-risk groups around the country. To this day, those files are still available. https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb >In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality can lead to social ostracism, a prison sentence or even death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom. >The AP independently found three dozen records pertaining to family issues in the cables — including messages about marriages, divorces, missing children, elopements and custody battles. Many are very personal, like the marital certificates that reveal whether the bride was a virgin. Others deal with Saudis who are deeply in debt, including one man who says his wife stole his money. One divorce document details a male partner’s infertility. Others identify the partners of women suffering from sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C.
joejohnson 6y ago
> Gauntlet thrown down The corporate media in the US and UK is no more diverse and pluralistic than the major corporate-funded political parties they identify with. This kind of media mirrors the same flaws as the Republican and Democratic parties in the US: they cheerlead consumption-based, globalised capitalism; they favour a policy of unsustainable, infinite growth on a finite planet; and they invariably support colonial, profit-driven, resource-grabbing wars, nowadays often dressed up as humanitarian intervention. The corporate media and the corporate political parties serve the interests of the same power establishment because they are equally embedded in that establishment. And this is exactly the problem right there: corporate media isn’t really doing journalism!
TearsInTheRain 6y ago
> My dictionary defines “espionage” as “the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information”. A spy is defined as someone who “secretly obtains information on an enemy or competitor”. Im glad this blog acquitted Assange of spying based on technicalities in his dictionary's definition of espionage. I think Assange did a great thing for the world, but it also sounds like he actively facilitated spying
wnevets 6y ago
Why shouldn't people who work with brutal dictators like Putin be jailed for life?
HashingtheCode 6y ago
Because people do not care for privacy and freedom of press/freedom of speech, Assange will be prosecuted, sentenced and our liberties from that day hence forth curtailed. Freedom of speech and privacy will be viewed as an act of sedition
JackFr 6y ago
This is off topic but it’s always bugged me that Wikileaks isn’t really a wiki.
jpz 6y ago
There is a difference between producing reporting on the basis of a whistleblower of conscience, and conspiring to exfiltrate a top secret data dump in the hope of finding some embarrassing details to publish.

383 points by k1m 6y ago

curiousgal 6y ago

I personally don't think of him as a journalist, at least not anymore.

k1m 6y ago
You don't think of Assange as a journalist? Could you explain why?
- strathmeyer 6y ago
  Are people too young to know who Assange is or something? Did you considered this article journalism?? It was a hit piece.
  - k1m 6y ago
    Could you elaborate?
    - dr-detroit 6y ago
      Assange literally said he's shilling for the red team “We believe it would be much better for GOP to win,” he typed into a private Twitter direct message group to an assortment of WikiLeaks’ Twittard humunculus retard supporters and probably a few millions bots because most of social media is bots
emsy 6y ago
If Assange isn’t a journalist, then there are certainly no journalists left in MSM.
- buran77 6y ago
  It's very ironic that people justify imprisoning Assange for doing something for which only journalists are protected but when it comes to acts nobody is protected from (like the ones exposed by Assange) it's all crickets. And I'm not talking about some random person commenting on the internet, I'm talking about all the judges, prosecutors, politicians, etc. who feel this way or support this way.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    > It's very ironic that people justify imprisoning Assange for doing something for which only journalists are protected but when it comes to acts nobody is protected from (like the ones exposed by Assange) it's all crickets. what do you mean by this? I'm not aware of any special protections for journalists. I'm not a journalist myself, but if I understand correctly, it would not be illegal for me to publish classified material if I received it second hand, since I don't myself have clearance or an obligation to protect the material. if I offered any kind of assistance to get more material, I would be headed into dangerous water. is this not correct?
    - buran77 6y ago
      Around the world journalists do enjoy some protections that a regular person would not have. Those are unfortunately being eroded by new laws focusing more on punishing anyone bringing crimes to the public's attention, rather than punishing those responsible for the crimes being exposed in the first place. Similarly, a whistleblower would normally have more protections than someone simply stealing company secrets. Another area where the focus is on stamping out any kind of leaks instead of addressing the target of those leaks. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter%27s_privilege [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/26/journalists-and-whistleblowers-will-go-to-jail-under-new-national-security-laws https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/26/journa... [2] https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/Protection/AmericanUniversitySchool.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Opinion/Protection/Am...

Out_of_Characte 6y ago

Journalists have always had a higher status in the west because of their function in a democratic country. Assange proves that there is little in the way to prosecute journalists, even in the west. lives are risked everyday in countries like China to show the world what is going on behind all the propoganda. Yet today, Assange is locked away while the media has chosen to be the silent wingmen of the dictatorship that is the militairy-industrial complex.

christophilus 6y ago
We’re in dangerous territory, here. But we have been for a long time. The role of journalism has largely been democratized via the internet. But the rights of journalism have not followed suit. So, we’re in a pretty bad spot, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better, as power strictures and incentives are mostly aligned to the current direction.
noarchy 6y ago
Mainstream journalism is elitist, is the problem. They seem to see entities like Wikileaks as fake journalism, that circumvents their gatekeeping. Assange isn't a hero to them, so they won't come to his defence.
- WhompingWindows 6y ago
  Is it possible to not be elitist while also being highly educated and expert?
  - diabeticApe 6y ago
    Let me tell you something about highly educated experts. As a highly educated expert i attended a fairly well respected 4 year University where i was taught how to use tactics like framing to persuade my audience to view a situation how i wanted them to perceive it. I was taught that the same set of facts could be weaved into two totally different stories at my choosing. I was taught that Karl Marx fortold the death of capitalism and freedom in favor of the "fight of the proletariat". In other words a bunch of crap that any self righteousness ignorant prick with a bunch of money could pick up and use to screw over the world and enrich themselves. There's nothing inherently good about being "elite". It just makes better liars and more clever traitors.

aronpye 6y ago

No one is above the law.

non-entity 6y ago
Except for those which Assange embarrassed, of course.
- e12e 6y ago
  The only reason they're merely embarrassed rather than servibg time for war crimes is precisely because they're above the law...
zentiggr 6y ago
Umm, I believe the US government is in the process of demonstrating that they are indeed above the law. Unless the judge and court in this instance reverse course completely, throw out most of the last two weeks as political maneuvering, and restart a fair and publicly accessible hearing, that is exactly what's happening.
coldcode 6y ago
Lots of people are above the law, half the US Federal government at the moment is arguing they are. Also any entire government spying apparatus has always been above the law by definition. Being in the military and fighting a war can be defined as being above the law (from the other side's point of view). Law defined in one locality can easily be illegal in another, so you can both be legal and illegal at the same time. Plus illegality is often about wether the declarer can prosecute under a law; if no one has standing or has the power to prosecute, then the law is rather hollow.

fennecfoxen 6y ago

> That is why journalism is protected in the US by the First Amendment. Jettison that and one can no longer claim to live in a free society... US officials initially pretended that they were not seeking to prosecute the Wikileaks founder for journalism – in fact, they denied he was a journalist. Uhh. This article obsesses slightly about Journalist vs Not but they aren’t a class that gets special protection under the US Constitution. There is no category of privilege or freedom based on that status and they are not registered by any central authority that authorizes the benefits of its protection. The First Amendment protects any jerk with an opinion and a printing press, in the style of Thomas Paine, and any collaborators. Legally, the question of whether Assange is a journalist is basically immaterial.

jagged-chisel 6y ago
Indeed. The journalist interviews, researches (using available materials, uses proper requests to obtain available materials), produces an article or story. A journalist who commits, or encourages or facilitates others to commit, crimes in the pursuit of their goals is still a criminal.
- k1m 6y ago
  > A journalist who commits, or encourages or facilitates others to commit, crimes in the pursuit of their goals is still a criminal. This is exactly what the prosecution tried to say, but it's not that easy. Did you read the testimony of investigative journalist Nicky Hager: '[Prosecutor] Lewis: You have as a journalist merely been the passive recipient of official information. Presumably you have never done anything criminal to obtain government information? 'Hager: You said “passive”. That is not the way we work. Journalists not only actively work our sources. We go out and find our sources. The information might come in documents. It might come on a memory stick. In most cases our sources are breaking the law. Our duty is to help protect them from being caught. We actively help them cover their backs sometimes.' https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-13/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
  - 6y ago

stareatgoats 6y ago

"Publishing evidence of state crimes, as Assange’s Wikileaks organisation has done, is covered by both free speech and public interest defences. Publishing evidence furnished by whistleblowers is at the heart of any journalism that aspires to hold power to account and in check". Damn right. The treatment of Assange has dealt a terrible blow to the possibility of exposing criminal doings in the military, corporations, political parties, whatever. It sets the example that whistleblowers will not be protected. So how did we end up here? Maybe many reasons but primarily I think maybe the Assange case is indicative of what might happen if you enter into the business of exposing corruption, and not restrict your exposures to one direction only. It will by necessity alienate any powerful interests that might protect you. As it stands, only principled people side with Assange, people who insist that core democratic principles should trump the shortsighted interests of the state. Such people are few and far between nowadays, but are normally thought to be populating the courts, at least at higher levels, which is the last straw we can cling to. But with a partisan press that has turned their backs on Assange there is hardly any pressure on the courts to do the right thing.

CapitalistCartr 6y ago
Such people have always been in short supply. Self-interest, usually ego-stroking, trumps principles with most people most of the time.
- brobdingnagians 6y ago
  But civilizations where such people prevailed had an enormous impact on the world. It turns out that a society with enough of them ends up in a golden age.
  - Rury 6y ago
    Yeah, but those times might just be exceptions to the natural order of things. Naturally, it's always easier to get others to understand problems and viewpoints when matters are simple. When things are more complex, it's more difficult to get others to come to a common agreement or understanding. As so, the reason the world might seem more polarized today, (or why principled people always seem to be short in supply), might simply be due to the sheer complexity of the world which acts to divide everyone. And it's likely getting worse as the modern world becomes more complex. Such people who prevailed and brought upon prior golden ages, likely did so against the odds, as otherwise golden ages would be norm.

bakuninsbart 6y ago

For those interested, this interview with Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture is very illuminating: https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikilea...

jagged-chisel 6y ago

I think perhaps I'm missing something in this whole fiasco. Many of the comments here read as if he's only charged with exercising free speech. Has someone actually read the charges to see what Assange is accused of? Surely it's something more than "publishing secret documents." Are they accusing him of exercising free speech, or accusing him of actual crimes?

luckylion 6y ago
> Are they accusing him of exercising free speech, or accusing him of actual crimes? They're accusing him of helping and encouraging the "stealing" of state secrets, which he then exposed.
alexisread 6y ago
See other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24577565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24577565 And follow the trial updates to see the issues. Day 17 is particularly risible.
lxn 6y ago
I haven't read the charges. I'm not even sure if they are public. They were also changed a few times. Based on what I read (might be biased) he's charged for helping Chelsea Manning getting the documents (hacking) and publishing the documents before they were fully redacted to remove names and things that could help identify people - to protect the safety of people involved (common practice). This is debatable because he worked hard to redact name (together with the big newspapers), but other people published the raw documents before him and in the end Wiki Leaks release raw documents as well. All this is pieced together based on Craig Murray's blog [1], which is often flagged here on HN. [1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk https://www.craigmurray.org.uk
- dhimes 6y ago
  And Dick Cheney was never even charged with outing Valerie Plame.
me_me_me 6y ago

colpabar 6y ago

Remember when CNN said that trump retweeting a gif of a pro wrestling match with the CNN logo photoshopped into it was a threat to journalists, and then when the US was trying to prosecute a journalist who committed no crimes on US soil, they said nothing?

oxymoran 6y ago
Remember when they smeared Assange as a Russian asset because they published the DNC and Podesta emails? Kind of hard for them to back him now. What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  You can be both a foreign asset and a journalist. If the US government is good, then conspiring with it's enemies to discredit the US would be wrong. But if the US government is bad, well, the US government has no moral right to prosecute, but that doesn't matter from a power perspective. There's no legal way to fix a broken legal system, just as an inconsistent logical system can't overcome itself.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    >There's no legal way to fix a broken legal system, just as an inconsistent logical system can't overcome itself. Legal systems are not actually that rigid, see for example the long tradition of SCOTUS overturning case precedent including their own. See also the large number of elected judges in the US, who could be replaced directly by people.
- klyrs 6y ago
  > Kind of hard for them to back him now. Weird how we've gone from expecting journalists to cover multiple sides of a story to this. And by weird I mean horrifying
- eternalban 6y ago
  > What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. You mean ends don't justify means? That has proven to be a hardsell to ideologues. Principle moral failing of the modern man is adopting this 'universal moral and ethical waiver' as their guiding light (regardless of affected ideological garb).

oxymoran 6y ago

The left wing media disavowed Assange and labeled him a Russian asset when Wikileaks published the DNC and Podesta emails. They painted themselves into a corner on this, so their best option is to ignore it at this point. Also, while I despise the fact that the Trump administration is doing this, let’s not forget that the Obama and Bush administration oversaw a mass surveillance program and the Obama administration threatened Snowden’s life and painted him as a Russian asset. We have been building towards authoritarianism for 1-2 decades now.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
We've been building towards authoritarianism since the 1950s when the Cold War started and the reactionaries created the Communist boogeyman.
- comrade232132 6y ago
  The "communist boogeyman" is objective, observable fact. Communism led to the death of over 100M people. Communists operated at a high level in the US government. Communists are burning American cities right now, in 2020. Every single attempt at implementing communism has led to violence and oppression at a massive scale. You may not like it. You may desperately want to deflect. You may employ whataboutism, a term literally coined to describe the behavior of communist mouthpieces, to cast blame elsewhere. But that's just how it is. If "reactionaries" are the only people offering substantive resistance to communism, then we need a hell of a lot more of them.
  - dr-detroit 6y ago
    Everyone who disagrees with you is involved in a magical communist conspiracy?
- rtx 6y ago
  Don't down play suffering of millions by calling communists boogeyman. They are real at should be opposed at every possible juncture.
- 6y ago

mattoxic 6y ago

Assange did not help a rival state to gain an advantage... Um, except of course Putin's Russia.

knl 6y ago
If that is true, shouldn't the current administration just let him go? Because, you know, the head of the administration just loves Putin?
- tgv 6y ago
  I can think of four reasons: A. It's only speculated that Trump has some sort of special relation with Putin; it's by no means certain, and if so, this might not be part of their relation. B. A relation between Trump and Putin doesn't have to mean much for the rest of the administration. C. Assange is just a pawn. D. Why would Trump draw even more attention to himself?
  - darksaints 6y ago
    When Iran coordinated attacks on American soldiers, Trump almost started World War III. When Russia coordinated and put bounties on American soldiers' heads, Trump tried getting Putin invited to the G7 summit. Saying that Trump has a special relationship with Putin isn't even close to speculation. It's an easily observable understatement of the decade.
    - ogre_magi 6y ago
      > When Russia coordinated and put bounties on American soldiers' heads, Trump tried getting Putin invited to the G7 summit. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-pentagon-officials-russian-bounty-program-corroborated/story?id=71694167 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-pentagon-officials-russi...
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        I like how the slug in the url omits the word "not" that's in the actual page headline. This is a word that really changes the meaning of a statement.

throwaway738 6y ago

Is anyone surprised the Guardian is not going out of their way to help Assange? Assange and Wikileaks dumped the entire set of files, without redactions, while the Guardian, Der Spiegel, NYTimes were spending time and resources trying to redact them, and releasing them as they were ready, and Assange went around and blamed it on the Guardian. He exposed them to destruction of reputation and liability that would probably have crippled and ended them if he hadn't backed off those claims. Also, non redaction of documents, actively encouraging leaking, and actively doctoring documents are all things that Wikileaks (specifically Assange, according to the other co founders) have done and would be a massive game ending problem for any news organization if they as an organization engaged in such activities.

k1m 6y ago
> Assange and Wikileaks dumped the entire set of files, without redactions, while the Guardian, Der Spiegel, NYTimes were spending time and resources trying to redact them Sorry, this is plainly false. This article and the testimony of people involved with Wikileaks (see Craig Murray's reporting for that) show that Assange was actually incredibly careful and diligent in redacting. It was the newspapers that were eager and impatient to publish. It was a Guardian journalist's recklessness that let everyone see the unredacted cables, not Assange's.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nojito 6y ago
  This is blatantly false. Wikileaks released personally identifiable information for numerous at-risk groups around the country. To this day, those files are still available. https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb https://apnews.com/article/b70da83fd111496dbdf015acbb7987fb >In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality can lead to social ostracism, a prison sentence or even death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom. >The AP independently found three dozen records pertaining to family issues in the cables — including messages about marriages, divorces, missing children, elopements and custody battles. Many are very personal, like the marital certificates that reveal whether the bride was a virgin. Others deal with Saudis who are deeply in debt, including one man who says his wife stole his money. One divorce document details a male partner’s infertility. Others identify the partners of women suffering from sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C.

joejohnson 6y ago

> Gauntlet thrown down The corporate media in the US and UK is no more diverse and pluralistic than the major corporate-funded political parties they identify with. This kind of media mirrors the same flaws as the Republican and Democratic parties in the US: they cheerlead consumption-based, globalised capitalism; they favour a policy of unsustainable, infinite growth on a finite planet; and they invariably support colonial, profit-driven, resource-grabbing wars, nowadays often dressed up as humanitarian intervention. The corporate media and the corporate political parties serve the interests of the same power establishment because they are equally embedded in that establishment. And this is exactly the problem right there: corporate media isn’t really doing journalism!

TearsInTheRain 6y ago

> My dictionary defines “espionage” as “the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information”. A spy is defined as someone who “secretly obtains information on an enemy or competitor”. Im glad this blog acquitted Assange of spying based on technicalities in his dictionary's definition of espionage. I think Assange did a great thing for the world, but it also sounds like he actively facilitated spying

wnevets 6y ago

Why shouldn't people who work with brutal dictators like Putin be jailed for life?

HashingtheCode 6y ago

Because people do not care for privacy and freedom of press/freedom of speech, Assange will be prosecuted, sentenced and our liberties from that day hence forth curtailed. Freedom of speech and privacy will be viewed as an act of sedition

JackFr 6y ago

This is off topic but it’s always bugged me that Wikileaks isn’t really a wiki.

jpz 6y ago

There is a difference between producing reporting on the basis of a whistleblower of conscience, and conspiring to exfiltrate a top secret data dump in the hope of finding some embarrassing details to publish.