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"Publishing evidence of state crimes, as Assange’s Wikileaks organisation has done, is covered by both free speech and public interest defences. Publishing evid

"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.
bitexploder 6y ago
I take issue with the notion that "only principled people side with Assange". Based on my following of his saga, I still have a lot of questions about how deeply Assange was truly involved. I feel he removed some of his legal protection by being so actively involved in hunting for government secrets. He wasn't just a neutral clearing house in my opinion, but an active agitator sticking his thumb in the eye of nation states. The question of whether he is a journalist is irrelevant to me. What I do see is that he was a highly partisan actor involved in the affairs of nation states. His behavior around the 2016 election further moved him in the direction of willing accomplice to election interference. His selective publication of data also makes me highly suspicious of his behavior. It all had a very clear slant and focus around the election. He even supposedly solicited information from Russian intelligence agents at one point. Maybe somewhere in all of Assange's partisan hackery, I can see an argument that he didn't actually do anything wrong. And, since he is very polarizing, you would have to stick to strong principles to still support him and what his legal plight represents. However, I don't think you could engineer a less sympathetic character to carry the banner of freedom of speech/press, which is honestly his biggest problem. No one cares about another partisan hack going by the wayside of a potentially corrupt prosecution. "You get what you deserve". I don't believe that, because I think the actual case against him has merit. In reality, the accusation, which I believe is credible, is that he was an active conspirator in an effort to steal state secrets, and not just a mild mannered clearing house that published what it got through highly clean and legal means. He broke his own operational "security" code of staying above the fray by being such an active participant in the acquisition of state secrets. The manning case in particular is an area where I believe he crossed the line and was actively assisting and encouraging Manning. He has a hard time telling the truth and based on the facts is morally and ethically bankrupt. People like Glenn Greenwald managed to handle things like Snowden much more cleanly and without the obvious bias and legal/ethical concerns of an Assange figure.
- k1m 6y ago
  > I don't think you could engineer a less sympathetic character to carry the banner of freedom of speech/press Assange being an unsympathetic figure is largely a result of the fierce media campaign to paint him as one. Most of us have never met him, have only read about him in hostile media. Noam Chomsky and Alice Walker made the point well, I think: > When setting a gravely dangerous precedent, governments don't typically persecute the most beloved individuals in the world. They target those who can be portrayed as subversive, unpatriotic – or simply weird. Then they actively distort public debate by emphasizing those traits. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/julian-assange-trial-us-trump-chelsea-manning-chomsky-walker-b420930.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/julian-assange-trial-us... You write: > The manning case in particular is an area where I believe he crossed the line and was actively assisting and encouraging Manning. Have you read the testimony of experts about this? See for example Eric Lewis, a practising US attorney and former law professor: > [Prosectuor] James Lewis QC: Do you accept that a government insider who leaks classified information may be prosecuted? > Eric Lewis: Yes. > James Lewis QC: Do you accept that a journalist may not aid such a person to break the law? > Eric Lewis: No. It is normal journalistic practice to cultivate an official source and encourage them to leak. Seymour Hersh would have to be prosecuted under such an idea. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-10/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-... Here's 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-...
AwaAwa 6y ago
People trying to take the "high road" stating they won't stand with Assange, thinking that whistleblowers need to be some sort of Gandhi, completely miss the point that if you were a Gandhi, you would be far removed from a position that had something to whistle on. It is about net positive, and at the end of the day a little guy/org took on the behemoths of the world, and mankind collectively went back to posting their thongs online. I am reminded of HL Mencken's quote - The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  That's a great quote, worth remembering.
- bjornsing 6y ago
  Fucking brilliant comments, this one and the parent. I could not agree more.
ezoe 6y ago
> So how did we end up here? Not losing the WWII, that's why. During the WWII, all participants committed the war crimes. Only the losers were prosecuted. US got away with it.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Not excusing what the US does, but it doesn’t help public image when your country murders over 10 million people in concentration camps. You’re not going to convince anyone that what you did was better than what the Allies did.
mint2 6y ago
Edit 2: Ironic, assange supporters shooting the messenger for exposing truth. I get downvoted for making a statement supported by hard evidence provided by a linked source. Because you want something to be true does not make it so. Assange supporters like shooting the messenger now? Ironic. End edit 2 ———— > 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. This doesn’t square. Assange wasn’t exposing everything he got, nor was he interested in looking for info on all countries. He was primarily focused on exposing info in one direction, the US, and actually had expressed indifference to exposing info on Russia. So it is impossible for his treatment to show anything about what happens if you exposure corruption equally without direction, because that is not what he did. He only shows an anecdote of what happens when you focus exposing corruption in a single foreign country, and go beyond that, to strongly support certain candidates in their elections due to personal grudges. Edit: proof -> https://www.businessinsider.com/assange-turned-down-documents-related-to-russian-government-corruption-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/assange-turned-down-document...
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Journalists are allowed to be partisan.
  - mint2 6y ago
    That wasn’t what I was refuting. I was refusing the claim that what happened to assange is an example of what happens to someone who exposes corruption indiscriminately. It sounds like you just agreed with me in that Assange was partisan, and thus cannot be an example of what the OP claimed.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  Your "proof" has always struck me as bizarre. Wikileaks gave a reason that they refused the data, they believed it had already been posted elsewhere. They were wrong, but it's understandable that they'd think that as part of the leak was already public and they lack a Russian speaking staff. At no point do the people offering the documents seem to reply with "only part of it is public." Without saying that, this doesn't serve as proof of anything except Wikileaks making a mistake.
GordonS 6y ago
>;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. This is the part that worries me the most - how the hell did we end up in a situation where exposing war crimes by a western nation is likely to have the whistleblower tortured and left to rot in solitary confinement for the rest of their life? And how the hell did we get to a place where few people seem to even care about the war crimes, and where the powers that be have been able to spin this so most people think the whistleblower did wrong? The whole situation says a lot about the current state of the US and the rest of the 5-eyes. Honestly, it's fucking terrifying.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I can understand why it's important to restrict nation state evidence but when it's obvious that nation has broken international laws and agreements like the Geneva Convention the onus should be on the judge/court to make consideration for that and be able to move it from 'criminal' to whistleblower. Otherwise we're all pretty much doomed to eventually wake up and find ourselves in a completely authoritarian state.

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.

bitexploder 6y ago

I take issue with the notion that "only principled people side with Assange". Based on my following of his saga, I still have a lot of questions about how deeply Assange was truly involved. I feel he removed some of his legal protection by being so actively involved in hunting for government secrets. He wasn't just a neutral clearing house in my opinion, but an active agitator sticking his thumb in the eye of nation states. The question of whether he is a journalist is irrelevant to me. What I do see is that he was a highly partisan actor involved in the affairs of nation states. His behavior around the 2016 election further moved him in the direction of willing accomplice to election interference. His selective publication of data also makes me highly suspicious of his behavior. It all had a very clear slant and focus around the election. He even supposedly solicited information from Russian intelligence agents at one point. Maybe somewhere in all of Assange's partisan hackery, I can see an argument that he didn't actually do anything wrong. And, since he is very polarizing, you would have to stick to strong principles to still support him and what his legal plight represents. However, I don't think you could engineer a less sympathetic character to carry the banner of freedom of speech/press, which is honestly his biggest problem. No one cares about another partisan hack going by the wayside of a potentially corrupt prosecution. "You get what you deserve". I don't believe that, because I think the actual case against him has merit. In reality, the accusation, which I believe is credible, is that he was an active conspirator in an effort to steal state secrets, and not just a mild mannered clearing house that published what it got through highly clean and legal means. He broke his own operational "security" code of staying above the fray by being such an active participant in the acquisition of state secrets. The manning case in particular is an area where I believe he crossed the line and was actively assisting and encouraging Manning. He has a hard time telling the truth and based on the facts is morally and ethically bankrupt. People like Glenn Greenwald managed to handle things like Snowden much more cleanly and without the obvious bias and legal/ethical concerns of an Assange figure.

k1m 6y ago
> I don't think you could engineer a less sympathetic character to carry the banner of freedom of speech/press Assange being an unsympathetic figure is largely a result of the fierce media campaign to paint him as one. Most of us have never met him, have only read about him in hostile media. Noam Chomsky and Alice Walker made the point well, I think: > When setting a gravely dangerous precedent, governments don't typically persecute the most beloved individuals in the world. They target those who can be portrayed as subversive, unpatriotic – or simply weird. Then they actively distort public debate by emphasizing those traits. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/julian-assange-trial-us-trump-chelsea-manning-chomsky-walker-b420930.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/julian-assange-trial-us... You write: > The manning case in particular is an area where I believe he crossed the line and was actively assisting and encouraging Manning. Have you read the testimony of experts about this? See for example Eric Lewis, a practising US attorney and former law professor: > [Prosectuor] James Lewis QC: Do you accept that a government insider who leaks classified information may be prosecuted? > Eric Lewis: Yes. > James Lewis QC: Do you accept that a journalist may not aid such a person to break the law? > Eric Lewis: No. It is normal journalistic practice to cultivate an official source and encourage them to leak. Seymour Hersh would have to be prosecuted under such an idea. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-10/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-... Here's 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-...

AwaAwa 6y ago

People trying to take the "high road" stating they won't stand with Assange, thinking that whistleblowers need to be some sort of Gandhi, completely miss the point that if you were a Gandhi, you would be far removed from a position that had something to whistle on. It is about net positive, and at the end of the day a little guy/org took on the behemoths of the world, and mankind collectively went back to posting their thongs online. I am reminded of HL Mencken's quote - The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

me_me_me 6y ago
That's a great quote, worth remembering.
bjornsing 6y ago
Fucking brilliant comments, this one and the parent. I could not agree more.

ezoe 6y ago

> So how did we end up here? Not losing the WWII, that's why. During the WWII, all participants committed the war crimes. Only the losers were prosecuted. US got away with it.

colejohnson66 6y ago
Not excusing what the US does, but it doesn’t help public image when your country murders over 10 million people in concentration camps. You’re not going to convince anyone that what you did was better than what the Allies did.

mint2 6y ago

Edit 2: Ironic, assange supporters shooting the messenger for exposing truth. I get downvoted for making a statement supported by hard evidence provided by a linked source. Because you want something to be true does not make it so. Assange supporters like shooting the messenger now? Ironic. End edit 2 ———— > 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. This doesn’t square. Assange wasn’t exposing everything he got, nor was he interested in looking for info on all countries. He was primarily focused on exposing info in one direction, the US, and actually had expressed indifference to exposing info on Russia. So it is impossible for his treatment to show anything about what happens if you exposure corruption equally without direction, because that is not what he did. He only shows an anecdote of what happens when you focus exposing corruption in a single foreign country, and go beyond that, to strongly support certain candidates in their elections due to personal grudges. Edit: proof -> https://www.businessinsider.com/assange-turned-down-documents-related-to-russian-government-corruption-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/assange-turned-down-document...

colejohnson66 6y ago
Journalists are allowed to be partisan.
- mint2 6y ago
  That wasn’t what I was refuting. I was refusing the claim that what happened to assange is an example of what happens to someone who exposes corruption indiscriminately. It sounds like you just agreed with me in that Assange was partisan, and thus cannot be an example of what the OP claimed.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
Your "proof" has always struck me as bizarre. Wikileaks gave a reason that they refused the data, they believed it had already been posted elsewhere. They were wrong, but it's understandable that they'd think that as part of the leak was already public and they lack a Russian speaking staff. At no point do the people offering the documents seem to reply with "only part of it is public." Without saying that, this doesn't serve as proof of anything except Wikileaks making a mistake.

GordonS 6y ago

>;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. This is the part that worries me the most - how the hell did we end up in a situation where exposing war crimes by a western nation is likely to have the whistleblower tortured and left to rot in solitary confinement for the rest of their life? And how the hell did we get to a place where few people seem to even care about the war crimes, and where the powers that be have been able to spin this so most people think the whistleblower did wrong? The whole situation says a lot about the current state of the US and the rest of the 5-eyes. Honestly, it's fucking terrifying.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I can understand why it's important to restrict nation state evidence but when it's obvious that nation has broken international laws and agreements like the Geneva Convention the onus should be on the judge/court to make consideration for that and be able to move it from 'criminal' to whistleblower. Otherwise we're all pretty much doomed to eventually wake up and find ourselves in a completely authoritarian state.