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The problem with the analogy is that committing a murder is a crime for everyone everywhere. For a US citizen who has been given classified information it may b

The problem with the analogy is that committing a murder is a crime for everyone everywhere. For a US citizen who has been given classified information it may be illegal and treasonous to leak classified US information to some one who doesn't have the clearance to get access to it. But a journalist, should have the right to ask people to come forward if they have information with a public interest, even if it is classified. If someone comes forward, they may break the law, but not the journalist. Further more, Assange is not a US citizen, and is there for under no obligation to be loyal to or protect US interests or secrets. He cant by definition be treasonous again any country besides his own. If he on the other hand, provides material support to someone committing a crime, (like helping to crack a password), then he can be tried as an accomplice. This evidence seems to imply he did not.

doonesbury 6y ago
Agree. Nonetheless feds are making him pay through the legal expense and stress of deflecting these charges. What I wonder more about is our own guys: how does manning and Snowden walk out the door with this info anyway? Our search procedures apparently suck. For the record my assessment of our involvement in Iraq is not kind: we should have escalated to armed intrusion to vet wmds base by base instead of invading wholesale on the reason Iraqi's were evasive. Second torture is unamerican, not reliable, and wholly wrong. Not proud at all of what we did here. Our response before after 9/11 was incompetent.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
If his defense against treason is that he's a foreign agent attacking the US, then he'll rightly end up in a POW prison. So he needs a better defense than that
- simonh 6y ago
  It seems like he didn’t actively attack the US, he simply passed on information freely given to him by US citizens. It’s hard to see how him doing that, not being a US citizen and not being in the US, is any worse than anything hundreds of journalists do all over the world every day.
austincheney 6y ago
Nothing about what Assange did strikes me as journalism though. There is more to journalism than just publishing. Any journalist will tell you that distinction is not just professionally important, it goes to US first amendment protections that may not apply to publishing alone. The basic way think about this is that journalists tell stories from facts limited by professional ethics. Publishers disclose anything they want that may or may not be legal. Wikileaks intended, very directly, to publish things and not tell stories. Perhaps an even better way to think about this is that journalism is original writing. What percentage of published material from Wikileaks was originally written by Wikileaks?
- ISL 6y ago
  The Constitution says nothing specific about journalism specifically. It regards only speech and the press, of which journalism is a subset. Publishing, alone, is surely protected. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
  - austincheney 6y ago
    This makes the clear assumption the first amendment is an unlimited protection which it isn’t. I would suggest reading the opinions of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
- toyg 6y ago
  Ah, so publishing a graph or data table (“things”) is not journalism, right...? It’s amazing the mental somersaults one must do to justify the fact that “the West” can (and will) ignore the basic principles of democratic society if it harms their security stance.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >It’s amazing the mental somersaults one must do to justify the fact that “the West” can (and will) ignore the basic principles of democratic society if it harms their security stance. It's amazing the mental somersaults one must do to justify smearing half a billion people ("The West") based on one person's comment on HN. I'm not necessarily agreeing with GP, but your broad brush in vilifying such a large group of individuals based on that seems to be really unfair and inappropriate.
nobody9999 6y ago
>For a US citizen who has been given classified information it may be illegal and treasonous to leak classified US information to some one who doesn't have the clearance to get access to it. Actually, here in the US, we don't have licensed journalists. As such anyone may act as one. Government employees (including members of the military) and contractors can be and have been charged and convicted with misuse/dissemination of classified information. What's more, private citizens working in the employ of a foreign government have also been charged and convicted for providing classified information to that foreign government. However, no US journalist (and remember, anyone can be a journalist) has ever been convicted under the Espionage Act. Ever. As such, it seems incredibly unlikely that Assange would be convicted under that Espionage Act. I guess we'll just have to see. I take issue with the title of this posting, as (at least in the UK[0]), an Extradition Hearing is not a trial, nor is it intended to be one. [0] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review
- austincheney 6y ago
  While it is true anyone can be a journalist not anyone is, just as anyone can be a novelist. This is distinguished by conduct and product and that distinction has legal consequences.
trevelyan 6y ago
The Adrian Lamo chat logs (published by Wired) show Assange was contacted by Manning with express intent to leak. So there was no conspiracy. Not disagreeing with the rest of your post, just pointing this out because there is no reason to retreat to the common sense position you advocate. The fact that you have to make such a sensible point is a reflection of the deep deceit and dishonesty of the prosecutors who clearly know this and are omitting it in order to try and paint a portrait of conspiracy that is factually wrong and they know it.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  >The Adrian Lamo chat logs (published by Wired) show Assange was contacted by Manning with express intent to leak. So there was no conspiracy. Could you please elaborate on why you think that matters to the charge of conspiracy?
michaelmrose 6y ago
Leaking info to someone not cleared to read it is not treasonous inherently unless it also meets the actual elements of us law. > Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The problem is: why is treason against the US bad, but for others, it’s ok? As in: why are we extraditing Assange to the US, but not US citizens elsewhere when they commit treason against them?
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Treason in the context of the United States is the act of a citizen betraying his/her fellow citizens by aiding our enemies against us. Neither Assange nor any other non citizen can commit the act of treason against the United States. Assange is being accused of conspiring to break into a government computer not treason. The fact that extradition isn't an equal thing isn't exactly shocking its a function of treaties between the relevant nations and wherein a power imbalance exists between those nations the terms are less likely to be equal and the US is still one of the most powerful nations on Earth. The US does rarely extradite for example https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/u-s-citizens-extradition-to-czech-republic-for-extortion-ok https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/u-s-citizens-extra... Ivo is getting extradited for attempted extortion which he committed in the Czech Republic and when people commit crimes from the US against international parties they can also be charged with the a crime for those acts supposing they are against the law here. Punishing acts where victim and criminal are members of different nations is often complicated. Few nations are eager to subject their citizens to foreign laws.

doonesbury 6y ago

Agree. Nonetheless feds are making him pay through the legal expense and stress of deflecting these charges. What I wonder more about is our own guys: how does manning and Snowden walk out the door with this info anyway? Our search procedures apparently suck. For the record my assessment of our involvement in Iraq is not kind: we should have escalated to armed intrusion to vet wmds base by base instead of invading wholesale on the reason Iraqi's were evasive. Second torture is unamerican, not reliable, and wholly wrong. Not proud at all of what we did here. Our response before after 9/11 was incompetent.

srtjstjsj 6y ago

If his defense against treason is that he's a foreign agent attacking the US, then he'll rightly end up in a POW prison. So he needs a better defense than that

simonh 6y ago
It seems like he didn’t actively attack the US, he simply passed on information freely given to him by US citizens. It’s hard to see how him doing that, not being a US citizen and not being in the US, is any worse than anything hundreds of journalists do all over the world every day.

austincheney 6y ago

Nothing about what Assange did strikes me as journalism though. There is more to journalism than just publishing. Any journalist will tell you that distinction is not just professionally important, it goes to US first amendment protections that may not apply to publishing alone. The basic way think about this is that journalists tell stories from facts limited by professional ethics. Publishers disclose anything they want that may or may not be legal. Wikileaks intended, very directly, to publish things and not tell stories. Perhaps an even better way to think about this is that journalism is original writing. What percentage of published material from Wikileaks was originally written by Wikileaks?

ISL 6y ago
The Constitution says nothing specific about journalism specifically. It regards only speech and the press, of which journalism is a subset. Publishing, alone, is surely protected. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
- austincheney 6y ago
  This makes the clear assumption the first amendment is an unlimited protection which it isn’t. I would suggest reading the opinions of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
toyg 6y ago
Ah, so publishing a graph or data table (“things”) is not journalism, right...? It’s amazing the mental somersaults one must do to justify the fact that “the West” can (and will) ignore the basic principles of democratic society if it harms their security stance.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >It’s amazing the mental somersaults one must do to justify the fact that “the West” can (and will) ignore the basic principles of democratic society if it harms their security stance. It's amazing the mental somersaults one must do to justify smearing half a billion people ("The West") based on one person's comment on HN. I'm not necessarily agreeing with GP, but your broad brush in vilifying such a large group of individuals based on that seems to be really unfair and inappropriate.

nobody9999 6y ago

>For a US citizen who has been given classified information it may be illegal and treasonous to leak classified US information to some one who doesn't have the clearance to get access to it. Actually, here in the US, we don't have licensed journalists. As such anyone may act as one. Government employees (including members of the military) and contractors can be and have been charged and convicted with misuse/dissemination of classified information. What's more, private citizens working in the employ of a foreign government have also been charged and convicted for providing classified information to that foreign government. However, no US journalist (and remember, anyone can be a journalist) has ever been convicted under the Espionage Act. Ever. As such, it seems incredibly unlikely that Assange would be convicted under that Espionage Act. I guess we'll just have to see. I take issue with the title of this posting, as (at least in the UK[0]), an Extradition Hearing is not a trial, nor is it intended to be one. [0] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review

austincheney 6y ago
While it is true anyone can be a journalist not anyone is, just as anyone can be a novelist. This is distinguished by conduct and product and that distinction has legal consequences.

trevelyan 6y ago

The Adrian Lamo chat logs (published by Wired) show Assange was contacted by Manning with express intent to leak. So there was no conspiracy. Not disagreeing with the rest of your post, just pointing this out because there is no reason to retreat to the common sense position you advocate. The fact that you have to make such a sensible point is a reflection of the deep deceit and dishonesty of the prosecutors who clearly know this and are omitting it in order to try and paint a portrait of conspiracy that is factually wrong and they know it.

NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
>The Adrian Lamo chat logs (published by Wired) show Assange was contacted by Manning with express intent to leak. So there was no conspiracy. Could you please elaborate on why you think that matters to the charge of conspiracy?

michaelmrose 6y ago

Leaking info to someone not cleared to read it is not treasonous inherently unless it also meets the actual elements of us law. > Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

colejohnson66 6y ago
The problem is: why is treason against the US bad, but for others, it’s ok? As in: why are we extraditing Assange to the US, but not US citizens elsewhere when they commit treason against them?
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  Treason in the context of the United States is the act of a citizen betraying his/her fellow citizens by aiding our enemies against us. Neither Assange nor any other non citizen can commit the act of treason against the United States. Assange is being accused of conspiring to break into a government computer not treason. The fact that extradition isn't an equal thing isn't exactly shocking its a function of treaties between the relevant nations and wherein a power imbalance exists between those nations the terms are less likely to be equal and the US is still one of the most powerful nations on Earth. The US does rarely extradite for example https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/u-s-citizens-extradition-to-czech-republic-for-extortion-ok https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/u-s-citizens-extra... Ivo is getting extradited for attempted extortion which he committed in the Czech Republic and when people commit crimes from the US against international parties they can also be charged with the a crime for those acts supposing they are against the law here. Punishing acts where victim and criminal are members of different nations is often complicated. Few nations are eager to subject their citizens to foreign laws.