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I find the whole spectacle of watching two propaganda machines trying to out- manoeuvre each other to be a little exhausting to be honest. There's no doubt tha

I find the whole spectacle of watching two propaganda machines trying to out- manoeuvre each other to be a little exhausting to be honest. There's no doubt that the US is acting vindictively here, but the pro-Assange camp does little for its credibility by using the same tactics. Even the headline here has been massaged - originally this was a "key" witness but by the time it gets to HN, he's a "keystone" witness. But the bigger problem is that he's neither. I've been vaguely following the case and this is the first mention of this guy I've seen. TFA asserts that the 2nd indictment rests on his bought testimony, but there's nothing about hacking Icelandic MPs or banks in that indictment. There's definitely stuff about hacking, but only about US targets, and Thordarson has nothing to say about that. Unless I'm missing something, this is a minor story about the DoJ doing a deal with one criminal to convict another (hardly news in itself) in order to strengthen an already robust case, not the slam dunk people are making it out to be.

k1m 5y ago
> There's no doubt that the US is acting vindictively here, but the pro-Assange camp does little for its credibility by using the same tactics. Revelations about an important witness lying about Assange to get immunity from the US is blanked by corporate media. How is reporting that this important story was blanked "acting vindictively"?
- cookie_monsta 5y ago
  Sorry if I expressed that badly. I meant to say that the US's continued persecution of Assange seems vindictive. I do disagree that this is an important witness, though, for the reasons I have already outlined.
  - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
    The fact that you put the government of the US and its 3 letters organization at the same level of some activists is hilarious.
dogorman 5y ago
> Even the headline here has been massaged - originally this was a "key" witness but by the time it gets to HN, he's a "keystone" witness. key: 1. Indispensable, supremely important. 2. Important, salient. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/key#Adjective https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/key#Adjective keystone: 1. (architecture) The top stone of an arch. 2. Something on which other things depend for support. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keystone https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keystone I grew up in the "keystone state". As far as I am concerned these words mean precisely the same thing in this context, and neither has stronger implications than the other. Are you sure you're not the one spinning here?
- cookie_monsta 5y ago
  Well, maybe. But to me there can be several key witnesses and losing one will damage your case, but as your definition states, if you remove a keystone witness the case falls apart. Tangentially, reading the indictment this witness seems to be neither. More to the point, OP felt the need to change the wording. That was a conscious act, not an accident.
  - dogorman 5y ago
    If a "key witness" is can be lost without sinking the case, then they are not "Indispensable, supremely important" and were not actually key. If an indispensable, or supremely important witness is lost, then your case has been lost. That's what indispensable means to me. What does indispensable mean to you? Do you think something that is indispensable can be dispensed?
    - cookie_monsta 5y ago
      You are welcome to ignore half of the definitions you posted and focus on the one that suits you best. I lean towards the second one you supplied, being "Important, salient" We can disagree on semantics, but my original point stands: the wording of the headline was changed. As another poster has asked, why would you choose to change a shorter, more common word for a longer, less common one if they mean exactly the same?
colechristensen 5y ago
Does anyone doubt that Assange did the basic act he is being accused of? That is requesting and then participating in the theft of classified information.
- oogabooga123 5y ago
  Based on the behavior from TPTB it’s safe to assume he is just the journalist in the equation and that’s why the whole thing looks so bad for the US
- cookie_monsta 5y ago
  That's a very uncomfortable thing for his defenders to focus on. Much more convenient for them is to present him as a journalist and frame the discussion around freedom of speech/the press.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    It's not uncomfortable at all from where I'm sitting, I had thought we settled this with Ellsburg and the pentagon papers. Assange had no clearance and took no oaths regarding this information. Converting "working with a source" into "conspiracy to access an information system" because the files were on a computer instead of in a drawer should fail the smell test.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      >I had thought we settled this with Ellsburg and the pentagon papers. Ellsberg's charges were dismissed because of gross government misconduct, that doesn't settle anything.
      - refenestrator 5y ago
        That hinges on the extent to which Assange personally exfiltrated documents. NYT vs US established that its totally OK to publish documents you receive. They're trying to make Assange a 'conspirator' in the exfiltration for working with Manning. Apparently the extent of his alleged direct involvement was receiving a password hash but not actually cracking or doing anything with it: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/downl...
k1m 5y ago
> Unless I'm missing something, this is a minor story ... in order to strengthen an already robust case, not the slam dunk people are making it out to be. I don't think this was a robust case at all. A couple of things to note here: 1. The witness from Iceland whose testimony against Assange has now revealed to have been lies wasn't part of the original case the US put forward. They added him much later into the proceedings. So if this was a "robust case" as you put it, why would they decide to add new accusations? 2. You might say, well, they didn't need to include him and shouldn't have. But you have the judge (Baraitser) citing these new accusations when siding with the US, as Stundin reported: "Baraitser sided with the arguments of the American legal team, including citing the specific samples from Iceland which are now seriously called into question." So clearly they were significant enough for the judge. 3. Craig Murray has written about why he thinks the witness was included late into the proceedings: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/fbi-fabrication-against-assange-falls-apart/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/fbi-fabricat... > The hearings on the Assange extradition in January 2020 did not seem to be going well for the US government. The arguments that political extradition is specifically banned by the UK/US extradition treaty, and that the publisher was not responsible for Chelsea Manning's whistleblowing on war crimes, appeared to be strong. The US Justice Department had decided that it therefore needed a new tack and to discover some "crimes" by Assange that seemed less noble than the Manning revelations. > To achieve this, the FBI turned to an informant in Iceland, Sigi Thordarson, who was willing to testify that Assange had been involved with him in, inter alia, hacking private banking information and tracking Icelandic police vehicles. This was of course much easier to portray as crime, as opposed to journalism, so the second superseding indictment was produced based on Thordarson's story, which was elaborated with Thordarson by an FBI team. > The difficulty was that Thordarson was hardly a reliable witness. He had already been convicted in Iceland for stealing approximately $50,000 from Wikileaks and with impersonating Julian Assange online, not to mention the inconvenient fact he is a registered sex offender for online activities with under-age boys. The FBI team was in fact expelled from Iceland by the Icelandic government, who viewed what the FBI was doing with Thordarson as wholly illegitimate. > [...] While Baraitser's eventual decision barred extradition on the grounds of Assange's health and US inhumane prison conditions, the second superseding indictment and Thordarson's accusations were accepted as a valid basis for extradition. Given all that, I think it's fair to describe him as a key witness.
nuker 5y ago
> in order to strengthen an already robust case far from robust, more like a joke thats not funny
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
raxxorrax 5y ago
Why would you start criminal deals if you had a robust case? That is a direct contradiction fully aside from the fact that the "institution responsible for upholding the law" directly bend the rules here. Sorry? Can you elaborate here? Do you think a justice department should use falsified evidence? This needs explanation because your country and party will be made responsible for such reactions and it might lead to people voting someone you couldn't imagine being president.
belorn 5y ago
Let compare the two and see if they are two equal forces. On one side we have a democratic government fabricating evidence in a legal case. Corruption by any definition, the break down of the building blocks of law and order. A government that knowingly fabricates evidence is not a government suited to hold power. On the other side we have the pro-Assange camp. Either the US government knowing fabricated evidence, or they did not. That all that matters. A government that fabricate evidence is corrupt beyond questioning, at which point the case itself it irrelevant.
- trasz 5y ago
  The US doesn't need to fabricate evidence, they can just use a secret kangaroo court or Guantanamo.

k1m 5y ago

> There's no doubt that the US is acting vindictively here, but the pro-Assange camp does little for its credibility by using the same tactics. Revelations about an important witness lying about Assange to get immunity from the US is blanked by corporate media. How is reporting that this important story was blanked "acting vindictively"?

cookie_monsta 5y ago
Sorry if I expressed that badly. I meant to say that the US's continued persecution of Assange seems vindictive. I do disagree that this is an important witness, though, for the reasons I have already outlined.
- Ostrogodsky 5y ago
  The fact that you put the government of the US and its 3 letters organization at the same level of some activists is hilarious.

dogorman 5y ago

> Even the headline here has been massaged - originally this was a "key" witness but by the time it gets to HN, he's a "keystone" witness. key: 1. Indispensable, supremely important. 2. Important, salient. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/key#Adjective https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/key#Adjective keystone: 1. (architecture) The top stone of an arch. 2. Something on which other things depend for support. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keystone https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keystone I grew up in the "keystone state". As far as I am concerned these words mean precisely the same thing in this context, and neither has stronger implications than the other. Are you sure you're not the one spinning here?

cookie_monsta 5y ago
Well, maybe. But to me there can be several key witnesses and losing one will damage your case, but as your definition states, if you remove a keystone witness the case falls apart. Tangentially, reading the indictment this witness seems to be neither. More to the point, OP felt the need to change the wording. That was a conscious act, not an accident.
- dogorman 5y ago
  If a "key witness" is can be lost without sinking the case, then they are not "Indispensable, supremely important" and were not actually key. If an indispensable, or supremely important witness is lost, then your case has been lost. That's what indispensable means to me. What does indispensable mean to you? Do you think something that is indispensable can be dispensed?
  - cookie_monsta 5y ago
    You are welcome to ignore half of the definitions you posted and focus on the one that suits you best. I lean towards the second one you supplied, being "Important, salient" We can disagree on semantics, but my original point stands: the wording of the headline was changed. As another poster has asked, why would you choose to change a shorter, more common word for a longer, less common one if they mean exactly the same?

colechristensen 5y ago

Does anyone doubt that Assange did the basic act he is being accused of? That is requesting and then participating in the theft of classified information.

oogabooga123 5y ago
Based on the behavior from TPTB it’s safe to assume he is just the journalist in the equation and that’s why the whole thing looks so bad for the US
cookie_monsta 5y ago
That's a very uncomfortable thing for his defenders to focus on. Much more convenient for them is to present him as a journalist and frame the discussion around freedom of speech/the press.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  It's not uncomfortable at all from where I'm sitting, I had thought we settled this with Ellsburg and the pentagon papers. Assange had no clearance and took no oaths regarding this information. Converting "working with a source" into "conspiracy to access an information system" because the files were on a computer instead of in a drawer should fail the smell test.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    >I had thought we settled this with Ellsburg and the pentagon papers. Ellsberg's charges were dismissed because of gross government misconduct, that doesn't settle anything.
    - refenestrator 5y ago
      That hinges on the extent to which Assange personally exfiltrated documents. NYT vs US established that its totally OK to publish documents you receive. They're trying to make Assange a 'conspirator' in the exfiltration for working with Manning. Apparently the extent of his alleged direct involvement was receiving a password hash but not actually cracking or doing anything with it: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/downl...

k1m 5y ago

> Unless I'm missing something, this is a minor story ... in order to strengthen an already robust case, not the slam dunk people are making it out to be. I don't think this was a robust case at all. A couple of things to note here: 1. The witness from Iceland whose testimony against Assange has now revealed to have been lies wasn't part of the original case the US put forward. They added him much later into the proceedings. So if this was a "robust case" as you put it, why would they decide to add new accusations? 2. You might say, well, they didn't need to include him and shouldn't have. But you have the judge (Baraitser) citing these new accusations when siding with the US, as Stundin reported: "Baraitser sided with the arguments of the American legal team, including citing the specific samples from Iceland which are now seriously called into question." So clearly they were significant enough for the judge. 3. Craig Murray has written about why he thinks the witness was included late into the proceedings: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/fbi-fabrication-against-assange-falls-apart/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/fbi-fabricat... > The hearings on the Assange extradition in January 2020 did not seem to be going well for the US government. The arguments that political extradition is specifically banned by the UK/US extradition treaty, and that the publisher was not responsible for Chelsea Manning's whistleblowing on war crimes, appeared to be strong. The US Justice Department had decided that it therefore needed a new tack and to discover some "crimes" by Assange that seemed less noble than the Manning revelations. > To achieve this, the FBI turned to an informant in Iceland, Sigi Thordarson, who was willing to testify that Assange had been involved with him in, inter alia, hacking private banking information and tracking Icelandic police vehicles. This was of course much easier to portray as crime, as opposed to journalism, so the second superseding indictment was produced based on Thordarson's story, which was elaborated with Thordarson by an FBI team. > The difficulty was that Thordarson was hardly a reliable witness. He had already been convicted in Iceland for stealing approximately $50,000 from Wikileaks and with impersonating Julian Assange online, not to mention the inconvenient fact he is a registered sex offender for online activities with under-age boys. The FBI team was in fact expelled from Iceland by the Icelandic government, who viewed what the FBI was doing with Thordarson as wholly illegitimate. > [...] While Baraitser's eventual decision barred extradition on the grounds of Assange's health and US inhumane prison conditions, the second superseding indictment and Thordarson's accusations were accepted as a valid basis for extradition. Given all that, I think it's fair to describe him as a key witness.

nuker 5y ago

> in order to strengthen an already robust case far from robust, more like a joke thats not funny

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

raxxorrax 5y ago

Why would you start criminal deals if you had a robust case? That is a direct contradiction fully aside from the fact that the "institution responsible for upholding the law" directly bend the rules here. Sorry? Can you elaborate here? Do you think a justice department should use falsified evidence? This needs explanation because your country and party will be made responsible for such reactions and it might lead to people voting someone you couldn't imagine being president.

belorn 5y ago

Let compare the two and see if they are two equal forces. On one side we have a democratic government fabricating evidence in a legal case. Corruption by any definition, the break down of the building blocks of law and order. A government that knowingly fabricates evidence is not a government suited to hold power. On the other side we have the pro-Assange camp. Either the US government knowing fabricated evidence, or they did not. That all that matters. A government that fabricate evidence is corrupt beyond questioning, at which point the case itself it irrelevant.

trasz 5y ago
The US doesn't need to fabricate evidence, they can just use a secret kangaroo court or Guantanamo.