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> If you like, you can confirm that Assange didn't give Manning any access she didn't already have Sure, nobody is arguing over the basic, well-known facts of

> If you like, you can confirm that Assange didn't give Manning any access she didn't already have Sure, nobody is arguing over the basic, well-known facts of the case. We don't need to re-hash the indictment to agree on that. The question that remains, though (because I am not so familiar with the US legal system) is if failing to commit a crime absolves you of the crime of conspiring to commit it. But I guess there's plenty of case law and precedent around it, being that criminals seem to be constantly a) conspiring and b) failing to commit crimes. The first 5 sentences of your last paragraph describes pretty much every private citizen facing serious charges in any legal system on earth (maybe not the "forever-face-stomping boot" bit, but I am assuming that was just added for colour). I'm not being facetious, because there are people who genuinely do not believe in crime or punishment - are you one of those? Because this case hasn't been put in front of a judge, so how could it have been thrown out?

jessaustin 5y ago
All but one of the charges are for espionage, a crime the Obama Justice Department decided they couldn't charge against journalists, whether USA citizens or not. This was called the "New York Times Problem". [0] Espionage, since it is a "political" crime, also wouldn't sustain extradition from UK. The 18th and final "conspiracy to hacking" charge, tacked on to give the UK judges (who should have thrown this case out years ago) a fig leaf, pretends to be of a different nature, but it isn't really. This is the charge for which notorious sociopath, conman, fraudster, and convicted pedophile Thordarson provided the supporting testimony he has now recanted. [1] The bastards had hoped to bolster a very particular interpretation of a chat log with Thordarson's now-recanted testimony. That interpretation is now very weak. First, they can't actually prove that "Nathaniel Frank" was a pseudonym for Assange. Who's to say it wasn't a pseudonym for Thordarson? In addition, although it is the prosecution's theory that it was possible to crack a password given the partial hash Manning had, testimony before the UK court has contradicted that. [2] IANAL, but my observation of USA court proceedings leads me to suspect that your question about conspiracy has no definite answer. Conspiracy is always a discretionary charge, which makes sense because there is no victim and no harm. "Discretionary" is nearly synonymous, in this context, with "political", which quality of espionage charges typically excludes extradition. It's often used against criminals who have been careful to leave no evidence of the underlying crime. It is also used to bully innocents without evidence of underlying crime. Prosecutors in normal criminal cases don't push conspiracy as far as they theoretically could, because normal USA juries don't have infinite patience for pursuing the worst possible interpretations of inconclusive evidence. "National security" cases, however, aren't heard by normal juries. Usually some pretext is found for excluding a jury trial altogether, but when that doesn't work they rely on the TLA-friendly hang'em-high juries found in the Eastern District of Virginia where all these cases are tried. However, this case isn't currently being tried anywhere in USA. Right now it's a UK extradition case. In such cases justice should override deference to zealous prosecution, as the same judge's previous ruling with respect to squalid USA prison conditions acknowledges. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julian-assange-unlikely-to-face-us-charges-over-publishing-classified-documents/2013/11/25/dd27decc-55f1-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia... [1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html [2] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252489645/Forensic-expert-questions-US-claims-that-Assange-conspired-to-crack-military-password https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252489645/Forensic-exper...

jessaustin 5y ago

All but one of the charges are for espionage, a crime the Obama Justice Department decided they couldn't charge against journalists, whether USA citizens or not. This was called the "New York Times Problem". [0] Espionage, since it is a "political" crime, also wouldn't sustain extradition from UK. The 18th and final "conspiracy to hacking" charge, tacked on to give the UK judges (who should have thrown this case out years ago) a fig leaf, pretends to be of a different nature, but it isn't really. This is the charge for which notorious sociopath, conman, fraudster, and convicted pedophile Thordarson provided the supporting testimony he has now recanted. [1] The bastards had hoped to bolster a very particular interpretation of a chat log with Thordarson's now-recanted testimony. That interpretation is now very weak. First, they can't actually prove that "Nathaniel Frank" was a pseudonym for Assange. Who's to say it wasn't a pseudonym for Thordarson? In addition, although it is the prosecution's theory that it was possible to crack a password given the partial hash Manning had, testimony before the UK court has contradicted that. [2] IANAL, but my observation of USA court proceedings leads me to suspect that your question about conspiracy has no definite answer. Conspiracy is always a discretionary charge, which makes sense because there is no victim and no harm. "Discretionary" is nearly synonymous, in this context, with "political", which quality of espionage charges typically excludes extradition. It's often used against criminals who have been careful to leave no evidence of the underlying crime. It is also used to bully innocents without evidence of underlying crime. Prosecutors in normal criminal cases don't push conspiracy as far as they theoretically could, because normal USA juries don't have infinite patience for pursuing the worst possible interpretations of inconclusive evidence. "National security" cases, however, aren't heard by normal juries. Usually some pretext is found for excluding a jury trial altogether, but when that doesn't work they rely on the TLA-friendly hang'em-high juries found in the Eastern District of Virginia where all these cases are tried. However, this case isn't currently being tried anywhere in USA. Right now it's a UK extradition case. In such cases justice should override deference to zealous prosecution, as the same judge's previous ruling with respect to squalid USA prison conditions acknowledges. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julian-assange-unlikely-to-face-us-charges-over-publishing-classified-documents/2013/11/25/dd27decc-55f1-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia... [1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html [2] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252489645/Forensic-expert-questions-US-claims-that-Assange-conspired-to-crack-military-password https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252489645/Forensic-exper...