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One major issue with Assange is prosecuting him. Honesty most of the 17 charges are quite week and it remains to be seen how they even apply to a foreign natio

One major issue with Assange is prosecuting him. Honesty most of the 17 charges are quite week and it remains to be seen how they even apply to a foreign national. Assange received classified material and published it. This has been done countless times by journalist and it’s a pretty far stretch to somehow apply criminal charges just because he published it. Honestly from the CIA perspective it would probably have been better to assassinate him. This sends a message to other journalists on what the US will do to protect its interest. A trial just further embarrasses the US since everyone knows the outcome and that it is largely a farce

tunesmith 5y ago
If a journalist receives classified material, is that different than if the journalist coordinates the acquisition of that classified material, or offers resources to aid in the acquisition of that classified material, or participates in the placement of resources to gain access to those classified materials...? I think that's the difficult part of this, right? It's a spectrum with many levels of gradation, that each imply different levels of legality and illegality.
giantrobot 5y ago
> Assange received classified material and published it. This gets repeated a lot but is not what Assange is charged with. He didn't just "receive" classified information. He's alleged to have not only communicated with Manning to direct her to grab specific information and tried to help her break into systems. He'd have a much better case if he had just been a passive publisher of information. You can't be involved in a crime and then claim journalistic protections after the fact. Assange is not a journalist. He's a wannabe spymaster and muckraker. Zero percent of his case has anything to do with real journalists as none of them would have participated in the exfiltration of classified documents.
- roody15 5y ago
  I disagree. Chelsea Manning bears the overwhelming fault from a US Legal perspective. He was a member of the armed forces under oath and knowingly shared classified information. Assange has no oath to the US and despite his interest in the material it is quite a stretch to somehow suggest he “made” Chelsea share this info.
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    I never said he made Manning do anything. He directed and assisted Manning. A journalist doesn't help a source get more material. They don't because they know it's illegal.
    - fit2rule 5y ago
      This is false. Journalists help their sources, all the time. Its a key part of journalism to develop sources that produce the truth of the story. The idea that journalists are only allowed to publish what's handed to them serves the intelligence communities' purpose of being the only sources of righteous propaganda.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  >He didn't just "receive" classified information. He's alleged to have not only communicated with Manning to direct her to grab specific information and tried to help her break into systems. One of the seventeen charges is about this. The others are all solely to do with publishing classified information. If all of the other charges were dropped, maybe you'd have a point but it's clear that the entire thing is primarily about his work as a journalist publishing documents.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Is it really a farce? Give me one US paper that would report critically on it. If a writer would take this on his colleagues would probably excommunicate him. So they could just prosecute him without too much notice. Some of these papers were complicit in selling wars of aggression to the public. But I don't think guilt and bias are even needed to give a prediction on reporting.

tunesmith 5y ago

If a journalist receives classified material, is that different than if the journalist coordinates the acquisition of that classified material, or offers resources to aid in the acquisition of that classified material, or participates in the placement of resources to gain access to those classified materials...? I think that's the difficult part of this, right? It's a spectrum with many levels of gradation, that each imply different levels of legality and illegality.

giantrobot 5y ago

> Assange received classified material and published it. This gets repeated a lot but is not what Assange is charged with. He didn't just "receive" classified information. He's alleged to have not only communicated with Manning to direct her to grab specific information and tried to help her break into systems. He'd have a much better case if he had just been a passive publisher of information. You can't be involved in a crime and then claim journalistic protections after the fact. Assange is not a journalist. He's a wannabe spymaster and muckraker. Zero percent of his case has anything to do with real journalists as none of them would have participated in the exfiltration of classified documents.

roody15 5y ago
I disagree. Chelsea Manning bears the overwhelming fault from a US Legal perspective. He was a member of the armed forces under oath and knowingly shared classified information. Assange has no oath to the US and despite his interest in the material it is quite a stretch to somehow suggest he “made” Chelsea share this info.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  I never said he made Manning do anything. He directed and assisted Manning. A journalist doesn't help a source get more material. They don't because they know it's illegal.
  - fit2rule 5y ago
    This is false. Journalists help their sources, all the time. Its a key part of journalism to develop sources that produce the truth of the story. The idea that journalists are only allowed to publish what's handed to them serves the intelligence communities' purpose of being the only sources of righteous propaganda.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
>He didn't just "receive" classified information. He's alleged to have not only communicated with Manning to direct her to grab specific information and tried to help her break into systems. One of the seventeen charges is about this. The others are all solely to do with publishing classified information. If all of the other charges were dropped, maybe you'd have a point but it's clear that the entire thing is primarily about his work as a journalist publishing documents.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Is it really a farce? Give me one US paper that would report critically on it. If a writer would take this on his colleagues would probably excommunicate him. So they could just prosecute him without too much notice. Some of these papers were complicit in selling wars of aggression to the public. But I don't think guilt and bias are even needed to give a prediction on reporting.