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The framing of Assange as an innocent “journalist” being persecuted for just doing his job is, in my opinion, disingenuous. I do not necessarily agree with all

The framing of Assange as an innocent “journalist” being persecuted for just doing his job is, in my opinion, disingenuous. I do not necessarily agree with all the actions the US Government has taken with him, or their handling of some of the information that was leaked. However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage, let alone encourage/incite it. In case my point is unclear, I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy. Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done. Assange is an activist, not a journalist. He should not be treated as such and much of the consequences he suffers now (e.g., confinement during appeal) is directly related to his own actions (e.g., fleeing to an Embassy).

deleted 5y ago
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yesbut 5y ago
Assange is more of an editor / publisher. This is akin to the Washington Post publishing the Pentagon Papers. As a reminder, this is why the US wants to punish Assange: > Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-a...
- bladegash 5y ago
  If you think that is the information that he is being punished for is that video, you clearly did not look at what he leaked closely enough. Likewise, if you think leaking the pentagon papers is the same as leaking all diplomatic cables and operational communications from a period of time is the same thing, not sure I can say much to change your opinion.
  - yesbut 5y ago
    These espionage charges aren't about "Hillary's emails". https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/28/indictment-assange-is-blueprint-making-journalists-into-felons/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/28/indictment...
    - bladegash 5y ago
      I am not talking about Hillary's emails. He leaked diplomatic cables. [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-releases-classified-diplomat-cables-us-state-department/story?id=12260376 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-releases-classifie...
      - tchalla 5y ago
        Very interesting. The actual war crimes are brushed aside but the person who revealed those war crimes are punished. I wonder how this would have played out if China or Russia did it.
      - yesbut 5y ago
        He leaked war crimes.
        bladegash 5y ago
        He leaked war crimes AND he leaked the information I mentioned.
        yesbut 5y ago
        He shouldn't be in prison and we should have a public holiday in his honor for informing the American public about the war crimes our government commits in our name and with our tax dollars.
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        So what? A private citizen has no obligation to secrecy.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Editors/publishers exercise judgement and take responsibility for what they put out into the world. AFAICT, Assange's best argument for his innocence is that he bears no responsibility because... he neither took nor accepts any responsibility.
  - yesbut 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure it is everyone's responsibility to inform the world about war crimes when that information is brought to our attention.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      Everyone is responsible for everything that is unacceptable, but it doesn't really help to try to enforce that. Scoping to a reasonable level, publishers' primary job is to review and filter information for quality, safety, and fitness for mass consumption. Assange and WikiLeaks explicitly do not do that. At best, they are a distributor.
      - yesbut 5y ago
        I've never heard of any law that requires a publisher to review / filter information for public consumption. The only responsibility that a publisher at a capitalist media outlet has is to make sure their publications bring in a profit. That is their only "obligation".
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I've never heard of any law that requires a publisher to review / filter information for public consumption The law generally views the publisher as responsible for unlawful (defamatory, copyright infringing, etc.) content without evidence of specific knowledge, whereas distributors are generally liable only when they have specific knowledge of the facts that make the content unlawful. This, in effect, makes publishers responsible for reviewing/filtering content, because if they fail to do so, they will be held responsible. That's the whole source of significanxe of, e.g., the section 230 protection against hosts or other users of online services meeting certain descriptions being treated as the publisher of other-user submitted content.
- jasonlotito 5y ago
  Wikileaks, which Assange leads, is more than just an editor and/or publisher. WikiLeaks helped arrange Snowden’s escape to Russia from Hong Kong. A WikiLeaks editor also accompanied Snowden to Russia, staying with him during his 39-day enforced stay at a Moscow airport and living with him for three months after Russia granted Snowden asylum. As a reminder, the post you show isn't when the aggression against Wikileaks escalated. You reminder is not true.
- hota_mazi 5y ago
  This can definitely be one reason but I find your cherry picking very disingenuous. His disclosures have shown a consistent bias to damage the Democrats, support the Republicans, Trump, and the Putin regime. He also endangered the lives of multiple assets by revealing their names and locations. It's a lot more nuanced than you portray it.
  - yesbut 5y ago
    This is completely untrue. He used to be loved by the Democrats when he was exposing Bush's war crimes. The claim that he was working with Russia to help Trump came from the Hillary campaign.
tgv 5y ago
It might have been partially activist, that still doesn't justify the extradition. The US had no standing, as I believe it's called. They can declare whatever they want "top secret", but that doesn't make a crime for a citizen of another country to publish it. The hacking and conspiracy claims have been added to make it appear as if they have standing, but these are empty. It's another triumph for big budget lawyer corporations, and an actual loss for the freedom of the press.
- bladegash 5y ago
  I do not think it is a loss for freedom of the press, I think it is an opportunity for the courts to define what a journalist actually is, vs. not. Perhaps the courts will side with Assange and we will find that this is First Amendment protected activity. I personally do not believe it is, but I do think that this situation is a bit unique to modern times and is likely to set precedent one way or the other.
  - tgv 5y ago
    I think it shows that you can put a lid on foreign journalism by drawing your chequebook. Just add a few indictments from the extradition agreement. The UK courts clearly haven't sided with Assange.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Russia also does this. Inconvenient journalists are designated "foreign agents", for instance. Redefining journalist can let you imprison any and every journalist.
    - bladegash 5y ago
      Sure, that could happen and be the result out of all this. I think that is jumping to the worst possible conclusion though and the result will be a bit more nuanced than that.
      - pydry 5y ago
the_optimist 5y ago
I respect your perspective but wholly disagree with your conclusion. There is not a viable concept such as whether a journalist “enables espionage.” Journalism is necessarily adversarial, not pliant.
- bladegash 5y ago
  Thank you for the tactful disagreement and I appreciate your perspective. I also believe journalism is necessarily adversarial and should be allowed to exist with little encumbrance. However, I do think there is a line that needs to be drawn at some point as to what is journalism, versus what is propaganda for a specific agenda masquerading as journalism.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    There's no way to draw this line. The vast majority of commercial journalism is propaganda, unsubstantiated by tangible facts and portrayed in directions strictly favorable to power and pleasing to the audience. Far from jesters speaking truth to power, commercial media are largely courtesans.
  - kodablah 5y ago
    > However, I do think there is a line that needs to be drawn at some point as to what is journalism, versus what is propaganda for a specific agenda masquerading as journalism. Why does the intent/purpose of the publisher matter here in any way from a legal prospective? I fear that your opinion of his purpose is forming your opinion of its legality.
    - bladegash 5y ago
      You do not draw a distinction in intent between informing the public and furthering the goals of a foreign adversary? Not saying he was, just an example, of how intent absolutely does matter from a legal perspective.
      - Karunamon 5y ago
pydry 5y ago
>However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage, let alone encourage/incite it. In case my point is unclear, I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy. Your point is pretty clear. You designated exposing war crimes a criminal conspiracy no different from any other. This view isn't compatible with a belief in human rights and democracy.
- bladegash 5y ago
  No, that is not what I said, nor is that what my point is/was. To reiterate, "Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done." You cannot look at just one small part of what was leaked and ignore the rest. If all that was leaked was the war crimes, then we would not be having this discussion.
  - pydry 5y ago
    >No, that is not what I said, nor is that what my point is/was. I see no substantial difference. >To reiterate, "Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done." I really don't understand what you being in Afghanistan is supposed to prove. If anything it suggests that you place a higher value on loyalty to the institution you belonged to that committed these war crimes and covered them up than you do on human rights. Is that not the case? >If all that was leaked was the war crimes, then we would not be having this discussion. Oh, we absolutely would. The case was built specifically around the leak of collateral murder. American espionage law criminalizes leaking evidence of war crimes. Snowden has offered to come home if its scope was tightened to only include actual espionage. Congress demurred. This is what you were fighting for in Afghanistan like it or not - for a group of elites who would toss you in prison for exposing their war crimes without a second's thought.
ben_w 5y ago
Complicated. I feel that an Australian citizen should not expect to be extradited to the USA for publishing information the USA would rather not be published. Still true even if he is an activist, would still be true even for someone genuinely trying to systematically destroy America and American values, if it’s just publication. Free speech etc. For encouraging Americans to break American laws, which I think is the non-legalese summary of the accusation? I don’t know how I feel. The internet (telecoms in general) breaks borders and jurisdiction in ways that are not yet settled even in my own head. Fleeing to an embassy definitely looked dumb to me at the time, and still does now. If someone is told to eat oranges, refuses because they are afraid oranges might be poisoned, volunteers to eat apples instead, runs away when someone tries to force them to eat an orange, then gets given a poisoned apple… I still don’t understand why people say this vindicates the original no-oranges stance.
- bladegash 5y ago
  Thank you for the thoughtful response and I especially liked the way you put the dilemma related to how the internet breaks borders. Similar to you, it's challenging to wrap my head around and is a pretty big paradigm shift in terms of the sovereignty of countries, let alone the legal implications of that shift.
- pydry 5y ago
  >For encouraging Americans to break American laws, which I think is the non-legalese summary of the accusation? Were Gandhi/MLK/Rosa Parks wrong when they made a point of breaking unjust laws and encouraging others to follow along? Many liberals at the time thought yes - "the law being the law" and all that. It does sound like you're making the same argument they were?
  - tiahura 5y ago
    Assange as Ghandhi. Wow. Remind me about how Rosa Parks ran and hid?
  - axiolite 5y ago
    > Were Gandhi/MLK/Rosa Parks wrong when they made a point of breaking unjust laws and encouraging others to follow along? Your question of right/"wrong" is a matter of morality, not legality. Stealing bread to feed a starving person might be morally good, but legally wrong, and nobody should expect to avoid legal consequences because of it. In the case of civil disobedience, those involved do NOT attempt to flee from justice. Being arrested and facing the legal system is an integral part. Assange may just get his chance to emulate Ghandi by spending years in prison...
ttybird2 5y ago
"However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage" "Espionage" like publishing warcrimes. "I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy" Transparency is a government duty. It is a shame but totally justified that private citizens have to enforce it. As for "criminal", sounds like yet another victimless crime. If anything they are exposing crimes. "being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did" Thank you for disclosing that. How many people did you kill (directly or indirectly) and why didn't you try to expose warcrimes? "Assange is an activist, not a journalist. He should not be treated as such" Activists, journalists, and regular citizens should all be treated the same. "is directly related to his own actions (e.g., fleeing to an Embassy)." Yet given how the events turned out it seems that he was right. He was hiding in the embassy in fear that they would try to send him to the US.
- bsimpson 5y ago
  Spelling like a 9 year old who just discovered an Internet chat room undercuts your credibility, as does attacking the person you're replying to. Your question is abhorrently tasteless and irrelevant, which is about all I can say without violating the forum guidelines myself.
  - ttybird2 5y ago
    I am a non-native english speaker typing on a phone without a spellchecher. I also have dislexia. If you have some specific complaints then please do point them out, I would love to improve. I am not sure why you think that this is the case given that the person that I am replying to literally worked for an organisation made for killing people and with a known record of torture and warcrimes. Would you welcome a proud ISIS fighter? I would not. If they killed nobody then they just can say so. I just do not wish to talk to people who murdered people in illegal invasions.
- bladegash 5y ago
  "Yet given how the events turned out it seems that he was right. He was hiding in the embassy in fear that they would try to send him to the US." If only we could all flee when faced with consequences for breaking laws that we disagree with. "Transparency is a government duty. It is a shame but totally justified that private citizens have to 3nforce it. As for "criminal", sounds like yet another victimless crime. If anything they are exposing crimes." There are absolutely reasons for state secrecy and the breadth of information crossed a line between what was necessary for informing the public, versus damaging to the diplomatic relations and ability to conduct diplomacy with much of the rest of the world. "Thank you for disclosing that. How many people did you kill (directly or indirectly) and why didn't you try to expose warcrimes?" Oh, goodness. Thanks for adding to taking the time to provide your perspective and add to the discussion.
TomSwirly 5y ago
Lots of words. What crime do you think Assange has committed, specifically? > Assange is an activist, not a journalist. Assange has broken two of the biggest stories of our era and literally hundreds of stories each of which would be a reputation-maker for a lesser individual. Just because you don't like the truths that Assange reveals, doesn't mean he isn't a journalist. > any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done. Wikileaks tried to get cooperation from the US government to redact the sensitive parts. They refused to cooperate. Your way would have meant nothing at all. Can you explain what harm you believe these leaks caused, compared to their value in knowing that the US engages in war crimes and covers them up?
TomSwirly 5y ago
> being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, The US invasion of Afghanistan was a complete failure and one that allowed the actual guilty party, Osama Bin Laden, to escape. The Taliban offered twice to give up Bin Laden but Bush refused even to discuss it with them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te... Both the CIA and the FBI concluded that no one in the Taliban had any idea of 9/11 before it happened, which is very logical, because you aren't successful at conspiracies by telling everyone. And yet Bush invaded Afghanistan, because he needed to invade somewhere and couldn't invade the actual culprits, Saudi Arabia - Al Qaeda being founded, funded, manned and managed by Saudis. --- Participating in a great war crime that killed hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent people and completely failed militarily, economically, diplomatically, and strategically should not be a matter of pride.
harry8 5y ago
A journalist is /any/ citizen engaging in journalism. ANY. As soon as you have to "qualify" to be a "journalist" and can't be an "activist" What you have is state controlled media. Indiscriminate publishing. So you think the vetting done in partnership with the Washington Post and the New York Times was not journalism and the employees of the NYT and WaPo who are now not journalists should be prosecuted along side him? That's pretty radical.
- frabbit 5y ago
  Do you think that the comments that are furiously ignoring this and pretending that there is some sort of official journalist title are genuinely ignorant or trying to sow confusion?
  - harry8 5y ago
    I think it is mostly driven by emotion and it would be very easy go that way if you didn't follow the story closely and from multiple media sources. It's easy to believe in another context eg pick one of "Maddow/Hannity/Limbaugh/Moore" is not a real journalist by which you mean good source of factual information. This is wildly different from "should/should not have the legal rights of a journalist." Many of the larger newspapers lean toward the former kind of "he's not one of us" and clearly hate him on a personal level, for many reasons one of which is that he de-values their prestige currency of the scoop by having achieved many orders of magnitude more important scoops than they reasonably ever dreamed of without having to have the crap beaten out of him as a young person joining a newsroom like they did. "My editor would never allow me to publish that even though it's completely true and backed with documents proving it." He doesn't have that problem. There's no doubt that the litany of CIA, NSA & FBI openly employed as analysts are pushing a false narrative about it which is repeated often. We saw evidence of that kind of ting pretty clearly with the evidence free suppression of Hunter Biden's laptop contents as "Russian disinformation." Now we know it's real. The contents are minor league attempted sleaze but true. The suppression of it and the constant refrain of "Russians" is vastly more significant and pretty worrying. People have be led to think of Wikileaks and Assange as "Anti-American." Pretty obvious that the Military would want to frame it that way. And it's reasonable not to like anti-american stuff. It's not so very far to go from there to thinking CIA lies are actually anti-american and reporting the truth about massive corruption and illegality in government is what has made the American experiment with democracy work and so is pro-american. I don't know the extent to which the CIA and NSA etc actually use social media comments to push a narrative, I'd really, really hope it was none. Was there anything about that in Edward Snowden's revalations?
dukeofdoom 5y ago
If publishing leaked information is punishable by the state, than what kind of press would you have? Its precisely the most contentious things that the state wants to hide, is what often the public needs to know about. The modern corporate press is bad enough as it is. But do you really want to live in a country where legit journalists are jailed for publishing things the government does not want you to know about. Just this week, state prosecutor blanked out almost all the names on Epstein flight logs. Fairly obvious its in the public interest to know which powerful people went there. But powerful people will try to protect other powerful people.
unknownus3r 5y ago
Rational take
pessimizer 5y ago
Being an activist doesn't make you not a journalist, any more than being employed by companies that share portfolio space with the companies that get all of their revenue from supplying war material doesn't mean you're not a journalist. > However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage Then you don't really believe that 99% of journalists are journalists, because they would disagree with you. I'm thankful that I don't live in the completely bowdlerized history that would have been the result if more journalists agreed with you.
y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
What does it matter if he's an "activist" or "journalist"? He exposed war crimes. He IS being persecuted and that fact is being waved in our face out in the open. The punishment doesn't fit the crime, that's the problem. > I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy. He exposed crimes committed by war criminals. "Criminal conspiracy" is disingenuous. Furthermore the "classified" label is defined by the organization that committed those crimes. Do you think murdering innocent civilians indiscriminately should be classified? You seem to be arguing semantics more than establishing any sort of moral or ethical argument against what he did.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
>that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done. Shouldn't you be pushing for the prosecution of the Guardian journalist that published the encryption keys then? Not Assange who actively worked to get both press and government help to ensure safe disclosure.
VictorPath 5y ago
> Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done. It's funny to me that you were marauding around Afghanistan a couple of years ago and would use the word indiscriminate to describe Assange.
busymom0 5y ago
By your definition, 99.9% of “journalists” aren’t journalists because they are all activists. Assange is the purest form of journalist, especially considering things he published were mass reported by other journalists who got awards for their reporting.

deleted 5y ago

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yesbut 5y ago

Assange is more of an editor / publisher. This is akin to the Washington Post publishing the Pentagon Papers. As a reminder, this is why the US wants to punish Assange: > Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-a...

bladegash 5y ago
If you think that is the information that he is being punished for is that video, you clearly did not look at what he leaked closely enough. Likewise, if you think leaking the pentagon papers is the same as leaking all diplomatic cables and operational communications from a period of time is the same thing, not sure I can say much to change your opinion.
- yesbut 5y ago
  These espionage charges aren't about "Hillary's emails". https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/28/indictment-assange-is-blueprint-making-journalists-into-felons/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/28/indictment...
  - bladegash 5y ago
    I am not talking about Hillary's emails. He leaked diplomatic cables. [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-releases-classified-diplomat-cables-us-state-department/story?id=12260376 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-releases-classifie...
    - tchalla 5y ago
      Very interesting. The actual war crimes are brushed aside but the person who revealed those war crimes are punished. I wonder how this would have played out if China or Russia did it.
    - yesbut 5y ago
      He leaked war crimes.
      - bladegash 5y ago
        He leaked war crimes AND he leaked the information I mentioned.
        yesbut 5y ago
        He shouldn't be in prison and we should have a public holiday in his honor for informing the American public about the war crimes our government commits in our name and with our tax dollars.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      So what? A private citizen has no obligation to secrecy.
darkerside 5y ago
Editors/publishers exercise judgement and take responsibility for what they put out into the world. AFAICT, Assange's best argument for his innocence is that he bears no responsibility because... he neither took nor accepts any responsibility.
- yesbut 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure it is everyone's responsibility to inform the world about war crimes when that information is brought to our attention.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    Everyone is responsible for everything that is unacceptable, but it doesn't really help to try to enforce that. Scoping to a reasonable level, publishers' primary job is to review and filter information for quality, safety, and fitness for mass consumption. Assange and WikiLeaks explicitly do not do that. At best, they are a distributor.
    - yesbut 5y ago
      I've never heard of any law that requires a publisher to review / filter information for public consumption. The only responsibility that a publisher at a capitalist media outlet has is to make sure their publications bring in a profit. That is their only "obligation".
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I've never heard of any law that requires a publisher to review / filter information for public consumption The law generally views the publisher as responsible for unlawful (defamatory, copyright infringing, etc.) content without evidence of specific knowledge, whereas distributors are generally liable only when they have specific knowledge of the facts that make the content unlawful. This, in effect, makes publishers responsible for reviewing/filtering content, because if they fail to do so, they will be held responsible. That's the whole source of significanxe of, e.g., the section 230 protection against hosts or other users of online services meeting certain descriptions being treated as the publisher of other-user submitted content.
jasonlotito 5y ago
Wikileaks, which Assange leads, is more than just an editor and/or publisher. WikiLeaks helped arrange Snowden’s escape to Russia from Hong Kong. A WikiLeaks editor also accompanied Snowden to Russia, staying with him during his 39-day enforced stay at a Moscow airport and living with him for three months after Russia granted Snowden asylum. As a reminder, the post you show isn't when the aggression against Wikileaks escalated. You reminder is not true.
hota_mazi 5y ago
This can definitely be one reason but I find your cherry picking very disingenuous. His disclosures have shown a consistent bias to damage the Democrats, support the Republicans, Trump, and the Putin regime. He also endangered the lives of multiple assets by revealing their names and locations. It's a lot more nuanced than you portray it.
- yesbut 5y ago
  This is completely untrue. He used to be loved by the Democrats when he was exposing Bush's war crimes. The claim that he was working with Russia to help Trump came from the Hillary campaign.

tgv 5y ago

It might have been partially activist, that still doesn't justify the extradition. The US had no standing, as I believe it's called. They can declare whatever they want "top secret", but that doesn't make a crime for a citizen of another country to publish it. The hacking and conspiracy claims have been added to make it appear as if they have standing, but these are empty. It's another triumph for big budget lawyer corporations, and an actual loss for the freedom of the press.

bladegash 5y ago
I do not think it is a loss for freedom of the press, I think it is an opportunity for the courts to define what a journalist actually is, vs. not. Perhaps the courts will side with Assange and we will find that this is First Amendment protected activity. I personally do not believe it is, but I do think that this situation is a bit unique to modern times and is likely to set precedent one way or the other.
- tgv 5y ago
  I think it shows that you can put a lid on foreign journalism by drawing your chequebook. Just add a few indictments from the extradition agreement. The UK courts clearly haven't sided with Assange.
- pydry 5y ago
  Russia also does this. Inconvenient journalists are designated "foreign agents", for instance. Redefining journalist can let you imprison any and every journalist.
  - bladegash 5y ago
    Sure, that could happen and be the result out of all this. I think that is jumping to the worst possible conclusion though and the result will be a bit more nuanced than that.
    - pydry 5y ago

the_optimist 5y ago

I respect your perspective but wholly disagree with your conclusion. There is not a viable concept such as whether a journalist “enables espionage.” Journalism is necessarily adversarial, not pliant.

bladegash 5y ago
Thank you for the tactful disagreement and I appreciate your perspective. I also believe journalism is necessarily adversarial and should be allowed to exist with little encumbrance. However, I do think there is a line that needs to be drawn at some point as to what is journalism, versus what is propaganda for a specific agenda masquerading as journalism.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  There's no way to draw this line. The vast majority of commercial journalism is propaganda, unsubstantiated by tangible facts and portrayed in directions strictly favorable to power and pleasing to the audience. Far from jesters speaking truth to power, commercial media are largely courtesans.
- kodablah 5y ago
  > However, I do think there is a line that needs to be drawn at some point as to what is journalism, versus what is propaganda for a specific agenda masquerading as journalism. Why does the intent/purpose of the publisher matter here in any way from a legal prospective? I fear that your opinion of his purpose is forming your opinion of its legality.
  - bladegash 5y ago
    You do not draw a distinction in intent between informing the public and furthering the goals of a foreign adversary? Not saying he was, just an example, of how intent absolutely does matter from a legal perspective.
    - Karunamon 5y ago

pydry 5y ago

>However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage, let alone encourage/incite it. In case my point is unclear, I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy. Your point is pretty clear. You designated exposing war crimes a criminal conspiracy no different from any other. This view isn't compatible with a belief in human rights and democracy.

bladegash 5y ago
No, that is not what I said, nor is that what my point is/was. To reiterate, "Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done." You cannot look at just one small part of what was leaked and ignore the rest. If all that was leaked was the war crimes, then we would not be having this discussion.
- pydry 5y ago
  >No, that is not what I said, nor is that what my point is/was. I see no substantial difference. >To reiterate, "Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done." I really don't understand what you being in Afghanistan is supposed to prove. If anything it suggests that you place a higher value on loyalty to the institution you belonged to that committed these war crimes and covered them up than you do on human rights. Is that not the case? >If all that was leaked was the war crimes, then we would not be having this discussion. Oh, we absolutely would. The case was built specifically around the leak of collateral murder. American espionage law criminalizes leaking evidence of war crimes. Snowden has offered to come home if its scope was tightened to only include actual espionage. Congress demurred. This is what you were fighting for in Afghanistan like it or not - for a group of elites who would toss you in prison for exposing their war crimes without a second's thought.

ben_w 5y ago

Complicated. I feel that an Australian citizen should not expect to be extradited to the USA for publishing information the USA would rather not be published. Still true even if he is an activist, would still be true even for someone genuinely trying to systematically destroy America and American values, if it’s just publication. Free speech etc. For encouraging Americans to break American laws, which I think is the non-legalese summary of the accusation? I don’t know how I feel. The internet (telecoms in general) breaks borders and jurisdiction in ways that are not yet settled even in my own head. Fleeing to an embassy definitely looked dumb to me at the time, and still does now. If someone is told to eat oranges, refuses because they are afraid oranges might be poisoned, volunteers to eat apples instead, runs away when someone tries to force them to eat an orange, then gets given a poisoned apple… I still don’t understand why people say this vindicates the original no-oranges stance.

bladegash 5y ago
Thank you for the thoughtful response and I especially liked the way you put the dilemma related to how the internet breaks borders. Similar to you, it's challenging to wrap my head around and is a pretty big paradigm shift in terms of the sovereignty of countries, let alone the legal implications of that shift.
pydry 5y ago
>For encouraging Americans to break American laws, which I think is the non-legalese summary of the accusation? Were Gandhi/MLK/Rosa Parks wrong when they made a point of breaking unjust laws and encouraging others to follow along? Many liberals at the time thought yes - "the law being the law" and all that. It does sound like you're making the same argument they were?
- tiahura 5y ago
  Assange as Ghandhi. Wow. Remind me about how Rosa Parks ran and hid?
- axiolite 5y ago
  > Were Gandhi/MLK/Rosa Parks wrong when they made a point of breaking unjust laws and encouraging others to follow along? Your question of right/"wrong" is a matter of morality, not legality. Stealing bread to feed a starving person might be morally good, but legally wrong, and nobody should expect to avoid legal consequences because of it. In the case of civil disobedience, those involved do NOT attempt to flee from justice. Being arrested and facing the legal system is an integral part. Assange may just get his chance to emulate Ghandi by spending years in prison...

ttybird2 5y ago

"However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage" "Espionage" like publishing warcrimes. "I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy" Transparency is a government duty. It is a shame but totally justified that private citizens have to enforce it. As for "criminal", sounds like yet another victimless crime. If anything they are exposing crimes. "being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did" Thank you for disclosing that. How many people did you kill (directly or indirectly) and why didn't you try to expose warcrimes? "Assange is an activist, not a journalist. He should not be treated as such" Activists, journalists, and regular citizens should all be treated the same. "is directly related to his own actions (e.g., fleeing to an Embassy)." Yet given how the events turned out it seems that he was right. He was hiding in the embassy in fear that they would try to send him to the US.

bsimpson 5y ago
Spelling like a 9 year old who just discovered an Internet chat room undercuts your credibility, as does attacking the person you're replying to. Your question is abhorrently tasteless and irrelevant, which is about all I can say without violating the forum guidelines myself.
- ttybird2 5y ago
  I am a non-native english speaker typing on a phone without a spellchecher. I also have dislexia. If you have some specific complaints then please do point them out, I would love to improve. I am not sure why you think that this is the case given that the person that I am replying to literally worked for an organisation made for killing people and with a known record of torture and warcrimes. Would you welcome a proud ISIS fighter? I would not. If they killed nobody then they just can say so. I just do not wish to talk to people who murdered people in illegal invasions.
bladegash 5y ago
"Yet given how the events turned out it seems that he was right. He was hiding in the embassy in fear that they would try to send him to the US." If only we could all flee when faced with consequences for breaking laws that we disagree with. "Transparency is a government duty. It is a shame but totally justified that private citizens have to 3nforce it. As for "criminal", sounds like yet another victimless crime. If anything they are exposing crimes." There are absolutely reasons for state secrecy and the breadth of information crossed a line between what was necessary for informing the public, versus damaging to the diplomatic relations and ability to conduct diplomacy with much of the rest of the world. "Thank you for disclosing that. How many people did you kill (directly or indirectly) and why didn't you try to expose warcrimes?" Oh, goodness. Thanks for adding to taking the time to provide your perspective and add to the discussion.

TomSwirly 5y ago

Lots of words. What crime do you think Assange has committed, specifically? > Assange is an activist, not a journalist. Assange has broken two of the biggest stories of our era and literally hundreds of stories each of which would be a reputation-maker for a lesser individual. Just because you don't like the truths that Assange reveals, doesn't mean he isn't a journalist. > any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done. Wikileaks tried to get cooperation from the US government to redact the sensitive parts. They refused to cooperate. Your way would have meant nothing at all. Can you explain what harm you believe these leaks caused, compared to their value in knowing that the US engages in war crimes and covers them up?

TomSwirly 5y ago

> being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, The US invasion of Afghanistan was a complete failure and one that allowed the actual guilty party, Osama Bin Laden, to escape. The Taliban offered twice to give up Bin Laden but Bush refused even to discuss it with them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te... Both the CIA and the FBI concluded that no one in the Taliban had any idea of 9/11 before it happened, which is very logical, because you aren't successful at conspiracies by telling everyone. And yet Bush invaded Afghanistan, because he needed to invade somewhere and couldn't invade the actual culprits, Saudi Arabia - Al Qaeda being founded, funded, manned and managed by Saudis. --- Participating in a great war crime that killed hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent people and completely failed militarily, economically, diplomatically, and strategically should not be a matter of pride.

harry8 5y ago

A journalist is /any/ citizen engaging in journalism. ANY. As soon as you have to "qualify" to be a "journalist" and can't be an "activist" What you have is state controlled media. Indiscriminate publishing. So you think the vetting done in partnership with the Washington Post and the New York Times was not journalism and the employees of the NYT and WaPo who are now not journalists should be prosecuted along side him? That's pretty radical.

frabbit 5y ago
Do you think that the comments that are furiously ignoring this and pretending that there is some sort of official journalist title are genuinely ignorant or trying to sow confusion?
- harry8 5y ago
  I think it is mostly driven by emotion and it would be very easy go that way if you didn't follow the story closely and from multiple media sources. It's easy to believe in another context eg pick one of "Maddow/Hannity/Limbaugh/Moore" is not a real journalist by which you mean good source of factual information. This is wildly different from "should/should not have the legal rights of a journalist." Many of the larger newspapers lean toward the former kind of "he's not one of us" and clearly hate him on a personal level, for many reasons one of which is that he de-values their prestige currency of the scoop by having achieved many orders of magnitude more important scoops than they reasonably ever dreamed of without having to have the crap beaten out of him as a young person joining a newsroom like they did. "My editor would never allow me to publish that even though it's completely true and backed with documents proving it." He doesn't have that problem. There's no doubt that the litany of CIA, NSA & FBI openly employed as analysts are pushing a false narrative about it which is repeated often. We saw evidence of that kind of ting pretty clearly with the evidence free suppression of Hunter Biden's laptop contents as "Russian disinformation." Now we know it's real. The contents are minor league attempted sleaze but true. The suppression of it and the constant refrain of "Russians" is vastly more significant and pretty worrying. People have be led to think of Wikileaks and Assange as "Anti-American." Pretty obvious that the Military would want to frame it that way. And it's reasonable not to like anti-american stuff. It's not so very far to go from there to thinking CIA lies are actually anti-american and reporting the truth about massive corruption and illegality in government is what has made the American experiment with democracy work and so is pro-american. I don't know the extent to which the CIA and NSA etc actually use social media comments to push a narrative, I'd really, really hope it was none. Was there anything about that in Edward Snowden's revalations?

dukeofdoom 5y ago

If publishing leaked information is punishable by the state, than what kind of press would you have? Its precisely the most contentious things that the state wants to hide, is what often the public needs to know about. The modern corporate press is bad enough as it is. But do you really want to live in a country where legit journalists are jailed for publishing things the government does not want you to know about. Just this week, state prosecutor blanked out almost all the names on Epstein flight logs. Fairly obvious its in the public interest to know which powerful people went there. But powerful people will try to protect other powerful people.

unknownus3r 5y ago

Rational take

pessimizer 5y ago

Being an activist doesn't make you not a journalist, any more than being employed by companies that share portfolio space with the companies that get all of their revenue from supplying war material doesn't mean you're not a journalist. > However, I do not agree that a “journalist” should be able to enable espionage Then you don't really believe that 99% of journalists are journalists, because they would disagree with you. I'm thankful that I don't live in the completely bowdlerized history that would have been the result if more journalists agreed with you.

y-c-o-m-b 5y ago

What does it matter if he's an "activist" or "journalist"? He exposed war crimes. He IS being persecuted and that fact is being waved in our face out in the open. The punishment doesn't fit the crime, that's the problem. > I consider setting up a website purely designed to encourage leaking of potentially classified information and assisting with the ability to do so as being no different than any other criminal conspiracy. He exposed crimes committed by war criminals. "Criminal conspiracy" is disingenuous. Furthermore the "classified" label is defined by the organization that committed those crimes. Do you think murdering innocent civilians indiscriminately should be classified? You seem to be arguing semantics more than establishing any sort of moral or ethical argument against what he did.

boomboomsubban 5y ago

>that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done. Shouldn't you be pushing for the prosecution of the Guardian journalist that published the encryption keys then? Not Assange who actively worked to get both press and government help to ensure safe disclosure.

VictorPath 5y ago

> Further, I am of the opinion, being someone who was quite literally in Afghanistan when he leaked the information he did, that any probative value of the information Manning leaked was overshadowed by the indiscriminate way in which it was done. It's funny to me that you were marauding around Afghanistan a couple of years ago and would use the word indiscriminate to describe Assange.

busymom0 5y ago

By your definition, 99.9% of “journalists” aren’t journalists because they are all activists. Assange is the purest form of journalist, especially considering things he published were mass reported by other journalists who got awards for their reporting.