I didn’t draw this assignment today, but here’s a thread for you to discuss it anyway.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Half the stuff I read say that Assange is a ravening egomaniac Trump-enabler who was targeted by powerful interests via sexual assault accusations that were later withdrawn by the accusers, and who is a canary in the coal mine re. whistleblowers and journalism because his actions with Manning were well within the mainstream of national security reporting.
Half the stuff I read say that Assange is a ravening egomaniac Trump-enabler who still faces rape charges and who deserves whatever he gets.
Any thoughts on this: https:/theintercept.com/2019/04/10/wendell-primus-the-most-powerful-staffer-in-congress-represents-
a-generational-divide-on-the-left
Is it weird that this seems anti-climatic? Such a big deal was made about people wanting him protected and it looks like he’s just a garden variety raving loon off his meds.
Isn’t that the way it almost always is?
Imagine that guy they hauled away being in your embassy for 6 years.
.
Smearing his human waste on the wall. Yeah that fish overstayed its welcome a long time ago.
The scene of Assange struggling with multiple law enforcement officers as he was placed in the vehicle reminded me quite a bit of the scene at the end of “Fargo” when Jerry Lundergaard was arrested.
The association made me extremely happy.
The perp walk out of the embassy made my day. Will take any positive development where Julian is concerned with glee.
I will not be surprised if he gets a big dose of radiation while he’s waiting for extradition. The Russians have no desire to see him stand trial.
Seems like a bad move if he’s extradited and charged here over the Manning stuff. Yeah there’s a pretext in the indictment of hacking, but lots of lawyers seem to agree it’s kind of flimsy.
If they could charge him for conspiracy with respect to the Russia investigation, that might be different.
Send the accused rapist to Sweden rather than make a martyr out of a fascist.
Assange did a whole lot of damage to the United States. I’m happy with the prospect that we’ll hold him to some account, even if he’s not prosecuted for every truly terrible and terrifically dishonest thing he’s done.
FUCK the people who are declaring him a martyr today. People who are still dedicated to carrying Assange’s water after all we’ve discovered about what he did in 2016 are explicit enemies of the progressive movement.
Further proof of this; since 2016, Assange and WikiLeaks have conducted nonstop attacks on the Democratic Party and its leaders and made ZERO revelations of the terrific corruption of Trump, Republicans, and their billionaire enablers. The WikiLeaks spigot of stolen information is closed tight when it comes to the racist, sexist, oligarchic movement Trump leads.
Are we kids, or what?
Ok, but Donald Trump with potential help from lackey Bob Barr has also expressed desires to throw actual journalists in jail like every other despot. Do you not see the danger in pushing those lines? He hasn’t been charged with any of the Russian conspiracy hack/leak, and until he is it is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Putting Julian Assange in jail for at most five years to endanger journalists isn’t something I’m going to get behind. Sorry.
The single charge which has been filed against Assange is not for publishing stolen information. The charge is for the personal assistance he provided to help steal information. That puts him in a substantially different category than other journalists or (non)-citizens.
The discovery that there appears to be provable evidence that Assange proactively assisted in the committing of a crime is not surprising. He displayed a similar sort of personal character by agreeing to be a secret cutout for the Russian government after their agents committed their crimes against the DNC and Podesta, all while publicly and specifically denying he was forwarding information stolen by Russian government agents, thus denying the public crucial information which would help us judge the veracity of the releases and the motivations behind them. Although Assange is not expected to be criminally charged in association with this fact pattern, the Federal government appears ready to prove these facts in a court of law thru its indictment of the Russian agents.
Julian also appears to have communicated with multiple people connected to the Trump campaign before, during and after the time period he was curating and selectively releasing this stolen information, all while (pathetically) denying that he was attempting to help Trump get elected, again denying the public crucial information which would help us judge the veracity of the releases and the motivations behind them.
It does not appear that Assange is going to be criminally charged for the actions summarized in the last two paragraphs, and he should not be. I would hope that the Justice Department’s declination to charge him for his truly malevolent behavior and dissemination of false information during and after the 2016 Presidential campaign provides pause to concerns that these charges reflect an attitude toward journalists. There are plentiful things Trump has said which reflect a desire to punish journalists, but those appear to me to be quite separate from this arrest and charge against a person whose actions do not follow any acceptable journalistic model.
I’m content to wait if actual indictments against him come out. I’m aware of the difference between what journalists do and what Assange did, but reading the indictment does not fill me with any sort of resolve — it’s too close for comfort, and for five years?
In any case, Orin Kerr is convinced this is a “placeholder” indictment for more criminal charges to come. I’ll buy that.
To be more specific on my points here: when asked by journalists if he was releasing information provided to him by Russian government agents, Assange could have refused to comment on his source. That would have been a typical behavior of a professional or citizen journalist. Instead, he explicitly denied that Russian government agents were involved.
And, when asked by journalists if he was working to see to it that Donald Trump was elected President and if he had made or accepted contacts with the Trump campaign, Assange could have refused to comment. That would have been a typical behavior of a professional or citizen journalist. Instead, he explicitly denied that he wanted to get Trump elected President, and he explicitly denied he had made or accepted contacts with the Trump campaign.
These are not the behaviors of anyone we should call a journalist.
Has he ever been indicted for anything pertaining to the Russian intervention in 2016? If not it is not clear they can do so now even if Barr would allow it. The only thing they have on him is the Manning thing and I am not sure how substantive that is. I admit to being in the dark about this guy. Feel free to enlighten.
He’s being charged as a co-conspirator in theft of Pentagon data, not as a journalist. The first amendment is not legally relevant, because theft is illegal.
He is being charged with hacking the password for Manning, carries a five year sentence. Manning stole hundreds of thousands of documents and two videos.
This is about the manning stuff. The childish path to me is not concerning yourself over how the precedent will chill journalism as a whole.
They didnt indict him on that stuff, they indicted him on the manning information. Manning like Snowden was a goddamn hero. Manning might have gone about it in a far more irresponsible way than Snowden but that doesnt change that manning did the right thing.
Manning very much unlike Snowden was a goddamn hero.
Not every often that we see a frog-march worthy of this blog’s logo.
Years ago John Kerry said if the public knew what Assange really did, they’d know how much he hurt/betrayed the US. I believe Kerry, especially since Russia is now denouncing Assange’s arrest.
Now onto Roger Stone….
The indictment is carefully drawn up: It is for helping Manning hack a password. Assange is not being charged as a journalist for receiving leaks, but as a co-conspirator in the theft of classified Pentagon data.
Hacking a password is a crime, not a legitimate journalistic technique, and as Matthew Miller states at Mediaite, “prosecuting it does not threaten journalism or the first amendment.”
The Dangers of the Assange Indictment
We can all understand the factual differences. However, under the legal analysis it’s harder to find those differences, and under an authoritarian DOJ combined with an authoritarian president could stretch this further, as shown with the Leopold example.
See also Julian Sanchez: link
Key part: “Yes, Assange offering to help crack a password is morally different. But it’s being charged under the exact same section of 18 USC §1030 that covers transmitting classified information to someone who’s not cleared (like a reporter).”