This is America. The way we arrive at a decision on matters of this sort...is by a trial.

That is what I want to see. — Frank Apisa

A trial on the charge of committing journalism.

stand a fair trial; — Frank Apisa

yeah, about that...

:up:

fishfry
536

This is America. The way we arrive at a decision on matters of this sort...is by a trial.

That is what I want to see. — Frank Apisa


A trial on the charge of committing journalism. — fishfry

That is not what he is charged with.

— Banno

Are you also saying he is charged with committing journalism?

If so, you are incorrect.

(Shakes head and walks away)

Here's were we came in...

Collateral Murder

Are you also saying he is charged with committing journalism? — Frank Apisa

Yes. I say that. Please read what Glenn Greenwald has to say. He breaks it down in detail. The "computer hacking" charge is a blatant lie.

https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indictment-of-julian-assange-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedoms/

The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manning obtain access to document databases to which she had no valid access: i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. Rather, it simply accuses Assange of trying to help Manning log into the Defense Department’s computers using a different username so that she could maintain her anonymity while downloading documents in the public interest and then furnish them to WikiLeaks to publish.

In other words, the indictment seeks to criminalize what journalists are not only permitted but ethically required to do: take steps to help their sources maintain their anonymity. As longtime Assange lawyer Barry Pollack put it: “The factual allegations … boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.”

There's much more in the article. Please read it.

fishfry
538

Are you also saying he is charged with committing journalism? — Frank Apisa


Yes. I say that. Please read what Glenn Greenwald has to say. He breaks it down in detail. The "computer hacking" charge is a blatant lie.

https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indictment-of-julian-assange-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedoms/

The other key fact being widely misreported is that the indictment accuses Assange of trying to help Manning obtain access to document databases to which she had no valid access: i.e., hacking rather than journalism. But the indictment alleges no such thing. Rather, it simply accuses Assange of trying to help Manning log into the Defense Department’s computers using a different username so that she could maintain her anonymity while downloading documents in the public interest and then furnish them to WikiLeaks to publish.

In other words, the indictment seeks to criminalize what journalists are not only permitted but ethically required to do: take steps to help their sources maintain their anonymity. As longtime Assange lawyer Barry Pollack put it: “The factual allegations … boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source. Journalists around the world should be deeply troubled by these unprecedented criminal charges.”


There's much more in the article. Please read it. — fishfry

If Glenn Greenwald wants to come here to discuss this with me...he is welcome to come.

I am discussing it with the people who are here.

Here is what I am saying to you: Assange IS NOT being charged with "journalism."

We do not know for certain what he is being charged with...but it appears he is being charged with aiding Chelsea Manning (when she was Bradley Manning) to hack government computers in order to obtain unauthorized access to government classified documents.

We do not know for certain what he is being charged with...but it appears he is being charged with aiding Chelsea Manning (when she was Bradley Manning) to hack government computers in order to obtain unauthorized access to government classified documents. — Frank Apisa

I'll state Greenwald's observations in my own words so that if you are so inclined, you can discuss them here.

Assange is charged with helping Manning "hack," or penetrate, a government computer; meaning to access files that Manning was not entitled to see.

On the contrary, what Assange actually did was to (unsuccessfully) assist Manning in attempting to cover her tracks when she was accessing files that she already had legal access to. In doing so, Assange was conforming to standard journalistic practice when dealing with whistleblowers and other sources who dare not have their identity disclosed. For Assange to have done anything other than assist Manning in disguising her identity, would have been journalistic malpractice.

Secondly, I do of course take your point that Assange might (or might not; time will tell) have the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law. I assert to the contrary that any such prosecution (and there's a long long way to go before any such proceeding happens) is essentially illegitimate. The US prosecution (and persecution) of Assange is more like a show trial in a banana republic. You may recall that nothing that happened in Nazi Germany was illegal. That's because the law and the judiciary themselves became corrupted.

Assange is a political prisoner. That should color your analysis regarding this idea of a fair trial. The very idea that he's on trial in the first place is indecent.

The US prosecution (and persecution) of Assange is more like a show trial in a banana republic. You may recall that nothing that happened in Nazi Germany was illegal. That's because the law and the judiciary themselves became corrupted. Assange is a political prisoner. That should color your analysis regarding this idea of a fair trial. The very idea that he's on trial in the first place is indecent. — fishfry

I was with you up to this point. There hasn't been a trial. Why are you raving about something that hasn't happened?

Anyway, we need to question him about his work for Russia regarding the 2016 election.

I was with you up to this point. There hasn't been a trial. Why are you raving about something that hasn't happened? — frank

I'm not raving. I object to that characterization. It's @Frank Apisa who said that his standard for judging this affair is that Assange will (in theory) get a fair trial. As I countered that thesis, I noted at least twice that we are a very long way from Assange being tried in the US. Surely you can see that I clearly acknowledged that point. It's right there in my post, twice.

Anyway, we need to question him about his work for Russia regarding the 2016 election. — frank

Man that ship has sailed. There was an election and Hillary lost. There was no collusion. Assange has stated that Russia was not the source for the DNC leaks. And why didn't the DNC allow the FBI to inspect their computers? Might they have shown that the hack was strictly local, as has already been technically demonstrated?

The DNC hack was an inside job and there is forensic evidence to that effect.

https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/

There's another election coming up. Next time run a better candidate. I myself would be glad to vote for him or her.

The US prosecution (and persecution) of Assange is more like a show trial in a banana republic. — fishfry

The above part is raving. There hasn't been a trial. We may disappear Assange banana-republic-style. Or we may try him for hacking a government computer in exactly the same way we would try any journalist for hacking a government computer.

Anyway, we need to question him about his work for Russia regarding the 2016 election.
— frank

Man that ship has sailed. — fishfry

We haven't asked him any questions yet. How has anything sailed?

There hasn't been a trial. — frank

There has been persecution. Last week's arrest was such. The IMF gave Ecuador $4 billion the week earlier. Just a coincidence I'm sure.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-imf/ecuador-inks-4-2-billion-financing-deal-with-imf-moreno-idUSKCN1QA05Z

We haven't asked him any questions yet. How has anything sailed? — frank

Yeah, curious that Mueller didn't try to ask Assange about that.

What's sailed is the Russia hysteria. It's over. And what do you think about the Nation article I linked?

Yeah, curious that Mueller didn't try to ask him. — fishfry

He didn't have a chance to ask him, did he?

I'm not sure why anybody even knows who Assange is. Why didn't he hide his own identity? Do you know?

I'm not sure why anybody even knows who Assange is. Why didn't he hide his own identity? Do you know? — frank

Assange is the publisher of WikiLeaks. Manning is the soldier whoturned over to Assange evidence of horrific US war crimes.

Assange unsuccessfully attempted to assist Manning in obscuring Manning's identity. Was that the question?

That's because Manning was accessing the files in order to turn them over to Assange. What Manning did was a crime. What Assange did was journalism. Classic Pentagon papers precedent. That's exactly why the US cooked up this bogus "hacking" charge. They knew they'd lose on the issue of the right of publishers to publish material that was turned over to them by someone who stole it. [Manning's access was legal but of course that did not confer the right to turn the material over to a publisher].

He should have set up a secondary leakage outlet without any traceable connection to himself and put anything that has to do with American classified information on the secondary site. He was either stupid or looking for personal glory.

Assange is a political prisoner. — fishfry

I don't think we can say that at this stage. At present he is held on charges of skipping bail for charges of sexual assault in Sweden, which is fair enough. If Sweden were to reactivate its charges and Assange were to be extradited to there solely to be tried on those charges, that would be fair enough. Or the UK could just jail him for a year if he is convicted of the charge of skipping bail, and then let him go free. That too would be fair enough.

But if the UK government were to extradite him to the US, or even to detain him solely for the purpose of considering such an extradition, he would absolutely be a political prisoner.

Julian Assange fuelled conspiracy theories by falsely suggesting that a murdered Democratic party employee leaked damaging information about Hillary Clinton's campaign to WikiLeaks rather than Russian hackers, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

A veteran Democratic Party consultant said Mueller's report proved once and for all that Assange is "a monster, not a journalist" and that this should not be forgotten following his recent arrest in London.

In July 2016 WikiLeaks published approximately 20,000 emails that had been stolen from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and later released a massive cache of emails that had been sent or received by Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta.

Mueller's redacted report, released on Thursday local time, shows that Assange repeatedly suggested that Seth Rich, a 27-year old DNC employee who was murdered in Washington D.C in 2016, was the source of the leaks.

In the days following Rich's death, right-wing conspiracy theories began circulating that he had been assassinated and that his murder was connected to the DNC email hack.

The claim has been debunked by multiple fact checking sites and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia said Rich's murder was the result of a bungled attempted robbery.

"Beginning in the summer of 2016, Assange and WikiLeaks made a number of statements about Seth Rich, a former DNC staff member who was killed in July 2016," Mueller's report states in a section on Russian hacking.

"The statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen DNC emails.

"On August 9, 2016, the @WikiLeaks Twitter account posted: 'ANNOUNCE: WikiLeaks has decided to issue a US$20k reward for information leading to conviction for the murder ofDNC staffer Seth Rich.'

"Likewise, on August 25, 2016, Assange was asked in an interview, 'Why are you so interested in Seth Rich’s killer?' and responded, 'We’re very interested in anything that might be a threat to alleged Wikileaks sources.'"

Later in the interview Assange said: "If there’s someone who’s potentially connected to our publication, and that person has been murdered in suspicious circumstances, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the two are connected.

"But it is a very serious matter...that type of allegation is very serious, as it’s taken very seriously by us."

Mueller's report shows that Assange went far further than WikiLeaks' usual practice of not revealing its sources. Instead he actively spread misinformation about the genesis of the Clinton leaks.

Even after the US intelligence community publicly stated that Russia was behind the hacking operation, Assange continued to deny that Russian hackers were behind the leaks.

Sydney Morning Herald.

I think it's indisutable that Assange became motivated by a deep hatred of Hillary Clinton and that Wikileaks to all intents and purposes acted as a defacto Russian agency during the 2016 presidential campaign. As has been noted, Trump mentioned Wikileaks favourably 114 times during the campaign when it was producing information that he believed was damaging to his political opponents.

Also it should be noted that Assange is not a journalist and that Wikileaks does not abide by any of the rules or conventions of publishers. Whilst wikileaks certainly exposed some egregious criminal acts by it was also completely indiscriminate in its distribution of sensitive information including publishing unredacted details of US informants in active theatres of war and thereby exposing them to mortal risk (not that anyone would know if there were such consequences.)

fishfry
542

We do not know for certain what he is being charged with...but it appears he is being charged with aiding Chelsea Manning (when she was Bradley Manning) to hack government computers in order to obtain unauthorized access to government classified documents. — Frank Apisa


I'll state Greenwald's observations in my own words so that if you are so inclined, you can discuss them here.

Assange is charged with helping Manning "hack," or penetrate, a government computer; meaning to access files that Manning was not entitled to see.

On the contrary, what Assange actually did was to (unsuccessfully) assist Manning in attempting to cover her tracks when she was accessing files that she already had legal access to. In doing so, Assange was conforming to standard journalistic practice when dealing with whistleblowers and other sources who dare not have their identity disclosed. For Assange to have done anything other than assist Manning in disguising her identity, would have been journalistic malpractice.

Secondly, I do of course take your point that Assange might (or might not; time will tell) have the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law. I assert to the contrary that any such prosecution (and there's a long long way to go before any such proceeding happens) is essentially illegitimate. The US prosecution (and persecution) of Assange is more like a show trial in a banana republic. You may recall that nothing that happened in Nazi Germany was illegal. That's because the law and the judiciary themselves became corrupted.

Assange is a political prisoner. That should color your analysis regarding this idea of a fair trial. The very idea that he's on trial in the first place is indecent. — fishfry

We do not know what Manning is charged with yet. Greenwald doesn't either. But WHATEVER it is...it is a charge brought by our government...and Assange should stand trial.

Whether you feel it will be a fair trial or not does not matter to me. I am confident that my country can bring charges and conduct a fair trial...and that is what I expect.

We determine the guilt or non-guilt by a trial.

There is no way I buy into your assertion that the prosecution or the charges are illegitimate. That is for the courts to decide.

Whether you feel it will be a fair trial or not does not matter to me. I am confident that my country can bring charges and conduct a fair trial...and that is what I expect. — Frank Apisa

I used to share your optimism and faith. I no longer do. My loss of faith happened when Bush turned the US into a torture regime ... and then Obama institutionalized the practice by not holding anyone accountable.

↪fishfry He should have set up a secondary leakage outlet without any traceable connection to himself and put anything that has to do with American classified information on the secondary site. He was either stupid or looking for personal glory. — frank

Sorry, I lost track of the referent. He Assange? Or he Manning?

Was the New York Times looking for "personal glory" when they published the Pentagon papers? Or were they simply journalists doing their job: reporting facts that powerful people want concealed?

Also it should be noted that Assange is not a journalist — Wayfarer

Assange most certainly is a journalist. It is not required of a journalist to be accredited by the State. Numerous US court cases have upheld the rights of citizen journalists -- that is, people with cellphones and cameras and eyeballs and pencils -- to report the news.

Assange most certainly is a journalist — fishfry

He calls himself a journalist but he has no qualifications in that discipline and has never worked for accredited media. And Wikileaks doesn’t observe any of the conventions required of accredited media organisations. Basically it’s a platform where anonymous users are able to copy anything they want.

if what you say were true then there are no independent, alternative news sources that count as journals. Basically bullshit!

Was the New York Times looking for "personal glory" when they published the Pentagon papers? Or were they simply journalists doing their job: reporting facts that powerful people want concealed? — fishfry

I understand. I think he was working for the Russian government, though.

if what you say were true then there are no independent, alternative news sources that count as journals. Basically bullshit! — Janus

But independent news outlets still undertake certain conventions, such as protection of witness names, and so on. When Wikileaks did that huge dump of classified military cables ten years ago, many of the names of US informants in Iraq were left unredacted, i.e. in plain text. This was the very thing that caused his then-colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg to leave Wikileaks and write a scathing book about Assange's professional practices, or lack thereof. He said at the time that many of these informants had been exposed to retaliation, imprisonment or death - not that it was possible to verify this, as it was in the chaotic aftermath of the Iraqi occupation.

Also because of its purportedly anonymous nature, then nobody's name is 'on the masthead', so to speak. Even an independent website or journal has a publisher, with a name and address, who is ultimately responsible for what it publishes. There is no such mechanism with Wikileaks.

Don't mistake Assange for a white knight. He might have been, but he's not.

Basically, Wikileaks was simply a large google drive, into which anything could be uploaded. It was not a journal or website, as such. Basically, Assange wasn't a journalist, but wrapped himself in 'freedom of the press' whilst obeying none of its rules. Essentially he became an outlaw and a fugitive - which is what you're seeing.

But independent news outlets still undertake certain conventions, such as protection of witness names, and so on. When Wikileaks did that huge dump of classified military cables ten years ago, many of the names of US informants in Iraq were left unredacted, i.e. in plain text. — Wayfarer

As somebody already pointed out, Assange did try to help his informant, Manning, to conceal his identity. The "informants" you speak of here were not Assange's informants, but were working for US intelligence. They were, if indeed they were harmed which is not proven, so-called "collateral damage".

Are you claiming that anything at all could have been uploaded to Wikileaks. that there was no vetting going on?

They were, if indeed they [i.e. Iraqi informants] were harmed which is not proven, so -called "collateral damage". — Janus

Oh the irony. 'Collateral damage' was precisely the name of the video which made Assange famous.

Are you claiming that anything at all could have uploaded to Wikileaks. that there was no vetting? — Janus

That was the whole point of the outlet. No holds barred, anything at all.