First of all, Manning was trying to crack a system, which has nothing to do with hacking, properly understood. Secondly, they obviously mean "special" in that she was not expected to use Linux in connection with her duties - much less to boot a system running some other OS. The context is what makes this "special".
> trying to crack a system, which has nothing to do with hacking, properly understood
As much as I'd like that distinction to be made, I think that boat sailed a long time ago. I think the public has a clearer distinction between white/gray/black hat hackers than between hackers/crackers.
Strictly speaking, the way the CFAA works is that if files stored on a hard disk are protected by permissions and not actual encryption or anything, and you load that hard drive into another operating system that ignores those permissions, you have accessed things you are not supposed to and in violation of the law. So yes, using a different operating system can be punishable
It's similar to a way the open window or door in your house does not suddenly make stealing all your stuff legal
If you brought a drill to your government office to break into a safe that you didn't have keys or authorization to open, that would read as "brought and used special hardware, a drill, to open the safe". Even if said drill is available at the local hardware store.
The indictment charges that he conspired to crack passwords on government computers. It appears that the free press protections extend to only accepting documents, and not pursuing of them. This makes sense to me on its face. Newspapers reporters hacking into government networks goes beyond reporting, and should not be journalistically protected.
Honestly I’d rather live in a world where those who expose government conspiracies and corruption are protected than one where they are held to the letter of a law.
Wow, seems pretty flimsy, compared to the effort they are putting in. But they need a head for the chopping block and the higher the profile the better the fit.
well when obama was president assange was hiding in the embassy so I think attributing much significance to fact the obama administration did not issue this indictment is a bit tenuous.
Yeah it seems that's true/I was wrong. I was reading george conway's twitter and I saw this tweet thread by a washingtonpost journalist `If this is the only subject to which the charges relate (& there are none on election interference or other topics), that’s notable. It also raises the question of what changed from when the Obama administration decided it couldn’t make a case, aside from political/DoJ leadership'
Almost certainly done so that Assange can be brought to USA for testimony in the fallout of the failed Mueller probe. Calling it now: Assange will walk free.
People who don't get that distinction might benefit by considering crimes such as Attempted Robbery and Attempted Murder. Indeed, attempting to commit a crime is pretty much always a crime in and of itself.
Imagine if would-be kidnapper got off the hook just because the intended victim ran fast enough to get away. Or a wannabe bomber who fudged the recipe.
Lots of people will do that. Wikileaks included, probably. It is still the case that DoJ went to extra effort to print out and rescan an electronic file they already had in electronic form. They did that for an obvious reason; this document falls embarrassingly short of even DoJ's already low standards. Most DoJ personnel are not rabid centrist Democrats. The sooner everyone forgets about this tawdry episode, the happier they'll be.
The almost decade long defamation campaign to silence Assange has worked to the point where I might as well be defending a pedophile, yet all the DOJ could come up with was cracking a hash.
> yet all the DOJ could come up with was cracking a hash
I find it funny when people minimize actions to the barest minimum.
Like saying a gun murderer got jail for "only pulling a lever, which law abiding people do tens of times a day".
If a US president starts a thermonuclear war and causes nuclear winter: "All he did was enter numbers and press a few red buttons, stop giving him a hard time".
From my observation, you are being downvoted for politically motivated reasons. I would not expect a discussion of quality or fairness about this topic on this or any other website. Anyone can look at Assange and see in him whatever they want to see, and both the media and politicians have exploited this for six or seven years and the people on this forum really are just like people on any other forum.
>What's with the downvotes? Can I hear a different opinion?
Sure, completely without any connection to any opinions on whether Assange should be tried or not, or any of the politics, the parent is engaging in some real silliness/ignorance, and that shouldn't be upvoted on HN even if it agrees with your politics. In particular:
It certainly didn't take the government 8 years to investigate this, this is obviously a politically motivated prosecution.
These don't follow. No, it didn't take the government 8 years to investigate this, but that's not relevant either. The government can perfectly well find all the evidence they need, but if they're simply physically unable to get at the suspect they can then sit on the case as long as any applicable statute of limitations hasn't run out (and not everything has a statute of limitations). They may choose not to prosecute for various reasons, including simple lack of resources or impossibility. But none of this at all bars them, either legally or morally in my opinion, from later attempting a prosecution if the opportunity ever allows. That does not make it "obviously a politically motivated prosecution", nor is it unheard of even in very serious cases like terrorism bombings, murder, and so forth. Some people are very good at evasion and hiding, but the true government superpower is patience. They file it away, but they don't forget. They'll just wait, but that doesn't mean a crime goes away unless there is a statute of limitations that explicitly makes it go away eventually by law.
If parent poster wants to make a case for universal expiration, that any crime should cease to be prosecutable if it goes cold or suspects can stay away for long enough, then they should just do so. There is genuinely a real argument to be made there. But a suspect being granted protection by another country and then the government just waiting, and then the wheels grinding into motion once again if the opportunity ever allows, is not by itself some weird thing. It doesn't justify the hysteria, nor the call for people to give him money.
>The government can perfectly well find all the evidence they need, but if they're simply physically unable to get at the suspect they can then sit on the case as long as any applicable statute of limitations hasn't run out
Why did they not indict him before 2018? I don't think that has anything to do with the US government being physically unable to get to him. It's not normal procedure to delay indictment, the normal procedure is to keep the indictment sealed.
Obama DOJ had decided to not indict Assange for this, this is a politically motivated prosecution by the Trump administration.
>Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organizations and writers who published classified material, including The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Everyone who follows WL already knew about this hash thing in 2011, it was brought up in detail during the Manning trial. The DOJ was well aware of the possibility of indicting Assange over this, but opted to not do so until recently.
>If parent poster wants to make a case for universal expiration, that any crime should cease to be prosecutable if it goes cold or suspects can stay away for long enough
This has nothing at all to do with what I'm saying. I'm saying that DOJ flipflopping on this indicates that this was a politically motivated decision.
You're conflating two different things: publishing classified material, which the DOJ under Obama didn't charge, and a CFAA violation.
Assange is getting charged for a CFAA violation. "Hacking" isn't a great description of what the law forbids. It forbids obtaining information by "intentionally access[ing] a computer without authorization or exceed[ing] authorized access".
Could be they just saw no reason to bother because there was no possibility of getting him. There is no requirement to indict someone immediately upon collecting evidence, indictment is merely the formal accusation of a felony issued by a grand jury. I don't understand why some of you seem to consider this some wild thing. Furthermore, even if they had all this evidence nobody may have sat down and come up with a legal theory sufficiently tailored, and in fact you yourself raise this in the rest of your post:
>Obama DOJ had decided to not indict Assange for this, this is a politically motivated prosecution by the Trump administration.
Your source does not support this leap. In fact quite the contrary:
>Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organizations and writers who published classified material, including The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Your quote doesn't even make sense exactly because prosecutors never "have to prosecute" anything. But that aside, what we see now is that they haven't indicted him for "publishing classified material" or anything like that, they've found a genuine potential crime (if proven) that is about direct material aid provided by Assange alone. Going after publishing would invite all sorts of 1A arguments and would probably fail unless the papers were directly involved. But unless the NYT and others were in direct contact with Manning and trying to help her break through government security themselves, this charge doesn't in any way involve them.
I mean, you do see how your own accusations here are symmetric right? Someone could just as well argue that it was Obama making a politically motivated decision not to indict, though I think that'd be a silly argument too. Ask "if at some point in the last 7 years Assange had suddenly voluntarily left and returned directly to the USA and announced he was willing to face whatever they would bring, would the US have then prosecuted or not?"
>Could be they just saw no reason to bother because there was no possibility of getting him. There is no requirement to indict someone immediately upon collecting evidence, indictment is merely the formal accusation of a felony issued by a grand jury. I don't understand why some of you seem to consider this some wild thing
I don't think you know what you're talking about. It is quite unusual to delay indictment like this, perhaps you can find some other examples to prove me wrong?
>Furthermore, even if they had all this evidence nobody may have sat down and come up with a legal theory sufficiently tailored, and in fact you yourself raise this in the rest of your post:
>Someone could just as well argue that it was Obama making a politically motivated decision not to indict, though I think that'd be a silly argument too.
There's an extreme difference between politically motivated indictment and politically motivated non-indictment. That's not silly, that's asinine.
>It is quite unusual to delay indictment like this
It is quite unusual for the suspect to be granted asylum and holed up in a foreign embassy for 7 years too. The entire case is unusual. You don't get to just handwave that away as convenient and appeal to regular cases where none of that comes up. You're the one making the accusations here, so how about you start citing some positive evidence in support? Cite the law or legal precedent that requires indictment in some amount of time, and discuss how that plays out with any expirations, upkeep requirements, or potential for leaks even if it's sealed (and remember with that last one that this very indictment was in fact leaked accidentally, is that more or less likely the more years it exists?).
>Are you kidding? It's the exact same legal theory they had prepared in 2011
Curious then how you chose to first claim that Obama didn't prosecute because it'd necessarily mean going after the media. Can you try to keep your story straight here?
>There's an extreme difference between politically motivated indictment and politically motivated non-indictment. That's not silly, that's asinine.
No there isn't. That's completely absurd, if the Russian intelligence service came over to America next time around and gave someone polonium again like they did in the UK and the whole thing was captured on film, but Trump chose not to indict because it'd imperil some gas deal, are you saying that's no problem or only a minimal issue because hey, he's only "not indicting" right?
>It is quite unusual for the suspect to be granted asylum and holed up in a foreign embassy for 7 years too
There is nothing unusual at all about suspects going into hiding. This is everyday stuff for prosecutions, and the normal thing to do is to indict and keep it sealed, not wait years to indict for funsies.
> the law or legal precedent that requires indictment in some amount of time, and discuss how that plays out with any expirations, upkeep requirements, or potential for leaks even if it's sealed
Why should I? I'm criticizing this indictment as politically motivated, this doesn't have all that much to with the law.
>Curious then how you chose to first claim that Obama didn't prosecute because it'd necessarily mean going after the media. Can you try to keep your story straight here?
That was not my claim, you're being ridiculous. That was wapo quoting DOJ officials.
Can you stop trying to deliberately muddy the waters with this nonsense? You're focusing on twisting my words instead of trying to make an honest argument.
>Can you stop trying to deliberately muddy the waters with this nonsense? You're focusing on twisting my words instead of trying to make an honest argument.
FWIW the feeling is mutual, I see you as doing exactly that to me. Which maybe means we're kind of talking past each other. I don't really want to endlessly go down that rabbit hole because I don't even think you're necessarily wrong to be upset. But I also think your original post failed to make a quality argument, was very low content for a big claim, that "politically motivated" gets tossed around way too lightly (and is a weak argument regardless) and the reasoning you gave is particularly non-sensical (normally such an argument would talk about the motivations of the Administration or prosecutors, although inconveniently for that this Administration has tons of on the record statements about loving Wikileaks). It's also irritating how you have then tried to flip the standard of evidence when it was you who made the accusation. Next time, maybe in your original post tell us what the law and history is around indictments as you understand/have researched it, why this one stands out (not your feelings, actual numbers), why this particular incident of "politics" was wrong if that's what it was (since it was international of course it had to involve "politics" but that's a broader brush then you implied), etc. Putting that all out upfront saves everyone a lot of time trying to endlessly nail down basics down-thread.
This prosecution is clearly politically motivated. Previous admin chose not to indict, politics happened and new admin decided to dig it up again.
That doesn't (and shouldn't!) render the criminal charges against Assange invalid.
The lack of legislation regarding politically motivated prosecutions doesn't mean that we shouldn't criticize them when they happen. It is simply wrong for governments to target individuals like this.
>normally such an argument would talk about the motivations of the Administration or prosecutors, although inconveniently for that this Administration has tons of on the record statements about loving Wikileaks
Pompeo and Mattis sure love WL! The administration isn't a single person, I'm sure Trump loves Pompeo far more than he cares for WL.
Besides, indicting Assange is an obvious move to discredit the Russia conspiracy theorist crowd.
>Next time, maybe in your original post tell us what the law and history is around indictments as you understand/have researched it, why this one stands out (not your feelings, actual numbers), why this particular incident of "politics" was wrong if that's what it was (since it was international of course it had to involve "politics" but that's a broader brush then you implied), etc.
> This prosecution is clearly politically motivated. Previous admin chose not to indict, politics happened and new admin decided to dig it up again.
That is not a logical statement.
One administration choosing to treat a case differently than another administration can happen without bad politics. Different people see things differently. Assange's recent loss of asylum got the attention of new decision makers so the timing doesn't mean anything either.
Your original and continued statements amount to: "I have no evidence but darn it I know it!"
Of course bad politics could be involved. I.e. a campaign PR move, instead of making rational decisions in the countries interest. But you didn't reference any evidence.
Here is some evidence: Trump doesn't seem to approach anything without overwhelming self-interest. (That argument has nothing to do with your nonsensical argument.)
But that is not conclusive. Maybe someone competent made a well thought out decision (whether or not you and I agree with it).
>Assange's recent loss of asylum got the attention of new decision makers so the timing doesn't mean anything either
Both the indictment and extradition request long predate Assanges loss of asylum.
>One administration choosing to treat a case differently than another administration can happen without bad politics.
I believe it is inherently bad politics to single out an individual case like this. Is Trump DOJ reviewing all cases Obama DOJ decided to not prosecute or did someone just happen to feel like going after Assange?
> There is nothing unusual at all about suspects going into hiding. This is everyday stuff for prosecutions, and the normal thing to do is to indict and keep it sealed, not wait years to indict for funsies.
Are there other examples of suspects being granted asylum by a foreign government? It seems to me like that wouldn't be very likely in a vast majority of cases. It seems just as reasonable that DOJ needed to wait until Ecuador had dropped asylum and given the green light.
It seems like a stretch to say that the timing alone proves this is politically motivated when there were extenuating circumstances preventing the indictment. If you think the political landscape or future charges have a possibility of swaying Ecuador into discontinuing their grant of asylum then this seems like a pretty reasonable course of events.
>Are there other examples of suspects being granted asylum by a foreign government?
I don't know if that matters very much. Unlike most fugitives, DOJ knew exactly where Assange is and that he'd have to come out eventually.
>It seems just as reasonable that DOJ needed to wait until Ecuador had dropped asylum and given the green light.
But DOJ didn't wait until Ecuador dropped the asylum.
>It seems like a stretch to say that the timing alone proves this is politically motivated when there were extenuating circumstances preventing the indictment
There was nothing preventing the indictment, there were circumstances that would prevent unsealing the indictment.
> I don't know if that matters very much. Unlike most fugitives, DOJ knew exactly where Assange is and that he'd have to come out eventually.
Sure, and that's exactly what they did. By waiting for him to come out once Ecuador dropped terminated their asylum. It absolutely matters in that they would be violating Ecuadorian sovereignty by doing anything but waiting for something like this to happen.
> But DOJ didn't wait until Ecuador dropped the asylum.
Well that's just flat out false. Here Moreno (Ecuador's president) says: "Ecuador sovereignly has decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr. Assange in 2012."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHVqbKgsnDw
> There was nothing preventing the indictment, there were circumstances that would prevent unsealing the indictment.
I get your point about filing and then unsealing but that's just mincing words. You can disagree with process but I don't think that makes it "political". I don't pretend to know why prosecutors decide when to file anything and I think you need to bring some proof that this would be improper if you are going to assert some wrongdoing here.
>Well that's just flat out false. Here Moreno (Ecuador's president) says: "Ecuador sovereignly has decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr. Assange in 2012."
The indictment predates your video by many months.
>I get your point about filing and then unsealing but that's just mincing words.
Why was Assange not indicted before 2018 if the indictment wasn’t politically motivated?
During Obama admin DOJ officials said that they did not want to charge Assange for this, the elections suddenly changed this.
> Obama DOJ had decided to not indict Assange for this, this is a politically motivated prosecution by the Trump administration.
Or a politically motivated non-prosecution by the Obama administration. I mean, look, I don't trust the Trump administration as far as I could throw the White House. But I don't really trust the Obama administration with respect to politically-charged prosecution decisions, either. The last administration that I'd really trust with something like that is... um, give me a minute... maybe Carter? Or maybe I was just too young to appreciate that I maybe shouldn't have trusted that administration, either...
But I don't understand this line of thought. Trump vocally likes Assange and wikileaks, while Obama Generally loved the NSA and national surveillance, and seemed perfectly willing to go after Assange.
But if it was politically motivated non-prosecution, that implies that prosecution would be the status quo, and not politically motivated.
Lets say your friend works at the police anti-speeding camera department and reviews footage to issue tickets via mail. He recognizes your plates and does not issue a ticket although you did speed and violated the law, and he gives out tickets to others for the same offenses.
He leaves the job and the new guy comes, reviews the old footage, and notices the missed ticket, and issues you a ticket. Are you saying the second guy committed a biased issuance of a ticket? And that's necessarily a bad thing compared to your friend letting you go?
Assange/WikiLeaks actions have aligned with the interests of Russia often enough in the past few years, that it's an open question of whether they are working with Russian intelligence services.
It certainly seems likely he was acting as a cutout for Russian intel with the DNC leaks.
During the Obama administration, Secretary of State Clinton proposed assassinating Assange with a drone strike. "Can't we just drone this guy?" Given that the Secretary was about to become the most powerful person in the world, Assange would obviously have been highly motivated by self-defense and preservation alone to do whatever he could to thwart the election of someone who has actually called for him to be assassinated and had the means, motive and opportunity to follow through with that threat.
>During the Obama administration, Secretary of State Clinton proposed assassinating Assange with a drone strike.
That was "leaked" by True Pundit, according to "State Department sources". The chance of it being fake is about 99.999%, given that no one with any credibility leaks to fake news sites like True Pundit. They would have leaked to Fox News or NY Times.
Meanwhile, in 2010, Trump called for Assange getting the death penalty.
I didn't have much doubt that he would be indicted, at least after the accidental disclosure of the sealed indictment a few months ago.
People were, I believe, merely refuting the absurd notion that the charges for his sexual assault were some sort of conspiracy.
Remember, the conspiracy was that these charges were a pretext to get him extradited from the UK (which will deport him rather hastily) to Sweden (which has far more liberal laws and isn't part of five eyes).
It never made much sense. His best hope now is actually being deported to Sweden first, then trying his luck there.
He was charged for skipping bail. People shouldn't skip bail unless they feel the court won't give them a fair trial. UK courts give people fair trials (or in this case a fair extradition hearing). He promised to the court to stay at home, so he was released from jail on bail.
He then broke that promise.
7 years ago the argument was "Assange shouldn't be extradited to Sweden because Sweden would extradite him to the U.S" [1]
This was bullshit, if the U.S. wanted to extradite, they could do that just as easily in the UK as in Sweden, and they've now proven that.
Further his argument was he would face torture and/or the death penalty [2]
UK won't extradite him for any reason
1) unless the U.S. files an extradition request (they have now, it's not hard to do),
2) that's approved by a U.K court, which means looking into chances of inhumane treatment, death penalty, etc. Sweden has the same rules.
All of these facts are consistent with what people were saying first thing this morning and yesterday.
> “...Manning did not have administrative-level privileges and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file...”
Clearly only hackers would use a hacker operating system like Linux.
On a government-provided, non-Linux computer? Yes. Everyone else is not using Linux on those.
No need for tricky hacking really. Physical access is total access after all.
First of all, Manning was trying to crack a system, which has nothing to do with hacking, properly understood. Secondly, they obviously mean "special" in that she was not expected to use Linux in connection with her duties - much less to boot a system running some other OS. The context is what makes this "special".
> trying to crack a system, which has nothing to do with hacking, properly understood
As much as I'd like that distinction to be made, I think that boat sailed a long time ago. I think the public has a clearer distinction between white/gray/black hat hackers than between hackers/crackers.
Cringe-worthy quote. Maybe it was Kali or similar and they just didn't want to announce it?
Strictly speaking, the way the CFAA works is that if files stored on a hard disk are protected by permissions and not actual encryption or anything, and you load that hard drive into another operating system that ignores those permissions, you have accessed things you are not supposed to and in violation of the law. So yes, using a different operating system can be punishable
It's similar to a way the open window or door in your house does not suddenly make stealing all your stuff legal
Some court charged an insider data thief with using the ominously named "Subversion Repository". IIRC.
If you brought a drill to your government office to break into a safe that you didn't have keys or authorization to open, that would read as "brought and used special hardware, a drill, to open the safe". Even if said drill is available at the local hardware store.
The indictment charges that he conspired to crack passwords on government computers. It appears that the free press protections extend to only accepting documents, and not pursuing of them. This makes sense to me on its face. Newspapers reporters hacking into government networks goes beyond reporting, and should not be journalistically protected.
Honestly I’d rather live in a world where those who expose government conspiracies and corruption are protected than one where they are held to the letter of a law.
> Manning, who had access to the computers in connection with her duties as an intelligence analyst
they are gendering her correctly. at least we have a progressive politically correct Stasi.
We have finally arrived at Jello Biafra's suede denim secret police.
Wow, seems pretty flimsy, compared to the effort they are putting in. But they need a head for the chopping block and the higher the profile the better the fit.
How will this play out I wonder? I thought the current admin "loved wikileaks".
He’ll be nominated to the Fed.
Pretty sure Obama DOJ refused to charge this.
well when obama was president assange was hiding in the embassy so I think attributing much significance to fact the obama administration did not issue this indictment is a bit tenuous.
Normally in a situation like this you would indict and keep it sealed, that's not what happened here.
There was a deliberate decision not to indict which changed when Trump and his good friends Pompeo and Mattis came to power.
Yeah it seems that's true/I was wrong. I was reading george conway's twitter and I saw this tweet thread by a washingtonpost journalist `If this is the only subject to which the charges relate (& there are none on election interference or other topics), that’s notable. It also raises the question of what changed from when the Obama administration decided it couldn’t make a case, aside from political/DoJ leadership'
https://twitter.com/mattzap
Almost certainly done so that Assange can be brought to USA for testimony in the fallout of the failed Mueller probe. Calling it now: Assange will walk free.
What is the failed Mueller probe?
I assume they mean the same one that secured over ten convictions and secured something like $20 billion in fines and recovered illegal value
Fines? Can we see that receipt? I didn't take Papadopoulos for a wealthy man...
Was $20 million, it was for Manafort's tax evasion on about $75 million in unreported lobbying income.
>Judge T.S. Ellis ordered Manafort to pay restitution of $6M-$25M
Eh, three orders of magnitude, close enough for deep-state work...
Good god why did I think it was in the billions range?!
The probe came to a conclusion, which means it did not fail.
What that conclusion was, we may never know.
Lots of people want to hear Assange say the name "Seth Rich". He has by this point made clear that that won't happen.
Trump said today that "he knows nothing about wikileaks".
In 2010 he said Assange should be given the death penalty for leaking Bush admin's diplomatic cable.
In 2016, during the campaign he praised wikileaks more than 100 times.
Now he knows nothing about it.
I wonder if they would count the years trapped in the embassy as time served.
So what's the maximum sentence for this?
10 years, not sure how the sentencing guidelines will play out here.
I read it is only 5 years [1].
In which case voluntarily staying in the Ecuadorian embassy for 6 years seems to be a miscalculation.
(At least, staying beyond the point that the Swedish rape charges were dropped).
1: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charg...
18 USC 1080(c)(1)(A) says ten years.
I believe his fear was being locked up in gitmo. I think it was a valid fear.
Looking at what he has charged with (1030(a)(1), 1030(a)(2))...how would those charges stick? He failed to actually access anything.
Read the top of the very first page. It is a conspiracy charge. This is made clear on pages 4, 5, and 6 as well.
Then read 18 USC 1030(b).
Link for the lazy:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
Intentionally attempting to do something illegal is illegal. Not merely succeeding at it.
People who don't get that distinction might benefit by considering crimes such as Attempted Robbery and Attempted Murder. Indeed, attempting to commit a crime is pretty much always a crime in and of itself.
Imagine if would-be kidnapper got off the hook just because the intended victim ran fast enough to get away. Or a wannabe bomber who fudged the recipe.
Why is this a scan?
They don't want this bullshit living forever in search engines.
Because surprisingly, the real indictment is on real paper. With a real signature and a real stamping on it.
Was it typed on a "real" typewriter? Because otherwise, this pretext is bullshit. If it's not searchable it's not really available to the public.
Probably not.
But still, I don't understand your view. It's six pages, double-spaced, for God's sake! And you can run OCR on it (and republish it).
There are many other things I'd be concerned about first, when it comes to "available to the public".
It is bullshit PACER isn't free or significantly cheaper
Lots of people will do that. Wikileaks included, probably. It is still the case that DoJ went to extra effort to print out and rescan an electronic file they already had in electronic form. They did that for an obvious reason; this document falls embarrassingly short of even DoJ's already low standards. Most DoJ personnel are not rabid centrist Democrats. The sooner everyone forgets about this tawdry episode, the happier they'll be.
I'm pretty sure this is just SOP at the DoJ. Where any of Muller's indictments released digitally?
>Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense computers
This is all there is to it. Assange offered to crack a NTLM hash given to him by Manning, and apparently failed.
It certainly didn't take the government 8 years to investigate this, this is obviously a politically motivated prosecution.
This was widely known for close to a decade https://www.wired.com/2011/12/army-manning-hearing/ but somehow the indictment is only dated 2018.
Donate to the wikileaks defense fund https://defend.wikileaks.org/donate/
What's with the downvotes? Can I hear a different opinion?
An hour ago a lot of people here were like:
- He's just charged with skipping bail, innocent people shouldn't run, UK won't extradite him
- He's charged with sexual assault, innocent people don't run from that Sweden won't extradite him
Well, now we know what's up...
The almost decade long defamation campaign to silence Assange has worked to the point where I might as well be defending a pedophile, yet all the DOJ could come up with was cracking a hash.
>The almost decade long defamation campaign to silence Assange has worked to the point where I might as well be defending a pedophile
The CIA tried that too: https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/312654-wikileaks-th...
From what I've been reading lately, thats all they need to come up with. The useful idiots have already rendered their verdict.
> yet all the DOJ could come up with was cracking a hash
I find it funny when people minimize actions to the barest minimum.
Like saying a gun murderer got jail for "only pulling a lever, which law abiding people do tens of times a day".
If a US president starts a thermonuclear war and causes nuclear winter: "All he did was enter numbers and press a few red buttons, stop giving him a hard time".
>Well, now we know what's up...
People who have never seen the wrong end of a police truncheon or gas canister are so cute. They think the law is there to protect them.
From my observation, you are being downvoted for politically motivated reasons. I would not expect a discussion of quality or fairness about this topic on this or any other website. Anyone can look at Assange and see in him whatever they want to see, and both the media and politicians have exploited this for six or seven years and the people on this forum really are just like people on any other forum.
>What's with the downvotes? Can I hear a different opinion?
Sure, completely without any connection to any opinions on whether Assange should be tried or not, or any of the politics, the parent is engaging in some real silliness/ignorance, and that shouldn't be upvoted on HN even if it agrees with your politics. In particular:
It certainly didn't take the government 8 years to investigate this, this is obviously a politically motivated prosecution.
These don't follow. No, it didn't take the government 8 years to investigate this, but that's not relevant either. The government can perfectly well find all the evidence they need, but if they're simply physically unable to get at the suspect they can then sit on the case as long as any applicable statute of limitations hasn't run out (and not everything has a statute of limitations). They may choose not to prosecute for various reasons, including simple lack of resources or impossibility. But none of this at all bars them, either legally or morally in my opinion, from later attempting a prosecution if the opportunity ever allows. That does not make it "obviously a politically motivated prosecution", nor is it unheard of even in very serious cases like terrorism bombings, murder, and so forth. Some people are very good at evasion and hiding, but the true government superpower is patience. They file it away, but they don't forget. They'll just wait, but that doesn't mean a crime goes away unless there is a statute of limitations that explicitly makes it go away eventually by law.
If parent poster wants to make a case for universal expiration, that any crime should cease to be prosecutable if it goes cold or suspects can stay away for long enough, then they should just do so. There is genuinely a real argument to be made there. But a suspect being granted protection by another country and then the government just waiting, and then the wheels grinding into motion once again if the opportunity ever allows, is not by itself some weird thing. It doesn't justify the hysteria, nor the call for people to give him money.
>The government can perfectly well find all the evidence they need, but if they're simply physically unable to get at the suspect they can then sit on the case as long as any applicable statute of limitations hasn't run out
Why did they not indict him before 2018? I don't think that has anything to do with the US government being physically unable to get to him. It's not normal procedure to delay indictment, the normal procedure is to keep the indictment sealed.
Obama DOJ had decided to not indict Assange for this, this is a politically motivated prosecution by the Trump administration.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julia...
>Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organizations and writers who published classified material, including The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Everyone who follows WL already knew about this hash thing in 2011, it was brought up in detail during the Manning trial. The DOJ was well aware of the possibility of indicting Assange over this, but opted to not do so until recently.
>If parent poster wants to make a case for universal expiration, that any crime should cease to be prosecutable if it goes cold or suspects can stay away for long enough
This has nothing at all to do with what I'm saying. I'm saying that DOJ flipflopping on this indicates that this was a politically motivated decision.
You're conflating two different things: publishing classified material, which the DOJ under Obama didn't charge, and a CFAA violation.
Assange is getting charged for a CFAA violation. "Hacking" isn't a great description of what the law forbids. It forbids obtaining information by "intentionally access[ing] a computer without authorization or exceed[ing] authorized access".
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
>You're conflating two different things: publishing classified material, which the DOJ under Obama didn't charge, and a CFAA violation.
I am not. This CFAA violation has been publicly discussed for 8 years now, I know exactly what I mean.
The idea of indicting Assange for publishing classified material has always been a weird conspiracy theory.
>Why did they not indict him before 2018?
Could be they just saw no reason to bother because there was no possibility of getting him. There is no requirement to indict someone immediately upon collecting evidence, indictment is merely the formal accusation of a felony issued by a grand jury. I don't understand why some of you seem to consider this some wild thing. Furthermore, even if they had all this evidence nobody may have sat down and come up with a legal theory sufficiently tailored, and in fact you yourself raise this in the rest of your post:
>Obama DOJ had decided to not indict Assange for this, this is a politically motivated prosecution by the Trump administration.
Your source does not support this leap. In fact quite the contrary:
>Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other news organizations and writers who published classified material, including The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Your quote doesn't even make sense exactly because prosecutors never "have to prosecute" anything. But that aside, what we see now is that they haven't indicted him for "publishing classified material" or anything like that, they've found a genuine potential crime (if proven) that is about direct material aid provided by Assange alone. Going after publishing would invite all sorts of 1A arguments and would probably fail unless the papers were directly involved. But unless the NYT and others were in direct contact with Manning and trying to help her break through government security themselves, this charge doesn't in any way involve them.
I mean, you do see how your own accusations here are symmetric right? Someone could just as well argue that it was Obama making a politically motivated decision not to indict, though I think that'd be a silly argument too. Ask "if at some point in the last 7 years Assange had suddenly voluntarily left and returned directly to the USA and announced he was willing to face whatever they would bring, would the US have then prosecuted or not?"
>Could be they just saw no reason to bother because there was no possibility of getting him. There is no requirement to indict someone immediately upon collecting evidence, indictment is merely the formal accusation of a felony issued by a grand jury. I don't understand why some of you seem to consider this some wild thing
I don't think you know what you're talking about. It is quite unusual to delay indictment like this, perhaps you can find some other examples to prove me wrong?
>Furthermore, even if they had all this evidence nobody may have sat down and come up with a legal theory sufficiently tailored, and in fact you yourself raise this in the rest of your post:
It's the exact same legal theory they had prepared in 2011 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/pr...
>Someone could just as well argue that it was Obama making a politically motivated decision not to indict, though I think that'd be a silly argument too.
There's an extreme difference between politically motivated indictment and politically motivated non-indictment. That's not silly, that's asinine.
>It is quite unusual to delay indictment like this
It is quite unusual for the suspect to be granted asylum and holed up in a foreign embassy for 7 years too. The entire case is unusual. You don't get to just handwave that away as convenient and appeal to regular cases where none of that comes up. You're the one making the accusations here, so how about you start citing some positive evidence in support? Cite the law or legal precedent that requires indictment in some amount of time, and discuss how that plays out with any expirations, upkeep requirements, or potential for leaks even if it's sealed (and remember with that last one that this very indictment was in fact leaked accidentally, is that more or less likely the more years it exists?).
>Are you kidding? It's the exact same legal theory they had prepared in 2011
Curious then how you chose to first claim that Obama didn't prosecute because it'd necessarily mean going after the media. Can you try to keep your story straight here?
>There's an extreme difference between politically motivated indictment and politically motivated non-indictment. That's not silly, that's asinine.
No there isn't. That's completely absurd, if the Russian intelligence service came over to America next time around and gave someone polonium again like they did in the UK and the whole thing was captured on film, but Trump chose not to indict because it'd imperil some gas deal, are you saying that's no problem or only a minimal issue because hey, he's only "not indicting" right?
>It is quite unusual for the suspect to be granted asylum and holed up in a foreign embassy for 7 years too
There is nothing unusual at all about suspects going into hiding. This is everyday stuff for prosecutions, and the normal thing to do is to indict and keep it sealed, not wait years to indict for funsies.
> the law or legal precedent that requires indictment in some amount of time, and discuss how that plays out with any expirations, upkeep requirements, or potential for leaks even if it's sealed
Why should I? I'm criticizing this indictment as politically motivated, this doesn't have all that much to with the law.
>Curious then how you chose to first claim that Obama didn't prosecute because it'd necessarily mean going after the media. Can you try to keep your story straight here?
That was not my claim, you're being ridiculous. That was wapo quoting DOJ officials.
Can you stop trying to deliberately muddy the waters with this nonsense? You're focusing on twisting my words instead of trying to make an honest argument.
>Can you stop trying to deliberately muddy the waters with this nonsense? You're focusing on twisting my words instead of trying to make an honest argument.
FWIW the feeling is mutual, I see you as doing exactly that to me. Which maybe means we're kind of talking past each other. I don't really want to endlessly go down that rabbit hole because I don't even think you're necessarily wrong to be upset. But I also think your original post failed to make a quality argument, was very low content for a big claim, that "politically motivated" gets tossed around way too lightly (and is a weak argument regardless) and the reasoning you gave is particularly non-sensical (normally such an argument would talk about the motivations of the Administration or prosecutors, although inconveniently for that this Administration has tons of on the record statements about loving Wikileaks). It's also irritating how you have then tried to flip the standard of evidence when it was you who made the accusation. Next time, maybe in your original post tell us what the law and history is around indictments as you understand/have researched it, why this one stands out (not your feelings, actual numbers), why this particular incident of "politics" was wrong if that's what it was (since it was international of course it had to involve "politics" but that's a broader brush then you implied), etc. Putting that all out upfront saves everyone a lot of time trying to endlessly nail down basics down-thread.
This prosecution is clearly politically motivated. Previous admin chose not to indict, politics happened and new admin decided to dig it up again.
That doesn't (and shouldn't!) render the criminal charges against Assange invalid.
The lack of legislation regarding politically motivated prosecutions doesn't mean that we shouldn't criticize them when they happen. It is simply wrong for governments to target individuals like this.
>normally such an argument would talk about the motivations of the Administration or prosecutors, although inconveniently for that this Administration has tons of on the record statements about loving Wikileaks
Pompeo and Mattis sure love WL! The administration isn't a single person, I'm sure Trump loves Pompeo far more than he cares for WL.
Besides, indicting Assange is an obvious move to discredit the Russia conspiracy theorist crowd.
>Next time, maybe in your original post tell us what the law and history is around indictments as you understand/have researched it, why this one stands out (not your feelings, actual numbers), why this particular incident of "politics" was wrong if that's what it was (since it was international of course it had to involve "politics" but that's a broader brush then you implied), etc.
I'm sorry, but this is just terribly lazy of you.
> This prosecution is clearly politically motivated. Previous admin chose not to indict, politics happened and new admin decided to dig it up again.
That is not a logical statement.
One administration choosing to treat a case differently than another administration can happen without bad politics. Different people see things differently. Assange's recent loss of asylum got the attention of new decision makers so the timing doesn't mean anything either.
Your original and continued statements amount to: "I have no evidence but darn it I know it!"
Of course bad politics could be involved. I.e. a campaign PR move, instead of making rational decisions in the countries interest. But you didn't reference any evidence.
Here is some evidence: Trump doesn't seem to approach anything without overwhelming self-interest. (That argument has nothing to do with your nonsensical argument.)
But that is not conclusive. Maybe someone competent made a well thought out decision (whether or not you and I agree with it).
>Assange's recent loss of asylum got the attention of new decision makers so the timing doesn't mean anything either
Both the indictment and extradition request long predate Assanges loss of asylum.
>One administration choosing to treat a case differently than another administration can happen without bad politics.
I believe it is inherently bad politics to single out an individual case like this. Is Trump DOJ reviewing all cases Obama DOJ decided to not prosecute or did someone just happen to feel like going after Assange?
I think odds are it’s the latter.
> There is nothing unusual at all about suspects going into hiding. This is everyday stuff for prosecutions, and the normal thing to do is to indict and keep it sealed, not wait years to indict for funsies.
Are there other examples of suspects being granted asylum by a foreign government? It seems to me like that wouldn't be very likely in a vast majority of cases. It seems just as reasonable that DOJ needed to wait until Ecuador had dropped asylum and given the green light.
It seems like a stretch to say that the timing alone proves this is politically motivated when there were extenuating circumstances preventing the indictment. If you think the political landscape or future charges have a possibility of swaying Ecuador into discontinuing their grant of asylum then this seems like a pretty reasonable course of events.
>Are there other examples of suspects being granted asylum by a foreign government?
I don't know if that matters very much. Unlike most fugitives, DOJ knew exactly where Assange is and that he'd have to come out eventually.
>It seems just as reasonable that DOJ needed to wait until Ecuador had dropped asylum and given the green light.
But DOJ didn't wait until Ecuador dropped the asylum.
>It seems like a stretch to say that the timing alone proves this is politically motivated when there were extenuating circumstances preventing the indictment
There was nothing preventing the indictment, there were circumstances that would prevent unsealing the indictment.
> I don't know if that matters very much. Unlike most fugitives, DOJ knew exactly where Assange is and that he'd have to come out eventually.
Sure, and that's exactly what they did. By waiting for him to come out once Ecuador dropped terminated their asylum. It absolutely matters in that they would be violating Ecuadorian sovereignty by doing anything but waiting for something like this to happen.
> But DOJ didn't wait until Ecuador dropped the asylum.
Well that's just flat out false. Here Moreno (Ecuador's president) says: "Ecuador sovereignly has decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr. Assange in 2012." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHVqbKgsnDw
> There was nothing preventing the indictment, there were circumstances that would prevent unsealing the indictment.
I get your point about filing and then unsealing but that's just mincing words. You can disagree with process but I don't think that makes it "political". I don't pretend to know why prosecutors decide when to file anything and I think you need to bring some proof that this would be improper if you are going to assert some wrongdoing here.
>Well that's just flat out false. Here Moreno (Ecuador's president) says: "Ecuador sovereignly has decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr. Assange in 2012."
The indictment predates your video by many months.
>I get your point about filing and then unsealing but that's just mincing words.
Why was Assange not indicted before 2018 if the indictment wasn’t politically motivated?
During Obama admin DOJ officials said that they did not want to charge Assange for this, the elections suddenly changed this.
> Obama DOJ had decided to not indict Assange for this, this is a politically motivated prosecution by the Trump administration.
Or a politically motivated non-prosecution by the Obama administration. I mean, look, I don't trust the Trump administration as far as I could throw the White House. But I don't really trust the Obama administration with respect to politically-charged prosecution decisions, either. The last administration that I'd really trust with something like that is... um, give me a minute... maybe Carter? Or maybe I was just too young to appreciate that I maybe shouldn't have trusted that administration, either...
But I don't understand this line of thought. Trump vocally likes Assange and wikileaks, while Obama Generally loved the NSA and national surveillance, and seemed perfectly willing to go after Assange.
Trumps best buds Mattis and Pompeo hate Assange far more than Obama did.
Hell, Obama even commuted Mannings sentence.
It’s much harder to condemn a politically motivated non-prosecution than it is to condemn a politically motivated prosecution.
One of these is inherently far worse.
But if it was politically motivated non-prosecution, that implies that prosecution would be the status quo, and not politically motivated.
Lets say your friend works at the police anti-speeding camera department and reviews footage to issue tickets via mail. He recognizes your plates and does not issue a ticket although you did speed and violated the law, and he gives out tickets to others for the same offenses.
He leaves the job and the new guy comes, reviews the old footage, and notices the missed ticket, and issues you a ticket. Are you saying the second guy committed a biased issuance of a ticket? And that's necessarily a bad thing compared to your friend letting you go?
>reviews the old footage
Reviews all the footage or only the footage featuring his enemies?
> Are you saying the second guy committed a biased issuance of a ticket?
Depends entirely on if that person was auditing random (or all) footage or specifically looked up plates of people he doesn't like.
Assange/WikiLeaks actions have aligned with the interests of Russia often enough in the past few years, that it's an open question of whether they are working with Russian intelligence services.
It certainly seems likely he was acting as a cutout for Russian intel with the DNC leaks.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/mar/18...
Assange has always been anti-US, why would his actions not align with Russian interests?
During the Obama administration, Secretary of State Clinton proposed assassinating Assange with a drone strike. "Can't we just drone this guy?" Given that the Secretary was about to become the most powerful person in the world, Assange would obviously have been highly motivated by self-defense and preservation alone to do whatever he could to thwart the election of someone who has actually called for him to be assassinated and had the means, motive and opportunity to follow through with that threat.
>During the Obama administration, Secretary of State Clinton proposed assassinating Assange with a drone strike.
That was "leaked" by True Pundit, according to "State Department sources". The chance of it being fake is about 99.999%, given that no one with any credibility leaks to fake news sites like True Pundit. They would have leaked to Fox News or NY Times.
Meanwhile, in 2010, Trump called for Assange getting the death penalty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDEDQFj9sFk
I didn't have much doubt that he would be indicted, at least after the accidental disclosure of the sealed indictment a few months ago.
People were, I believe, merely refuting the absurd notion that the charges for his sexual assault were some sort of conspiracy.
Remember, the conspiracy was that these charges were a pretext to get him extradited from the UK (which will deport him rather hastily) to Sweden (which has far more liberal laws and isn't part of five eyes).
It never made much sense. His best hope now is actually being deported to Sweden first, then trying his luck there.
He was charged for skipping bail. People shouldn't skip bail unless they feel the court won't give them a fair trial. UK courts give people fair trials (or in this case a fair extradition hearing). He promised to the court to stay at home, so he was released from jail on bail.
He then broke that promise.
7 years ago the argument was "Assange shouldn't be extradited to Sweden because Sweden would extradite him to the U.S" [1]
This was bullshit, if the U.S. wanted to extradite, they could do that just as easily in the UK as in Sweden, and they've now proven that.
Further his argument was he would face torture and/or the death penalty [2]
UK won't extradite him for any reason 1) unless the U.S. files an extradition request (they have now, it's not hard to do), 2) that's approved by a U.K court, which means looking into chances of inhumane treatment, death penalty, etc. Sweden has the same rules.
All of these facts are consistent with what people were saying first thing this morning and yesterday.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-12011867/julian-assange-spe... [2] http://klamberg.blogspot.com/2012/08/extradition-of-assange-...
Personal opinion it has to do with is work with the Trump campaign. It's time to keep that one quiet now it seems like.
So if you use your computer to read the Guardian or NYT reporting on NSA surveillance, you can be charged with 'Unauthorized use of a computet?'
Or only primary source docs? Ok then, if so, when are they arrestint all those NYT, etc, reporters?