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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange arrested; U.S. seeks extradition from U.K.

Superfly said:
Aww, poor little hacker got busted, and now he's paying the price.

My heart bleeds for him.
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Two minor points:


  1. Mr. Assange DID NOT obtain the files he released by "hacking" either directly or indirectly; and
  2. what Mr. Assange did WAS NOT illegal where he did it when he did it.


Admittedly IF:

  • Mr. Assange HAD "hacked" files to obtain the information he released (which he did NOT do);
  • Mr. Assange HAD obtained the files in the United States of America (which he did NOT do);
  • obtaining the files HAD been illegal where Mr. Assange was (which it was NOT); and
  • obtaining the files HAD been illegal where Mr. Assange was when he obtained them (which is was NOT); and
  • Mr. Assange HAD been a party who actually obtained the files to the obtaining of the files (which he was NOT);

THEN the US government would have a much stronger case against him.

The person who actually committed the illegal acts has already been caught, charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced.
 
Manc Skipper said:
The thing is, the charges laid leave the possibility open of the DP being brought into play, Despite "verbal assurances" from the USA that he won't.
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Indeed they do.

However, should that happen, then the US government is going to have an incredibly uphill fight the next time it seeks to extradite someone from the UK (not to mention any other country that no longer has the death penalty and will not extradite anyone to another country that does have the death penalty without "assurances that the death penalty will not be sought".

I don't say that the US government was lying when it gave the UK its "assurances", and I don't say that the US government has any intention of breaching those "assurances", but like virginity, once belief in the trustworthiness of another country is gone - it's gone for good.
 
Jack Hays said:
There is evidence to support the charge.
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I'm prepared to accept that as soon as you provide something that looks reasonably like actual evidence from a source that looks reasonably reliable.
 
3leftsdoo said:
I'd buy "heroic investigative journalist."
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Mr. Assange (the owner of a media source) is no more a "heroic investigative journalist" than William Randolph Hurst (the owner of a media source) was.

Admittedly Mr. Assange didn't manipulate the United States of America into a war in order to "increase circulation".
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Nope, the theft was over and done with before he was approached with the offer of the purloined goods.
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No. From the link in #149:

“Chats reflect that on March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password,” FBI agent Megan Brown wrote. She makes clear that agents never found any evidence “as to what Assange did, if anything, with respect to the password” other than saying he had passed it on to someone at WikiLeaks who specialized in the security system involved.
Brown wrote: “While it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password, a follow-up message from Assange to Manning on March 10, 2010, reflects that Assange was actively trying to crack the password pursuant to their agreement.”
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
I'm prepared to accept that as soon as you provide something that looks reasonably like actual evidence from a source that looks reasonably reliable.
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Please see the link at #149.

“Chats reflect that on March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password,” FBI agent Megan Brown wrote. She makes clear that agents never found any evidence “as to what Assange did, if anything, with respect to the password” other than saying he had passed it on to someone at WikiLeaks who specialized in the security system involved.
Brown wrote: “While it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password, a follow-up message from Assange to Manning on March 10, 2010, reflects that Assange was actively trying to crack the password pursuant to their agreement.”
 
Jack Hays said:
Case against Assange relies on chat transcriptsBy Rachel Weiner

". . . But Assange is not charged with any crime related to the release of classified information, a move prosecutors resisted for years for fear it would be akin to going after a news organization. . . . "
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Those who don't like the Washington Post's pay wall might be interested in

Assange Case May Rely on Chat Transcripts

and

The U.S. Case Against Assange Is Looking Sort of Flimsy

There are others.

The case of Bartnicki v. Vopper [532 U.S. 514 (2001)] should be equally interesting.
 
Jack Hays said:
No. From the link in #149:

“Chats reflect that on March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password,” FBI agent Megan Brown wrote. She makes clear that agents never found any evidence “as to what Assange did, if anything, with respect to the password” other than saying he had passed it on to someone at WikiLeaks who specialized in the security system involved.
Brown wrote: “While it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password, a follow-up message from Assange to Manning on March 10, 2010, reflects that Assange was actively trying to crack the password pursuant to their agreement.”
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"Cracking a password" is NOT the same as "assisting in a theft". Admittedly the distinction is slim, but, at law, all that is required is a slim distinction in order to turn a potential conviction into a potential acquittal.

Now if the transcripts had revealed that Ms. Manning had told Mr. Assange that she (he at the time) wanted his assistance "so that he could obtain unauthorized access to classified US government material which he would then steal and offer for sale to Mr. Assange", that would, indeed, be a different matter.

They don't.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Those who don't like the Washington Post's pay wall might be interested . . .
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You're welcome. Shortened to meet 5,000 character limit.

A December 2017 criminal complaint against Julian Assange unsealed Monday details the case federal prosecutors have prepared against the WikiLeaks founder, including chat transcripts they relied on to accuse him of conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to try to break into the Defense Department computer system. . . .
The complaint affidavit is far more extensive than the indictment, sketching the origins of Manning’s relationship with Assange as well as the impact of her decision to give hundreds of thousands of pages of State Department cables and Iraq and Afghanistan military documents to WikiLeaks. But there is no evidence in either document beyond chat logs first used to convict Manning of espionage and other crimes in 2013.
The conversations come either from Manning’s own computer, seized after her arrest in 2010, or from Adrian Lamo, a hacker who turned Manning in to the FBI.
“Chats reflect that on March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password,” FBI agent Megan Brown wrote. She makes clear that agents never found any evidence “as to what Assange did, if anything, with respect to the password” other than saying he had passed it on to someone at WikiLeaks who specialized in the security system involved.
Brown wrote: “While it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password, a follow-up message from Assange to Manning on March 10, 2010, reflects that Assange was actively trying to crack the password pursuant to their agreement.”
Brown also argued, as prosecutors did when Manning was tried in 2013, that the two “had reason to believe that public disclosure” of the classified Army information Manning shared “would cause injury to the United States.”
Brown also described Assange and Manning as having “collaborated” on the disclosure of classified information.
“Anything useful in there?” Manning asked after sending Assange reports on detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Assange replied that “there surely will be” and that the disclosures could inspire other leakers because “gitmo=bad, leakers=enemy of gitmo, leakers=good.”
But Assange is not charged with any crime related to the release of classified information, a move prosecutors resisted for years for fear it would be akin to going after a news organization. . . .
 
Jack Hays said:
Please see the link at #149.

“Chats reflect that on March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password,” FBI agent Megan Brown wrote. She makes clear that agents never found any evidence “as to what Assange did, if anything, with respect to the password” other than saying he had passed it on to someone at WikiLeaks who specialized in the security system involved.
Brown wrote: “While it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password, a follow-up message from Assange to Manning on March 10, 2010, reflects that Assange was actively trying to crack the password pursuant to their agreement.”
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Ummm! You appear to be overlooking that the actual evidence that I was asking you to provide had to do with Mr. Assange "smearing feces".
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
"Cracking a password" is NOT the same as "assisting in a theft". Admittedly the distinction is slim, but, at law, all that is required is a slim distinction in order to turn a potential conviction into a potential acquittal.

Now if the transcripts had revealed that Ms. Manning had told Mr. Assange that she (he at the time) wanted his assistance "so that he could obtain unauthorized access to classified US government material which he would then steal and offer for sale to Mr. Assange", that would, indeed, be a different matter.

They don't.
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It is a distinction without a difference.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Indeed they do.

However, should that happen, then the US government is going to have an incredibly uphill fight the next time it seeks to extradite someone from the UK (not to mention any other country that no longer has the death penalty and will not extradite anyone to another country that does have the death penalty without "assurances that the death penalty will not be sought".

I don't say that the US government was lying when it gave the UK its "assurances", and I don't say that the US government has any intention of breaching those "assurances", but like virginity, once belief in the trustworthiness of another country is gone - it's gone for good.
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The UK government undertook to the Ecuadorian government that Assange would not be extradited to any country which maintained a death penalty.
 
Manc Skipper said:
The UK government undertook to the Ecuadorian government that Assange would not be extradited to any country which maintained a death penalty.
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The UK government is just like the US government and probably most governments of the world--they lie and deceive as they please.
 
There was a convention in the UK Parliament that when a government minister was caught out in a lie, they would resign their post or be asked by the PM to do so, and return to being a "junior" MP. A big lie could be a career ender, but there was always the possiblity of rehabilitation in a year or two. This current shower merely repeat the lie and brag about it, with no repercussions.
 
Manc Skipper said:
The UK government undertook to the Ecuadorian government that Assange would not be extradited to any country which maintained a death penalty.
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The "usual drill" is that the country seeking extradition "assures" the country from which extradition is sought that the death penalty will not be sought. If the UK government went any further than that, then the US extradition request would have been rejected out of hand since the US does have the death penalty (regardless of whether the US government "assured" the UK government that the death penalty would NOT be sought).
 
Manc Skipper said:
There was a convention in the UK Parliament that when a government minister was caught out in a lie, they would resign their post or be asked by the PM to do so, and return to being a "junior" MP. A big lie could be a career ender, but there was always the possiblity of rehabilitation in a year or two. This current shower merely repeat the lie and brag about it, with no repercussions.
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Actually the convention goes even further than that. When a Minister's department makes a real ****-up, the Minister takes the responsibility for it (regardless of whether they knew anything about it) and tenders their resignation. This is what is known as "Ministerial Responsibility" and is one of the things that the Founding Fathers didn't actually turn their minds to when writing the Constitution of the United States of America (probably because it was inconceivable to them that anyone would get approved for a "cabinet level" post who wasn't a person of impeccable honesty and integrity).
 
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