Let's not forget that the Guardian sent Julian Assange a basket with soap and socks when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy[1]. What kind of a message does that send? They also didn't tell anyone involved in the Snowden revelations when GCHQ forced them to destroy their copies. They also (through their tehnical incompetence) leaked documents that WikiLeaks had not published, then blamed WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for the disclosure. Not to mention the ludicrously false and harmful articles they published about him meeting Manafort and co-ordinating disclosures with the Trump campaign alongside many other government puff pieces disguised as "journalism".
Now, all of a sudden, they feel it's a good idea to try to help him. It's too late for that. The right time to try to help him was 7 years ago. Doing it now is for the birds, it's pure political theater so they can pretend (in 15 years) that they were "on the right side of history". Absolute bullshit.
Then again, saying something is better than nothing. Here in Australia there is no public discussion about Julian Assange (an Australian citizen and journalist being tried under US terrorism laws). Even more ironic is that we recently had a bit of a "freedom of the press" scuffle because the ABC was raided by the Australian Federal Police because of some coverage from 2017 over Australian Army war crimes. I find it incredible that nobody mentioned Julian. At all. What an absolute disgrace today's press is.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-hel...
And the Guardian has now “re-establish[ed] links” with British military/intelligence after their breakup post-Snowden:
https://mobile.twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1138493594728304...
Much of our media now coordinates and sources stories from national intelligence services. This has been true with some of the biggest stories of the past few years - many of which failed to pan out. So in some important cases our “news” has been literally government propaganda.
Does this have some cultural significance? It a symbolic snub of some kind?
The speaker in the video says that they sent him this care package and then pauses and stares into space like it's the most obviously terrible thing they could have done and needs no further comment.
I don't get it?
So yes -- it was a snub in the sense that it was literally the least useful form of "help" they could've given. Julian didn't need symbolic help. He needed actual help, and the Guardian left him out to dry (and then proceeded to publish countless articles smearing him -- including flat-out lying as in the "he met with Manafort" case).
Heck, WikiLeaks sent one of their lawyers to help Snowden in Hong Kong when he got in trouble (and bought him plane tickets and the rest of it -- even trying to rent a private jet to get him out of Russia while he was stuck in the airport) -- and they didn't even have anything to do with publishing the Snowden revelations.
These are matters of life and death for Assange, victims of the war crimes of which he's published, and future potential victims if journalistic freedom is further restricted and thus even less accountability for war criminals.
The Guardian has elected not to bring their clout and lawyers to bear on these matters. Instead, they sent Assange a basket of soap and socks for his extended stay in a foreign embassy.
Assange predicted publicly for many years that the US was going to indict him under the Espionage Act, and now that it's happening everyone seems to be pretending that "we couldn't possibly have seen this coming!". I was still a high-school student in 2012 and I could see it as clear as day. I refuse to believe that any reasonable adult would be so naive to have not seen this coming.
The author of the piece, Alan Rusbridger, is the Editor-in-chief of the Guardian
This old BBC interview with Noam Chomsky about the topic is also illuminating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjENnyQupow
Especially damning now with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture describing his treatment as psychological torture: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
Many of the linked tweets don't resolve, and the rest of the web site appears to be purely a Greenwald support group in his seeming vendetta against his former employer.
The site also proclaims [paraphrasing] "do not trust the Guardian—read our write-ups of the same subjects instead".
I can't take that any more seriously than "corporate-state media".
I should add, if corporate-sponsored journalism outlets is a problem for your group, then I suggest you also drop The Intercept:
Financial backing for The Intercept was provided by Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald
All the rest will fall along political lines. Liked or disliked for the effects on political allies and foes. It’s obvious if you have followed this case.
Three years ago the right loathed him, today they love him and conversely today the left loathes him but 3 years ago they loved him. The state apparatus however still see this as an adversarial act.
So, instead let’s discuss the implications of censorship (state and self-imposed) and journalism this case has.
Governments worldwide are tightening the screws, becoming more secretive and spying extensively on their citizens. Voting doesn't work, as most parties support this encroachment on civil liberties in the name of fighting various evils.
I don't have any solutions and little hope. In the past it used to be that totalitarian governments fell because the population was poor and deeply unhappy. What happens when the government has access to almost perfect information about its citizens, insights that even they might not have? And if they are able to offer decent living standards in exchange for fewer freedoms, they would have an iron grip on power.
"The philosophy of the ruling minority in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a sadism which has been carried to its logical conclusion by going beyond sex and denying it.
Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World."
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/aldous-huxley-george-orwe...
The thing about any major revolutionary change is that the initial seed is planted through breaking some kind of law. And if we get to the point where breaking simple laws is impossible because of the near-complete information the state actor has on it's people, things are likely to get worse.
I do see a bleak future ahead. And grim.
Not necessarily true according to this poll [1]. The alt-right might love him, but rank-and-file Republicans don't seem to:
"A new YouGov poll of 2,455 Americans shows that a majority (53%) say Assange should be extradited to America. That majority increases among both Republicans (59% supporting extradition) and Democrats (62% supporting extradition), but decreases to a plurality (46%) among Independents."
[1] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...
I really don't think this is true. The Guardian is more acutely aware of the threat this poses to general protections afforded journalists (even outside the U.S.)
Assange's reputation is putting an unfortunate taint to the story; if we separate the man from what's actually being done in the criminal charges, it's probably a lot clearer to people from both sides of the aisle that this is a threat to the fourth estate.
Please do not conflate the right and the neocons.
1. Julian is not a United States of America Citizen. So USA laws don't apply to him, unless he is in the USA and has committed a crime or offense of some kind
2. Julian is a citizen of another country. How do the laws of USA all of a sudden encompass people outside of the USA? Yes, wikileaks did receive "secret" stuff, but the exposure of these events is for the greater good and exposes how the USA is corrupt and "evil." The USA needs to be held accountable for their actions. The USA has no business in other countries, killing, maiming, destroying their homes and lives. Regardless of what happened on 9/11, which I was present on NYC when it happened. Yes, it was horrible, but our own government and their meddling in the affairs of other nations is to blame
Is there some kind of unknown laws of the USA that apply to people and countries not part of the USA (non-citizens and other countries)?
Peace
1) Assange allegedly assisted in hacking US Defense Department computers. The means that he allegedly broke US laws on virtual US soil. They are also alleging that he was a conspirator that directed crimes on US soil via his agent, Manning. If he say hacked a Russian computer and the US was prosecuting him it would be a different story.
2) The US and UK have very strong extradition treaties and will generally extradite with very few questions asked. In most cases the legal systems of the US and UK are trustworthy and compatible enough for this to be a fairly reasonable thing.
Again ignoring the specifics of this case, these general principles of law are generally good. The US, and international community have a strong interest in protecting their assets. If you want to virtually strike at a country in a targeted attack you should be prepared to face the consequences -- sitting in another country while you perform it is not a valid excuse. Imagine a more clear cut case, some Russian hacker group hacks a US bank and steals millions of dollars, that seems reasonable to prosecute right?
If an estranged noncitizen parent living abroad conspires to kidnap his children from their custodial parent inside the US, he can be tried for kidnapping by the US. Even if his part of the conspiracy never takes place inside the US. The alternative- just letting him off, due to where he happened to physically be at the time- would be fairly absurd. The jurisdiction he's physically in probably doesn't care, and even if they do, most of the witnesses and all of the victims are physically in the US.
The US can't kidnap him but asking the jurisdiction he is in to extradite him is totally normal. This is what extradition agreements are for, in part.
Physical presence is an odd requirement. So if I pay people to deliver bombs to people in the USA, but I'm not in the USA, I haven't committed a crime?
International crimes depend on a lot of factors.
There's a sharp divide in how people view Assange. Some buy into his hipster-tech-Jesus persona. These people think the rape (read: surreptitious condom removal) allegations were materialized by the US government, somehow overlooking the fact that nearly everyone who has interacted with Assange has a negative opinion of him personally (see - https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting).
I see Assange as a tragic figure. Publishing the "Collateral Murder" video was good. But Assange's worldview is basically incoherent. "All information should be open" is a naive position and there's a > 0 chance that Assange was used by Russia. When you publish everything, you're obviously putting yourself in a position in which you can be used. Further, states are allowed to have secrets for the same reason people are allowed to have secrets. It isn't possible for governments to conduct foreign policy with everything in the open. Basically, Assange did not "publish responsibly" and I believe his motivation was mostly personal fame. I'd contrast Assange with Daniel Ellsberg rather than comparing them as this article does.
That said, I think the US government would have been better off not pursuing him at all. Now that they have him, I hope he just gets a slap on the wrist.
This is an accusation made by the US government, it's not a fact. WikiLeaks accepted leaked documents and published them after verifying they were true. This is basically what journalists do (though they usually write articles that summarise the leaks).
Also, WikiLeaks did redact documents on many ocassions (in some cases even asking the US State Department what information should not be published). Everyone remembers the mostly-unredacted leaks of the war logs, but most people haven't followed up and seen that they did start redacting more things after the backlash. Though they never redacted sources or methods because those things have proven to help people in the past.
Are you claiming the chat logs that show Assange offering assistance cracking passwords are fake?
Source?
The DoJ would love for you to testify for them as this is what they accuse him of doing.
""All information should be open" is a naive position"
Relevance?
He also does obviously doesn't believe this as literally as you're interpreting it, demonstrated by his own words and actions such as redacting.
"a > 0 chance that Assange was used by Russia"
This can be said about every publication ever made by anyone, ever. Even those with known sources.
"Basically, Assange did not "publish responsibly" and I believe his motivation was mostly personal fame."
Source? Relevance?
If I believe your statement is motivated by personal fame, why does it matter?
Can you point to a journalist who is, without a doubt, devoid of desire for fame?
You might view this response as mildly combative, but I'm trying to be succinct.
The Guardian would do well to call on the UK government to release this man immediately.
From what I understand, it was never actually a really strong case. Yet, the Swedes went all out on this. Likewise, the UK would never have put as much effort in pursuing such a minor matter had it not been for the Wikileaks thing. Nor would the Ecuadorians have considered hosting him for seven years. Both the US and UK have repeatedly pressured Sweden to not drop their extradition request and arrest warrant.
The fact that he's now being extradited to the US rather than Sweden only confirms that Wikileaks is the only reason all this stuff happened to Assange. Otherwise he'd be on his way to Sweden now. This was about the Swedish extradition request right until he walked out of the embassy.
Now the court system will decide over the coming months/years whether or not to hand him over to the US, where he has a good chance of being imprisoned for a very long time.
The crime he was accused of by the US is helping someone try to break into a laptop. That's beyond most journalistic standards for conduct and a criminal act.
We'll see what can be proved in court from here.
We live in a society based on the presumption of innocence. Just because the US government says something (which happens to be incredibly helpful for their narrative) does not make it true.
Also, he wasn't accused of trying to break into a laptop. He was accused of allegedly offering to help Chelsea Manning crack a password hash (which he never did). Aside from the fact that johntheripper is free software and is so trivial to use that teenagers know about it (making the entire story seem suspect on its face) it completely ignores that this is ridiculously minor compared to the Espionage Act indictments.
So I don't see the justification to prosecute him. Of course governmental data of the US isn't protected from non-citizen access. Why should it, these are the rules they themselves set. It is naive to think that governmental actors have an advantage at espionage. On the contrary. The most advantages has anyone without critical secrets.
The question about the laptop is pretty settled to me. It's against the law to help someone try to break into something like that. I think that is a valid law, doing so is step well outside what a journalist should do, and all of that is regardless if you are successful or not. Also we'll see what he says in court about that, I could have sworn he or his lawyer already noted their lack of success, that sounded like they were talking about actually trying to do it.
I do think in my mind the two topics are tied together, if someone is not behaving as a journalist then I think the context of the charges changes dramatically.
He's now being charged under the Espionage act for asking for classified info and publishing it. The new charges are what matter and what everyone is talking about.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/13/jordan-pe...
If they are completely subservient to the law then they should not break it even when it is wrong. Therefore it is justified to do violence against them.
Goddamn right journalists should be above the law! The truth is fundamentally above the law as nothing written as law can change the truth. The nation-states running travesties and making reporting on them state secrets that is even more reason to report on them.
Fuck treating nation-states and laws as sacred. Any student of 20th century history (really before) should know why doing so is a dangerous, stupid, and /evil/ idea.
In very select instances, and under certain circumstances. A corrupt journalist is terrible and shouldn't be above the law at all. Granted you could argue that he's not a journalist if he doesn't adhere to journalistic standards, but that just makes it a battle over "is this person a journalist?"
The last people I would want to have additional privileges are journalists, who often love to create spin or ruin people's lives for a story.
Who is saying this? It was simply a demonstrable example of why people need the protections we afford the media.
> Assange is not a journalist,
There exists no binary test for "a journalist"/"not a journalist" and by the broadest definition it's not a particularly hard thing to meet. By quibbling over the definition we create wiggle room for the government to decide when someone isn't or isn't a journalist and charge accordingly. We should afford someone like Assange the same general rights we would for a veteran journalist at WSJ or NYT.
The 2019 winner reported on a University of Southern California gynecologist accused of violating hundreds of young women. In order to write the story they went to former USC employees and solicited, among other things, patient confidential information. This is of course a crime by both the journalists and former employees, but one that most people will agree benefited society.
I wonder how many other journalists has won that award because they approach people to get confidential information in order to further a investigation. My guess is a lot. I doubt we could have investigative reporting at all if journalists could not ask questions in fear of being guilty of soliciting confidential information.
What you have written is libel, and I suggest you remove your comment, since the LA Times has stated exactly how they conducted the investigation.
Ryan, Hamilton and a third colleague, Paul Pringle, kept knocking on doors, and over a period of months, they persuaded more than 20 current and former USC employees and a handful of former patients to talk on an anonymous basis. The story they told was jaw-dropping.
Unlike similar stories about sexual abuse, our investigation did not have the benefit of police records, court filings or other public documents because none existed. It was based almost exclusively on interviews.
The LA Times journalists did not look at patient records for the first story; they based the reporting solely on interviews with patients and with staff. They found these patients by basically just cold-calling people that might have been victims until they found some. Given the hundreds of women the doctor molested, this was actually not that hard to do (though in most cases this would have been like finding a needle in a haystack).
After the story broke, hundreds of women contacted the LA Times and provided permission for the LA Times to access their records as part of the investigation because they didn't trust USC to investigate properly without external pressure.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-times-pulitzer-geo...
The claim by Mueller that the emails were stolen by Russian operatives is an incredible stretch of the imagination given the following:
* The public audit logs during the leaks provides clear evidence that the transfer must have happened locally using a USB drive because the transfer speed was too fast to happen over the internet -- Bill Binney and some other ex-NSA whistleblowers did tests to verify this[1]. Which makes it seem quite likely it was leaked by an insider of the DNC.
* Where did the data provided by the report (such as "XYZ searched for 'russia' on the DNC servers") come from? You might think the NSA, but all NSA intel is classified and so the President must have declassified it (which we would've heard about). It seems incredibly likely that this "evidence" was provided by the third-party "cyber threat intelligence" company which the DNC gave their email server to instead of the FBI when they broke the chain of custody.
Now, it is still possible that it happened -- but it is at the very least an incredibly suspicious claim.
[1]: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-r...
Then finally he is accused because he promised to look into how to crack some passwords, the accusations are very weak and the result will be similar to the result of the "Saddam chemical weapons", aka US will decide that he won'ts you then some pretext will be created and then the propaganda will start to justify the pretext.
on the accusation of having extracted information as opposed to having received information I think we really don't have the elements to reach an informed conclusion, albeit I suspect by how the story developed that the trial will not be particularly fair to him.
What would stop a government from making something "classified" ex post facto just to silence and/or jail nay-sayers, political opponents, or oppressed peoples? The answer is nothing, and this is exactly why this cannot stand.
Even the damnable rhetorical justification for abuses "fire in a crowded theater" standard of nuclear launch codes this applies to - since if they were compromised let the whole goddamn world know it is 1-2-3-4-5 so that they can have actual security instead of illusion of security and the fuck ups responsible being safe from any deserved backlash.
However that may be, sloppy/negligent editorial work i.e. the release of names (uncensored) can very well be a judicial issue -- but that is not what he is accused of. And it should definitely not be persecuted with the remnant of a war-time power grab [espionage act].
War crimes are no valid secrets and there was no legitimate channel. You would be ethically required to act and leak the information.
'free media'
and
'doxing individuals who's identities were protected because if they are publicly revealed not only are their lives at serious risk but it also exposes their close family and friends to rape/murder/torture until a time at which they are found and violently murdered because terrorists and hostile governments actually do this sort of thing to their perceived enemies, just like what happened to journalists (not informants/spies) like Jamal Khashoggi and many of the REAL journalists listed at https://cpj.org/data/killed/ '
"How dare he show the US murdering journalists! That could lead to more journalist getting murdered."
