"I'll help" is not a problem, if they are not helping someone to commit a crime (clarification: when I say "it's a problem" I mean it's a problem for whoever says "I'll help" because they are being accessory to a crime).

What routinely escapes from the prosecution of the law is irrelevant.

The fact that I have downloaded copyrighted material without any consequence doesn't make it legal.

A crime is a crime by the law, the court has to decide if you either committed it or not (regardless if you did it for real, if the court can prove you did it, you did it).

That doesn't mean that killing a baby and downloading an episode of a TV show illegally is the same thing, it means that if I helped you to download the content and you are accused of downloading that content and the court can prove it, I am accessory to the crime even if people routinely get by.

> unauthorized possession's of classified information is a crime

Are you referring to this?

> Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.

What journalists do is not retain them, it's publish them, which AFAIK is not illegal.

I'm being downvoted for basically stating the obvious and, worse than that, by people that do not stop a second to think about what other people wrote.

I'm not putting Assange on trial, I'm not a judge, this is not a tribunal, I was just clarifying what he's been accused of!

Having said that: yes, if you are the driver in a Bank robbery, you can get arrested for "basically driving a car"

The crime is not driving, is helping other criminals to commit the crime.

Which is what Assange is accused of. He's not accused of running hashcat.

Even if he did the decryption with pen and paper and failed he would be an "accessory to the crime" (allegedly, because he's only accused of doing it)

To put it in other words, he is accused of being

> a person who knowingly and voluntarily participates in the commission of a crime.

Regardless of the crime, the simple fact that he (allegedly) helped is a crime.