UK court approves extradition of Julian Assange to US, decision with home secretary Patel
www.wsws.org
According to the Extradition Act (2003) which governs the process, Assange now has four weeks (to May 18) to make representations to Patel before her decision is announced.

A British judge has ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, where he faces a 175-year sentence. The final decision on Assange’s extradition will now be made by U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel. Amnesty International’s Simon Crowther spoke outside the courthouse prior to today’s ruling.

Simon Crowther: “Julian Assange is being prosecuted for espionage for publishing sensitive material that was classified. And if he is extradited to the U.S. for this, all journalists around the world are going to have to look over their shoulder, because within their own jurisdiction, if they publish something that the U.S. considers to be classified, they will face the risk of being extradited.”

  • pingveno
    19·
    3 years ago

    I’m scratching my head over most of the charges. There is one charge where he was attempting to help Chelsea Manning break a password hash (unsuccessfully). Based on their conversation, that seems like a slam dunk case of intrusion that crosses the line from journalist to hacker.

    But when I was reading through the expanded indictment with 18 counts, I was… unimpressed. I got a massive cringe out of this:

    The portion of the password hash Manning gave to ASSANGE to crack was stored as a “hash value” in a computer file that was accessible only by users with adminstrative-level privileges. Manning did not have administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file and obtain the portion of the password provided to ASSANGE.

    Linux is special software? That’s… news.

    The are a couple of things I will say in favor of this indictment. The first is that it managed to not misgender Chelsea Manning. It should be a minimum standard of acceptable human behavior, but I’ve seen plenty of people not manage that. The second is that they make a pretty good case that Assange was careless in handling extremely sensitive material. Whereas a responsible journalist would have redacted things like the names of local sources in dangerous or repressive regions, Assange did not, painting a target on their back. Translation: he got people killed or hurt. He acknowledged this and basically said he didn’t care.

    The expanded indictment is troublesome because of its potential to affect press freedom, which is why the Obama administration originally only included the hacking charges. Still, the deeper I dig the harder I find it to defend Assange and his callous disregard for human life.

    • Joe BidetOPA
      8·
      3 years ago

      The names that were in the warlogs were classified as “confidential” not “secret” or “top secret”. they were in SIPRnet where millions of ppl had access to it. If anyone endangered their sources, translators etc. it’s the US army itself.

      • during Manning’s court martial, US officials (a general if i recall) testified under oath that they couldnt’ link one death to the publication.

      It’s pure propaganda to say that Assange “endangered people” when he helped reveal the most important trove of documents that actually helped shift public opinion (and therefore slowing down) this war; while at the same time the US was killing and displacing 100.000s.

      (+ it’s true that by helping the US army, those informants, sources, translators etc… were already taking a risk in a coutry at war…)