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.”
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fucking tragic, really hope this doesn’t go through
dear brits, i trust in your protest potential, if extradition is “officially” completely approved, pls don’t be silent, this is a
oncefirst in a lifetime precedent that’s going to establish this terrible practice
Most “journalists” are at zero risk because they just parrot what their governments say.
Reading through the indictment, I think a lot of the fury is because Assange didn’t redact vulnerable sources, and when confronted had a very callous attitude about threats to the life or liberty of people who were mentioned. A responsible journalist would redact information like that to protect them from reprisals. Like, there are plenty of journalists that criticize the government in the West and receive leaks, but they’re not having the US government chasing them across the Atlantic.
speaking of the Atlantic, read this article:
you’ve been mislead in thinking WikiLeaks releases harmed anyone. the US army harmed the people of Afghanistan, and that’s what this story is about.
Looks like I was under a mistaken impression, thank you.
thanks for admitting it. speaks volumes about your intelligence! <3
I mod a subreddit where that’s a big point of the subreddit, so I would hope I’m willing to put my ego aside in favor of accuracy.
…they’re not having the US government chasing them across the Atlantic.
Not yet they’re not. Wait until a legal precedent is set with Assange (too many have been already) and any journalist the government doesn’t like the look of can be locked away or worse.
Whichever way you look at it, exposing sources in an unethical way just doesn’t warrant the treatment Assange has gotten nor the threat of three lifetimes in prison. This isn’t about that, nor is this isn’t about a really stretched charge of hacking, it’s about showing anti-imperialist and anti-war journalists and whistleblowers who’s in charge.
That charge of hacking is a very real charge. Journalists are supposed to not get their hands dirty. Sources give them documents, end of story. Assange was helping Manning attempt a privilege escalation attack on a system so that she could gain access to more documents. He crossed the red line, so I have no qualms with him getting bitten there. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The other charges are definitely more concerning in that they could erode press freedom. But then again, actual journalists would know how to aim for the powerful while redacting information that will get innocent people killed. So concerning, but I don’t see an actual journalist running afoul of this. Certainly not someone who reacts to getting people killed with essentially “not my problem”.
1/ journalists do that ALL THE TIME. you protect your source but you are not prevented from asking for more documents
2/ he didnt help escalate anythig. She gave him a hash and he never replied about whether or not it got cracked to anything
3/ it wasn’t even privilege escalation, but allegedly to mask traces, to login from another user. so it would have amounted to helping a source protect herself, if it had been done.
“no qualms” for a journalist facing extradition in a country he is not even a citizen of, for “espionnage”, for revealing war crimes… i wonder what you then have “qualms” about…
There hasnt been a single case of anyone being hurt based on wikileaks documents. So this is just an excuse for attacks on freedom of press.
You may have got a couple of facts wrong:
https://www.laprogressive.com/the-media-in-the-united-states/wrong-about-assange
"Wikileaks had hundreds of thousands of documents it had gotten from Manning – the war logs and State Department cables — for a considerable period in 2010 and went to “extraordinary lengths to publish them in a responsible and redacted manner,” the submissions to a lower U.K. court said. WikiLeaks held back information while it formed media partnerships with news organizations such as The Guardian, The New York Times and DER SPIEGEL to manage the release of the material. Assange’s legal team cited named witnesses, various journalists who worked with Assange on the process. Those witnesses testified to the rigor of the redaction effort.
The media partners’ work on the Afghan war logs included approaching the White House before releasing them. In July 2010, Wikileaks also entered dialogue with the White House about redacting names. On July 25, 2010, WikiLeaks held back publication of 15,000 documents on Afghanistan to safeguard its “harm minimization process” even after its media partners published stories.
Redaction of the Iraq War diaries was likewise “painstakingly approached” and involved the development of special redaction software. Publication was delayed in August 2010 despite this annoying some media partners because Assange didn’t want to rush.
Un-redacted publication of the State Department cables in September 2011 was undertaken by parties unconnected to WikiLeaks, and despite WikiLeaks’ efforts to prevent it, the legal submissions state. Those who revealed un-redacted cables have never been prosecuted nor requested to remove them from the internet.
[Ed.: John Young, founder of Cryptome, testified at Assange’s hearing that he published the unredacted cables before WikiLeaks but was never questioned by police. The password to the unredacted cables was published by Guardian journalists Luke Harding and David Leigh before Cryptome did.]"
Assange redacted what was necessary to hide identities; The Guardian published a password, allowing others to open files with names.
But China is the bad country. Really, fuck Anglos.
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more coverage from Business Insider, CNN, AP.
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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.
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…)
