1981

Ah, well, I figured those two were linked closely enough to be the same thing. My bad if it was confusing.

1982

There is a group of people in both the left and right wing who are fans of Wikileaks/Assange when they publish things that are politically convenient to their agenda. Yet they don’t care about press freedom, especially when the face of press freedom at that moment is a narcissistic and stubborn man who is easy to hate.

1983

Freedom of the press is not freedom to commit crimes.

1984

Not exactly. Here’s what they said at the time:

The Justice Department has all but concluded it will not bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing classified documents because government lawyers said they could not do so without also prosecuting U.S. news organizations and journalists, according to U.S. officials… The officials stressed that a formal decision has not been made, and a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks remains impaneled, but they said there is little possibility of bringing a case against Assange, unless he is implicated in criminal activity other than releasing online top-secret military and diplomatic documents.

1985

I would say that the Obama admin definitely had the chat logs implicating Assange in assisting Manning with her hacking files and chose not to indict. You are under the assumption that they didn’t have the information that was used in the indictment, which was information they probably had when charging manning.

Those were chat logs from 2010, and they used plenty of chat evidence to convict manning years ago. They had this, but didn’t want to open the can of worms that would be indicting Assange.

Specifically, the indictment focuses on how, after Manning had already leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to Assange, the WikiLeaks founder allegedly “agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Defense Department computers.”

“Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log onto the computers under a username that did not belong to her,” the indictment claims.

Prosecutors claim that on March 8, 2010, Manning had told Assange, “after this upload, that’s all I really have got left,” and that Assange responded, “curious eyes never run dry in my experience.”

However, there does not seem to have been any success in cracking the password. The indictment claims that on March 10, 2010, Assange said he’d had “no luck so far,” and there’s no further information on the matter.

You think this isn’t an attack on freedom of the press and the ability to publish information freely?

IT will be.

This charge against Assange is rather narrowly tailored — but we know the Justice Department has long considered broader charges against him, and CNN reported Thursday that additional charges are indeed still in the works.

1986

Maybe they didn’t have it. Maybe they did have it, but didn’t think a relatively light sentence was worth the effort.

I think the phrasing suggests that they might eventually bring other charges. Why would they add “… unless of course we find evidence of other crimes” if they really were planning to do nothing?

When they try to convict Assange for publishing information, I’ll worry. Not before that.

1987

My understanding of our extradition treaty is that we cannot bring other charges after he has been extradited. We have to notify the UK ahead of time of what charges he will face.

1988

On what basis do you think the current administration cares about adhering to “treaties”?

1989

I don’t think the administration really cares about getting Assange and I don’t think Barr will tear up the treaty to bring additional charges (assuming my understanding is correct, which it may not be. I’m no expert in this area).

1990

I meant that in 2013, when Obama DoJ made that statement, they were still considering bringing other charges.

1991

My reading comprehension when trying to catch up on a thread via my phone is amazing. ;)

1992
1993

Not surprised. He’s a Trump /Putin shill at this point.

1994

You guys are all crazy if you think this is anything other than punishing a whistleblower who exposed state crimes.

It’s an interesting coincidence that the IMF agreed 4.2 billion USD funding for Ecuador a few weeks before Assange’s expulsion and arrest.

1995

The dude worked directly with Russian intelligence agents.

1996

@draxen - you’re letting your own motives drive your thoughts of his innocence. He was pro-Brexit, pro-Trump, pro-Russia and it comes through loud and clear for those behind him. He was a good guy at first, but has been all kinds of awful plus a self-promoting tool for the last few years.

Seriously, I thought you were more objective. Yes, he did publish state crimes but that was Assange v1.0. Assange v2.0 - is the guy you’re defending.

1997

Post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense. Both a more positive IMF attitude to Ecuador and a more negative view of Assange from Ecuador come from the change in administration there.

I think it’s more about Trump wanting to prove how “tough” the US is than anything so sophisticated. The charge does seem pretty thin for an extradition for intelligence activity. Especially given the UK judiciary’s attitude to the US administration means a “political crime” extradition refusal seems more likely than not (not that I really know what I’m talking about on that score).

Yes he did, but that’s not a crime. We know he’s not a good guy.

1998

The CRIME was conspiring to hack government data.

The reason i want him to burn for it, is because he’s not a good guy.

1999

All due respect jpinard, but you say in the first sentence that someone is letting their own motives drive thoughts of innocence, and then proceed to do exactly that with the rest of the post!

The guy has a political agenda that falls outside the ‘left vs. right’ dichotomy, and is an asshole, I think draxen understands that. Neither is what he is being charged for, and I don’t think either deserves life imprisonment and/or 24 hours a day in solitary confinement.

2000

Pretty sure he’s not going to get life in prison.