Posted on 04/13/2019 11:55:39 AM PDT by detective
The decision to seek the extradition of Julian Assange marked a dramatic new approach to the founder of WikiLeaks by the U.S. government, a shift that was signaled in the early days of the Trump administration. President Barack Obama’s Justice Department had extensive internal debates about whether to charge Assange amid concerns the case might not hold up in court and would be viewed as an attack on journalism by an administration already taking heat for leak prosecutions.
But senior Trump administration officials seemed to make clear early on that they held a different view, dialing up the rhetoric on the anti-secrecy organization shortly after it made damaging disclosures about the CIA’s cyberespionage tools.
“WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service,” former CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in April 2017 in his first public speech as head of the agency.
“Assange and his ilk,” Pompeo said, seek “personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
That is the rub for me. He published protected information claiming a journalistic motive. What if he had encouraged someone to steal 5 million credit card numbers and personal information and posted it? One can argue that google and other large web companies take our private information to sell it, but we each clicked “yes” at some point providing them permission so that may be different.
It is all dependent on how you define the material he published.
I do suspect he has a lot more material that may dump onto the web, but selfishly he may use it as a bargaining chip, which undermines his “obligation as a journalist” argument. Like I said, this will be a very interesting case with long term ramifications.
In the case of Manning, it's no big deal. If he wants to refer to himself as a woman, go for it. It's a free country.
Where it is a big deal - a really big deal - is in high school and college women's sports. Muscled XY "women" will eventually dominate those sports.
Here we see an XY "woman" (at center) who won a women's cycling race.
Actually, what our Executive branch wants is to get him under our cover, protect him, and pump him for the ways we can undercut socialism and Islamic terrorism. What he devised was a system that could give whistle-blowes a vent without compromising their lives or ways to make a living. IMHO
Could it be because the British need help from the USA in regards to leaving the EU, that is Brexit?
There’s a new sheriff in town...
“If” he coached Manning on how to do illegally access and copy data, he did participate in a conspiracy to violate our laws. Under 18 USC 371 that would make him guilty of the underlying crime for which Manning was inexplicably pardoned.
That seems to be the cleanest part of the allegations and it would avoid the whole definition of journalism and the protections we afford them. He allegedly worked directly with Manning providing him direction and that is far different under the conspiracy statute than simply publishing material he was provided.
Why waste time with Assange when Comey, Strzok, Page, Clapper, Yates, Ohr, and unamed co-conspirators are at the head of the line? Assanage is a waste of time and a distraction.
No, not just a distraction. Assange has information that could crack the whole Obama administration. If Assange could be forced under oath to reveal his Hillary email leaks as originating from Seth Rich, not the Russians, and Rich is ‘conveniently’ dead... things could fall apart quickly for Hillary and even Obama.
At some point this will reach critical mass and go thermonuclear and we could have Nixon looking like a virgin choir boy compared to Hillary and Obama in relative evil... in undeniable fact!!!!!
Ok, then we should extradite Obama and Hillary to Egypt to face terrorism charges.
More importantly, SETH RICH.
The indictment has nothing to do with the material he published, or where it came from.
Nobody really knows what hackers are out there and what they can access or not until they do it....even then only the sensational is reported.
There are so many loopholes Assaunge can jump through in this case that I tend to think he'll be let off with a light sentence if anything at all.
The case in Sweden is actually quite funny.....it was consensual sex until apparently the second time around and Assuage failed to use a condom....LOLOLOL.....therefore it's considered non-consensual and rape....hohohoho!
It does indirectly because they charged him with conspiracy -
“”“I think that to the extent the message that’s being sent is — ‘We don’t have a problem with people publishing things, we have a problem with people using illegal means to obtain information to publish’ — I don’t think that’s a bad message,” Litt said. “Reporters shouldn’t be breaking into places where they don’t belong to get information.”””
https://www.yahoo.com/news/skullduggery-julian-assange-robert-litt-175146306.html
They tried to avoid the 1st amendment issue by making a narrow indictment as Litt said in the article above. The public debate is largely centered around the 1st amendment issue, but if the trial Judge partitions off the 1st amendment issue one can argue that no journalistic protections exist.
Like I said, it is an interesting case because he is alleged to have “participated” in the illegal acquisition of classified information. What he did with it (publish) is probably irrelevant to how it was charged.
He got “Kavanaugh’d” in Sweden. No argument from me. I do think he has made claims to be a “journalist” though and that is how many of his defenders label him.
I thought that ‘guecifer? ‘ guy was the hacker.
Seems incongruous.
“...Trump will use hum to spill the beans on Obama...”
This is my view as well - also to expose Hillary and the DNC’s (Wasserman, etc.) crimes.
They can only press the issue if the court allows it. The court only has to allow what is relevant for the elements of the crime he is charged with.
Manning committed a crime. Assange allegedly conspired with him to commit that crime and in fact took possession of the “stolen” materials.
If the court is not swayed by the “journalism” argument there are no 1st amendment privileges afforded to him even if he was considered a citizen of the U.S. for purposes of the proceeding (afforded the same rights).
The government will try to keep it narrowly focused to the conspiracy and that is a strong case given that Manning pled. The defense will try to mount a “journalist” defense if they are allowed. This will most likely end up in SCOTUS and Assange will stay in prison for years unless he told the truth about the volume of material he still possesses and the government makes a deal for it - not out of the realm of reason. My understanding though is that there are others with Wikileaks that possess the material, but he reportedly is the only person with the ability to unlock it outside of state actors who may already possess the material.
Having our nations secrets stolen by an insider, collected and stored by a “publisher”, and printed (or bartered) is not an ideal situation. We all laughed and cheered when it made HRC look bad, but much of this material would damage our national security and likely the safety of our soldiers and personnel.
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