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US Prosecutors Have a Sealed Indictment On Assange, Say Leaked Files
beaverdownunder writes with news from The Age that "Leaked e-mails from private U.S. intelligence agency Stratfor indicate that American prosecutors have had a sealed, secret indictment drawn up against Julian Assange as early as January, 2011." From the article: "The news that U.S. prosecutors drew up a secret indictment against Mr. Assange more than 12 months ago comes as the WikiLeaks founder awaits a British Supreme Court decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden to be questioned in relation to sexual assault allegations.
Mr. Assange, who has not been charged with any offence in Sweden, fears extradition to Stockholm will open the way for his extradition to the U.S. on possible espionage or conspiracy charges over WikiLeaks' publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified U.S. reports."
I think the only reason he hasn't been Awlaki'd is that he's staying in built-up first-world areas.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
And in other news that everyone already figured out... OJ Simpson *did* actually kill his ex wife. President Bush lied about WMD in Iraq to make his case for his invasion. Republicans are trying to sabotage the economy to make sure Obama doesn't get re-elected. And Waldo wasn't in the picture at all.
Based on the rest of the Strafor emails, there's quite a high possibility that this is just made up.
Might makes right.
it is impossible to invent theories to indict them [Assange/Wikileaks] without simultaneously criminalizing much of investigative journalism
The emperor reacts violently when without clothes.
Wikileaks. Having that email is interesting, but it is entirely devoid of any context or what the actual document is. Stratfor's an intelligence company. It could be misdirection for all we know.
Conspiracy minded thinking just doesn't jive me. It's pretty obvious the US Government isn't happy with Julian Assange, but, at what point does the conspiracy end? Show me the damn document.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
So the question is what kind of justice mokery they came up with ?
I suppose that the Wikileaks cable leaks were so pervasive that some of the files contained classified information -- maybe even information not only classified by the United States government but also many other governments of the world.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps the US prosecutors have researched the laws that he was supposed to be abiding by when he obtained the files? They're probably not as serious as the US laws but nowhere does it say whether these are charges under US law, Australian laws, US-Ally law or some other foreign law. Here's some reading on said laws from the nation of his citizenship. Perhaps the purpose of this indictment is to try to get him tried under those laws in an Australian court with information provided by US prosecutors?
My work here is dung.
Criminalizing investigative journalism is exactly what they intend to do.
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And what, exactly, did Julian Assange hack, or break into?
When the American government pulls moves like this, it proves it is the greatest threat to liberty in the world. The bland malevolence of the sociopathic gangsters running the United States right now puts the acute and minor threat of 3rd world terrorists shooting guns to shame. The latter kills scores, the former kills millions. And the former's threat is all the more intractable because of all the sheeple who shut up and do as they're told in the commission of the crimes.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Good thing that people who rant about out of control government are always so reasoned and intellectual about it. They'd never post poorly proofread rants with dubious historical analogies or anything.
Replacing one set of loons with another, even loonier set is not an improvement.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
The term is 'espionage' - e.g., 'spying.'
Whether or not what he's done meets the definition of spying would depend largely on whether he actively solicited these files (e.g., encouraged the leaker, allegedly PFC Manning, to breach security and release the classified information to him), or whether he was the passive recipient, and all of the responsibility for the release of classified information rests with the leaker. If you actively seek out classified information with the intent of passing it on to people who aren't cleared to possess it, that would be considered spying. If you are given information by a leaker, there are still some espionage concerns if you decide to publish, but the US Supreme Court has taken a fairly narrow view of what sort of things the government can forcibly prevent a newspaper from publishing once it has been leaked.
Your argument, however, is nonsensical. Being a US citizen doesn't mean you're allowed to go to Germany and break their laws, and then claim as a defense, "But I'm not German, and I don't live here - I'm not bound by German law!" If you commit a crime in Germany, you can bet that the German authorities will want to prosecute, regardless of what your nationality is.
NB: I'm not arguing that Mr. Assange *has* committed a crime against the US, I'm pointing out that your argument does nothing to exonerate him if he actually has done so. I could certainly agree that his organization handled the leaked documents irresponsibly (a much more thorough redaction to protect named informants would have been preferable), but I'd need to see far more concrete evidence that he actively solicited this information to believe he engaged in anything like espionage.
Who are the tax payers who do? Can I get a list?
Well, the sad thing is that when US citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed with a missile without the slightest pretense of judicial due process, most polls suggested that about 65% of Americans approved, including substantial majorities of self-identified Democrats and self-identified Republicans. So by all appearances, US citizens don't actually care about whether the government follows its own rules.
This is obviously a scary fact, but something many totalitarian rulers discovered a long time ago is that the masses are generally fine with government oppression so long as they keep them distracted (with TV, iPhones, etc), target minorities that are small enough that they can't fight back (e.g. Japanese-Americans or German Jews), or create a subset of the population that thinks of themselves as privileged (members of the political party, following an established religion, dominant racial group, etc) and will fight to defend that privilege. Hence this comment from the 1930's: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."
I am officially gone from
Should Terry Jones be extradited to Afghanistan for burning the Quran?
Any arab would say that burning a Quran should be illegal pretty much everywhere.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp
I know, godwin. Whatever.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Your argument, however, is nonsensical. Being a US citizen doesn't mean you're allowed to go to Germany and break their laws
I bolded the relevant point. Extraditing Assange to the US for breaking US law is like extraditing one of use to Germany for Holocaust denial. You don't have to like the act or the actor to understand that such an extradition would be unjust.
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Your argument fails. To continue your German theme, if you are in the USA and you buy some Nazi memorabilia, you have probably committed a crime in Germany but you have not committed any crime in the USA. You are not a criminal for buying the items, even if you subsequently go to Germany, because when you bought them you were not subject to German law. Even if you bought the items from a German you are free and clear (although the German guy may not be).
A person cannot be expected to know the law in all 200 or so countries and abide by them all. Much as many USA folks seem to believe otherwise, US law is not enforceable worldwide.
IANAL, but he didn't even break any laws period. He could have been in the United States and it would have been perfectly legal for him to release that information. It's not illegal to release classified information; it's illegal to share it if you were given access to it legitimately. If someone accidentally leaves it on the bus, you can do whatever you like with it. The government can't force citizens to keep secrets for it, it can only punish those who don't keep secrets after swearing that they would.
You're right. Manning did aid the enemy. Anyone who cares about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities is now an enemy of the United States. If that's treason, thank god for treason.
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The cowardly enemies of the US are the people who are abusing the system of secrecy to cover up crimes and embarrassing behavior. Exposing those coverups and those crimes when you know full well that you might be murdered for the act is heroic and very much in the spirit of ideals of democracy and justice that America is supposed to uphold. I am an American Patriot, and I support wikileaks. The first step in purging the corruption that has infected this great nation is to expose it and make the people aware.
Yes, the situation you described fits the parent post exactly. Said Russian spy would not and should not be extraditable to the US.
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If that's treason, thank god for treason.
"Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason." - Sir John Harrington (1561–1612).
And that's why they are out to get him, and why he knows it. If Assange and the sordid revelations he assisted can survive in the teeth of official U.S. outrage, then that kind of revelation becomes legitimate. It's not just the U.S. which rails against that, since several of their allies and opponents appear to be cheering them on in the process.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
He abused his position, broke his oath
There is also a case that could be made that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law (to which the US is subject), to expose the crimes he saw.
There is a larger debate that should be had about how much of that information really should be secret, and if so from who, and then for how long.
I think this question is already answered that most, if not all, of the information leaked by Manning should not have been secret. From what I've seen the information falls into basically two categories, either it's innocuous, or it reveals immoral and often criminal behaviour. Neither of these should have been kept secret.
Even if we assume that Manning was doing 'the right thing by [caring] about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities , his acts are those of a vigilante. Thus, his methods subvert his cause.
Calling him a vigilante is quite a stretch since he didn't really punish anyone other than exposing what they were doing.
If he did what he did and blindly uploaded to wikileaks... well then that's the end of it. He's a naive fool who thought his cause of the week was worth the risk. Maybe he still feels that way?
I would hope that preventing war crimes and exposing government wrongdoing is more than just his "cause of the week". Maybe you believe the things he exposed were just not that serious? In my opinion killing civilians should be taken very seriously, and it should be punished appropriately instead of covered up.