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."

Comments

I still don't get it

[zero.kalvin]

He did not steal the files! He is not an american citizen! And when he did obtain the files, he was not on American soil! And he is not bound by any law prohibiting the distribution of these files, and certainly not under any NDA. So the question is what kind of justice mokery they came up with ?

Re:I still don't get it

[Dhalka226]

And he is not bound by any law prohibiting the distribution of these files

I don't think that issue is as clear as you do. There's little stopping Congress from passing a law granting themselves some sort of worldwide jurisdiction (assuming the law would be otherwise valid). The better question is whether any of the rest of the world would care. If they refuse to extradite, the point is moot.

In this particular case, I see little reason not to extradite. His actions would be illegal pretty much everywhere, which is one major factor to the extradition process. Prosecutors could simply assure they will not seek the death penalty (assuming it's even possible; it depends what he would be charged under) to defuse another. Though it's debatable on a philosophical level, the vast majority of these nations also recognize our legal system as fair and capable of a fair trial, defusing another. If the US really does have a sealed indictment, it's already declared that he has, in fact, engaged in behavior that can be reasonably construed as breaking US law insofar as being deserving of bringing him to trial. I see no reason for other nations to second guess that declaration as a matter of policy, which means they would be making exceptions for Assange and quite frankly opening themselves up to problems in the future in terms of equal protection within their jurisdictions.

How did they get the indictment? I don't know. We haven't seen it, obviously, assuming it even exists. We don't know what it's for, so it's hard to even speculate. I've seen some interesting theories with regard to the Espionage Act. Quoting a law professor's interpretation of the act, it "prohibits the willful communication, delivery, or transmission to 'any person not entitled to receive it' of 'any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.'" That certainly seems to apply, at least superficially enough to bring to trial. Assange's propensity for running his mouth and making comments about how he hopes to bring governments down makes it awfully hard to backtrack on his intent as well. You can probably manage jurisdiction pretty easily since the information was originally hosted on, and thus disseminated from, Amazon servers -- Amazon being an American company and the servers likely, at least in part, on American soil. And that's just one way. (The whole article is interesting if you want to read it. You can see each parties' biases shine through, but they all bring up a lot of good points that would be raised at trial.)

I'm not making any judgments about the case itself, by the way. I'm simply saying that whether or not he should be brought to trial or should be extradited is not nearly so simple an issue. In fact he probably should be; I think the burdens on that end have been met. The better questions are whether he should be prosecuted and if he is, if he should be convicted.

If it goes to trial, there are a ton of huge issues. First Amendment protections; the definition of journalists; the requirement of intent; application of not only the law but First Amendment protection itself to foreign nationals (on foreign soil); the very definitions of espionage themselves. I think he has a lot of damn good defenses -- probably more than enough to generate reasonable doubt. I simply believe they should be adjudicated in the United States if you United States makes those allegations. The other burdens to extradition are met in my mind.

Re:I still don't get it

[clarkkent09]

Say there is a Russian spy who recruited an American soldier to steal military secrets, took them from him through a secure internet channel and 'distributed' them to foreign intelligence services. Your post applies to him as well:

He did not steal the files! He is not an american citizen! And when he did obtain the files, he was not on American soil! And he is not bound by any law prohibiting the distribution of these files, and certainly not under any NDA.

Do you get it now?

Re:I still don't get it

[starcraftsicko]

That's awful shortsighted.

Manning worked for the US military and eventually made it his purpose to subvert it. He entered the military voluntarily - the US does not have a draft and Manning was not part of a social class that had no options. He abused his position, broke his oath, and acted to place materials whose secrecy he was supposed to protect... into the hands of enemies (and friends, frenemies, neutrals, and basically anyone who cared to look). Frankly, he deserves what he gets.

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. 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.

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?

If, OTOH, he asked wikileaks for help... if JA helped him decide what to steal; how to steal it; how to cover his thefts, etc... if JA persuaded Manning to do as he did... well then he may well have participated in a crime (conspiracy; accessory; theft of data; unauthorized access) at a US military installation. Why would we want to support this?

Investigative journalism is worthy of our protection. We need to ask and obtain answers to difficult questions. The "press" (at least in the US) really does have the right to ask the questions and to publish the answers. Determining what to ask, who to ask, and what to publish is the critical role of the 'investigative journalist'. So long as the journalist is simply asking questions and getting answers, they deserve our protection.

If the "journalist" stops asking questions and starts directing... [for lack of a better term, literally] agents to steal that data, we DO need to reassess their role. I'm not sure if JA crossed that line, but it seems reasonable that we should ask. Who watches the watchers, etc...

Re:I still don't get it

[TheCarp]

Why would we want to support it? Because fuck them. They have been stealing our money for years now, and mortgaging the country down the drain all to support a few overly wealthy people's financial interests and personal pipe dreams.

The moment he sent those files was the first REAL service he did for the american people, when he became a whistle blower and started sending out their secrets so we could see what they have been doing behind our backs while they steal our resources to do it.

Bradley Manning is a true American Hero. One of the very very few amongst a legion of slaves who do little more than what they are told while they pat themselves on the back for guarding freedom.

I hope they give him the Nobel Peace Prize, he is far more deserving than that war monger Obama.

Re:I still don't get it

[Captain Hook]

That treaty is hugely unpopular with UK public and is widely considered unfavorable to us, to the point where MPs have been calling for review of the Treaty. There is a general feeling of the US riding roughshod over other countries sovereignty, admittedly with our own governments approval, but that feeling does exist and extends the idea that our government is not representing us. The last thing our government needs is a lightning rod issue like that bring up questions about what we get out of the 'special' relationship.

UK has a requirement not to extradite in cases where a death penalty is a possibility and also where the crime is considered to be political in nature, since you have had US senators calling for the death penalty, even if they are just sounding off for the cameras, both of those restrictions may have been met. However, the political restriction may not apply because the definition of a political crime is criticism of their own government.

An attempt to extradite from the UK may not be as easy either legally or politically as it seems on paper.

Re:I still don't get it

[Hatta]

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.

This right here is plain nonsense. Sometimes it's necessary to break the law to improve justice. When the law protects evil, working within the law is evil.

If, OTOH, he asked wikileaks for help... if JA helped him decide what to steal; how to steal it; how to cover his thefts, etc... if JA persuaded Manning to do as he did... well then he may well have participated in a crime (conspiracy; accessory; theft of data; unauthorized access) at a US military installation. Why would we want to support this?

Because the good outweighs the bad. Nobody can point to a single wrongful death caused by the Wikileaks dump. We can point to many wrongful deaths inappropriately covered up by the military.

Now it's not Bradley Manning's job to decide whether the good outweighs the bad. And it's not Julian Assange's either. But whoever's job it is, they have failed badly. We should be thanking Manning and Assange for bringing that to our attention.

In short, vigilantism is a symptom of a broken justice system. If you don't like vigilantism, you should be working to implement the kind of oversight that would make whistle blowers obsolete.

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would he be easier to extradite from Sweden than Great Britain?

Re:Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

He wouldn't be easier to extradite from Sweden than Great Britain. The EU has specific rules and regulations regarding extradition to a third-party non-EU state, and there is absolutely nothing (legal) that Sweden can do to extradite Assange to the US without first getting the consent of the UK's justice minister.

The only way that Assange could be extradited to the US is:
1) Sweden and the UK BOTH agree to honor an extradition request, through their justice ministers & courts, and that extradition is held up by the EU central courts;
2) Sweden decides to jeopardize its standing and decades of goodwill in the EU, as well as facing probable legal and economic sanctions, and hands over Assange without obeying the relevant EU laws to which it is a signatory

In case 1, why would the US wait for him to be extradited to Sweden, instead of just requesting extradition from the UK? They have to get the UK justice minister's approval either way, why add Sweden's system to the mix?

In case 2, this is so unlikely to happen that you might as well be worrying about a Martian invasion, as well.

The only people who think the Sweden extradition is some sort of grand conspiracy for the US to get its hands on Assange are... well, Assange, and a like-minded bunch of credulous simpletons (see the link provided by GameboyRMH for examples of like-minded simpletons.)

Re:Not surprised

[HBI]

I actually agree. It may be that the Swedish women are doing him a favor here. In fact, I wouldn't doubt that this is all attention seeking behavior from Assange when he knows full well that the Swedish connection might be his only lifeline. It's unlikely that he'd be in any danger in Swedish jail, but he'd be in quite a bit of danger anywhere else. Hiding out in Stockholm for 10 years might be the one thing that could result in him having any future besides a pine box.

The insurance file is a joke. It's already been cracked, assuredly.

Assange must have leaked the sealed indictment

[ffflala]

From TFA:

"Stratfor intelligence analysts on January 26 last year, the company's vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, responded to a media report concerning US investigations targeting WikiLeaks. He wrote: "We have a sealed indictment on Assange."

So Burton, a Stratfor VP, as "a sealed indictment"? Money & influence aside, on one at Stratfor has the power to directly indict anyone. If Burton is telling the truth, it means that someone committed a crime... by leaking a sealed indictment.

So here we have a prosecution team going after Assange for leaking classified information. In the course of doing so, someone on their team has leaked sealed information. Was it some ideological troublemaker, hell-bent on making secret government information public? Sounds like Assange!

Whoever it was, should really go after that person was. You know, for leaking sealed information. Which they seem to believe is a crime.

And apparently Stratfor...

[FreeUser]

The only people who think the Sweden extradition is some sort of grand conspiracy for the US to get its hands on Assange are... well, Assange, and a like-minded bunch of credulous simpletons

Nice ad homenim against anyone who disagrees with your view. Extra points for arrogance.

Apparently your list of "simpletons" includes your buddies at Stratfor, who claim to have specific intelligence indicating that the charges in Sweden are trumped up:

Whatâ(TM)s even more interesting is that Farnham says thereâ(TM)s nothing to the claims that Assange sexually assaulted two women in Sweden. He says that a close family friend knows one of the women involved in the case and they said that itâ(TM)s just âoeprosecutors looking to make a name for themselves.â

Ref: http://www.webpronews.com/stratfor-email-leaks-reveal-u-s-plans-to-indict-wikileaks-founder-2012-02

This may be less about extraditing Assange to the US, and more about jailing him for any offense, real or imagined, and assinating his character. Which would still be a "grand conspiracy" of sorts, just not one focused on extradition: label him a rapist and jail him for trumped up charges without us breaking any of our laws. Makes a nice example (in the Mafiosa Dom sense of the word), particularly once you throw Manning's inevitable sentence into the mix.

The sealed indictment (if real) adds another sinister bent to the whole thing. Regardless, that a very nasty game is afoot here is not in doubt, what is, is exactly what the nature of the game is.

What role a secret indictment would play is interesting to speculate about (and that's all anyone can really do). Can Assange be rendered more easily from Sweden (or points en route), or is he more vulnerable to extradition as a convicted felon and ex-con after he's served jailtime on trumped up charges and his reputation is in tatters? Or is it just an Ace the government keeps up its sleave, on the off chance Assange someday has a layover on US soil, say, on his way to a speaking engagement in Rio?