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US Prepares Charges To Seek Arrest of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: U.S. authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell CNN. The Justice Department investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained wide attention for posting thousands of files stolen by the former U.S. Army intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning. Prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment precluded the prosecution of Assange, but now believe they have found a way to move forward. During President Barack Obama's administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks wasn't alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning. Several newspapers, including The New York Times, did as well. The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to U.S. officials involved in the process then.
The U.S. view of WikiLeaks and Assange began to change after investigators found what they believe was proof that WikiLeaks played an active role in helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, disclose a massive cache of classified documents. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a news conference Thursday that Assange's arrest is a "priority." "We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks," he said. "This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious. So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail." Meanwhile, Assange's lawyer said they have "had no communication with the Department of Justice."
The U.S. view of WikiLeaks and Assange began to change after investigators found what they believe was proof that WikiLeaks played an active role in helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, disclose a massive cache of classified documents. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a news conference Thursday that Assange's arrest is a "priority." "We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks," he said. "This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious. So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail." Meanwhile, Assange's lawyer said they have "had no communication with the Department of Justice."
but rather to stop the world from hearing inconvenient truths and all the wrongs the U.S. is doing. Making an example out of Assange won't help anything though, there will just be someone else stepping up. Assange is not the problem, you are.
Not being the NY Times, or rather, not being a part of the elite propaganda cartel. Damn the Constitution....full prosecution speed ahead.
Seriously, and this is why I don't give a fuck about any laws anymore. Laws are there for you, not the elites. And the worst crime you can do in America, is to reveal the crimes of the elites to the masses.
At no time has Assange had a US security clearance. He has no legal obligation to not publish info others have provided. Those others (Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, etc) are legally liable for leaking information they were legally obligated to protect. Not Assange.
The US would have to prove that Assange directed the leakers to collect and transfer the leaked information to him. Other than this article I haven't seen any indication of such a level of control or oversight by Assange on his sources. They have chosen to commit espionage and have voluntarily chosen WikiLeaks. This article brings forth a claim of Bradly being directed by WikiLeaks but I have not seen that before not even during Bradley's trial and considering CNN's current reputation for creating "news" I doubt this unsubstantiated claim. So I'm having a hard time seeing how they charge him with anything that could stick.
As to the Clinton campaign emails, last I heard WikiLeaks still insists they were provided by a disgruntled DNC staffer, not the Russians. But even if from the Russians, WikiLeaks did nothing illegal. They simply published information they had been provided, regardless of the source. They did not steal the data.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
"We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail"
Hello Secret US various services, you actually broke the law(s), performed illegal operations and basically fucked up your internal security.
Do you have members you would like to nominate for internment or...?
Anybody have the exact quote from Sessions?
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a news conference Thursday that Assange's arrest is a "priority."
"We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks," he said. "This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious. So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail."
I'm very suspicious when the news media writes their own sentence and then quotes a single word from someone. Was Sessions talking specifically about Assange, or about leakers? Assange is not a leaker, he's a publisher of the things leakers leak. It's perfectly reasonable for the Justice Department to go after people who are entrusted with US government secrets who then leak them.
Without the full question and answer, then it looks like Sessions could have just as easily said "we're going after leakers" and then CNN says "Assange is a leaker, therefore Sessions is going to arrest Assange," despite Sessions not saying or meaning that.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
He's doing things he was always going to do. You elected a guy whose sole reason for winning was to enrich himself and his family. And you fell for it all over a bunch of stupid dog whistles.
But! But! Duh emails! Benghaziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
Trump and his family are laughing at you and the rest of the alt-right all the way to the bank.
Wikileak published documents showing massive corruption in the democratic party. The big news organizations did not publish those leaks, they told their listeners it was illegal to even view them.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
You just go in and arrest him at the embassy. I mean - he's in London, we just go in and take him.
Wait, did you say that the Ecuadorian Embassy is actually sovereign land and to send a police or military force in to arrest and remove him would be an act of war? Well, you don't need to worry about that. We've just proven, by way of 59 cruise missiles, that even sovereign nations who do bad things are no barrier to the will (or should I say whim) of the United States. And they don't even have to go in by hand - I think a targeted drone strike would have a limited number of civilian casualties. And London doesn't have any room to complain, since they were perfectly fine with all the drone strikes in middle eastern countries where there were known criminals and we (usually) limited the civilian casualties.
I don't see how this is going to be difficult - the US just needs to apply traditional tactics used on physical terrorists to the new crop of information terrorists.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"The Trump Organization" is actually his father's apartment rental company, Elizabeth Trump & Son Co; he later renamed it after running it for years, as he wanted to diversify. His self-reported wealth in 1982 was $200M, when his company was still tied with his father. According to this calculator, that would be worth $4B today if invested in the market. Of course, that's not all that he got from his father - his father gave him (undisclosed) amounts of loans and gifts during his lifetime, and after his father's death in 1999, Donald and his siblings received most of Fred's assets; a portion of the real estate holdings alone were sold in 2003 for half a billion dollars. Much of Trump's other assets have come from his name - simple licensing rights (Trump pegs the value at $3,3B, Forbes says $253M); $241M from celebrity apprentice; etc. He also ditched a huge amount of debt through bankruptcy; before the proceedings, the Trump Organization owed $9B and Trump personally nearly $1B. When he settled with the banks after selling off assets, those figures were around $5B and $1B, respectively.
Very well; let this abomination unto the Lord begin!
What am I missing here? I thought Assange isn't a US citizen. He also wasn't on US soil when he received, nor when he published the material. How is the US juridical system involved, then?
You realize that that "droned by clinton" story was fake, don't you?
"Droned by Obama" isn't fake, though.
Indeed. A Post-ABC poll conducted in 2013 found 22% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats supported punitive strikes against Syria for using chemical weapons. In 2017, under Trump? The number from the Democrats only dropped one point, to 37%, but the number for Republicans totally reversed, to 86% support.
Very well; let this abomination unto the Lord begin!
Julian Assange is not a U.S. citizen. He does not run WikiLeaks from the U.S. It takes an incredible, overweening arrogance for U.S. officials to assume that every goddamned person in the world, wherever they may be, is subject to Washington's dictates. Imagine if the tables were turned -- say, the Russian government seeking to extradite and arrest an American citizen for acts that violated some Russian law but which occurred thousands of miles outside of Russian borders.
After the election, we started to hear "the Russians hacked the elections"
This is factually incorrect. These allegations were mainstream news many months before the elections. However, the more accurate phrasing is influencing rather than hacking because the latter suggests that the influencing was mainly done by hacking voting computers or something similar, which is not an accurate description of the allegations.
..and for some reason the Russian story lived into Q2 2017.
The reason that this story lives on is that evidence is still being uncovered that it is true. There is also strong evidence that the US secret services know more about this than has been revealed to the public, and the efforts to keep this information from being uncovered have sometimes been a bit clumsy.
And any current activities of the Trump administration cannot undo the activities of the Trump election campaign.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and hope they DO arrest him.
Why, you ask?
So the dead man switch is activated and all of the horrible, nasty stuff that has been laying there, waiting to be exposed comes to light.
That'll shake up the establishment.
Sure, what Snowden did was treason, and perhaps even a federal capital case could be prosecuted. But Snowden acted first to commit the crime. Where Assange was however, it was not a crime to publish documents given to him by a third party. And while Assange drove wikileaks, can the US categorically state Assange actually was the person who received the documents? No they can't; because wikileaks doesn't work that way. Wikileaks did not seek the documents out nor did they coerce Snowden to steal them in the first place. Assange, a foreign citizen, acted on material given to wikileaks, in a foreign country. There is no jurisdiction to enforce any US laws in connection with these acts. Snowden, yes, he committed treason and likely ITAR violations. But Assange acted outside the jurisdiction of the US.
It is the hubris of the American Department of Justice to think that American law extends globally. The U.S. State Department warns US travelers that US law does not apply overseas and that US law does not protect them overseas. They recognize the sovereignty of the foreign countries. Why does the U.S. Department of Justice think they have the reach to pluck Assange out and prosecute him. Additionally every publisher that published excerpts from those documents is equally guilty, and many of those are on U.S. soil. Why aren't they being prosecuted? Because the US wants Assange on the general principle that Wikileaks is the actual enemy. But there will be serious unintended consequences on attempting to kidnap and prosecute Assange. The torrent (figuratively and literally) of data that will be released will be shocking. And Wikileaks has under Assange (before he holed up in the embassy) been a reasonable steward for the leaked data; at times wikileaks redacted data that identified people directly that would have resulted in loss of individuals lives. A mass data dump will not be so thoughtful.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Well, not quite fake. Snopes has it as "unproven".
When asked about it, Clinton said "I don't recall that" which is not the same thing as a denial. Remember, she is a lawyer and plausible deniability comes with the territory.
She replied (watch the video) that if it she had said it, it would have been a joke. People can choose to believe her or not believe her but it's not 100% certainty it's fake.
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
Erm, you're assuming that he wouldn't have been extradited to the US before getting to Sweden, which was always his issue. Not dodging Swedish "justice".
== Jez ==
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