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US Government Admits It Doesn't Know If Assange Cracked Password For Manning (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The U.S. government does not have any evidence that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange succeeded in cracking a password for whistleblower Chelsea Manning, according to a newly unsealed affidavit written by an FBI agent. Last week, Assange was escorted out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and arrested for breaching bail in connection to allegations of sexual misconduct in Sweden. The day of Assange's arrest, the U.S. government unsealed an indictment against Assange with a hacking conspiracy charge. The Department of Justice accused WikiLeaks' founder of agreeing to help Manning crack a password that would have helped the former military analyst get into a classified computer system under a username that did not belong to her, making it harder for investigators to trace the eventual leak.
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed the affidavit, which is dated December 21, 2017. The document contains more details on the interactions between Assange and Manning. And, most significantly, contains the admission that the U.S. government -- as of December of 2017 -- had no idea whether Assange actually cracked the password. Until now, we knew that the U.S. was aware that Assange attempted to crack a password for Manning once, but didn't know if it had more evidence of further attempts or whether it thought Assange was successful. "Investigators have not recovered a response by Manning to Assange's question, and there is no other evidence as to what Assange did, if anything, with respect to the password," FBI agent Megan Brown said in the affidavit. According to lawyers, the simple offer to help can be considered part of a conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
"For purposes of a conspiracy charge, it is not necessary for the action to be successful. All that is needed is an overt action in furtherance of the conspiracy, namely Assange's efforts to crack the password for Manning," Bradley, a lawyer at the Mark Zaid P.C law firm in Washington, DC, told Motherboard via email. "That he failed is irrelevant."
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed the affidavit, which is dated December 21, 2017. The document contains more details on the interactions between Assange and Manning. And, most significantly, contains the admission that the U.S. government -- as of December of 2017 -- had no idea whether Assange actually cracked the password. Until now, we knew that the U.S. was aware that Assange attempted to crack a password for Manning once, but didn't know if it had more evidence of further attempts or whether it thought Assange was successful. "Investigators have not recovered a response by Manning to Assange's question, and there is no other evidence as to what Assange did, if anything, with respect to the password," FBI agent Megan Brown said in the affidavit. According to lawyers, the simple offer to help can be considered part of a conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
"For purposes of a conspiracy charge, it is not necessary for the action to be successful. All that is needed is an overt action in furtherance of the conspiracy, namely Assange's efforts to crack the password for Manning," Bradley, a lawyer at the Mark Zaid P.C law firm in Washington, DC, told Motherboard via email. "That he failed is irrelevant."
Julian is one of the few true journalists left. He exposed corruption at the highest levels at personal risk/danger.
Mainstream media are nothing but propagandists trolls outputting approved fluff.
We need more people like Julian - and the truth will set us free.
Speculation: He were probably more worried about being convicted of rape. His narcissistic tendencies combined with PR makes being a "martyr" for many years better than spending a year or so in prison if convicted, add the ridiculous crap about Swedish collaboration with USA plus torture plus death penalty etc. which are obvious bullshit feeding his ego.
Now while these things are true and he offered to help crack a code that would perhaps be worthy of a conspiracy charge however he wasn't on US soil at the time and so for the civilized world the USA can't have jurisdiction. Let's see if UK courts are reasonable.
If the US actually has correspondence between Assange and Manning, where Assange offers to crack a password (successful or not), then it would completely destroy Wikileak's pure journalism claims and Assange is guilty of attempted espionage.
Not at all. Journalism does sometimes involved doing things without authorization in order to expose greater crimes. Examples include secret recordings, trespassing, and taking prohibited photographs. For example, it would be impossible to report on some of the things that happen in North Korea if journalists obeyed all NK laws.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Why was that a crime?
From the summary:
According to lawyers, the simple offer to help can be considered part of a conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
"For purposes of a conspiracy charge, it is not necessary for the action to be successful."
It also doesn't matter the contents of what was accessed.
This is the part where you say that Trump wasn't offering to help. No, but he was soliciting the activity. And when the fruits of that activity were offered to Trump Jr. he accepted it.
Nope, no sig