You don't need to trust Assange or the Government.
Manning already stated that the allegation is categorally wrong. And there's no proof that they did it. But they still went with it, just to get him extradited. A common tactic.
There appears to be no proof that it was in fact assange who was communicating with manning.
Wiki leaks affiliated? Almost certainly.
Assange? No actual evidence. (that I am aware of)
IMHO this is the salient weakness in the case for extradition. The fact that the same exact argument could be used against any wiki leaks affiliated individual at that time makes it a witch hunt instead of a legitimate legal proceeding.
Assange isn't a US citizen. He's not charged with publishing the information but soliciting and attempting to assist in the exfiltration of the information.
What Manning did was illegal whether you agree with her motivations or not. Soliciting someone with clearance to leak information and assisting them in the process is also illegal. It doesn't matter if Assange's assistance was effective or not.
If all Assange did was publish information Manning brought to him, there would likely be no charges and they'd be easily dismissed otherwise. He'd have been clearly acting in the role as a journalist. But that's not what happened.
Assange wants to be considered a journalist (with its protections) while at the same time playing spymaster and hacker.
Why would we believe them either way? They've overplayed their hands, and now they're panicking. Even if Assange actually cracked the password, it would only have given Manning access to material to which she already had access. The reason she wanted to use a different login was because she didn't want to be caught. With good reason, because once they caught her they tortured her for years. The primary reason for the torture was to force her to falsely implicate Assange in actual crimes, which she steadfastly refused to do. Now they've charged Assange anyway.
Protecting an anonymous source from the authorities is a basic journalistic duty. Journalists these days have spent so much time protecting authoritarian sources from the public they've forgotten how it's supposed to work.
For these reasons, Assange will not be extradited from UK. Those who now cheer Trump's attack on journalism will soon complain that it's not a more effective attack.
Assange is alleged to have sought classified material from the US, and for aiding and abetting Manning in obtaining classified material.
This would be like is Australia asked the UK to extradite someone who recruited Australians to rob a bank and then materially helped said Australians actually rob the aforementioned bank.
The charge is that Assange helped Manning access classified material, not that he published classified materials. The distinction is important. It's why I can't hack into a CIA office, publish the materials online and claim I'm a journalist so I can't be prosecuted.
Allegedly broke the law. I'm still waiting to see greater details of the evidence showing assange coordinated with Manning to get unauthorized access to a computer. It could be a bunch of bologne used as a pretense to extradite him.
Assange is alleged to have performed acts that could be construed as attempts to access classified information, beyond merely asking for it--specifically, it is alleged that he assisted Manning with attempting to acquire and decrypt classified documents. That is the heart of the issue--if Assange had merely accepted a document dump from Manning (as he generally did with most other sources), he wouldn't be facing 18 charges today.
Assange is charged with helping Manning with decrypting stolen files and offering advice on how to best cover her tracks among other things according to the DOJ indictment. Why are you so convinced of his innocence? Do you have information that definitively refutes all of those charges?
Sure, it's an indictment, not a conviction. Whatever you might think of the government's case, it's false to say that "no one has claimed" Assange assisted Manning. The government is clearly making that claim in the indictment.
There has been no evidence he hacked anything. Prosecutor cites him saying, "no luck with that" as evidence he did try instead of evidence he didn't.
The conspiracy stuff is also nonsense. Adrian Lamo logs show Manning contacted Assange with intent to leak. It is all selectively-selected and maliciously presented hogwash.
Assange hasn't been indicted for publishing classified information. He's been indicted for aiding Manning in extracting classified information. There's a big difference. The government is arguing that he helped steal the information. There's no threat to press freedom here.
It's important to look at the actual indictment [1] rather than all the commentary about it, because everyone involved seems to have an axe to grind thanks to Assange's colorful character.
The indictment charges Assange with conspiring with Manning to unlawfully gain new access to a protected government computer system. Specifically:
* Assange gave Manning a CD to boot from on the target computer, containing tools to copy the protected password data.
* Assange received a copy of the password hashes from Manning, and attempted to crack them.
Regardless of what reasons the Obama administration had to proceed or not proceed with the indictment at the time (which we are not privy to), these are very clearly defined criminal offenses in the USA, with much precedent behind them. Had Assange not provided the hacking tools, and had he not attempted to crack the passwords, this indictment would never have happened.
Press freedom and protecting your sources is not the issue here; it's about conspiring to hack a government computer.
They are not prosecuting him for that. In main for:
>allegations that in 2010, Assange offered to help Manning, the Army intelligence analyst, crack a password to break into a classified U.S. government network, an act that would have gone beyond journalism.
People report stuff along the lines of crimes committed by the empire all the time without difficulties.
Trying to help someone evade detection whilst committing a crime is not really 'attempting to save someone from terrible treatment'.
To save Manning from being punished Assange could've guided her to only expose documents related to specific wrongdoing. That would've at least given Manning a plausible whistleblower defense. That defense may not have succeeded, but it probably would've led to a much, much shorter sentence if it failed than what she originally got.
But by trying to help her gain illegal access to an account for the purpose of enabling her to steal more classified information, Assange now has to content with conspiracy to commit hacking charges himself.
Why are some many people here spouting conspiracies lol? Manning, his partner in crime, has been out of prison and living a normal life for years but Assange is going to get disappeared for some reason? If the US government wanted to keep him in a hole they could have not offered a plea deal and kept going through the extradition process in the UK (where he would have stayed in jail since he has a history of fleeing).
They could have come up with a million reasons to detain Manning; killing a witness that could've brought Assange to American soil doesn't seem like a likely move.
Let me ask you: have you actually read the indictment against Assange that the DOJ has published?
You are aware he is alleged to have pointed Manning to which files to illegally obtain and offered to help her cover her tracks, right? These are real crimes — not, as you allege, for embarrassing the US government.
Are we reading the same document? It clearly states Assange “knowingly and unlawfully conspired with Chelsea Manning to commit the following offenses against the United States…”
The case isn’t about Assange simply receiving classified material from Manning.
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