None of the charges against him are about anything that happened past 2014, and the only crime he has been convicted of is skipping bail, for which his prison term has already been served.
Yes, but had he not skipped bail, he would probably be on bail until extradited, so he’s in prison now because of the crime of skipping bail (not as part of the punishment for that crime, though.)
If only he hadn't spent the last however many years evading trial, then -- since all you fans of his seem so sure he's innocent -- then he'd have put all this behind him all those years ago, now wouldn't he?
So there was absolutely no sensible reason for him to avoid trial by holing up in an embassy for a decade, was there?!? Unless, of course, you aren't really so sure, after all...?
On the one hand, yes, I too am unimpressed with politicians who try to win by turning their opponents into clowns rather than by having their own positive message; on the other, that quote about ten lines from the hand of an honest man and finding something in them to hang him by.
so... your suggestion is to "let it slip" instead of using wikileaks as it was meant to be? I'd say theres a reason a guy like Julien runs Wikileaks instead of a guy like you.
I don’t even understand what you’re claiming I’m suggesting.
FWIW, WikiLeaks isn’t the only way to get important secrets into the public domain, not even the first — most internationally famous western newspapers have done this at some point — it merely specialised in this.
Not just that. PV also released audio recordings of Assange actually phone calling the State Department and warning them that a disgruntled ex-employee of Wikileaks was going to release un-redacted documents and the State Department should be aware of that. He didn't want anyone's life at risk because of the un-redacted release. Yet the State Department ignored his warning. He's proven to be one of the best journalists of the modern era and he's paying for it.
They have tortured Manning for decades and she hasn't corroborated that theory. She already had full access. She wouldn't have contacted Wikileaks in the first place if she hadn't seen the horrible "secret" material.
Oh, of course. She was only tortured for eight years. How silly of me! Surely everyone would be happy to receive that amount of torture!
Assange is only accused of trying to help Manning circumvent. Ergo, even evil USA prosecutors don't allege that he did help circumvent. Ergo, Manning had the same access after contact with Assange that she had had before contact with Assange. You are wrong and you should feel bad about it.
Was it eight years or was it decades?
Did she have full access or is Assange accused of trying to help her get it?
My original post here was partially about how Assange's supporters don't do their cause any good by exaggerating facts and distorting reality. My opinion of Assange's actions seems a lot more nuanced than many here - no doubt I am wrong on some points. But I refuse to feel bad just because you're trying to strawman me.
You are more "nuanced" than the my-country-love-it-or-leave-it troglodytes upthread. If you like, you can confirm that Assange didn't give Manning any access she didn't already have simply by reading the indictment. [0] In the section "ASSANGE Encouraged Manning to Continue Her Theft of Classified Documents and Agreed to Help Her Crack a Password Hash to a Military Computer", you can read:
17. The portion of the password hash Manning gave to ASSANGE to crack was stored as a "hash value" in a computer file that was accessible only by users with administrative-level privileges. Manning did not have administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file and obtain the portion of the password provided to ASSANGE.
18. Had Manning retrieved the full password hash and had ASSANGE and Manning successfully cracked it. Manning may have been able to log onto computers imder a usemame that
did not belong to her. Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of disclosures of classified information.
19. Prior to the formation of the password-cracking agreement, Manning had already provided WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of documents classified up to the SECRET level that she downloaded from departments and agencies of the United States, including the Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports and Iraq war-related significant activity reports.
Keep in mind that indictments only give the prosecution's opinion of the case, and are not evidence of any defendant having done or not done anything. However, if they only claim (without evidence) that he agreed to crack a hash, we can be sure they have no evidence he did crack the hash.
It took me literally three minutes to find this document and another five to find the relevant section.
Maybe some people are tempted to on-the-one-hand-on-the-other this case because it's confusing and that seems somehow fair. The case is inherently unbalanced, however. On one side is a man who, by himself, has suffered isolation and imprisonment for years and faces the prospect of "decades" more of the same. On the other is the giant secret bureaucracy who inhabit the forever-face-stomping boot. No one on that side will spend a day in prison. Their obvious overreach and abuse of process should mean that Assange doesn't either. Normal cases in which investigators and prosecutors violate the Constitution are thrown out by judges.
> If you like, you can confirm that Assange didn't give Manning any access she didn't already have
Sure, nobody is arguing over the basic, well-known facts of the case. We don't need to re-hash the indictment to agree on that.
The question that remains, though (because I am not so familiar with the US legal system) is if failing to commit a crime absolves you of the crime of conspiring to commit it. But I guess there's plenty of case law and precedent around it, being that criminals seem to be constantly a) conspiring and b) failing to commit crimes.
The first 5 sentences of your last paragraph describes pretty much every private citizen facing serious charges in any legal system on earth (maybe not the "forever-face-stomping boot" bit, but I am assuming that was just added for colour). I'm not being facetious, because there are people who genuinely do not believe in crime or punishment - are you one of those? Because this case hasn't been put in front of a judge, so how could it have been thrown out?
All but one of the charges are for espionage, a crime the Obama Justice Department decided they couldn't charge against journalists, whether USA citizens or not. This was called the "New York Times Problem". [0] Espionage, since it is a "political" crime, also wouldn't sustain extradition from UK.
The 18th and final "conspiracy to hacking" charge, tacked on to give the UK judges (who should have thrown this case out years ago) a fig leaf, pretends to be of a different nature, but it isn't really. This is the charge for which notorious sociopath, conman, fraudster, and convicted pedophile Thordarson provided the supporting testimony he has now recanted. [1]
The bastards had hoped to bolster a very particular interpretation of a chat log with Thordarson's now-recanted testimony. That interpretation is now very weak. First, they can't actually prove that "Nathaniel Frank" was a pseudonym for Assange. Who's to say it wasn't a pseudonym for Thordarson? In addition, although it is the prosecution's theory that it was possible to crack a password given the partial hash Manning had, testimony before the UK court has contradicted that. [2]
IANAL, but my observation of USA court proceedings leads me to suspect that your question about conspiracy has no definite answer. Conspiracy is always a discretionary charge, which makes sense because there is no victim and no harm. "Discretionary" is nearly synonymous, in this context, with "political", which quality of espionage charges typically excludes extradition. It's often used against criminals who have been careful to leave no evidence of the underlying crime. It is also used to bully innocents without evidence of underlying crime.
Prosecutors in normal criminal cases don't push conspiracy as far as they theoretically could, because normal USA juries don't have infinite patience for pursuing the worst possible interpretations of inconclusive evidence. "National security" cases, however, aren't heard by normal juries. Usually some pretext is found for excluding a jury trial altogether, but when that doesn't work they rely on the TLA-friendly hang'em-high juries found in the Eastern District of Virginia where all these cases are tried.
However, this case isn't currently being tried anywhere in USA. Right now it's a UK extradition case. In such cases justice should override deference to zealous prosecution, as the same judge's previous ruling with respect to squalid USA prison conditions acknowledges.
