
The Feds May Come to Regret Charging Assange with Espionage - matt4077
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/05/24/shafer-assange-espionage-226986
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kstenerud
Here are the main points of the indictment:

a. They assert that he is not a journalist, and therefore cannot be protected
by the first amendment.

b. They limited the indictment to the publication of papers that contained
unredacted names of people who were put in danger by the publication of their
names (this is important to their argument against him being a journalist).

c. They include conspiracy charges for his direct aid to Manning in hacking
DOD computers (providing a live CD, instructing on how to use the tools, tech
support, etc).

d. They were too slow in bringing the charges, and are past the 5 year statute
of limitations on federal crimes. Because of this, their only hope of success
is to upgrade the charges to "acts of terrorism transcending national
boundaries", which has an 8 year statute of limitations instead of the normal
5.

The hurdles they must pass in order to succeed in this prosecution are:

1\. They must successfully argue that he is not a journalist, or was not
acting as a journalist at the time.

2\. They must argue that the federal crimes he's accused of also constitute an
act of terrorism under section 2332b (which gives the test in subsection
(g)(5): "is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by
intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct") in
order for the indictment to be valid under an 8 year statute of limitations
rather than 5.

3\. They must also argue the statute of limitations clause in the UK in order
to successfully extradite Assange (with a possible second chance via Sweden).

This could very well blow up in the DOJ's face if the courts side with
Assange, because there's a good chance that it will further gut the espionage
act, which is likely the main reason why the Obama administration didn't
bother even when they had a stronger position of not needing to tack on
terrorism charges.

~~~
clord
> "is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by
> intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct"

That sounds so broad. Doesn’t it include lobbyists? voters who threaten to
vote out a party if they don’t do as they like? What if the government is
trump 2.0 and is acting tyrannical? What are the limitations?

~~~
kstenerud
That clause can only be used to upgrade something that is already a federal
crime on its own.

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onetimemanytime
Very weird, they must had a reason to do so (or so they thought). They could
have charged him with a lot of other things and guarantee a set prison term.
Prison is prison, no?

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austincheney
I agree that he is not a journalist and the charges are serious, but the legal
case here feels weak to me. They should have just let Sweden have him.

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devoply
American cockeyed courts usually side with the DOJ when it comes to
foreigners. It might not nothing. If they can get him to the US he's screwed
despite the shoddy case against him.

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lettergram
He’s not a U.S. citizen:

> As part of the Constitution, the First Amendment stands as the supreme law
> of the land.

First amendment doesn’t apply, because the U.S. doesn’t apply the bill of
rights to non-citizens. The “crime” also wasn’t committed on U.S. soil.

~~~
jedberg
> First amendment doesn’t apply, because the U.S. doesn’t apply the bill of
> rights to non-citizens.

That's absolutely not true. Precedent has been set multiple times granting
constitutional protections to anyone on US soil, no matter how they got here.

So sure, he isn't protected now, because he's not here, but the moment he
lands on US soil he's protected by the first amendment. There is no way they
would charge him if they didn't think it could stand up under the first
amendment.

~~~
eropple
I am not a lawyer, and I'd love to hear from somebody who's a con law lawyer,
but I'm not certain that the First Amendment is retroactive to activities that
did not happen on American soil--and, going forward, it's completely within
the government's power to get a gag order as pertains to an ongoing case.

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gjmacd
He tried to help Chelsea Manning brute force hack passwords on government
computers. He's also suspected of being and taking part as Gucifer 2.0. I
don't think people can call a person a "journalist" who fronts as one but is
really doing illegal activities to obtain documents and data. Receiving them
from someone else and publishing is a different issue. Getting them yourself
and breaking the law... very fine line.

My issue with this whole WikiLeaks thing is that they are clearly a Russian
operation that posed as a "truth seeker" early on and then started to steer
their operation 100% at damaging the US. If you're truly a journalist
operation, you'd do more to publish and "seek truth" in other countries. You
won't find a single story about Russia that's damaging.

Bottom line for me? I think the US believes he's a Putin sympathizer. Or
worse, he's a Russian asset.

~~~
andy_ppp
You’ve just made up loads of stuff with no evidence haven’t you? We should
consider Collateral Murder much more damaging than the release of the video,
the act itself has caused much more harm to your beloved American interests.

~~~
lixtra
> We should consider Collateral Murder much more damaging

I think it was right to release the video. But to me, with no military
experience and and non-native speaker, it seemed totally possible that the
pilots took the reporters for combatants. I wouldn’t want to judge them. In
comparison, I found the video of a cop shooting a fellow American crying in
fear with an automatic rifle because he was reaching for his pants much more
disturbing.

Or the autistic kid tazed to death in the shower.

~~~
droithomme
Shooting a journalist because you think his camera is a gun means you did not
exercise reasonable diligence in identifying the enemy target and are still
liable for the death. If someone goes to a playground and shoots the children
there and says they thought they were armed robbers, it isn't accepted as a
defense.

The pilot came back for and shot a guy in a van who was taking his two kids to
school. He had stopped to help the reporter.

Anyone watching the video can see the kids in the van. That the pilot didn't
proves he was criminally negligent.

