
Assange Hearing Day 10 - k1m
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-10/
======
bainsfather
Remarkable that the bbc website shows 1 article about the current hearings
[0].

Meanwhile there are about 20 on Johnny Depp's recent libel case [1].

I'd love to see bbc reports on each day of Assange's hearings, in the sort of
detail they did for Depp's case. But for some reason they are not reporting
it. I wonder why?

[0] [https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c82wm9yvv05t/julian-
assange](https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c82wm9yvv05t/julian-assange)

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c6jx58xrrnmt/johnny-
depp](https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c6jx58xrrnmt/johnny-depp)

~~~
Synaesthesia
They are not reporting on anything embarrassing for the west: The Assange
Hearings, The attacks on Yemen, Gaza

~~~
qz2
This is a worrying trend recently. And lets not forget the conduct from Laura
Kuenssberg over the last few years.

~~~
bennyelv
Can you explain for those not familiar with this? Specifically the comment
about Kuenssberg.

~~~
qz2
The criticism section on her Wikipedia page probably gives a fair appraisal of
the situation. Fairer than I can give anyway.

------
Synaesthesia
"US Government explicitly argued that all journalists are liable to
prosecution under the Espionage Act (1917) for publishing classified
information, citing the Rosen case."

...

The US government is now saying, completely explicitly, in court, those
reporters (Daniel Ellsberg and other whistleblowers) could and should have
gone to jail and that is how we will act in future. The Washington Post, the
New York Times, and all the “great liberal media” of the USA are not in court
to hear it and do not report it .. !

~~~
evgen
They (the government) have _always_ said this and the courts have backed them
up on it. Always. Ellsberg should have gone to jail and were it not for
incompetent prosecutors and Liddy, Hunt, and the rest of the plumbers along
with some FBI wiretapping Ellsberg would have been in prison until at least
the Ford administration and possibly until Carter took office.

~~~
voxic11
Why was no one prosecuted for publishing or receiving the Snowden leaks then?
I remember the Guardian and the NYT both receiving leaked information from
Snowden. Can you give a single example where the courts backed them up? Even
the prosecution in this Assange case seems to be agreeing that there has never
been a successful prosecution.

~~~
evgen
Receiving and publishing are not specifically crimes and that is why the New
York Times and Washington Post won in the Pentagon Papers case. Gathering the
info or soliciting it are crimes. The latter is what Assange is being charged
with the in US and the former is what Snowden would be charged with if he ever
left Russia. The Espionage Act charges made against Assange are fairly weak
and I expect them to eventually get dropped or any conviction to be overturned
on appeal, but the conspiracy to commit computer intrusion charge is both an
overt act and one that is not protected by any claim of being a 'journalist'.

~~~
voxic11
That is what most people understand the law to be. What is surprising in this
case is that the US prosecutor is arguing that it is an incorrect
understanding and that merely publishing or receiving classified information
is a prosecutable crime under the espionage act.

> James Lewis QC: Do you accept that the Pentagon Papers judgement is the most
> relevant one?

Eric Lewis: Yes, but there are others.

James Lewis QC: A close reading of the Pentagon Papers judgement shows that
the New York Times might have been successfully prosecuted. Three of the
Supreme Court judges specifically stated that an Espionage Act prosecution
could be pursued for publication.

Eric Lewis: They recognised the possibility of a prosecution. They did not say
that it would succeed.

James Lewis QC: So your analysis that there cannot be a prosecution of a
publisher on First Amendment grounds is incorrect.

...

James Lewis QC: The United States Supreme Court has never held that a
journalist cannot be prosecuted for publishing national defence information.

Eric Lewis: The Supreme Court has never been faced with that exact question.
Because a case has never been brought. But there are closely related cases
which indicate the answer.

The case they are mentioning is this one (or more specifically the dropped
related case against Rosen)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Franklin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Franklin)

Read the legal principles by which the judge was planning on allowing it to
proceed with.

~~~
evgen
The prosecutor can make whatever claims he wants in an extradition hearing,
but until the case actually sees the inside of a US courtroom I do not think
anyone really knows how these are going to hold up. In this case you are
running into a situation where the US prosecutor may be (significantly) over-
playing his hand, but I am not sure how much latitude this court has to call
bullshit on the claims being made by the US prosecutor.

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motohagiography
The jittery audio on the gallery link can hardly be considered public access
to the proceeding. Whatever makes it on to the court transcript is not
witnessed by anyone in the public, and while that's not a necessary condition
for the transcript, in a case like this where the entire intelligence
establishment has a huge interest in the outcome, since this is litigating the
legitimacy of state secrets by proxy, it risks the credibility of the court.

How much exculpatory evidence is marked <unintelligible>?

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jjgreen
"Counsel for the US government also argued that the famous Pentagon Papers
supreme court judgement on the New York Times only referred to pre-publication
injunction and specifically did not preclude prosecution under the Espionage
Act."

Wow

~~~
tssva
The Supreme Court's ruling in the case said exactly this and the opinions of
some justices implied the government should pursue such charges post
publication.

~~~
evgen
The shock and pearl clutching by people who obviously have never read the
relevant opinions and have nothing but second or third-hand understanding of
the major points of the majority and concurring opinions. Ellsberg _should
have gone to jail_ for what he did, he knew it, he was prepared for that
outcome, and he would have spent years in prison if not for a completely
bungled and borderline incompetent prosecution aided by criminal breakins by
Liddy, Hunt, and the Whitehouse plumbers.

~~~
danarmak
While the law hasn't changed, the prosecution policy has. USG had not charged
the NYT, WP etc. with criminal publication of the Pentagon Papers, and of the
many leaked classified data published before and since. A consistent change in
the policy (prosecuting the NYT and its individual journalists and editors,
and not just Assange) would have a huge impact on politics. An inconsistent
change, successfully prosecuting but only charging the journalists that the
current government finds inconvenient, would have a different but also huge
impact.

~~~
evgen
This argument does not address the conspiracy to commit computer intrusion
charge. Please provide examples of the NYT, WP et al sending reporters out to
do this and not being charged.

~~~
danarmak
That's a separate matter, which shouldn't affect what I wrote.

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kace91
I wonder if this turn of strategy could convince at least a part of the
mainstream media to push the story.

the "Assange is not a journalist" take was something they liked. The "any
journalist can be punished anyway" take should raise some alarms.

~~~
k1m
Yes, will be interesting to see if it changes anything, but I doubt it will.
As Murray suggests, it's probably becuase prosecution has seen so little media
interest in the court case that they've now changed tack:

> The purpose of the earlier approach was plainly to reduce media support for
> Assange by differentiating him from other journalists. It had become obvious
> such an approach ran a real risk of failure, if it could be proved that
> Assange is a journalist, which line was going well for the defence. So now
> we have “any journalist can be prosecuted for publishing classified
> information” as the US government line. I strongly suspect that they have
> decided they do not have to mitigate against media reaction, as the media is
> paying no attention to this hearing anyway.

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jacknews
I suspect we would be hearing almost nothing about this case except for the
"Assange warned by judge over outburst" type soundbytes if it weren't for
Craig Murray.

Well done. IMHO he deserves support.

