
The US govt’s indictment of Julian Assange poses grave threats to press freedom - LogicRiver
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indictment-of-julian-assange-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedoms/
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tribby
> The Intercept was widely criticized when computer security experts
> discovered that the document included nearly invisible yellow “printer dots”
> that track exactly when and where it was printed, which most modern printers
> add to every document that gets printed. While there’s no evidence that
> these printer dots contributed to Winner becoming a suspect (the FBI’s
> affidavit says she was one of only six people who had printed this document,
> and the only one of those who had email contact with The Intercept), they
> could have aided an investigation, and The Intercept, as its editor-in-chief
> acknowledged, should have taken greater care to remove this metadata before
> publishing the document.

> That is because it is not only common but ethically required for a
> journalist to do everything possible to protect a source from detection.

I feel like my eyes just rolled out of their sockets. everything possible?
sure -- how about not even running the story at all?

in this same article they quote snowden on how a real journalist would have
thought about reality winner: “Bob Woodward stated publicly he would have
advised me to remain in place and act as a mole.” imagine what the intercept
could have learned by establishing a relationship with reality winner instead
of rushing out a big nothing of a story for clicks, assisting a young person
in ruining her life in the process. making it seem like the yellow dots were
somehow the problem with how the intercept handled reality winner is nothing
but a gaslight campaign.

~~~
Tharkun
I thought that whole printer dot thing was just a hoax? Is it real? How does
it work? Is there a central registry of who owns which printer?

~~~
kmlx
it’s old tech:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code)

------
caymanjim
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.

~~~
boomboomsubban
As the article mentions, he is basically being charged for encouraging the
source to acquire information and attempting to protect the source's identity.
That is a threat to a free press.

~~~
caymanjim
It goes beyond encouraging. They're claiming he actively aided in some way.
He's charged with hacking, basically. And he hasn't been found guilty of
anything yet.

~~~
boomboomsubban
The "hacking" they claim he did was unsuccessfully try to crack a Windows
password so Manning could access data from another account. That's protecting
the source's identity.

Attempting this case is an attack on press freedom, the verdict shows if the
attack is successful.

~~~
samastur
I keep seeing this emphasis on "unsuccessful" and while I understand why that
should lead to less severe _potential_ sentence, I fail to understand why it
should be important to establish if it was a crime. Same goes for motive.

~~~
boomboomsubban
There was no emphasis intended, it was an attempt to protect the source and
should not be considered a crime.

~~~
kmlx
so in order to protect his source he did something illegal?

~~~
boomboomsubban
Things that aren't crimes are legal.

~~~
kmlx
isn't it a crime to try to force entry into a .gov network?

~~~
boomboomsubban
The charge against him does not mention anything about trying to force entry
into a network.

~~~
kmlx
thank you. i stand corrected. charged with conspiracy to gain access to a gov
computer.

"In Washington, the U.S. Justice Department said Assange was charged with
conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to gain
access to a government computer as part of a 2010 leak by WikiLeaks"

~~~
boomboomsubban
Charged with conspiracy to gain access to a computer Manning already had
access to in a hope to protect Manning from being caught. Expected behavior
for a journalist, and a dangerous thing to consider a crime.

~~~
kmlx
> Charged with conspiracy to gain access to a computer Manning already had
> access to in a hope to protect Manning from being caught

He did something illegal in order to hide the illegal activities of his
accomplice.

> Expected behavior for a journalist

He's FSB property. Not a journalist.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>He did something illegal in order to hide the illegal activities of his
accomplice.

Something the previous DoJ refused to charge him on as they said it would
obviously violate the freedom of the press. As it is not a crime, it is
routine behavior among journalists.

Publishing the leaks Manning provided makes him a journalist, your conspiracy
theory about his loyalty doesn't change that. If there were any proof of your
statement, don't you think that would be something he was charged with?

------
ggm
Despite not personally believing Assange is a journalist, I think this
underlying story is true: the legal fate of journalists worldwide now hangs on
the kinds of law abuse being wreaked on Assange. His rape case and his self
imposed incarceration don't alter the risk to journalists and don't diminish
the risk to journalists.

Finding stuff out now carries different risks to the old ones and shield laws
and other defences like 1st don't cut it all the time.

------
GeekyBear
To me, the most interesting point is that the Obama administration was in
possession of the same information that the Trump administration used to
accuse Assange of "hacking", and came to a very different conclusion.

>“The problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is
there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same
theory being applied to journalists,” said former Justice Department spokesman
Matthew Miller. “And if you are not going to prosecute journalists for
publishing classified information, which the department is not, then there is
no way to prosecute Assange.”

Justice officials said they looked hard at Assange but realized that they have
what they described as a “New York Times problem.” If the Justice Department
indicted Assange, it would also have to prosecute the New York Times and other
news organizations and writers who published classified material, including
The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, according to the
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal
deliberations.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/julia...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/julian-assange-unlikely-to-face-us-charges-over-publishing-
classified-
documents/2013/11/25/dd27decc-55f1-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html)

~~~
DanBC
One of the differences is that the Guardian has not, as far as I know,
released the names of gay people living in Saudi Arabia, or Jewish people
living in Baghdad.

~~~
GeekyBear
In fact, it was The Guardian that was responsible for unintentionally exposing
the password to an archive containing the unredacted versions of a great deal
of the State Department cables they had received from Wikileaks.

They were somehow under the impression that the password they were given only
applied to the copy of the archive that they were in possession of.

When they wrote the story of the events, they included a copy of the password
for the archive, despite the fact that the archive had ended up on BitTorrent.

