• Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Making sure he pleads guilty to something that isn’t a crime equals America not having freedom of speech.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Espionage is 100% a crime. You may disagree with it being a crime but it’s illegal in every country.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Revealing Chinese war crimes is also a crime in China.

        If China forcefully extradites an American journalists because the journalist leaks secret Chinese state documents of Uyghur concentration camps… would you be defending China because the journalist did something “illegal”?

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Well no, because one of the rules for extradition is both countries must consider it a crime.

          And before you answer, I’m pretty sure China has done exactly this from countries friendly to them. Which falls under the heading of journalists needing to be aware of the realities of where they’re going. It’s just not American journalists because we still have a bigger stick for now.

          So again, let me know when the NYT is running information operations to discredit China. Exposing Human Rights violations is not what Assange is guilty of.

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Well no, because one of the rules for extradition is both countries must consider it a crime.

            No that’s not true. Only the country demanding the extradition has to mark someone as a criminal. Often extradition treaties are made so if one country marks someone as a criminal and they flee somewhere else, that country will deliver them the criminal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition

            In this case America is heavily abusing the extradition treaty by marking a journalist as a criminal because he leaked evidence of war crimes.

            I’m pretty sure China has done exactly this from countries friendly to them.

            Accusing America of violating press freedom doesn’t mean I’m somehow defending Chinese press freedom. There’s a reason I’m equating America to China here.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Assange is not a journalist. Again, let me know when the NYT does what he did. It’s detailed in the comment above.

              And yes, a country can always exercise its sovereignty. There is no physical means of forcing an extradition short of using military power.

              • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Strange that all journalists call Assange a journalist.

                So you’re saying anyone leaking classified israeli documents of war crimes is a criminal?

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  That’s not true. Some people who call themselves journalists call Assange a journalist.

                  Here’s the comment you have yet to substantively respond to.

                  So when the NYT colludes with Russian hackers and a campaign to interfere with elections I’ll call Assange a journalist.

    • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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      5 months ago

      Worse, it validates the precedent that non-U.S.-citizens can be prosecuted for breaking U.S. law over things they did outside of the U.S.

      Really happy that Assange gets to go home, since he’s suffered enough personally, but I really don’t like the precedent that I can be prosecuted in, say, Israel under Israeli law for things that I did in Wisconsin (e.g. boycotting).

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Don’t solicit Israeli soldiers to become assets and give you classified information you will then edit to make Israel look as bad as possible?

        He acted as a spy in every way.

        • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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          5 months ago

          Yikes! This reply validates my concern 100%.

          Other sovereign nations get to make their own laws and legal systems without our control. They can make bullshit laws if they want to, like conflating journalism with spying. Then they can charge journalists in another country with a crime and extradite them to face charges. But, spying or journalism or criticizing their king, the details didn’t really matter, they could charge anybody anybody, anywhere in the world with any crime they want. And since it’s another country, we have no assurances of due process there.

          That’s scary shit.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Yeah, they already do that. Don’t go and publish a ton of articles criticizing Lese Majeste and expect to freely travel to a Direct Rule Monarchy or any country that is a client state of a Direct Rule Monarchy.

            But extreme examples aside, every country in the world will come for you if you want to reveal their military secrets, including who is working for that country secretly in other countries. This isn’t just him dropping one video. There was an entire document dump that caused the CIA to pull hundreds of people out of the field. And no matter what your personal feelings on the matter are, countries view their intelligence activities as legitimate, secret, and not subject to whistleblower rules unless a crime (that they have on the books) is being exposed. Raw dogging the entire secret intranet for everything you can fit on a USB is not whistleblowing or reporting.

            • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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              5 months ago

              Travel to those countries? The precedent here is that China has the right to extradite me for supporting democracy in Hong Kong from here in the U.S., never once even leaving my house. Assange was not a U.S. citizen, and located outside of U.S. territory.

              Of course, the U.S. won’t cooperate with the extradition request, but that’s just a matter of power relationships, not principles. The principle is that everybody in the world is subject to every country’s laws. Or, every person in the world is subject to the laws of the U.S., which fundamentally breaks the rule of law.

              It’s scary how many people out there are okay with that.

    • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      He was not in trouble for leaking information. He literally helped Chelsea hack into classified files she didn’t have access to, he actively participated in breaching security inside the US military. Very illegal no matter where you stand.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        This is just blatantly false. Repeating government propaganda doesn’t make it true. He did not hack the military he told someone what a VPN is.

        • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Alright it take it back, he tried to help crack a password, but he likely failed. Looks like he was still actively pushing Chelsea to gather more classified info. I’m sorry but this is not the behavior of a journalist

          In a pretrial hearing in Manning’s case, prosecutors presented evidence that Manning had asked Assange—who was instant messaging with Manning under the name Nathaniel Frank—if he had experience cracking hashes. Assange allegedly responded that he possessed rainbow tables for that, and Manning sent him a hashed password string. According to Thursday’s unsealed indictment, Assange followed up two days later asking for more information about the password, and writing that he’d had “no luck so far.” The indictment further alleges that Assange actively encouraged Manning to gather even more information, after Manning said she had given all she had.

          It’s not clear if Assange ever successfully cracked the password. According to the indictment, that password would have given Manning administrative privileges on SIPRNet, allowing her to pull more files from it while concealing the traces of her leaks from investigators.

    • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      5 months ago

      He wasn’t charged for his speech, he was charged for leaking classified information…

      • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        No it was more than that, he actively helped Chelsea hack into files she didn’t have access to. He literally hacked into classified databases of the US military. Much worse than leaking info.