Does President Bush Speaking Out Against Julian Assange Prejudice The Case Against Him?

Say That Again

from the questions,-questions dept

Famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who is apparently advising Julian Assange, is complaining that comments by former President George W. Bush, in refusing to appear with Assange at a Young Presidents Organization event, serves to prejudice the legal process against Assange. Bush stated that Assange “has willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States.” This is a statement that has not been proven in court — and which many might question. However, Dershowitz points out that in saying them, it may serve to unfairly tip the scales of any case against Assange. To be honest, I’m not sure that Bush’s comments will really have that much weight here. We’ve already seen tons of politicians make similar claims. It’s clear: US politicians, for the most part, are not fans of Assange. But is that really going to change anyone’s opinion of Assange and/or Wikileaks?

Filed Under: george bush, julian assange, prejudice, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Investigators Still Can't Find Any Evidence To Link Assange & Manning; DoD Insists It Must Be True

Legal Issues

from the that's-called-denial-folks dept

Last month, there were already reports that the Justice Department was having trouble linking Bradley Manning to Julian Assange — a key piece necessary to charge Assange with any sort of crime. US investigators have known for a long time that if they can’t get such evidence, they don’t have much of a case. Back in December, it was reported that they had even offered Manning a plea deal if he would just implicate Assange. The only problem: it appears he’s not willing to do so, and there’s no other evidence. In fact, all the evidence suggests what everyone said from the beginning: Manning decided to take whatever documents he took himself, and whoever uploaded it to Wikileaks (and it’s still not confirmed that it was Manning, though he’s obviously the most likely) did so of their own free will, not because of pressure from Assange.

The latest reports (via Julian Sanchez) suggest more of the same. The Justice Department is trying really, really hard to link the two, but seems to be quietly admitting that there may be no “there” there, and because of that, there may be no case. What’s really stunning however, is that despite all of this work to try to find a simple link, and the lack of any evidence of that link, the Defense Department is still insisting that the link is there and that Assange must be charged.

I find this pretty interesting. I’m assuming the view of DoD officials is clouded by the fact that Manning, by being in the armed services, was a part of the DoD and that they can’t accept the idea that he might honestly believe there were wrongdoings that needed to be exposed. They insist that Assange must have preyed on him and pushed and cajoled him into sharing the info. Of course, now the big question is what will the government do. Without this link, there’s no case against Assange. So either they try some other, exceptionally weak claim. Or… the give up. They should know what the right option is, but somehow I doubt they’ll choose wisely.

Filed Under: bradley manning, defense department, julian assange, justice department, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

If The US Wants To Have Any Credibility On Internet Freedom It Should Drop The Attempt To Prosecute Assange

Free Speech

from the as-if-there-is-any-credibility dept

We’ve discussed how US political attacks on Julian Assange and Wikileaks have really hurt the US’s supposed moral high ground on internet freedom — something our leaders have long insisted they’re in favor of. Yet, with the recent events in Egypt and the attempts to shut down internet communications there, Tim Wu is noting that the federal government should drop the attempt to charge Julian Assange with anything, or else risk looking like total hypocrites:

It is time for the United States to drop the case against WikiLeaks. Pressing forward with efforts to prosecute an Internet publisher at home while standing up for an open Internet in Egypt and the world at large is an increasingly tenuous position. The WikiLeaks case endangers the reputation of the United States as a defender of free speech and an open Internet globally, while forcing the Obama administration to take uncomfortable constitutional positions better suited to the Nixon administration. The importance of this issue is hard to overstate: At a time when the Internet is increasingly recognized as a medium of global resistance to authoritarian rule and when protestors in Tahrir square are holding up signs that say “Thank you, Facebook!”, the Obama administration and the United States must make sure that they stand on the right side.

Of course, it seems unlikely that this will actually happen, but I think that US officials significantly underestimate the ammo they’re about to hand critics around the world, and what the resulting backlash will create. This one issue will be thrown up in our faces any time the US steps in or complains about a lack of internet freedom elsewhere. It will make pretty much all statements about the importance of internet freedom around the world a punchline rather than an issue worth taking seriously.

Filed Under: egypt, free speech, internet freedom, julian assange, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

The Background Story Of The NY Times' Relationship With Julian Assange

Journalism

from the complex-actors-in-complex-situations dept

If you haven’t yet, set aside some time to read the NY Times’ executive editor Bill Keller’s account of the paper’s association with Julian Assange. It gives some interesting (and not too surprising) background details about the relationship, Assange himself, and Keller’s views on the overall impact of Wikileaks. Assange, not surprisingly, does not come off too well in the account, reinforcing the reports of his being someone who has an incredible ego and a conspiratorial bent. By this point, such claims are pretty much old news, but from an anecdotal level, the story is still entertaining.

Keller’s final suggestion that Wikileaks’ impact has been “overblown” is belied somewhat by the fact that Keller just spilled so much ink on the background of the paper’s association (and subsequent blacklisting) with the organization. There are other points that could be nitpicked, but it’s not surprising that Keller seeks to position the NY Times in the best possible light, and perhaps minimize the contributions of Wikileaks itself. But, just the fact that the NYT’s is now considering its own Wikileaks, shows that the idea certainly has changed the way many people think about this aspect of reporting.

I’d argue — as some others have — that the impact of Wikileaks has actually been both over- and under-estimated. And part of the problem is that so many people are quick to conflate the idea of such an organization with the single organization itself (or worse, with a single person in the form of an easily dislikable Julian Assange). But it’s a mistake to think that just because the particular organization itself is flawed, that its existence and what it’s accomplished so far won’t have profound effects on secrecy in organizations (government and corporate), the practice of journalism itself (which has suddenly gotten a hint of what’s possible), and the idea of distributed or “stateless” organizations as enablers of information flow. It’s that last point that I think many are ignoring, and that will later prove to be a mistake.

Filed Under: bill keller, journalism, julian assange, leaks, ny times, sources, wikileaks
Companies: ny times, wikileaks

US Investigators Can't Find Any Direct Connection Between Manning And Assange

Overhype

from the so-now-what-happens? dept

US officials have been trying everything they can think of to get Bradley Manning to claim that there was some sort of conspiracy between him and Julian Assange concerning the leaked State Department cables. The US needs that in order to bring any sort of credible case against Assange in the US. Unfortunately for those US officials, so far the investigation can find no actual link between the two men, meaning that any US legal case against Assange is a pretty difficult path. It will be interesting to see what comes next. Amusingly, in our past discussions on this, some of our commenters insisted that it was “obvious” that Assange and Manning had formed a conspiracy, so I’m curious to see how they react to this bit of news.

Filed Under: bradley manning, conspiracy, julian assange, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Australian Politician Compares Attempts To Silence Assange With Catholic Church Silencing Galileo

Say That Again

from the and-thinks-it's-a-good-thing dept

Via Glyn Moody we get this absolutely bizarre quote from an anonymous Australian Parliament Member who wants to have the Australian government help try to shut down Julian Assange and Wikileaks. When the reporter Ross Cameron pointed out that shutting down Wikileaks wouldn’t work, the politician responded:

“The Catholic Church shut down Galileo for a hundred years. I think we can shut down Julian Assange.”

This statement is both bizarre and ignorant. It’s bizarre in that it seems to think it was a good thing that the Catholic Church hid from and denied reality for a century and condemned those who helped reveal reality. It’s not often, these days, that you hear a politician speak out in support of the Catholic Church’s treatment of Galileo.

It’s ignorant in that it assumes that Julian Assange is all that needs to be “shut down.” This is a mistake that many are making. Even if you think that Assange is an egomaniac with serious issues, focusing on Assange is missing the point of what’s happening. There are a lot of people and a growing number of new operations, who are stepping up to do more of what Wikileaks was doing. This is not a one man show, and the simple fact is that such leaking of information is going to keep happening. Targeting Assange may stop Assange, but it won’t stop the basic idea of Wikileaks, even if the functionality moves elsewhere.

Filed Under: australia, galileo, julian assange, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

So After Torturing Bradley Manning For Months, US Officials Offer Him A Deal If He Says Assange 'Conspired' With Him

Free Speech

from the dirty-tricks dept

This is hardly a surprise, but after locking up Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for seven months — a condition that much of the world has deemed to be torture — and looking for ways to use a computer hacking law to charge Julian Assange, rumors are that officials have offered Bradley Manning a plea deal, in which he would claim that Assange “conspired” with him to get and leak the documents. From all the info that’s come out already, there’s been little to suggest that there was any actual conspiring, but it appears that our Justice Department has decided (incorrectly) that Julian Assange is the more important target than Bradley Manning, and so it wants to bring Assange down.

Of course, as many have been saying all along, bringing charges against Assange, even with Manning accepting a plea bargain, will do serious harm to the US. It will highlight how the Justice Department twists laws in an attempt to harm the publisher of information, very much against the basic principles of the First Amendment. If this does come to pass, it will represent a massive chilling of free speech rights, from an administration that has put itself forth as a champion of such free speech rights around the globe. However, the one thing it won’t do is actually chill such leaks from happening. As more and more competitors to Wikileaks pop up, you can bet that a legal attack on Assange will only increase the resolve of some of the folks behind those other offerings.

Filed Under: bradley manning, conspiracy, julian assange, plea bargain, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

US Looking To Use Computer Hacking Law Against Assange

Legal Issues

from the stretchety-stretch-stretch dept

It appears that the US government is realizing the fact that an espionage charge against Julian Assange over Wikileaks is unlikely to succeed and would probably freak out the press (at least those in the press who remember the details of the First Amendment). So, instead, it’s moved on to trying to use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), commonly known as our anti-hacking law.

Of course, as we noted a few months ago, this law has been twisted and abused regularly to bring charges against people by pretending it covers things it doesn’t. The most famous, of course, was the Lori Drew case, where prosecutors tried to charge Lori Drew with computer hacking, because she was part of a trio of people who used MySpace to bully a young girl, who later committed suicide. How was that “hacking”? Well, the prosecutors claimed that she didn’t obey MySpace’s terms of service, and thus “illegally accessed” MySpace. Luckily, the judge eventually tossed that out.

So what about Julian Assange? How could he have possibly violated a US anti-hacking while not being in the US at all? Well, the feds are apparently scanning through the chat logs between Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo to see if there’s any evidence at all that Assange could be charged with conspiracy under the CFAA in somehow aiding Manning in leaking the secrets. You can read the CFAA here if you want to see the full act. The argument, then, is that if they can drum up enough proof that Assange somehow aided Manning, it becomes a conspiracy and Assange can be charged under that act as well. So far, about the best they’ve apparently come up with is that Manning hinted that he had a “relationship” with Assange — but the details in the chat logs suggest they talked a few times and that’s about the extent of the “relationship.” Separately, Assange gave Manning (and potentially other sources) a more direct FTP account to upload materials. Once again, this seems like grasping at straws, and seems so trumped up that it will continue to do more to hurt America’s reputation than anything leaked by Wikileaks.

The problem is that it seems pretty clear that any association between Assange and Manning was a loose one. Suggesting that working with a source, and offering them an easy way to give you information is a conspiracy to commit computer hacking would create a massive chilling effect on anyone in the press who regularly reports on secret information. Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh and a variety of other famous investigative reporters have clearly been much more closely connected to their sources, but it would be ridiculous to charge them with “conspiracy.” It’s really sad that our government is wasting tax dollars trying to find trumped up charges for Assange.

Filed Under: bradley manning, hacking, julian assange, us government, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Congressional Research Service Notes That There Are Serious Challenges To Charging Assange

Legal Issues

from the ain't-so-easy dept

While a lot of the rhetoric from the US government — concerning Wikileaks and Julian Assange and whether or not any law was violated — has been overwrought and full of hyperbole, it appears that the Congressional Research Service (which tends to do a damn good job most of the time) has put out a nice simple report detailing the specific legal issues and laws that might apply here (pdf), and more or less summarizes that the US government would be breaking new ground in charging Assange, and may have difficulties in succeeding. While the report notes you could probably stretch the law to cover what Wikileaks did, it warns:

[The] statutes described in the previous section have been used almost exclusively to prosecute individuals with access to classified information (and a corresponding obligation to protect it) who make it available to foreign agents, or to foreign agents who obtain classified information unlawfully while present in the United States. Leaks of classified information to the press have only rarely been punished as crimes, and we are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it. There may be First Amendment implications that would make such a prosecution difficult, not to mention political ramifications based on concerns about government censorship. To the extent that the investigation implicates any foreign nationals whose conduct occurred entirely overseas, any resulting prosecution may carry foreign policy implications…..

The report does note that there has been at least one case it’s aware of where a foreign national was charged under the Espionage Act for activities done outside of the US. But, it is quite rare, and beyond a single district court ruling saying this okay, the history and language of the Espionage Act suggest it was not designed for this purpose.

The report also delves into the hurdles to having Assange extradited to the US (something the US is apparently already discussing with the Swedish government), pointing out that no current US treaty “lists espionage as an extraditable offense.”

But the biggest hurdle is noted towards the end of the report, in highlighting the rather serious Constitutional issues associated with attempting to try Assange for anything in the US, with a lot of focus on the ruling in the Pentagon Papers case:

Where First Amendment rights are implicated, it is the government’s burden to show that its interest is sufficiently compelling to justify enforcement. Whether the government has a compelling need to punish disclosures of classified information turns on whether the disclosure has the potential of causing damage to the national defense or foreign relations of the United States. Actual damage need not be proved, but potential damage must be more than merely speculative and incidental. On the other hand, the Court has stated that “state action to punish the publication of truthful information seldom can satisfy constitutional standards.” And it has described the constitutional purpose behind the guarantee of press freedom as the protection of “the free discussion of governmental affairs.”

[…]

[If] national security interests were not sufficient to outweigh the First Amendment principles implicated in the prior restraint of pure speech related to the public interest, as in the Pentagon Papers case, it is difficult to discern an obvious rationale for finding that punishing that same speech after it has already been disseminated nevertheless tilts the balance in favor of the government’s interest in protecting sensitive information.

The publication of truthful information that is lawfully acquired enjoys considerable First Amendment protection. The Court has not resolved the question “whether, in cases where information has been acquired unlawfully by a newspaper or by a source, government may ever punish not only the unlawful acquisition, but the ensuing publication as well.” (The Pentagon Papers Court did not consider whether the newspapers’ receipt of the classified document was in itself unlawful, although it appeared to accept that the documents had been unlawfully taken from the government by their source).

The Court has established that “routine newsgathering” is presumptively lawful acquisition, the fruits of which may be published without fear of government retribution.

There are definitely plenty of loopholes whereby the government can try to file charges against Assange, but in reading through the document it would likely be a pretty tough sell. You can read through the entire document after the jump.

Filed Under: espionage, extradition, julian assange, wikileaks
Companies: congressional research service, wikileaks

How The Press Misleads About Wikileaks

Journalism

from the journalism-at-work dept

As Julian Assange’s lawyers fully expect him to get charged in the US under the Espionage Act, it’s interesting (and a bit distressing) to see how some in the press — who should be his biggest supporters — are acting. Glenn Greenwald highlighted how a Time Magazine report on the potential US legal case against Assange misstated a variety of facts — including the idea that Wikileaks itself had published “thousands” of classified State Department cables and that it had done so “indiscriminately.” As Greenwald points out Wikileaks itself has only published a little over 1,000 of the cables, and nearly all of them are the ones that the press has already posted/vetted/reported on.

This is a part of the story that isn’t getting much coverage. While most of the news reports have said that Wikileaks published over 250,000 such cables, that’s not exactly true. It has over 250,000 such cables and appears to have passed them on to its media partners, but it’s slowly releasing specific cables — with redactions — and mostly after the press partners are releasing those same cables. In other words, it appears that Wikileaks is actually being judicious and discriminating in what it’s releasing. Or, you could say (and probably should say) that Wikileaks is actually doing much of what a journalist would do in selecting which documents to pass along at this time.

But by trying to claim that Wikileaks is “just” a data dump, it’s an effort to make Wikileaks look like it’s not a journalistic or media entity — thereby affording it fewer First Amendment rights. But, it appears that some in the press, such as Time, are being quite misleading in doing so. After Greenwald called them on it, Time issued a “correction,” but it’s a “correction that’s not a correction” in that they basically say that Assange and some others disagree with some of Time’s claims. But it makes no attempt to fix the factually incorrect statements.

Of course, this may come back to the view that many have: that certain elements in the press are upset about Wikileaks because it shows what a crappy job they’ve been doing on their own. If we had a functioning press that actually sought to hold the US government accountable, there would be much less of a need for Wikileaks. Instead, we have a press that focuses on keeping “access” to those in power, and that means not digging too deep at times.

Filed Under: espionage, journalism, julian assange, time magazine, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks