Serious Assange

As someone who does Computer Science as a hobby and field, I know a lot about Assange. I have mixed feelings about the arrest of Assange in general. What he did was illegal, there's no question about that. He also served as a whistle-blower for the controversial Wikileaks site, where things are posted that the public should know that necessarily isn't covered or is covered by heavy bias in media outlets. That's not to say these reports are not biased themselves, but they tend to serve the least amount of yellow journalism compared to many news media organizations today. The action itself is punishable, but I am among a crowd that believes despite his actions, Assange did more good than harm when breaking the law.
 
I am troubled by Assange's arrest. It is politicized. It is not just simply following the law without prejudice. Both sides, left and right, have wanted to take him down for years. He has few friends, having published state documents that exposed corruption in governments across the globe, including U.S War crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The publication of damning material is not a crime itself however, at least it is not supposed to be in the United States.

The Obama administration chose not prosecute Assange, even though they have prosecuted whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, because Assange could fall under Freedom of the Press as a journalist. They felt they couldn't go after Assange because they were walking a fine line, and didn't want to define what journalism was. If Wikileaks was prosecuted solely for their publications, then you could potentially prosecute the New York Times. Fearful of setting a precedent that could jeopardise freedom of speech, nobody wanted to open that Pandora's box.

So now we are buildung a case to prove that Assange actually helped Chelsea Manning steal the documents he published in a conspiracy charge, publishing the content alone is not a crime. Edward Snowden can be prosecuted as a whistleblower for leaking classified information from the NSA. But you can't prosecute Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept just for printing the information that Snowden was a source for.

After more than 10 years we go back to Assange, and our accusation is that he didn't only publish what Manning dropped in his lap, what Woodward and Bernstein would have done, but helped her hack into government computers to get the goods. This gives me pause because the previous administration (that did not like Assange either) looked at the same information as this Department of Justice, and did not see enough there for trial. What does this administration have now that they did not have previously had? I don't like the secrecy of the grand jury preceedings in regards to Assange as well.

The Intercept makes a good case for Assange following standard journalistic procedures as far as the current evidence has shown.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/static...ge-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedoms.html

I also do not like that Assange may have been about to publish damaging information about activities in Ecuador before his expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bu...t-ecuador-prevent-alleged-panic-button-2019-4

Here is what the UN had to say about Julian Assange, they feel this is descending into human rights violations.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1036491


The ACLU has also decried the arrest.

https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-comment-julian-assange-arrest

I think these charges have been stretched. Even if he is 100% guilty, there is still a political incentive to move on Assange now, and I think this is a very disturbing situation.
 
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Pentagon Papers part 2 as I see it. They indicted him on assisting Manning(who is now free thanks to Obama... smh) in cracking a password to gain access to sensitive information. The charge itself is extremely thin as I see it and there will be a lengthy and tough fight to extradite him. They can't charge him for posting the information because he himself didn't take the information directly, akin to the Washington Post and NY Times back in the day with the Pentagon Papers and the SC decision that protected them from prosecution for publishing it. As Sam noted, he was arrested as political payback since his crime wasn't hacking but embarrassing and exposing corruption of powerful and influential people.

The fact that Democrats and the media are celebrating it is a real eye raiser since they imply it might be what they need to "prove" that Trump colluded(even though 4 investigations have said otherwise and if anything have proved that Hillary, not Trump, colluded. Yet you hear crickets when it comes to that fact). I will say Trump needs to quit lying about not knowing Wikileaks. The guy practically used it as Campaign talking points to bash Hillary back in 2016.
 
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