For years, Julian Assange’s opponents argued that the rationale for his remaining in the Ecuadorean embassy in London — that the United States would seek to extradite him in relation to the Chelsea Manning material the moment he left the building — was false. Assange just wanted to avoid facing allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, they insisted — however inconsistent, strange and politicised the process around those allegations actually was — and the possibility of extradition to the US was a fiction, a distraction. Some, like Bob Carr when he was foreign minister, rejected the idea there was any US investigation at all into Assange.
This required some rapid shifting of position when, the moment Assange was removed from the Ecuadorean embassy, the US indeed revealed its desire to extradite him. You might have thought there would be some mea culpas. Instead, the argument from Assange’s critics, ranging from national security commentators to lawyers to journalists, became that his extradition case wasn’t a threat to a free press (never mind that Donald Trump has repeatedly labelled the media “enemies of the people”) because it related to Assange’s actions as a “hacker”, not a journalist. The aptly named Robert Hackett summed up the “Assange is no journalist” case succinctly for the multinational-owned business magazine Fortune:
What separates Assange from a journalist or publisher is specific. Assange allegedly attempted to crack a ‘hashed’ password which protected a classified Defense Department network. According to the court filing, Assange encouraged his source, Chelsea Manning, then an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army, to steal classified information, and then he actively participated in attempts to hack deeper into U.S. systems. That is not journalism; it is, by law, criminality.
The only small problem is, according to the actual indictment, the phrase “actively participated in attempts to hack deeper into U.S. systems” is wrong. The indictment says something quite different:
On or about March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network, a United States government network used for classified documents and communications…
The portion of the password Manning gave to Assange to crack was stored as a ‘hash value’ in a computer file that was accessible only by users with administrative-level privileges. Manning did not having administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file and obtain the portion of the password provided to Assange.
Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log onto the computers under a username that did not belong to her. Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the sources of disclosures of classified information.
So, based on the indictment itself, the “hacking” allegedly perpetrated by Assange — in fact there is no evidence he succeeded in cracking the password — was to protect the identity of the whistleblower, not to “hack deeper into US systems”. And just to make it double clear, in the faintly ridiculous section of the indictment where the details of the Assange-Manning “conspiracy” are outlined (like using an encrypted communication platform, which journalists, politicians and intelligence officials also do all the time), the indictment states “it was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure of classified records to Wikileaks.”
So the US government itself acknowledges that, to the extent that Assange participated in any “hacking”, it was in relation to protecting the identity of his source, not obtaining further information. In fact, Assange did what any good journalist should do: minimise his source’s chances of being found out. But that is now conspiracy to commit a crime in the eyes of the US government.
One suspects this crucial nuance will be one of the many facts conveniently omitted in the coverage of Assange — like the fact that he was never charged with sexual assault, or that one prosecutor had already dropped the case, or that the US government could produce no evidence of harm from the WikiLeaks cables at the trial of Chelsea Manning, who is now back behind bars indefinitely for refusing to give evidence about WikiLeaks. But Assange’s critics can’t wish away his journalistic credentials on the basis of half-arsed claims of “hacking”.
WTF is a “journalist” anyway?
Look at the m.o. and the egocentric “opinion as news” crap so many of them churn, under their “journalist” flag of convenience.
Look at what Murdoch and others have done to the calling and the voluntary enlistments. The prostitution ideals.
Any and every excuse will be trotted out to try to grab Assange for embarrassing the reality of the “free Western world” – not least by partisan, subjective, establishment-rooted “journalists”.
I’m as much a “journalist” as these elite, privileged, professional parasites that have sold out the heritage and tradition of their calling, to devote their positions to pimp and tout specific causes, not least political – that won’t countenance there being at least two sides to an issue or story (despite promos to the contrary of their reality) – that are only interested in “researching” one view, theirs, of a matter – that only want to present one side of an issue, and traduce the other – in order to persuade others to follow their ideas.
So why can’t Assange be a “journalist”?
Interestingly, klewso, it seems another group of judges, like those deciding Walkleys, Martha Gellhorns, Sam Adams, and others, also reckon Assange is a journalist.
Overnight (headline and excerpt from The Age – note the award sponsors, the venue, and who accepted on his behalf);
“Julian Assange wins EU journalism award
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been given an award established in honour of an assassinated journalist.
Assange, jailed last week after being forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, was awarded the 2019 GUE/NGL Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers & Defenders of the Right to Information.
It is sponsored by European parliamentarians after being established in 2018 in honour of assassinated Maltese journalist Daphne Galizia.
The award is given to individuals “uncovering the truth and exposing it to the public” and to honour “individuals or groups who have been intimidated and/or persecuted for uncovering the truth and exposing it to the public”.
Nobel Peace prize laureate Mairead Maguire collected the award on the Australian’s behalf at an event in the European Parliament in Strasbourg…….”
I wonder if Pete Greste was in attendance…………..?
BTW, Bernard’s been very solid on all of this, and he has been on Collaery and Witness K. Due credit.
Two things:
1. Focus on who is or isn’t a journalist is meaningless. Freedom of the press shouldn’t depend on whether you’re an official journalist or not. “Official journalists” are far too eager to defend certain free speech privileges for themselves and shit on everyone who doesn’t have their special platform. If you publish something in public, you should have the same protections.
2. Espionage vs journalism is not a new tension. There is always a tension between the desire for government transparency and a free press, and the need for governments to keep some secrets for security purposes. To you or me, the Manning revelations were a heroic act of whistleblowing, but one can hardly expect the US to treat it as anything other than a major breach of classified material. Few if any countries on Earth would have treated it differently. These are the risks you take sometimes.
I think Assange made a huge mistake by hiding in the Ecuador embassy for years while his reputation became worse and worse.
Fight the extradition 7 years ago, making the argument (whether in the UK or in Sweden) that what he did was courageous journalism highlighting an overreach by the US government, and it is not right to let the US grab a non-US citizen extraterritorially like that for journalism against the US government, and you’dthink neither government could politically hand him over to the US. That’s if the Obama administration even wanted to try for the grab.
In the past 7 years, his case had become muddled by what he and Wikileaks did since then; Obama is gone and the more capricious Trump is in power; and by hiding away from what he did and making it seem like he was hiding from the rape charges in partiular, the goodwill is all gone and it is much easier for the UK government to hand him over.
Assange never hid from the rape allegation (not a charge), he participated in interviews (he did some in Sweden, and at the embassy and offered to do more via video).
Taking your chances with Obama is hardly a plan if your not intending to roll over and dob everyone else in.
It’s may indeed be really easy to get pissed off with Assange, but unless you’ve met him, you can only judge him by the facts, including he’s not a yank, he’s not in the US, and he’s in a hostile country’s supermax prison on a skipping bail charge only.
It’ll be ironic if the English transport an Australian to the US, the original English convict dumping ground for having the temerity to abscond from English injustice.
Assange did hide from extradition to Sweden. He jumped bail and went into the Ecuadorian embassy after his challenge to extradition failed in the UK courts and it was stated to be out of concern that the Swedes would extradite him on to the US. That is public record and not controversial.
I agree it would be appalling for either the Swedes or the UK to extradite Assange, as a non-US citizen, to the US to face charges of espionage over the Manning leaks. What he did was prima facie journalism regardless of whether he is considered an official journalist, that was my first point, and he owes no national security duty to the US the way US journalists might arguably have a duty to not report things on national security grounds. What’s next, issuing an arrest warrant for Xi Jinping for acting against the interests of the US?
I just think this is something Assange ought to have fought through at the time. He was never going to be able to stay in the embassy forever. In the intervening time, hiding in the embassy, his apparent collusion with Russia and assistance to the Trump campaign has lost him a lot of support that he had 7 years ago and may mean that he gets screwed over for something he did which was actually the right thing to do and worthy of protection (whatever else he’s done since).
As far as I’m concerned, Assange should never have submitted to a ruse by hostile forces to get their hands on him – it’s highly probable that no sooner would the Swedish excuse be dumped (after being dug up and raked over) than the US would have had their hands on him – to make him an example to other potential whistle-blowers who might embarrass their political system in the future?
How long ago did Ellsberg go through a similar rendition for his “treason”?
Whose interest was served by all those reports on Wikileaks apparent Russian collusion?
Wikileaks have repeatedly said the DNC emails came from an internal leak, not an external hack. They have stated Russians were not involved. Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have investigated and concluded it was an internal leak and the emails were probably transferred to a thumb drive. It wasn’t an external hack- by Russians or anyone else. Apparently there’s no way the transfer speeds reached would have happened if it was a hack.
I’m sure someone reading my comment would say “ Well, Wikileaks would say that”, but why would VIPS say it if it wasn’t true? And as I said initially, whose interest is served by all those Wikileaks Russian collusion stories? Does anyone seriously think liberals and progressives would be baying for Assange’s blood without those stories?
Control the narrative and you control the world.
Oh dear, they used a terribly sophistocated hacking tool. Pigs bum. They simply used a freeware operating system. The software that actually runs the internet (more web and email servers run on Linux than any other OS). One vastly more flexible and nuanced to be sure, but at the end of the day one that is freely available. Literally free. What it really says is “We are so dumb we relied on Microsoft WIndows for our security, and all you have to do is hold it up to the light, and everything is revealled”
The insider journalist position on Assange is even more baffling than resister and qanon takes. Too stupid to act in their own self interest. I will be noting the ones that aren’t troubled by the indictment and remembering not to waste my time reading anything from them. If they’re that dull on this, how interesting or insightful can they be on any other topic?
Sad that Peter Greste of all people is the first to end up on the list. Did Sisi give him a lobotomy in jail?
it’s a short memory issue.
People are thinking Assange and Wikileaks and thinking of all the revelations of the Trump campaign gettings heads-up about the anti-Clinton drops, Assange saying nice things about Putin etc… Wikileaks and Assange not as whistleblowers but as spin and propaganda tools. They’re thinking “why should that guy get protection for doing that?”
Iraq and Manning (and Snowden) are already forgotten. It’s like the way people carry on about Trump being the worst thing ever. I don’t like Trump either but I was here when George W Bush was ripping up the international order to start a disastrous war of aggression (and incidentally re-establishing torture as acceptable for non-pariahs to use, because why stop with one disaster?) which is still far worse than anything Trump has done yet. It’s already fading into memory, along with the important stuff Assange did help expose.
Wasn’t there a song “Short Memories“, sung by some bald headed bloke who was screwed royally by ‘Labor’ & tories exchanging preferences in 1984 to keep the NDP out of the Senate?
He later joined them and was again royally screwed.