Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act

[babylonsister]

https://politicalwire.com/2019/05/23/assange-indicted-under-espionage-act/

Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act
May 23, 2019 at 4:05 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

“Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, has been indicted on 17 new counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in publishing classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday — a novel case that raises profound First Amendment issues,” the New York Times reports.

“The new charges were part of a superseding indictment obtained by the Trump administration that significantly expanded the legal case against Mr. Assange, who is already fighting extradition proceedings in London based on an earlier hacking-related count brought by federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia.”

The Daily Beast called it a “stunning escalation of the Trump administration’s war on the press.”

[Sanity Claws]

1. How does this relate to the extradition?

My understanding is that he cannot be tried for things other than things for which he was extradited. Is this accurate?
If it is, are they going to amend the extradition request?

[triron]

2. Not sure Daily Beast has this one right. Where do the indictments come from?

[babylonsister]

3. The NYT announced the indictments per this OP. Here's more...

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/445299-assange-hit-with-17-new-charges-including-espionage-act-violations
Assange hit with 17 new charges, including Espionage Act violations


Justice Department officials on Thursday announced 17 additional felony charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

A grand jury in Alexandria, Va., returned the superseding indictment charging Assange with conspiring with former Army intelligence officer Chelsea Manning to obtain, receive and disclose “national defense information,” in violation of the Espionage Act.

Assange is also charged with publishing a select range of the classified documents that revealed the names of low-level, local sources utilized by the U.S. government, including Afghan and Iraqi nationals, as well as journalists, human rights activists, and religious leaders.

“These alleged actions disclosed our sensitive classified information in a manner that made it available to every terrorist group, hostile foreign intelligence service and opposing military,” said John Demers, the assistant attorney general for DOJ’s national security division. “Documents relating to these disclosures were even found in the Osama bin Laden compound. This release made our adversaries stronger and more knowledgeable, and the United States less secure.”

more...

[triron]

10. Coming from Eastern District of Virginia.

Link to tweet

[JonLP24]

4. I hate Assange & The Espionage Act

This has nothing to do with Russia but they should have just used the hacking charge.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Finally... Long overdue

[Initech]

6. Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!

[Hekate]

7. About damn time. Assange is no journalist. nt

[Voltaire2]

11. Odd. The NYT and the Washington Post

both published excerpts from this information sourced from Wikileaks.

Were they engaged in espionage too?

You might dislike Assange, but this is an abuse of authority and will have a chilling effect on future whistle-blowers. If successful, the ability of our government to commit war crimes with impunity will be greatly enhanced.

[Hortensis]

13. He wasn't a simple whistle-blower, he was a

malicious attacker. There's a huge difference. We have no idea how many people died as a result.

I don't know if the court will decide he was a journalist when he did this or not, but I also know just claiming that his attack was journalism to get legal protection doesn't make it so.

[Voltaire2]

14. Nobody died. If any as much as got a hangnail from the Manning data it would have been

used already against her.

Do you have the same opinion of Daniel Ellsberg?

Do you think we had any justification for invading Iraq?

Did you read or watch any of the stuff leaked by Wikileaks, the stuff from Manning?

[Hortensis]

16. There's absolutely no way you can know that, and

no reason to believe it's true when that would be almost impossible. It's true that Russia gave Assange most of the classified material, not vice versa, but he made it available to nearly 200 other nations and thousands of violent groups.

If people don't like the consequences of what they support, they should change what they support, not comfort themselves with self deceptions. That way lies trumpism.

[Voltaire2]

20. The espionage case is regarding the Manning dump.

"WASHINGTON — Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, has been indicted on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday — a novel case that raises profound First Amendment issues."
-NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html

Russia had nothing to do with that.

As I said, the government had years to find some actual harm to anyone from the Manning dump, and they came up with nothing, so I'll go with that.

On the other hand that leak did document the unbelievably horrible crap we were doing to the people of Iraq.

[Hekate]

18. Trust Trump to find a way to fck us all over & destroy the First Amendment...

Assange is still no journalist.

[Voltaire2]

19. I really don't know how one decides objectively who is or is not a journalist.

But the 1st doesn't protect 'journalists' it protects freedom of the press. That freedom is massively at risk if the government can commit war crimes and then arrest anyone who reveals what they are doing and charge them with espionage. It is an abuse of power and we should put aside our opinions about Assange as a person and defend the 1st amendment.

[blogslut]

8. I don't like this

Assange is horrible but this is a way to set precedent for going after real journalists.

[uponit7771]

17. Assange actively participated in breaking into computer systems, that's different from journalism ..

... The second part though is what Red Don will use against journalist

[ismnotwasm]

12. Good.

[struggle4progress]

15. "Everything was going fine until I helped Russia elect Trump! Now suddenly

Trump wants to silence me!"