If Assange Encouraged Leaks, So What?
Bloomberg,
by
Noah Feldman
Original Article
Posted By: earlybird,
4/11/2019 4:00:18 PM
The arrest of Julian Assange presages a free-speech debate that we’ve been avoiding for the seven years he was living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London: Can Assange be lawfully prosecuted for somehow facilitating illegal theft of classified information? Or is the organization he founded, WikiLeaks, protected by the First Amendment when it publishes documents supplied by others, like the New York Times when it published the Pentagon Papers? Current law is not especially clear on this question. The actual 1971 Pentagon Papers case, New York Times v. United States, wasn’t about punishing the Times after the fact.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
davew 4/11/2019 4:14:07 PM (No. 30817)
Both Stone and Corsi deny having any contact with Assange during the campaign and Mueller never found any evidence for it so this is just more leftist slander. Assange has said that he did not receive the hacked emails from any Russian so he may have been more a victim of a conspiracy than a party to it. Regardless of their source, the emails have been validated as legitimate and were fair game for any newspaper to publish during a political campaign. This is not true of the classified documents that Assange published that did serious damage to US national security assets.
9 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
ScottC 4/11/2019 4:30:23 PM (No. 30819)
I would imagine the President of Ecuador´s bank account is a lot bigger today.
12 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
stablemoney 4/11/2019 4:54:09 PM (No. 30820)
Assange is charged with more than "encouraging" leaks. Assange is charged with violating U.S. law, thinking he was outside the boundaries of the U.S., but is now finding the long arm of U.S. extradition agreements a big problem for him. Assange will have an opportunity to present his case in court, so we will see.
7 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
comstock 4/11/2019 5:07:59 PM (No. 30816)
The DOJ press release only mentions the Manning leaks. Thanks to Obama Manning now walks free.
My hope is that discovery will dip into the DNC and Podesta leaks, which will be a big bag of worms for the Dimocraps.
10 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
SALady 4/11/2019 6:19:25 PM (No. 30814)
If all he did was leak about how dirty our government is (especially when the Demon-Rats are in charge), he would be a hero.
But his leaks cost people their lives -- people who worked for us in foreign countries who lost their lives because they were "outed" by his leaks!!!!!
That was pure evil, and he let his ego outweigh the lives of his victims!!!! So he needs to rot in prison, if not be shot for treason in my humble opinion!!!!!!
8 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
PESSIMIST 4/11/2019 6:25:10 PM (No. 30813)
Assange´s real crime now is having exposed Hilary Clinton as a crook. If he hadn´t done that, and was willing to debase himself by claiming he was traumatized by being born with the wrong genitalia, the liberal state would let him walk free. Like the actual espionage agent who supplied Wikipedia and is now a perennial candidate for the U.S. Congress from Maryland.
12 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
udanja99 4/11/2019 7:52:09 PM (No. 30821)
The left is terrified that he is finally going to spill the beans and they’re trying to discredit him before that happens.
12 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
red1066 4/11/2019 8:09:00 PM (No. 30812)
While arguments are being made about the first amendment and freedom of the press, I think at this point the security of the country and it´s servicemen are more important. Assange may not have stolen the documents, but broadcasting them and making them public is where the damage was done.
6 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Nevadadad46 4/11/2019 10:20:32 PM (No. 30822)
What about his network- Wikileaks? He was never actually charged with espionage, he was charged (in deliberate error) for molesting a child- an underage woman who presented herself as an adult. those charges were later dropped. he was skipping bail from the e-UK on that. The espionage claims came up more as rumors while he was in sanctuary inside the embassy. The question everyone is going to get wrong answers to is, he may have encouraged people to leak evil crap on governments (which I happen to agree with!), who is to blame if someone does "Whistle blow" about government evil doings? the Whistle blower or the reporter who lands the info.
Let us ask this; Remember the 2018 case where the congressional aid was leaking insider info to the girlfriend NY Times reporter? Wolfe- and the reporter´s name was Ali Watkins. So, who was charged? He was, not her. In fact, he leaked to two other reporters besides her. None of them have been charged. Why?
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Nevadadad46 4/11/2019 10:20:55 PM (No. 30823)
We may believe lives were lost due to that little gay idiot, Manning, who was put in a very sensitive security position when every one of his supervisors considered him a security risk. But, because he was gay, they all were afraid to go "Gay bashing" and having him escorted him out of the building. What about their responsibility for those lives?
Why is the reporter of the evil information in trouble? Especially if the information exposed truly wrongful crap, as much of what Manning’s leaks did do? And don´t forget Snowden- He was truly a hero for what he did expose. We judged it great when Hillary was exposed by hackers and yet, when Assange´s Wikileaks outfit exposed some pretty nasty stuff old Brennan and his boys were doing, we think that´s worthy of burning Assange?
Who keeps watch over these secret dirty agencies when they do wrong. What if Wikileaks had exposed the Deep state that went after Trump before they could get their dirt done. Think of the effort and money that would have saved! Hell, it might have actually saved our nation!
7 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Penney 4/12/2019 12:23:02 AM (No. 30818)
It would seem that the leakers are the real culprits.
4 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
cor-vet 4/12/2019 2:09:41 PM (No. 30815)
What about the 30+ people that were killed in China, thanks to our former Sec. State? She´s still free and will probably die a free old hag!
0 people like this.
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Comments:
I have been wondering why it was so easy to convince people that Assange was Public Enemy No. 1. Because the Dems said so? Because the media said so?
They were unhappy with him at the Ecuadoran embassy because of his personal hygiene habits.