So let’s be clear: “journalists” don’t do these things and it would be a breach of their quasi-fiduciary and ethical duties to their profession and to the public for them to do so.
I am in very legitimate danger of dying of mirth.
I hope the cat is okay.
Somehow, I don’t foresee this government leveraging these charges into a plea deal to obtain Assange’s co-operation on more recent national security investigations.
I guess we could say the option will be Barred – after all, such an investigation might interfere with peripheral third parties right to privacy.
So, I wonder if he’ll receive a pardon from Trump for assisting his campaign?
I find it hard to believe that assange did not also attempt to hack into Clinton/DNC computers back in 2016…and that Mueller has evidence of the hack.
I think the Russians hacked it for him then shared their bounty.
So, I wonder if he’ll receive a pardon from Trump for assisting his campaign?
It would be foolish for the US to pressure Ecuador to release him and issue an extradition request to the UK if Trump were to ultimately pardon him.
we know that’s true. But Assange would have tried to get in on his own, after the Russians did it.
Yeah, but there are obviously rogue elements of the US government who still think they’re there to uphold the rule of law, as opposed to the rule of Trump… as we’re reminded by Trump on a daily basis.
I find it hard to believe that assange did not also attempt to hack into Clinton/DNC computers back in 2016…and that Mueller has evidence of the hack.
I don’t. Assange was once a hacker but he graduated beyond that position. Why would he make such a move when a) doing so would put himself dubious legal territory b) there are plenty of better, non retired, in their prime hackers that can do the dirty work.
“and used special software, namely a Linux operating system”
So…now Red Hat is “special software”?
I mean, sure, it’s “special” to a lot of its users. But a non-techie would think that Assange had provided some kind of super hacking software. Not something that was commercially available. Indeed, Linux is free to anybody willing to do the work to manage it oneself. And it’s just an operating system.
BTW, using an operating system to access a file isn’t “hacking” in any ordinary sense. Just how poor was the security here? In retrospect Clinton looks smart to keep her business off the DoS servers, if anybody with access to Linux could hack their files.
BTW, it’s really cool that Assange has been hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years to avoid a five year prison sentence. (And that’s on top of the stupidity of being such a poor house guest that they decided to kick him out.)
I believe Trump toadies are involved. Mike Pompeo - obviously not one of those rogue elements that want to uphold the rule of law - has made critical comments of wikileaks, accusing them of being a “non state hostile intelligence service”.
I hope his cat is ok too.
But goddamn I love this!
That’s it?
“Attempting” to hack into something, based on messages that might be someone asking for help cracking a password that could maybe be used to hack into something, and a response message that might be him saying I wasn’t able to crack the pwd?
Listen, insert all the disclaimers, Assange seems loathesome in many ways, see Josh’s excellent front page piece for more, but if this is the big case everyone’s been excited about, that’s pretty ridiculous.
If they were charging him solely based on publishing anything that would be as dangerous as people are saying it is, i.e. who’s next, the NYT? People arguing no it’s because he hacked into something or stole something and so those are what the charges will be – well if these are it, first of all good luck getting a conviction on that, but also we’re really going to prosecute for “theft” or “hacking” because someone supposedly promised to help crack a password, and failed? Yeesh.
Agreed, it is the job of the prosecutor to layout the case in a most tendentious way possible… and this is the best they could do.
It is a reasonable possibility that the Russians were helping Assange hack the password in 2010.
Yeah - brilliant. He’s just brilliant.
my understanding is shes back in jail b/c of this case.