Tlaib Leads Letter to DOJ to Drop Charges Against Julian Assange; Defends Freedom of Press

[JohnSJ]

"DETROIT — Today, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) led Congressmembers Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Cori Bush (MO-01), Greg Casar (TX-35), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-05) and Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on the Department of Justice to uphold the First Amendment’s protections for the freedom of the press by dropping the Trump-era charges against Australian publisher Julian Assange and withdrawing the American extradition request currently pending with the British government.

“Press freedom, civil liberty, and human rights groups have been emphatic that the charges against Mr. Assange pose a grave and unprecedented threat to everyday, constitutionally protected journalistic activity, and that a conviction would represent a landmark setback for the First Amendment,” the lawmakers wrote.

Julian Assange faces 17 charges under the Espionage Act and one charge for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The Espionage Act charges stem from Mr. Assange’s role in publishing information about the U.S. State Department, Guantanamo Bay, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Assange has been detained on remand in London for more than three years, as he awaits the outcome of extradition proceedings against him."

https://tlaib.house.gov/posts/tlaib-leads-letter-to-doj-to-drop-charges-against-julian-assange-defends-freedom-of-press

My only comment:

WTF

[Lovie777]

1. Nope..........

like it or not, at least Dems are individuals.......

I totally disagree with her.

[Tetrachloride]

4. Extradite, arraignment, plea deal or stand trial.

[boston bean]

2. ugh ugh ugh. NO!

[FeelingBlue]

3. Poorest Timing

Haven’t we just arrested yet another person who has put American citizens and foreign relations in jeopardy?! Not sure that Assange is much different. I’m not the expert on this. But, stealing and revealing national secrets does not seem to be patriotic. Are the two really that different from each other??

[JohnSJ]

6. One would think that. I also would not classify as a member of the press. He has been

a hacker most of his worthless life, when he was convicted in Australia for hacking in 1996

[stopdiggin]

9. I'm sure you're not the only one

whose reaction today was, "Whaaaaa?"
"You want to hoist this flag NOW?"

Mark me as another who is not impressed with the political 'instincts' revealed ....

[dlk]

5. If I remember correctly, Talib was outspoken against Hillary

Now she’s defending Assange, a shady character, at best. I’m seriously questioning her judgment.

[womanofthehills]

60. I think it's great she is going there

Obama went there with Chelsea Manning. I love the Squad.

[dlk]

78. I like the squad, too

Women are more powerful together. I just don’t agree with Talib here. Assange is an accused rapist and a generally seedy character.

[betsuni]

74. +1

[stopdiggin]

7. Strongly disagree

(from a big 1st Amend and press supporter here)
Assange's role here was much greater (and much more insidious) than that of mere publisher. He played a part in (and actively encouraged) criminal activity, with the aim of damaging the U.S. I see no reason why this state, or any other, should not impose a penalty for such action.

[JohnSJ]

10. Agreed. I would not characterize him as a member of the press.

[stopdiggin]

15. yes. (veering off slightly)

it's that old problem of expanding (and thus watering down) a definition - until it becomes functionally meaningless. If every jackhammer with an iPhone is now a member of the 'press' - what then for any type of 'privilege' or protection? Is the drunken cretin filming an assault at a frat house debauch - and then 'sharing' that criminal assault online - now press and publisher? Protected?

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Dozens of Australian politicians urge US to abandon Julian Assange extradition

Australian federal politicians from across the political spectrum have jointly asked the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to abandon attempts to extradite Julian Assange from the UK.

The 48 MPs and senators – including 13 from the governing Labor party – warned that the pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder “set a dangerous precedent” for press freedom and would damage the reputation of the US.

Assange, an Australian citizen, remains in Belmarsh prison in London as he fights a US attempt to extradite him to face charges in connection with the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as well as diplomatic cables.

In an open letter published on Tuesday, the Labor, Coalition, Greens and crossbench politicians implored Garland to “drop the extradition proceedings and allow Mr Assange to return home”.

“If the extradition request is approved, Australians will witness the deportation of one of our citizens from one Aukus partner to another – our closest strategic ally – with Mr Assange facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison,” the letter said.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/11/julian-assange-australian-politicians-urge-merrick-garland-united-states-us-attorney-general-to-abandon-extradition

While I hate that cookers have hijacked his cause and as much as I dislike him, the extradition attempts should be dropped and he should be released.

[JohnSJ]

12. I wish Australia would take Rupert Murdoch back.

[Violet_Crumble]

17. Urgh, no! That's just cruel n/t

[JohnSJ]

63. lol

[lapucelle]

14. I wonder why the other 179 parliament members didn't sign the letter. N/T

[Violet_Crumble]

16. I don't think it works like that.

Anyway, why would anyone want Peter Dutton signing it?

[lapucelle]

21. I wonder why the other 95 members of the US Congressional Progressive Caucus

chose not to sign the letter.

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

28. Excuse me? They are exaggerating how many agree with them...

[lapucelle]

34. Yes, I know. N/T

[Violet_Crumble]

44. I wonder how you know who was asked and who wasn't...

Or why you spend so much time wondering about things and not just going and finding out for yourself. Seems a complete waste of time to me and a bit of a distraction from the actual issue.

I do see a lot of inflexibility from Americans at DU about Julian Assange and it comes across as rage and hatred. I think he's a massive wanker who used people like Chelsea Manning. I'm also repelled by the way Wikileaks changed direction and started to leak things that were clearly aimed at making Democrats look bad. But that doesn't mean he should be in prison for the rest of his life.

While our previous conservative government did nothing and was happy for Julian Assange to rot in Belmarsh, we now have a Labor government (they're probs a bit further to the left on the political scale than Democrats in the US) and our Prime Minister wants it resolved.

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says he has personally urged the US government to end its pursuit of Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange.

In his most in-depth comments about the diplomatically sensitive issue in months, Albanese said he had raised the Assange case “recently in meetings” with US representatives and he vowed to continue to press for it to be brought to a close.



Albanese contrasted Assange’s legal situation with that of the former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who was released in 2017 when Barack Obama commuted her 35-year military prison sentence for leaking the information.

Albanese said he did not have sympathy for Assange’s actions “on a whole range of matters”, but he asked: “What is the point of this continuing this legal action which could be caught up now for many years into the future?”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/nov/30/australian-prime-minister-anthony-albanese-us-government-julian-assange-wikileaks

[lapucelle]

47. Sea below.

[lapucelle]

54. Assange waited out the statute of limitations on a rape investigation.

And now he's try to tire folks out, so he can skate again without answering to espionage charges.

Why doesn't the Intrepid Journalist come to court to tell his heroic story?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look, what Julian Assange did here was that he spoke to a person who he knew had authorized access to classified information. She had already given him tons of classified information. He wanted more. She said, I can hack — I can get into the system, but I need to break into the password.

She then downloads a piece of software, gets access to part of the password, and gives to Assange with the intent, which he tried to do, to crack the rest of the password to help her get further into the system.

That's not publication information. That is not First Amendment-protected speech. It's nothing like that. This is straight-up assistance to hack a computer system, a classified computer system, to get access to classified material and publish it.

So, that is, in fact, a crime under any circumstance, and absolutely the right thing for the government to charge Assange and to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.

snip=============================================================

There's no war on journalism.

There's a war on teaching people who are trying to hack a password. That's illegal under any standard. It's never been lawful. It will never be lawful. Accessing a secure computer system, much less a classified computer system, is against the law. And trying to crack a password for a classified system, that's illegal.

There's no war on journalists. There's no discussion of trying to use SecureDrop. This is about how to break a password, which is exactly what Mr. Assange said he was trying to do. He was able to do it. But he participated with Chelsea Manning in trying to do that, and that's a crime under federal law, period, full stop.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-u-s-charges-against-julian-assange-mean-for-journalists

[bluesbassman]

43. Why do you feel his extradition and prosecution should be dropped?

Is it because he’s innocent, or because he calls himself a journalist?

[Violet_Crumble]

46. It's because he's been in prison long enough and the US is hypocritical on this one...

Obama commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence years ago for leaking the information. Trying now to convict a foreign national of the same thing with charges that were laid by the Trump DOJ isn't great optics, especially when the general mood in Australia is for the charges to be dropped.

[TheBlackAdder]

48. Meanwhile Reality Winner is still in prison.

[womanofthehills]

57. No she's not - she was released in June 2021.

Plus Chelsea Manning is out - (thanks to compassionate Obama) - so why is Jillian Assange still in prison? He reported atrocities in Iraq that Chelsea Manning gave him.

[TheBlackAdder]

64. Oh, thanks., I missed that. 👍

[bluesbassman]

61. Not sure holing up in an embassy to avoid justice is equivalent to prison.

And I’m absolutely sure running out the clock to avoid accountability for your is behavior that should be rewarded.

[yardwork]

11. Dumb move and especially poor timing.

[Tomconroy]

13. The usual suspects.

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

29. Exactly

But here on DU you have to bite your tongue and cannot speak the truth...

[RandySF]

18. No

[JT45242]

19. Assange is a Russian asset...this is a bad move

Plus he's a rapist.

He's no whistleblower.

[TheBlackAdder]

49. Yep. He was very selective in not condemning anything Russia related.

[womanofthehills]

58. Rapist charges were dropped

[JT45242]

73. Because he hid for ten years

Original complaint was credible. After ten years of his hiding, authorities could not count on specific details being recalled by witnesses.

Ten years later, some witnesses can no longer be found. Others will not remember what people were wearing. New recollections won't match exactly their statement from ten years earlier

He pulled the delay. , delay , delay of the orange Russian asset.

If you prefer 'alleged rapist who got off because he hid for ten years until not enough witnesses could be located who said exactly what they said ten years ago."

Heck. Five years after the Bengals super bowl liss to the miners (second one) a poll of fans showed like 90% misremembering the key dropped interception as being during the final drive instead of the first two minutes of the fourth quarter.

You don't hide for ten years unless you likely did it.

[Scrivener7]

20. Oh, Lord. And Bowman was doing so well for a moment there.

[LiberalFighter]

22. Poor judgement on their part.

[JustAnotherGen]

23. My.only comment

WTAF

[mcar]

24. Don't they have more important things to do?

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

30. Opposing Democrats...isn't that what they focus on?

[mcar]

32. That seems to be the case

they aren't proposing any legislation.

[Walleye]

31. That was my first reaction, and he's is a Russian asset

Why do we get Democrats that fall for this bullshit

[mcar]

33. Makes one wonder

[Walleye]

35. People who don't remember the Cold War and don't remember what Russia really stands for

And what Russia really stands for is the conquest of territory. That’s what they do

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

36. Don't wonder in a post.....DU will ding you for telling that truth.

[TheBlackAdder]

50. Just like how most Republicans now defend and support Russia, these MPs probably do too.

[betsuni]

55. +1

[Just A Box Of Rain]

25. Recognize what we are dealing with.

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

37. When they show you who they are

BELIEVE THEM!

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

26. Not no...but HELL NO!

Julian Assange wasn't "press" it was a propaganda outfit. Propaganda is not journalism.

The fact that she wants to exonerate someone who was integral to the election of Donald Trump over Hilary Clinton, and is unapologetic about that, says all I need to know about her.

[themaguffin]

27. What is wrong with her? FFS.

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

38. Propaganda works

Putin's trollfarms targeted the Far Left too

[JohnSJ]

39. Tough call for Garland. Exonerate Assange or push the SC to keep the abortion pill legal?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

40. I disagree strongly

[Delphinus]

41. I so disagree with this

They need to rethink this.

[Hortensis]

42. All the pro-democracy dissidents who died and "disappeared"

in many nations are still either dead or wherever those who survived their interrogations were disappeared to. Assange knew this was happening -- it began with the release of his very first small cache of documents and he condemned the murders before knowingly going on to release vastly more.

I'm fine with him ending up in Russia, but not because he was never brought to...what can never be justice but should be committed to anyway.

If this dysfunctional, misfit weenie's a journalist, so am I. I wrote a few things for a local paper before. If I'm ever arrested for espionage-related crimes, it'll of course be among the first things I tell my attorney.

[JohnSJ]

62. +++

[moondust]

45. Bad idea.

[betsuni]

51. WTF indeed.

[sheshe2]

52. Oh, FFS...NO!

[BeckyDem]

53. She is in good company:

“Dark Day for Press Freedom”: Chomsky, Ellsberg, Others Slam Assange Extradition
The decision to extradite Assange “to the nation that plotted to assassinate him … is an abomination,” advocates said.
https://truthout.org/articles/dark-day-for-press-freedom-chomsky-ellsberg-others-slam-assange-extradition/

[lapucelle]

59. Glem Greenwald and RT News are in truthout company as well.

I will not link to RT, but their headlines read:

Democrats urge Biden to drop Julian Assange charges

Russian MP suggests swapping WSJ reporter for Assange

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


At this point I feel sorry for diminished giants Chomsky, Ellsberg, and Waters. They are being ill-served.

[Hortensis]

65. Note that these people are claiming AMERICA MAY have

plotted assassination. Even if it were true, rather than just an allegation from people devoted to them, even they claim those discussing it were tRump and Pompeo. But now they expand the allegation to smear Biden's America. Typical for them, of course. Their anti- Democratic Party orientation and constant swiftboating tactics are an abomination.

Btw, tRump's motivation for alleged assassination talk was supposedly "revenge" on Assange, who many experts doubt even knew for some time that he was carrying water for Russia. A classic alienated antisocial prone to illegal activity used put to use as a tool.

What on earth would Biden's motivation for assassination be? Apparently even they aren't pushing a made-up answer to that yet.

[BeckyDem]

66. Excuse me, Daniel Ellsberg is part of an anti-Democratic Party orientation?

[Hortensis]

67. Yup, full-fledged "member" of THIS group. They're a type,

BeckyDem, and a very predictable one. Maybe "anti-establishment" would be better as he's spent decades fighting it, for both good and bad causes.

But these days the Democratic Party is THE group protecting the establishment, including now our republic itself, from destruction, and is always in their crosshairs.

[BeckyDem]

69. I believe that is a mistake on your part. We'll have to agree to disagree.

His judgement has been considerable in the face of adversity.

Speaking truth to power: Ellsberg's legacy of courage and conscience

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, documenting decades of lies and mistakes in Vietnam.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2023/03/23/amanpour-ellsberg-pentagon-papers.cnn

[Hortensis]

70. Yup. Me too, and I pat myself on the back every day for

opposing the Vietnam war and military actions that betray our nation's principles. Like him, I've worn that identity for 50 years.

Btw, history-making as release of the Pentagon's study of our history of military actions was, it began Ellsberg's history with illegal leaks which he's been supporting ever since, regardless of what and why, necessity, if they were scrupulously limited (never seem to be), and what harm they cause to real people.

I think leaking the Pentagon's analysis was hugely different from leaking, just for one example, the identities of pro-democracy freedom fighters around the planet to the authoritarian governments they're fighting. I can never not think about the people harmed in many ways by callously unedited leaks, knowing we'll never learn about by far most of them, but bear the guilt anyway.

[BeckyDem]

75. Ellsberg didn't see it different at all.Keep in mind 5 established media, The Guardian, NYT, LeMonde

Der Spiegel and El Pais have all joined together demanding an end to US prosecution : “Holding governments accountable is part of the core mission of a free press in a democracy."

Additionally: Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Tuesday dared U.S. prosecutors to come after him like they have Julian Assange by revealing in a BBC News interview that the WikiLeaks publisher sent him a backup of leaked materials from former military analyst Chelsea Manning.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/12/07/revealing-he-too-had-manning-leaks-ellsberg-dares-doj-prosecute-him-assange


He put himself on the line because he views it similarly.


Be well! Good to converse w/ you even when we don't agree.

[Hortensis]

76. That's based on Assange's claim that his leaking documents

provided by Russia is "journalism" and that he is a journalist and prosecuting him is an attack on free press.

Today's problems almost entirely result from the failure of people to hold to ethical and workable standards and limits, for ourselves and our institutions. The free press argument requires a very degraded, corrupted, and cynically self serving view of what freedom of the press necessary to a free society should be. I can't speak for the others, but the NYT's political corruption supporting RW power has been intensively studied, measured, and reported by organizations that do just that, and in these troubled times it's still considered by many to be the best newspaper on the planet. It reflects its readers' failure to maintain standards as well, an interactive thing.

Btw, this is how Russia (and the Republicans), set out to destroy the democracies they intend to take over -- by injecting corruption that destroys function and trust in their institutions.

[BeckyDem]

77. Actually, it is the sharp opposite.

I think I'll leave it there.

[betsuni]

72. +1

[ismnotwasm]

56. Oh fuck no

[leftstreet]

68. DURec

[W_HAMILTON]

71. Oh lord.