Top British official orders Julian Assange's extradition to U.S.

[Beastly Boy]

81. Interesting that you bring up journalism into this.

I gave you three examples of journalism that ought to sound like journalism to you, because it is, that refer to a charge that Manning was convicted of stealing, or theft. (I hope you do not intend to split hairs any further and insist that stealing is not the same as theft). None of these sources found this description weird in any way. You, on the other hand, insist, despite the examples I gave, that this description is not appropriate and give a pretty weak reason why you think it isn't (because the government was not permanently deprived of them. Of course the government was permanently deprived of its exclusive ownership of the records in question!).

I, on the other hand, am not a journalist, never pretended to engage in journalism and, frankly, don't see how criminal charges can be conflated with journalism in any context. My description of the charge ("distributing stolen property" ) is neither legal nor journalistic. Yet it is accurate, as I demonstrated with references to both the law and journalism. Insisting that a description of the charge must mimic the legal description of it precisely or it doesn't count is pretty ridiculous (imagine insisting that a criminally negligent homicide cannot be called murder because nobody referred to it as murder. Now that would be weird, wouldn't it?)

Regardless, the Manning verdict found it appropriate to not make a distinction between "steal", "purloin" or "convert to his use", making them interchangeable for the purpose of describing the offense. Therefore, it is beyond question that my use of the term "steal" is perfectly accurate, even as far as legal descriptions go, and by using it I am not in any way, shape or form, deflecting (but I appreciate your euphemism of "moving discussion away" anyway).

Likewise, just because no one we are aware of called the records in question "property", it is ridiculous to conclude that these documents stop being government property for this reason. It is equally ridiculous to insist that Assange did not engage in distributing the stolen records (perhaps, since this distribution was indiscriminate and widespread, it would be more appropriate to use "broadcast" here, but I can easily see you raising objections to this term as well) because you find this term inappropriate. BTW, "disclosing classified government information" is far less accurate to describe what Assange did than "distributing" is, but since this is a matter of personal preferences, I will not attempt to invalidate the appropriateness of your description.

So, let me spare you any further parsing and nitpicking: both Manning and and Assange (allegedly) committed crimes. If you are not satisfied with my description of their crimes, I will not hold it against you.