Gotta link as to your quote? Definition of BS as you are using it? Ask and answer for yourself whether offering to assist, and assisting, in hacking US computer systems in the furtherance of leaking reams and reams of US classified documents that could likely benefit enemies of the US, should be a crime? Or is that just BS? Regardless, he can have a jury of his peers if he wants. Meanwhile ... facts and opinions (emphasis added): Breaking Down the Hacking Case Against Julian Assange FOR THE FIRST time since 2012, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange no longer has the legal protections of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. He now faces the criminal charges he's always suspected and feared—although it's now clear that he's accused of criminal behavior not as a journalist, or even a spy, but a hacker. On Thursday, London's metropolitan police physically dragged Assange out of his residence at the embassy and into a police van. Hours later, a grand jury unsealed an indictment against the WikiLeaks founder for one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The UK government has already made clear that it carried out Assange's arrest on behalf of the US government, implying that it intends to comply with his extradition to the US to face those hacking charges. The indictment—which you can read in full below—centers on an incident nine years ago ago, when Assange allegedly told his source, then Army private Chelsea Manning, that he would help crack a password that would have given her deeper access to the military computers from which she was leaking classified material to WikiLeaks. "On or about March 8, 2010, Assange agreed to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on United States Department of Defense Computers connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Network, a United States government network used for classified documents and communications," the indictment reads, referring to the Pentagon's SIPRNet network of computers that store classified information. That brief alleged offer of active assistance from Assange may be all the US government needs to charge him not as a journalist recipient of Manning's leaks, but as a co-conspirator with Manning in the theft of Pentagon data. "It can be as simple as that," says Bradley Moss, an attorney for the Washington, DC, law firm Mark Zaid P.C. who focuses on issues in national security and intelligence community personnel. The password cracking incident has long loomed in the background of Assange's legal case. As WIRED first reported in 2011, prosecutors in Chelsea Manning's case asserted at the time that Assange had offered to help Manning crack a password "hash," a form of scrambling designed to protect stored passwords from abuse. Hashing irreversibly converts a password into another string of characters, but hackers often use lists of pre-computed hashes from millions of passwords, known as rainbow tables, to search for a matching hash, revealing the hidden password. In a pretrial hearing in Manning's case, prosecutors presented evidence that Manning had asked Assange—who was instant messaging with Manning under the name Nathaniel Frank—if he had experience cracking hashes. Assange allegedly responded that he possessed rainbow tables for that, and Manning sent him a hashed password string. According to Thursday's unsealed indictment, Assange followed up two days later asking for more information about the password, and writing that he'd had "no luck so far." The indictment further alleges that Assange actively encouraged Manning to gather even more information, after Manning said she had given all she had. It's not clear if Assange ever successfully cracked the password. According to the indictment, that password would have given Manning administrative privileges on SIPRNet, allowing her to pull more files from it while concealing the traces of her leaks from investigators. Is one failed attempt to crack a password really enough to embroil Assange in a felony hacking case? "For the CFAA, unfortunately yes," says Jeffrey Vagle, a former University of Pennsylvania law professor and current affiliate scholar at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. He points to a long history of using the overly expansive wording of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to hit hackers accused of even trivial acts with serious charges. "The fact that his involvement is de minimus isn't enough to stop an indictment, because the CFAA is just so broad." That doesn't make the charges against Assange an open-and-shut case, argues Tor Ekeland, a well-known hacker defense attorney. The indictment only charges Assange with one count, with a maximum of five years in prison. And due to the complicating factor of his extradition from the UK, prosecutors won’t be able to pile on more charges with a so-called “superseding indictment,” since they have to justify any charges they make now to British authorities. Ekeland also says there could still be venue issues with the charges; prosecutors would have to prove that the case affected residents of the Eastern District of Virginia, the relatively conservative district where the case would be tried. "It seems thin to me," Ekeland says. Ekeland also points out that to expand the statute of limitations for the CFAA from the normal five years to the necessary eight in this case, given the indictment's date of March 2018, the Justice Department is charging Assange under a statute that labels his alleged hacking an "act of terrorism." He sees that as another suspect element of the case, if not one that would necessarily hinder prosecution. "To get the benefit of the eight years, they’re trying to call this a terrorist act," Ekeland says. "That seems a little weird." But prosecutors have at least skirted a potentially bigger source of controversy: the First Amendment. Assange's defenders have long argued that prosecuting him would set a dangerous new precedent, breaking with a long history in the US that has spared journalists from prosecution when they report on leaks of classified secrets. By focusing its indictment solely on Assange's alleged role in Manning's computer intrusion, the Justice Department has essentially separated Assange from the journalistic pack. "I think the press freedom issues are moot now," argues Susan Hennessey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former legal counsel for the NSA. "There are ways the government could have brought these charges that would have still posed concerns; for example, conspiracy to steal government records. But they didn’t do that. These are charges for ordinary computer hacking. The conduct the government alleges here is behavior that is well outside any reasonable definition of journalism." The charges against Assange represent, in fact, the second time in his life he's been charged with computer hacking. As a teenage hacker in Australia going by the name "Mendax," he was turned in by a fellow member of his three-person hacking group called the International Subversives, and he spent the next five years awaiting sentencing, a bleak period he’s described as a formative period. “Such prosecution in youth is a defining peak experience,” he wrote in a 2006 blog entry. “To know the state for what it really is!” Eventually, a judge noted that Assange's intrusions had been mostly harmless explorations, rather than profit-focused or malicious. He was given a $2,000 fine. This time, he may not be so lucky. https://www.wired.com/story/julian-assange-arrest-indictment-hacking-cfaa/
So basically, he did nothing but has had nearly a decade of his life stolen from him. I suppose he should count himself lucky though. He didn't end up like Seth Rich, at least not yet. Could this possibly be Trump playing 3D chess? He knows Julian will not reveal a source, but if the alternative is prison and the source, Rich, is dead on account of his leaking, maybe he does spill the beans. If he could confirm that Rich was his DNC source, it would be quite the bombshell. It would reveal the entire intell community as a bunch of fools, if we needed further proof, since they have assured us it was Russian hacking. It would force the government to seriously look at DWS, the DNC, the Clintons and the unsavory characters around them.
LOL ... Bless your heart ... I'd be surprised if Trump could grasp Uno; let alone, Checkers; certainly not, Chess; and absolutely not, 3D Chess. LMAO ... thanks for the laugh .
Snowden says he wants to come back too as long as he can get a fair trial. Bring em both back. Work out "mutually advantageous" arrangements. Snowden has stuff on the the dirty deeds of the intel operations. I would not have cut either one of them sweetheart deals but they have both been off in their penalty boxes for years now- so as I said earlier- I dont have concern that they would skate without any penalty. We are past that now and need to focus on something that recovers maximum intelligence information.
Julian Assange can do himself a great favor by providing proof that Seth Rich is the leaker. Remember the Russian hacking allegation goes by the wayside. Not that, William Binney NSA expert already confirmed no hacking could have happened. The computer printouts on the download speeds was too fast. Only by copying the files into a flash drive could those files have been downloaded that fast! Would support the Seth Rich is the leaker narrative.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe...extradite-julian-assange-20210811-p58hzn.html US government wins first appeal battle in fight to extradite Julian Assange By Latika Bourke August 12, 2021 London: The US government has won the right to appeal key evidence that had successfully claimed Julian Assange should not be extradited to the US because he was a “very high” suicide risk. The written evidence was given by Professor Michael Kopelman, who appeared for Assange during an extradition hearing last year which the WikiLeaks founder won. A sketch of Julian Assange, left, as he appeared via video link at the High Court in London.Credit:Elizabeth Cook/PA A judge ruled in January that Assange should not be extradited to the US to face criminal charges including breaking a spying law, accepting testimony that his mental health combined with Asperger’s Syndrome made him a suicide risk. The US had already been given permission to appeal the January ruling on three grounds, but on Wednesday asked that the scope of it be expanded to include a reassessment of Kopelman’s expert evidence used to evaluate Assange’s risk of suicide. In an appeal hearing before the High Court on Wednesday, the US government singled out the fact that Kopelman, despite giving his opinion on the risk of Assange dying by suicide, had omitted the fact that Assange had secretly fathered two children with his fiancee Stella Moris, with whom he formed a relationship while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy. “It is in my view arguable that Professor Kopelman did not act in accordance with his declaration and that the DJ [District Judge] erred in not taking that into account,” Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, the judge in Wednesday’s ruling, said. He said more “detailed and critical consideration” should have been given to the serving of a report which contained “misleading information” and “significant omissions”. “To my mind, this goes more to the weight given to the evidence than to its admissibility,” he said. Julian Assange’s partner Stella Moris outside the High Court on Wednesday.Credit:AP The US government is arguing that Assange is capable of resisting suicide and in the High Court repeated its offer for the Australian to serve out any sentence in his home country rather than the US. The full appeal will be heard on October 27 and 28. Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Assange, sought to comfort the Australian, whom he spoke to from the courtroom via a video link, after the decision. “It’s only a preliminary ruling, it’s not the end of the line at all, just saying it’s arguable and we’ve at least got a clear idea of the case we’ve got to meet for the full hearing,” Fitzgerald told Assange. Supporters gathered outside as the High Court heard a US appeal in the extradition case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.Credit:Getty Images The conversation was streamed to journalists reporting remotely and was supposed to have been private, but Fitzgerald repeatedly warned Assange that it was likely their discussion was being broadcast. “I won’t say any more Julian or invite you to say too much because people might be listening in,” he said. But Assange said he could not comprehend the reasoning behind the decision. “I just don’t understand how ... an expert has a legal obligation to protect people from harm, my children in particular,” he said, an apparent reference to Kopelman’s decision to omit referring to Moris and their two children. The 50-year-old had been expected to appear in person at the Royal Courts of Justice but instead appeared via a video link, seated on a sofa in a room at Belmarsh Prison where he has been imprisoned for almost two years. He appeared dishevelled, his white hair straggly and grown out to the base of his neck. He wore a white shirt with the collar unbuttoned and a burgundy tie undone and hanging around his neck. His facemask covered only his mouth, leaving his nose exposed. The US government is pursuing Assange for espionage, arguing he conspired with Chelsea Manning, then an army intelligence officer, to hack into government systems to steal three-quarters of a million secret and classified cables which his organisation WikiLeaks dumped, unredacted, online. Assange says he is a whistleblower and journalist, but this was rejected by the judge overseeing his extradition hearing who said his actions went beyond that of a whistleblower.