this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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Weird News - Things that make you go 'hmmm'
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* Assange has entered the chat *
Two completely different court systems. Also she's actually a whistleblower. Equating her with a spy harms our attempts to protect whistleblowers.
Assange pleaded guilty to journalism. You should change your Espionage Act so that talking to a source like journalists do all the time doesn't land people in prison. Tyvm, the world.
Ah yes, journalism. When you collude with one country, to hurt another.
Someone hasn't read the plea deal...
You do realise that his source, Manning, is American. It's the Manning leaks he was prosecuted for. There is no mention of collusion with any country in the indictment or plea.
It wouldn't be a deal if they didn't knock the charges down. This is normal. They got Al Capone for taxes. That doesn't mean they're coming after the working class mom who made 5 dollars on Etsy last year. And they aren't going after actual journalists.
Ok, so where is the collusion with a foreign power in the Manning publications? Tell me, which charges did they drop that alleged espionage, rather than talking to a source and publishing information?
Again, Assange pleaded guilty to journalism. Your Espionage Act criminalises encouraging sources and publishing info about war crimes.
Russia is now doing the same thing to a US journalist for the WSJ, accusing him of being a spy.
Of course you only want to talk about some of the guy's deeds. It's easier to make that look like journalistic activity. But compare his handling of the Iraq War Logs to an outfit like the NYT's handling of leaked information. It's completely different.
The only editing a journalist does is redacting information that's irrelevant and/or could get someone hurt. Assange cut the collateral murder video to make it look like a couple cowboys showed up and decided killing civilians was a fun time. When in reality the helicopters were called specifically because the unit was being harassed by an enemy group. They also neglected to get any information from the Army, like the report showing the group did in fact have RPGs. Something a real journalist would make sure to do.
No instead he handled thousands of documents in a manner meant to endanger American soldiers and agents while damaging the reputation of the country. The actions of a spy, of someone seeking the fastest way to get stolen intelligence into the hands of anti coalition forces.
If the espionage act covered actual journalism then Nixon, Reagan, Bush, or Trump, would have already used it that way. They're certainly not friends with the investigative journalists.