tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/wikileaks-1091/articlesWikiLeaks – The Conversation2024-03-26T12:48:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2266142024-03-26T12:48:44Z2024-03-26T12:48:44ZAssange wins legal lifeline against extradition to the US – but there’s a sting in the tail<p>The High Court in London has granted Julian Assange <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/assange-v-government-of-the-united-states-of-america-3/">leave to appeal</a> the UK Home Secretary’s order that he be extradited to the United States on charges of computer misuse, and multiple charges under its Espionage Act. </p>
<p>However, the favourable judgement has a sting in its tail – the US can stop the appeal if it submits adequate <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/mar/26/julian-assange-granted-permission-to-appeal-against-extradition-to-us">assurances</a> on the treatment of Assange, including guaranteeing freedom of expression.</p>
<p>The two-judge panel rejected some of the grounds argued by Assange’s legal team and accepted others. They have allowed the US government and the home secretary until April 16 to provide any assurances in relation to the accepted grounds of appeal. Without assurances, leave to appeal will be granted. If assurances are filed with the court, the court will hold another hearing on May 20.</p>
<p>The court rejected the following grounds of appeal:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>that extradition would be incompatible with the US–UK extradition treaty (this essentially addresses the claim that charges are for political offences)</p></li>
<li><p>that extradition is barred because it involves prosecution for a political opinion</p></li>
<li><p>that extradition is incompatible with Article 6 (right to a fair trial) or Article 7 (ban on retroactive criminal law) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)</p></li>
<li><p>that extradition is incompatible with Article 2 (right to life) or Article 3 (prohibition on torture or inhuman or degrading treatment) of the ECHR.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The grounds provisionally accepted by the court are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>that extradition is incompatible with Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the ECHR</p></li>
<li><p>that the UK Extradition Act prohibits extradition in cases where the accused might be prejudiced on grounds of nationality </p></li>
<li><p>that there is inadequate protection of the principle of speciality (that a person can only be charged with offences listed in the extradition request) and against the death penalty.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The grounds of appeal are in some ways surprising, given the District Court judgement of 2021 decided that extradition should not be allowed on the basis that it would be oppressive. </p>
<p>In the leave to appeal hearing, it seems the court was persuaded by arguments that Assange is being charged for actions that are normal journalistic activities. The European Court of Human Rights has never found that extradition would violate freedom of expression, so this case could be a major development in the law under the ECHR. </p>
<p>The issue of prejudice on the grounds of nationality appears to relate to claims that Assange, as a non-national of the US, would not be able to rely on First Amendment protections of freedom of expression. </p>
<p>The court has asked for new assurances because the grounds of appeal are outside the assurances the US government gave in 2021, which responded to the District Court judgement.</p>
<p>Today’s judgement opens the door to a full appeal. Dates for hearing will be set, but the appeal will probably be heard later this year. If the appeal succeeds, the extradition process would be over. At that point, Assange would be released from Belmarsh prison and probably deported to Australia. </p>
<p>If the appeal fails, he could seek leave to appeal to the UK Supreme Court. If leave is denied or a further appeal fails, he would at that stage have exhausted all possible remedies in the UK. </p>
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<p>US Marshals will likely seek to remove Assange to the United States as soon as possible after he exhausts his UK recourses. To prevent that, his legal team will make an application to the European Court of Human Rights. Assange’s lawyers applied to the European Court of Human Rights in 2022, but the application was declared inadmissible without published reasons on December 13 2022, probably because he had not yet exhausted potential remedies in the UK. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-years-of-avoiding-extradition-julian-assanges-appeal-is-likely-his-last-chance-heres-how-it-might-unfold-and-how-we-got-here-221217">After years of avoiding extradition, Julian Assange’s appeal is likely his last chance. Here's how it might unfold (and how we got here)</a>
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<p>Once Assange has exhausted his last possible recourse before the British courts, an application to the European Court of Human Rights would probably be declared admissible. The application will be accompanied by a request for urgent interim measures to obtain an order prohibiting the UK from extraditing Assange until the European Court has decided on his case.</p>
<p>Interim measures are usually only granted in cases involving the right to life or the prohibition on torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. The District Court judgement in 2021 found he should not be extradited because it would be oppressive. The facts underlying that finding, that the likely prison conditions in the US increased the risk that Assange could attempt suicide, could support a claim under the European Convention on Human Rights that extradition would violate his right to be free from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. </p>
<p>The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Edwards, said before the February hearing that the conditions Assange would face could amount to <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/un-special-rapporteur-torture-urges-uk-government-halt-imminent-extradition">torture or other forms of ill-treatment or punishment</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-greg-barns-on-the-battle-to-free-julian-assange-185690">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Greg Barns on the battle to free Julian Assange</a>
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<p>Last week, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/mar/20/julian-assange-wikileaks-plea-deal">reports surfaced</a> that the US government would consider offering Assange a plea bargain that would see him released from prison based on the time he has already served in Belmarsh. </p>
<p>Assange’s American lawyers stated at that time that they had not been contacted by the US government, and no one associated with Assange has made further comment. </p>
<p>With the prospect of legal proceedings continuing for months or years to come, a plea bargain may begin to look like a reasonable outcome for everyone concerned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Cullen has been a volunteer for the Australian Labor Party.</span></em></p>The Wikileaks founder will be granted leave to appeal his extradition to the US if the US and UK do not provide assurances in relation to the accepted grounds of the appeal.Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212172024-02-19T19:05:01Z2024-02-19T19:05:01ZAfter years of avoiding extradition, Julian Assange’s appeal is likely his last chance. Here’s how it might unfold (and how we got here)<p>On February 20 and 21, Julian Assange will ask the High Court of England and Wales to reverse a decision from June last year allowing the United Kingdom to extradite him to the United States. </p>
<p>There he faces multiple counts of computer misuse and espionage stemming from his work with WikiLeaks, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/20/julian-assange">publishing sensitive</a> US government documents provided by Chelsea Manning. The US government has repeatedly claimed that Assange’s actions <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jul/29/julian-assange-us-rejects-australias-calls-to-free-wikileaks-founder-during-ausmin-talks">risked its national security</a>.</p>
<p>This is the final avenue of appeal in the UK, although Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, has indicated he would <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/julian-assanges-appeal-against-us-extradition-is-life-or-death-wife-says-2024-02-15/">seek an order</a> from the European Court of Human Rights if he loses the application for appeal. The European Court, an international court that hears cases under the European Convention on Human Rights, can issue orders that are binding on convention member states. In 2022, an order from the court <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/14/european-court-humam-right-makes-11th-hour-intervention-in-rwanda-asylum-seeker-plan">stopped the UK</a> sending asylum seekers to Rwanda pending a full review of the relevant legislation.</p>
<p>The extradition process has been running for nearly five years. Over such a long time, it’s easy to lose track of the sequence of events that led to this. Here’s how we got here, and what might happen next.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-australias-bid-for-julian-assanges-freedom-presents-formidable-problems-for-joe-biden-213152">View from The Hill: Australia's bid for Julian Assange's freedom presents formidable problems for Joe Biden</a>
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<h2>Years-long extradition attempt</h2>
<p>From 2012 until May 2019, Assange resided in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after breaching bail on unrelated allegations. While he remained in the embassy, the police could not arrest him without the permission of the Ecuadorian government. </p>
<p>In 2019, Ecuador allowed Assange’s arrest. He was then convicted of breaching bail conditions, and imprisoned in Belmarsh Prison, where he’s remained during the extradition proceedings. Shortly after his arrest, the United States <a href="https://theconversation.com/assanges-new-indictment-espionage-and-the-first-amendment-117785">laid charges against Assange</a> and requested his extradition from the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Assange immediately challenged the extradition request. After delays due to COVID, in January 2021, the District Court decided the extradition <a href="https://theconversation.com/julian-assanges-extradition-victory-offers-cold-comfort-for-press-freedom-152676">could not proceed</a> because it would be “oppressive” to Assange. </p>
<p>The ruling was based on the likely conditions that Assange would face in an American prison and the high risk that he would attempt suicide. The court rejected all other arguments against extradition.</p>
<p>The American government appealed the District Court decision. It provided assurances on prison conditions for Assange to overcome the finding that the extradition would be oppressive. Those assurances led to the High Court <a href="https://www.iclr.co.uk/document/2021005727/casereport_3d8af061-9914-4a2d-bd2d-fa5260deeb2c/html">overturning the order</a> stopping extradition. Then the Supreme Court (the UK’s top court) refused Assange’s request to appeal that ruling. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-rocky-diplomatic-road-julian-assanges-hopes-of-avoiding-extradition-take-a-blow-as-us-pushes-back-210806">A rocky diplomatic road: Julian Assange's hopes of avoiding extradition take a blow as US pushes back</a>
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<p>The extradition request then passed to the home secretary, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/17/julian-assange-extradition-to-us-approved-by-priti-patel">approved it</a>. Assange appealed the home secretary’s decision, which a single judge of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/09/julian-assange-dangerously-close-to-us-extradition-after-losing-latest-legal-appeal">High Court rejected</a> in June 2023. </p>
<p>This appeal is against that most recent ruling and will be heard by a two-judge bench. These judges will only decide whether Assange has grounds for appeal. If they decide in his favour, the court will schedule a full hearing of the merits of the appeal. That hearing would come at the cost of further delay in the resolution of his case.</p>
<h2>Growing political support</h2>
<p>Parallel to the legal challenges, Assange’s supporters have led a political campaign to stop the prosecution and the extradition. One goal of the campaign has been to persuade the Australian government to argue Assange’s case with the American government. </p>
<p>Cross-party support from individual parliamentarians has steadily grown, led by independent MP Andrew Wilkie. Over the past two years, the government, including the foreign minister and the prime minister, have made stronger and clearer statements that the <a href="https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/julian-assange-the-state-of-play-at-the-end-of-2023/">prosecution should end</a>. </p>
<p>On February 14, Wilkie proposed a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/27604/&sid=0001">motion</a> in support of Assange, seconded by Labor MP Josh Wilson. The house was asked to “underline the importance of the UK and USA bringing the matter to a close so that Mr Assange can return home to his family in Australia.” It was passed.</p>
<p>In addition, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/14/australian-mps-pass-motion-urging-us-and-uk-to-allow-julian-assange-to-return-to-australia">confirmed</a> he had recently raised the Assange prosecution with his American counterpart, who has the authority to end it.</p>
<h2>What will Assange’s team argue?</h2>
<p>For the High Court appeal, it is expected Assange’s legal team will once again argue the extradition would be oppressive and that the American assurances are inadequate. A recent <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/un-special-rapporteur-torture-urges-uk-government-halt-imminent-extradition">statement</a> by Alice Edwards, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, supports their argument that extradition could lead to treatment “amounting to torture or other forms of ill-treatment or punishment”. She rejected the adequacy of American assurances, saying:</p>
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<p>They are not legally binding, are limited in their scope, and the person the assurances aim to protect may have no recourse if they are violated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The argument that extradition would be oppressive remains the strongest ground for appeal. However, it is likely Assange’s lawyers will also repeat some of the arguments which were unsuccessful in the District Court proceedings. </p>
<p>One argument is that the charges against Assange, particularly the espionage charges, are political offences. The United States–United Kingdom extradition treaty does not allow either state to extradite for political offences. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-charges-does-julian-assange-face-and-whats-likely-to-happen-next-115362">Explainer: what charges does Julian Assange face, and what's likely to happen next?</a>
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<p>Assange is also likely to re-run the argument that his leaks of classified documents were exercises of his right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. To date, the European Court of Human Rights has never found that an extradition request violates freedom of expression. For the High Court to do so would be an innovative ruling. </p>
<p>The High Court will hear two days of legal argument and might not give its judgement immediately, but it will probably be delivered soon after the hearing. Whatever the decision, Assange’s supporters will continue their political campaign, supported by the Australian government, to stop the prosecution. </p>
<p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Julian Assange lived in the Ecuadorian embassy after breaching bail on unrelated charges. He had not been charged with any offences and was instead wanted for questioning in Sweden over sexual assault allegations. The Swedish investigation has since been dropped with no charges laid.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Cullen has been a volunteer for the Australian Labor Party, including for Josh Wilson, MP.</span></em></p>Efforts to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the UK to the US have gone on for years. Here’s what’s been going on and what might happen in court this time.Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131522023-09-08T07:55:23Z2023-09-08T07:55:23ZView from The Hill: Australia’s bid for Julian Assange’s freedom presents formidable problems for Joe Biden<p>In his relatively brief time as prime minister, Anthony Albanese has had very extensive contact with US President Joe Biden. According to the prime minister’s office, Albanese has had four formal meetings with him, plus two Quad meetings, and several other less formal discussions. They’ll rub shoulders again at the G20 this weekend in India. </p>
<p>Biden will also host Albanese for a state visit to Washington next month. </p>
<p>The relationship between the Labor government and the US is close, as is that, it seems, between the two leaders. But one, relatively modest (in Australian eyes), Albanese request – for the Americans to drop their bid to extradite Julian Assange – has fallen on firmly blocked ears. </p>
<p>Later this month, a delegation of federal parliamentarians is to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-05/federal-politicians-visit-washington-urge-release-julian-assange/102814298">travel to Washington</a> to lobby, ahead of the Albanese visit. Its composition reflects how the issue spans the political spectrum. It includes former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, Tony Zappia (Labor), Alex Antic (Liberal), Monique Ryan (independent), and Peter Whish-Wilson and David Shoebridge, both from the Greens. </p>
<p>The trip is being privately financed by the Assange campaign. Crowd-funding attracted more than 800 donors and raised some A$65,000 to cover the trip. </p>
<p>The parliamentarians will lobby members of congress and seek meetings with the State Department and the Department of Justice. Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, will no doubt be busy arranging appointments. The group is also set to talk with non-government organisations including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders. </p>
<p>The Assange story is well known. </p>
<p>His WikiLeaks’ publication in 2010 of a trove of US intelligence about American activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaked by then-intelligence officer Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, was highly damaging for the Americans. The material was widely published internationally, including in Australia. </p>
<p>Assange took long-term refuge for years in the embassy of Ecuador in London. Finally he was thrown out of there; for years he has been in a British prison, fighting through the court system to try to prevent his extradition. </p>
<p>Albanese says the Assange affair has gone on too long; since Labor was elected, hopes for progress on his repatriation have waxed and waned. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-rocky-diplomatic-road-julian-assanges-hopes-of-avoiding-extradition-take-a-blow-as-us-pushes-back-210806">A rocky diplomatic road: Julian Assange's hopes of avoiding extradition take a blow as US pushes back</a>
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<p>A bad sign came earlier this year when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at a press conference in Australia with Foreign Minister Penny Wong, said he understood Australians’ sensitivities but declared it was “very important that our friends here understand our concerns about this matter”.</p>
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<p>The actions that he has alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named human sources at grave risk – grave risk – of physical harm, and grave risk of detention.</p>
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<p>More positive sentiments from the US embassy in Canberra came to nothing.</p>
<p>By any logic, the US has undercut its own case against Assange by its treatment of Manning, whose sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama. On that precedent, surely, leniency should be extended to Assange. </p>
<p>Moreover, a distinction should be made between the leaking of official material and the publication of the material, which goes to media freedom. </p>
<p>Joyce argues on another front: “extraterritoriality is a very dangerous precedent”. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Julian Assange did not commit a crime in Australia – in fact he was given a Walkley [for WikiLeaks’ journalism]. He is not a citizen of the United States. He was not present in the United States when something was done in breach of US law.</p>
<p>If the Americans can extradite an Australian to America after an affront to one of their laws, even though he is not a citizen and never committed a crime in America, how long before the Chinese ask for the same? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-book-argues-julian-assange-is-being-tortured-will-our-new-pm-do-anything-about-it-183622">A new book argues Julian Assange is being tortured. Will our new PM do anything about it?</a>
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<p>Simon Jackman, an expert in US politics at the University of Sydney, says it is good the delegation is going, as it shows the breadth of support for action. But he stresses the difficulty of making progress with the Americans. </p>
<p>Among the obstacles are the strong feelings about Assange in the US national security establishment, and the political situation Biden is facing. </p>
<p>Jackman says the Assange matter has become conflated, in the national security context, with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">Edward Snowden</a> affair – the case of a National Security Agency contractor who leaked a large volume of Five Eyes information, which arguably had far more damaging fallout than the 2010 leak. </p>
<p>Snowden is now in Russia, having escaped the US justice system – which has probably made the national security establishment even more determined to pursue Assange, Jackman says. </p>
<p>There is also strong feeling against Assange among some Democrats, in the wake of the WikiLeaks publication of emails that harmed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid. </p>
<p>Labor MP Julian Hill has highlighted a further serious complication in appeals for Biden to act. The Justice Department is spearheading the pursuit of Assange. Biden, over a long period, has been strong in his rhetoric about not interfering with that department. Australia is asking him to go back on that principle – and at a time when the department is acting against Donald Trump. </p>
<p>More than logic or justice, the Assange affair has become a matter of raw American politics. It is the worst of times to be making representations. With the presidential election looming next year, with a massive challenge facing the Democrats, Biden will not want to do anything to provoke his base. </p>
<p>Assange’s cause is, it seems – at least so far – something to which the US-Australia official friendship does not stretch.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213152/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anthony Albanese’s request for the Americans to drop their bid to extradite Assange has fallen on firmly blocked ears.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974902023-03-16T21:10:01Z2023-03-16T21:10:01ZThere Will Be No More Night: Documentary raises ethical questions about using war footage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505704/original/file-20230121-24-oue55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C9%2C1577%2C884&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Screenshot taken from 'There Will Be No More Night' by Éléonore Weber. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his book <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/416-war-and-cinema"><em>War and Cinema</em></a>, cultural theorist Paul Virilio noted that modern warfare depends on the “logistics of perception.” According to him, a new arena of conflict has emerged with the development of sophisticated imaging technology. Like better weaponry, the side with better cameras often gains superiority. </p>
<p>Virilio said new imaging technology “makes darkness transparent and gives to military contestants an image of what the night is no longer able to conceal.” With thermal and night-vision cameras, any moving presence glowing in darkness becomes susceptible to gunfire by combat helicopters hovering above conflict zones. </p>
<p>Éléonore Weber’s 2020 documentary, <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10917134/">There Will Be No More Night</a></em>, reflects on this phenomenon. It uses leaked military footage from U.S. and French helicopters during war missions in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-been-20-years-since-the-us-invaded-iraq-long-enough-for-my-undergraduate-students-to-see-it-as-a-relic-of-the-past-199460">It's been 20 years since the US invaded Iraq – long enough for my undergraduate students to see it as a relic of the past</a>
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<p>The unnerving sequence of night-vision footage shows airstrikes on civilians suspected of being militants by pilots with shaky conviction. The blurry, grainy images accompany radio-transmitted exchanges between aircraft and machine gun operators, confessions of a pilot who suffers from chronic hallucinations and a scripted monologue. </p>
<p>Weber creatively uses forensic sources to contemplate the technology of modern warfare, where military-grade surveillance and imaging almost serve as a proxy for guns.</p>
<p>As we approach the 20th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war">U.S.-led invasion of Iraq</a>, it is important to reflect on the use of war footage in media and the ethical questions around the use of footage depicting human death.</p>
<h2>Highlighting human rights abuses</h2>
<p><em>There Will Be No More Night</em> underscores the fallacy that advanced imaging provides accuracy and error-proof precision to modern war. The documentary shows how sophisticated war machines are driven by the personal idiosyncrasies of drone operators who launch deadly missiles using systems that resemble <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/turning-video-gamers-into-the-ultimate-drone-pilots-1.1398870">video games</a>.</p>
<p>While Virilio traced aesthetic similarities between the videography of war and cinema, Weber’s documentary film uses war footage to highlight the camera’s impairing role in contemporary conflicts.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the documentary ‘There Will Be No More Night’ by Éléonore Weber.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The surveillance recordings document the offhanded killing of the people targeted. Weber includes the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/15/all-lies-how-the-us-military-covered-up-gunning-down-two-journalists-in-iraq">infamous Wikileaks footage</a> showing the airstrike that killed Iraqi Reuters photographer Saeed Chmagh and his colleagues in 2007. According to the pilots, Chmagh’s camera tripod resembled an RPG grenade launcher in the grainy footage. </p>
<p>In other instances, farmers carrying ploughs get mistaken for militants. Another harrowing scene depicts a person showered with bullets because he appeared unusually calm when cornered by a helicopter pilot. </p>
<p>Advanced imaging technologies in warfare seemingly operate on a peculiar logic, where framing inevitably leads to the manufacturing and annihilation of suspects. According to media theorist Harun Farocki, they generate “<a href="https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9781526107213.003.0004">operational images</a>” that do not merely represent but execute the functions of operations they belong to. </p>
<p>Weber’s creative use of forensic materials records a series of war violations. Scholars Patrick Brian Smith and Ryan Watson use the term “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221088954">mediated forensics</a>” to describe the use of new media technologies and practices in human rights discourse. </p>
<p>Research-activist groups like <a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/">Forensic Architecture</a>, <a href="https://situ.nyc/research">SITU Research</a> and <a href="https://lab.witness.org/">WITNESS Media Lab</a> perform forensic analysis of raw media evidence to highlight human rights issues. They do so using techniques and technologies such as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/photogrammetry">photogrammetry</a>, geolocation mapping, 3D-imaging and pattern analysis to infer unseen viewpoints from limited visual evidence.</p>
<h2>A question of ethics</h2>
<p><em>There Will Be No More Night</em> sidesteps such principled forensic analysis. Instead of dissecting raw media evidence and disclosing new perspectives around specific events, it simply reproduces images of brutal killings for a generalized, self-absorbed reflection on modern warfare. </p>
<p>Consequently, the film becomes emotionally distressing and ethically dubious. One cannot discard the uneasy concerns of witnessing 125 minutes of footage depicting brutal massacres from the cockpit.</p>
<p>The documentary also humanizes one pilot, Pierre V., as he reflects on his nightmares after controlling infrared and thermal cameras for several months. But nothing is heard from the other side; those who live under the perpetual threat of the weapons and cameras, and need to devise inventive ways to escape their thermal imagery. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Irish photographer Richard Mosse discusses his documentary ‘Heat Maps’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A related problem surfaces in the documentary project <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/richard-mosses-heat-maps-a-military-grade-camera-repurposed-on-the-migrant-trail"><em>Heat Maps</em></a> by Irish photographer Richard Mosse. He uses thermal video cameras to construct composite images of refugee camps in and around the Mediterranean. </p>
<p>But the visually arresting photographs further expose the subjects and deny them self-representation. Mosse also enjoys freedom of movement and has control over the photographed images of the subjects — rights the subjects themselves do not have. </p>
<p>Despite its acute critique of modern warfare, <em>There Will Be No More Night</em> could have devised measures to work around the reproduction of visuals of death. Its distanced approach, driven by a voice-over commentary, fails to account for divergent perspectives. </p>
<p>What appears jarringly absent in the film are the voices of those people who are continually mapped by the imaging technologies of modern warfare and the social and psychological effects the technologies have on them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Santasil Mallik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As we approach the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, it is important to reflect on the use of war footage in media and the ethical questions around the use of footage depicting human death.Santasil Mallik, PhD Student, Media Studies, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1856902022-06-23T02:41:16Z2022-06-23T02:41:16ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Greg Barns on the battle to free Julian Assange<p>Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is facing extradition to the United States after this was given the green light by the British Government. Assange faces charges of espionage over the publication of classified information about US actions in the Iraq War. </p>
<p>Barrister Greg Barns has worked pro bono on Assagne’s case for the last nine years as part of the Australian Assange campaign.</p>
<p>Barns argues the Assange issue “goes to fundamental questions like freedom of the press and freedom of speech.”</p>
<p>The election of the Albanese government has reignited calls for Australia to do more to try to bring Assange home.</p>
<p>“We’ve certainly been heartened by the approach taken by the new government,” Barns says. </p>
<p>“I think Anthony Albanese himself has been committed for some time now in his public statements and certainly been supportive privately of Assange’s position. He’s made that clear in a number of statements with a theme really that this has gone long enough.” </p>
<p>“There has been a marked change in rhetoric on the part of Mr Albanese, but also I think in his very telling statement that he did not want to pursue this matter through megaphone diplomacy, which we respect, because of course you’re dealing with Australia’s closest ally.”</p>
<p>“He wants to do something, but he wants to do it in a way that respects the friendship between Australia and the United States.” </p>
<p>On what US President Joe Biden should consider when it comes to the relationship with Australia and the issue of Assange, Barns notes Biden has “given a number of speeches now talking about democracy and the importance of democratic values”. </p>
<p>“This is an opportunity to assert those values by saying that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamentally important in a democracy and in the democratic world. And so there are certainly plenty of avenues and plenty of reasons why President Biden might deal with this matter.”</p>
<p>“This case has gone on too long. There are fundamental principles at stake and it’s time to end it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan speaks with barrister Greg Barns, a senior advisor to the Australian Assange Campaign.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1853632022-06-18T08:19:26Z2022-06-18T08:19:26ZUK government orders the extradition of Julian Assange to the US, but that is not the end of the matter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469587/original/file-20220618-2246-86f16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP/Matt Dunham</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 17 2022, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel issued a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/17/julian-assange-extradition-to-us-approved-by-priti-patel">statement</a> confirming she had approved the US government’s request to extradite Julian Assange. The Australian founder of Wikileaks faces 18 criminal charges of computer misuse and espionage. </p>
<p>This decision means Assange is one step closer to extradition, but has not yet reached the final stage in what has been a years-long process. Patel’s decision follows a March <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/news/permission-to-appeal-march-2022.html">decision to deny leave to appeal</a> by the UK Supreme Court, affirming the High Court decision that accepted assurances provided by the US government and concluded there were no remaining legal bars to Assange’s extradition.</p>
<p>The High Court decision overruled an earlier decision by a District Court that extraditing Assange to the US would be “unjust and oppressive” because the prison conditions he was likely to experience would make him a high risk for suicide. In the High Court’s view, the American government’s assurances sufficiently reduced the risk.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/julian-assanges-extradition-case-is-finally-heading-to-court-heres-what-to-expect-132089">Julian Assange's extradition case is finally heading to court – here's what to expect</a>
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<h2>Another appeal ahead</h2>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1537726323858219009">Wikileaks</a> has already announced Assange will appeal the home secretary’s decision in the UK courts. He can appeal on an issue of law or fact, but must obtain leave of the High Court to launch an appeal. This is a fresh legal process rather than a continuation of the judicial stage of extradition that followed his arrest in 2019. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1537726323858219009"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/assange-appeal-against-extradition-include-reported-assassination-plot-2022-06-17/">Assange’s brother has stated</a> the appeal will include new information, including reports of plots to assassinate Assange. </p>
<p>Several legal issues argued before the District Court in 2020 are also likely to be raised in the next appeal. In particular, the District Court decided the question of whether the charges were political offences, and therefore not extraditable crimes, could only be considered by the home secretary. The question of whether and how the home secretary decided on this issue could now be ripe for argument. </p>
<p>Assange’s next appeal will also seek to re-litigate whether US government assurances regarding the prison conditions Assange will face are adequate or reliable. His lawyers will also again demand the UK courts consider the role of role of freedom of expression in determining whether to extradite Assange.</p>
<p>Assange will remain detained in Belmarsh prison while his appeal is underway. The decision of the High Court on his appeal against the home secretary’s decision may potentially be appealed to the Supreme Court. </p>
<p>If, after all legal avenues are exhausted in the UK, the order to extradite stands, Assange could take a human rights action to the European Court of Human Rights. </p>
<p>However, the European Court has rarely declared extradition to be contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, except in cases involving the death penalty or whole-life sentences. It has not yet considered freedom of expression in an extradition case.</p>
<p>Further appeals could add years more to the saga of Assange’s detention. </p>
<h2>Responses from the Assange family and human rights advocates</h2>
<p>Assange’s wife, Stella Moris, called Patel’s decision a ‘“travesty”. His brother Gabriel Shipton called it “shameful”. They have vowed to fight his extradition through every legal means available. </p>
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<p>According to Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2022/jun/18/australia-news-live-updates-federal-government-julian-assange-energy-crisis-nsw-victoria-labor-health-economy?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-62acfdd78f08daac4266b5e1#block-62acfdd78f08daac4266b5e1">Callamard</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Assange faces a high risk of prolonged solitary confinement, which would violate the prohibition on torture or other ill treatment. Diplomatic assurances provided by the US that Assange will not be kept in solitary confinement cannot be taken on face value given previous history.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What role for the Australian government?</h2>
<p>Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus <a href="https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/media-release/uk-decision-extradite-julian-assange">responded</a> to the latest development last night. They confirmed Australia would continue to provide consular assistance to Assange: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Australian government has been clear in our view that Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and that it should be brought to a close. We will continue to express this view to the governments of the United Kingdom and United States.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, it remains unclear exactly what form Australia’s diplomatic or political advocacy is taking. </p>
<p>In December 2021, Anthony Albanese <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/02/labor-backbenchers-urge-albanese-to-stay-true-to-his-values-on-julian-assange-trial">said</a> he could not see what purpose was served by the ongoing pursuit of Assange. He is a signatory to a petition to free Assange. Since he was sworn in as prime minister, though, Albanese has resisted calls to demand publicly that the US drop its criminal charges against Assange. </p>
<p>In contrast, Albanese recently made a public call for the release of <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/myanmar-military-junta-using-detained-australian-sean-turnell-as-a-chess-piece-human-rights-watch-says/dotp9nwpn">Sean Turnell</a> from prison in Myanmar. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-book-argues-julian-assange-is-being-tortured-will-our-new-pm-do-anything-about-it-183622">A new book argues Julian Assange is being tortured. Will our new PM do anything about it?</a>
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<p>In a way, Patel’s decision this week <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-61727941.amp">closes</a> a window for stronger advocacy between Australia and the UK. While the matter sat with the UK Home Secretary, the Australian government might have sought to intervene with it as a political issue. Now it seems possible Australia may revert to its long established position of non-interference in an ongoing court process.</p>
<p>Some commentators argue this is insufficient and that Australia must, finally, do more for Assange. Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-18/julian-assange-to-be-extradited-to-us/101164152">said</a> it was high time Australia treated this as the political matter it is, and demand from its allies in London and Washington that the matter be brought to an end. </p>
<p>Barrister Greg Barns <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-18/julian-assange-to-be-extradited-to-us/101164152">likened</a> Assange’s situation to that of David Hicks, who was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Howard government at the time brought him back to Australia. This is not unprecedented. It is important that Australia is able to use the great relationship it has with Washington to ensure the safety of Australians.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These comments suggest that Australia ought to focus any advocacy towards the US government, making a case for the criminal charges and extradition request to be abandoned. At this stage it is impossible to say if the Albanese government has the will to take a stronger stand on Assange’s liberty. The prime minister and foreign minister have certainly <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/05/24/remarks-by-president-biden-and-prime-minister-anthony-albanese-of-the-commonwealth-of-australia-before-bilateral-meeting-tokyo-japan/">invested</a> heavily in foreign relations in the early weeks of their government, with emphasis on the significance of the US alliance. </p>
<p>Perhaps strong advocacy on Assange’s behalf at this time might be regarded as unsettling and risky. The US has had plenty of opportunity, and its own change of government, and yet it has not changed its determination to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-charged-18-count-superseding-indictment">prosecute</a> Assange. This is despite former President Barack Obama’s decision to <a href="https://theconversation.com/clemency-for-chelsea-manning-but-will-assange-or-snowden-also-find-the-us-merciful-71473">commute</a> the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower who provided classified material to Assange for publication through Wikileaks. </p>
<p>Stronger Australian advocacy may well be negatively received. Assange’s supporters will continue to demand that Albanese act regardless, banking on the strength of the Australia-US alliance as capable of tolerating a point of disagreement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Cullen has done occasional volunteer work with the Australian Labor Party..</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Maguire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wikileaks has already announced it will appeal the decision, and the year-long drama could drag on for many years more.Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western AustraliaAmy Maguire, Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1526762021-01-05T02:56:20Z2021-01-05T02:56:20ZJulian Assange’s extradition victory offers cold comfort for press freedom<p>When UK District Judge Vanessa Baraitser declared she was rejecting the US request to extradite Julian Assange, his partner Stella Moris wept with relief. In an emotional speech outside the court, Moris described the ruling as “the first step towards justice”, and called on President Donald Trump to halt further extradition efforts. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/USA-v-Assange-judgment-040121.pdf">Baraitser’s ruling</a>, Assange could not be extradited because he was depressed and at risk of committing suicide. Assange’s lawyers are planning to apply for bail, while lawyers for the US government say they are going to appeal. </p>
<p>Although he is by no means a free man, this crucial round goes to the Australian WikiLeaks founder.</p>
<p>But on every other point of law, the judge found in favour of the US. She rejected claims that Assange’s case was politically motivated, that he would not get a fair trial and that it was an assault on press freedom. </p>
<p>So, is this a victory for Assange and his supporters, or a blow to those who believe this case to be about protecting press freedom? A close reading of the verdict and its implications suggest it is both. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377122/original/file-20210105-23-1d3zpkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377122/original/file-20210105-23-1d3zpkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377122/original/file-20210105-23-1d3zpkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377122/original/file-20210105-23-1d3zpkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377122/original/file-20210105-23-1d3zpkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377122/original/file-20210105-23-1d3zpkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377122/original/file-20210105-23-1d3zpkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters demanded Assange’s release in a rally outside the British embassy in Brussels, Belgium.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephanie Lecocq/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There have been legitimate questions with regard to <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24665">whether Assange’s human rights have been abused</a>. Moris has claimed Assange has been held in <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2020/12/13/wikileaks-julian-assange-struggling-in-atrocious-british-prison-conditions-says-partner">appalling conditions</a> in London’s Belmarsh prison, and the judge concluded his mental health is in a dangerous state. </p>
<p>Trump has also poisoned the political environment in the US in a way that would surely test the American judicial system’s ability to deliver a verdict in his case free of political influence. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/julian-assange-on-google-surveillance-and-predatory-capitalism-43176">Julian Assange on Google, surveillance and predatory capitalism</a>
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<p>To be clear, I applaud much of WikiLeaks’ extraordinary work in exposing evidence of US war crimes. The shocking <a href="https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org">Collateral Murder video</a> showing a US Apache helicopter gunning down a dozen unarmed civilians, for example, was one of the most important leaks in recent history. </p>
<p>But in the past, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/assange-is-no-journalist-don-t-confuse-his-arrest-with-press-freedom-20190412-p51di1.html">I have argued</a> Assange did not apply ethical journalistic practices and standards to his work more broadly, and therefore cannot claim press freedom as a defence. </p>
<p>Soon after he published unredacted US diplomatic cables in 2011, a wide range of news organisations <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publishes-cache-unredacted-cables">distanced themselves from WikiLeaks</a> for that reason.</p>
<h2>Implications for press freedom</h2>
<p>But this is where nuance is important. Baraitser’s judgement also has clear implications for press freedom that must concern anyone who believes in the oversight role journalists play in a democracy. </p>
<p>In rejecting the notion the case threatens press freedom, Baraitser was ignoring the way it exposes journalists and their sources who seek to hold governments to account. </p>
<p>The Obama administration was notoriously aggressive in <a href="https://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-surveillance-post-911/">attacking press freedom</a> by using the Espionage Act. But even it baulked at prosecuting Assange because of what it came to think of as “<a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/11/the-dojs-new-york-times-problem-with-assange-178396">The New York Times Problem</a>”. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/assanges-new-indictment-espionage-and-the-first-amendment-117785">Assange’s new indictment: Espionage and the First Amendment</a>
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<p>As former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/julian-assange-unlikely-to-face-us-charges-over-publishing-classified-documents/2013/11/25/dd27decc-55f1-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html?utm_term=.1744d3623b8f">told The Washington Post in 2013</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same theory being applied to journalists. </p>
<p>And if you are not going to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information, which the department is not, then there is no way to prosecute Assange.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This may sound like splitting hairs, but it is a crucial distinction. </p>
<p>Journalists have a responsibility to uphold ethical principles, particularly if they are going to maintain public confidence in their watchdog role. However, we must also push back when press freedom is threatened either directly or indirectly.</p>
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<span class="caption">There are fears the Trump administration views Assange’s prosecution as a precedent-setting case.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Reynolds/EPA</span></span>
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<p>At Assange’s extradition hearing, Trevor Timm, the executive director of the US-based Freedom of the Press Foundation, <a href="https://freedom.press/news/julian-assange-extradition-press-freedom-wikileaks-trevor-timm-daniel-ellsberg/">said</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>every single expert witness has some sort of fear that a prosecution of Assange will lead to the prosecution of many other reporters. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This would specifically include the large number of reporters whose work might sometimes include secret documents. In other words, Timm said, US prosecutors seek a precedent that would “criminalise every reporter who received a secret document whether they asked for it or not”. </p>
<p>It is hard to overstate the significance of that problem. History tells us that governments will always try to hide their misdemeanours. One of journalism’s most important roles is to uncover them. It is how we hold governments to account in a democracy, but it also means there will always be a necessary tension between the press and the powerful. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/journalisms-assange-problem-115421">Journalism's Assange problem</a>
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<p>While I believe that anyone who claims “press freedom” as a right also has responsibilities, I also believe we must push back against anything that threatens the media’s oversight role. </p>
<p>Baraitser’s ruling did not set any legal precedent in that regard, and for that we should heave a sigh of relief. But she also missed a critically important opportunity to recognise what Assange’s prosecution means for press freedom — and its importance to all who live in a democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Peter Greste is UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland and a founding director of the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom. </span></em></p>In her ruling, the judge rejected claims that Assange’s case was an assault on press freedom, which must concern anyone who believes in the oversight role that journalists play in a democracy.Peter Greste, Professor of Journalism and Communications, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1460552020-09-14T11:52:33Z2020-09-14T11:52:33ZDefending the 2020 election against hacking: 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357726/original/file-20200911-20-1200tfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=46%2C0%2C5184%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vote count machines are just one target of hackers looking to disrupt US elections.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AmericaVotes/512f213da588491797e38759e2917f52/photo?boardId=6576eeb175bb4623a6e17828de4a73e8&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Ben Margot</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: Journalist Bob Woodward reports in his new book, “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Rage/Bob-Woodward/9781982131739">Rage</a>,” that the NSA and CIA have classified evidence that the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump-coronavirus/index.html">Russian intelligence services placed malware in the election registration systems</a> of at least two Florida counties in 2016, and that the malware was sophisticated and could erase voters. This appears to confirm <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/florida-russia-hacking-election.html">earlier reports</a>. Meanwhile, Russian intelligence agents and other foreign players are already at work <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/10/1008297/the-russian-hackers-who-interfered-in-2016-were-spotted-targeting-the-2020-us-election/">interfering in the 2020 presidential election</a>. Douglas W. Jones, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Iowa and coauthor of the book “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/B/bo13383590.html">Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count?</a>,” describes the vulnerabilities of the U.S. election system in light of this news.</em></p>
<h2>1. Though Woodward reports there was no evidence the election registration system malware had been activated, this sounds scary. Should people be worried?</h2>
<p>Yes, we should be worried. Four years ago, Russia managed to penetrate systems in several states but there’s no evidence that they “pulled the trigger” to take advantage of their penetration. One possibility is that they simply saw no need, having successfully “hacked the electorate” by damaging Hillary Clinton’s candidacy through <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/senate-committee-concludes-russia-used-manafort-wikileaks-to-boost-trump-in-2016-idUSKCN25E1US">selective dumps of hacked documents on Wikileaks</a>. </p>
<p>We know that VR Systems, a contractor that worked for several Florida counties, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/26/did-russia-really-hack-2016-election-088171">was hacked</a>, and we know that there were <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article231199243.html">serious problems in Durham County, North Carolina,</a> during the 2016 election, including software glitches that caused poll workers to turn away voters during parts of Election Day. Durham county was also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/federal-investigators-to-examine-equipment-from-2016-north-carolina-election-amid-renewed-fears-of-russian-hacking/2019/06/05/b70402e6-7816-11e9-b7ae-390de4259661_story.html">a VR Systems customer</a>. </p>
<p>I know of no post-election investigation of the problems in Durham County that was conducted with sufficient depth to assure me that Russia was not involved. It remains possible that they did pull the trigger on that county, but it is also possible that the problems there were entirely the result of “normal incompetence.”</p>
<h2>2. How does this change what we knew previously about Russian efforts to hack U.S. election systems?</h2>
<p>The specific counties compromised in Florida were never officially revealed. Previous leaks indicated that Washington County was one of them. Now we know that St. Lucie was the other. </p>
<p>Furthermore, previous reports mostly said that the systems had been penetrated. Woodward is saying that malware was installed on these machines. I am not sure whether I should interpret his use of terms in their narrow technical sense, but there is a significant difference between penetration, as in “they got the password to your system, broke in and looked around,” and installing malware, as in “they got in and made technical changes to the operation of your system.” </p>
<p>The latter is far more serious because voters could have been removed from registration rolls and therefore prevented from casting ballots, and that’s what I gather Woodward is describing.</p>
<h2>3. How have attempts to hack U.S. election systems changed since 2016?</h2>
<p>I do not have inside knowledge of what’s going on now, but my impression is that the Russians are getting more subtle. The basic Russian tactics of four years ago were only moderately subtle. Dumping all the stolen Democratic National Committee files on Wikileaks wasn’t subtle, but some of the narrowcasting of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/technology/facebook-russia-disinformation-election.html">targeted misinformation on social media</a> was brilliant, if utterly evil. For example, using Facebook, Russian propagandists were able to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/russian-facebook-ads-targeted-us-voters-before-2016-election/">target prospective voters in swing states</a> with disinformation tailored for them.</p>
<p>My impression is that they’re getting better at disinformation campaigns. I think it’s safe to assume that they’re also getting better at digging into the actual machinery of elections.</p>
<h2>4. Have efforts to defend U.S. election systems against hackers improved?</h2>
<p>On the social media front, there has certainly been improvement. The obvious “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fake-accounts-constantly-manipulate-what-you-see-on-social-media-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-139610">sock puppet farms</a>,” large numbers of fake accounts controlled by a single entity, that Russia was running on U.S. social media are far more difficult to run these days because of the way the social media companies are cracking down. What I fear is that the country is defending against the attacks of four years ago while not really knowing about the attacks of today.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mail-in election ballot partially obscured by its envelope" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357733/original/file-20200911-24-y04nty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357733/original/file-20200911-24-y04nty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357733/original/file-20200911-24-y04nty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357733/original/file-20200911-24-y04nty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357733/original/file-20200911-24-y04nty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357733/original/file-20200911-24-y04nty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357733/original/file-20200911-24-y04nty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to lead to a large increase in mail-in ballots like this 2020 primary election ballot in Philadelphia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wcn247/49946333537/">WCN 24/7/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>In the world of actual election machinery, the U.S. has made a little progress, but COVID-19 has thrown a monkey wrench in the system, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mail-in-votings-potential-problems-only-begin-at-the-post-office-an-underfunded-underprepared-decentralized-system-could-be-trouble-143798">forcing a massive shift to postal ballots</a> in states that permit this. That means that attacks on polling-place machinery will be generally less effective than in the past, while attacks on county election offices remain a real threat.</p>
<h2>5. What keeps you awake at night going into the 2020 presidential election?</h2>
<p>Oh dear. The list is long. Everything from crazies on the loony fringe of American politics shooting at each other in response to election results they don’t like, to people living in such closed media bubbles that we are effectively two different cultures living next door to each other while believing entirely different things about the world we live in. </p>
<p>Between those extremes, consider the possibility of results appearing to be reversed after polls have closed. If there is a demographic split between the vote-in-person crowd and the vote-by-mail crowd, election night results could go one way, while in states like Iowa, where postal <a href="https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/electioninfo/absenteemail.html">ballots received six days after the election get counted</a> if there is proof they were mailed on time, the final results could go another way. </p>
<p>Then, add in the possibility of hacked central tabulating software in key counties, and there’s plenty to lose sleep over.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas W. Jones has received funding from the National Science Foundation for his work on voting technology; he is a member of the Democratic Party; he serves on the Board of Advisors of Verified Voting; and he is a member of the ACLU..</span></em></p>Russian agents reportedly placed malware in U.S. voter registration systems in 2016 and are actively interfering in the 2020 election. Here’s the state of election cybersecurity.Douglas W. Jones, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1320892020-02-23T19:58:46Z2020-02-23T19:58:46ZJulian Assange’s extradition case is finally heading to court – here’s what to expect<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316374/original/file-20200220-92541-1h13zu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The extradition hearing to decide whether to send Julian Assange to the United States to be tried for publishing classified military documents on Wikileaks is expected to finally begin today in London. </p>
<p>Assange is <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165556/download">charged</a> with 17 counts under the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">Espionage Act</a>, involving receipt, obtaining and disclosing national security information. He has also been charged with <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-computer-hacking-conspiracy">one count of conspiracy</a> to assist Chelsea Manning to crack a US Department of Defense password to enable her to access classified information.</p>
<p>Assange has been in Belmarsh prison since his arrest <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/11/julian-assange-arrested-at-ecuadorian-embassy-wikileaks">in April 2019</a>. He had been in solitary confinement in a prison medical unit, but was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-18/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-health-improving-in-prison/11978336">recently moved</a> into a less isolated section of the prison <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30383-4/fulltext">due to concerns about his mental health</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/14/julian-assange-to-remain-in-jail-pending-extradition-to-us">From May to September of last year</a>, Assange served a sentence for bail absconding, but since then has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/14/julian-assange-to-remain-in-jail-pending-extradition-to-us">waiting for the extradition hearing</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-charges-does-julian-assange-face-and-whats-likely-to-happen-next-115362">Explainer: what charges does Julian Assange face, and what's likely to happen next?</a>
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<h2>How will the process play out?</h2>
<p>The case will be heard at Woolwich Crown Court before Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who has agreed to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange/extradition-hearing-for-wikileaks-assange-to-be-split-in-two-parts-idUSKBN1ZM1LN">split the hearing into two parts</a> to give both sides more time to gather evidence and prepare.</p>
<p>Legal arguments will be heard this week and evidence will be presented in a three-week hearing in May.</p>
<p>Unless Assange’s legal team successfully argues the extradition request should be dropped for legal reasons without the need to hear evidence, this week’s hearing will just be a step in the process. </p>
<p>Given the complex legal questions involved, Baraitser will likely deliver her judgement later in the year, taking time to consider the evidence and arguments. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1231208080408489984"}"></div></p>
<h2>What arguments can we expect to be made?</h2>
<p>One key argument for Assange is the assertion he would not receive a fair trial if extradited to the US, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/17/julian-assanges-extradition-fight-could-turn-on-reports-he-was-spied-on-for-cia">advanced by professor Guy Goodwin-Gill</a> of UNSW. </p>
<p>International human rights instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights, include access to legal representation as part of the right to a fair trial. The European Court of Human Rights has also ruled a defendant has <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-90592">the right to confer with counsel in private</a>. </p>
<p>Revelations that Assange <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/17/julian-assanges-extradition-fight-could-turn-on-reports-he-was-spied-on-for-cia">may have been spied on</a> in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, including while meeting with lawyers, raise serious questions concerning the fairness of any process where prosecutors might have access to defence material. </p>
<p>The claim Assange will not receive a fair trial in the US has been unintentionally strengthened by US government lawyers. In a new affidavit submitted in January, the lawyers argued the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of expression, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/julian-assange-may-not-be-able-to-use-first-amendment-press-protection-if-extradited">would not apply to foreign nationals</a> like Assange.</p>
<p>Assange’s lawyers are also expected to argue the extradition request <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange/extradition-hearing-for-wikileaks-assange-to-be-split-in-two-parts-idUSKBN1ZM1LN">should be blocked</a> because it is an abuse of process or politically motivated. </p>
<p>In a preliminary hearing last week, Edward Fitzgerald QC, one of the barristers representing Assange, proposed bringing evidence <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/19/donald-trump-offered-julian-assange-pardon-russia-hack-wikileaks">the US allegedly offered Assange a pardon</a> if he stated Russia had nothing to do with the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee and leaking of Democratic emails to Wikileaks. </p>
<p>The White House has acknowledged Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher contacted then-Chief of Staff John Kelly to discuss a potential deal with Assange, but the discussions didn’t go any further.</p>
<p>Baraitser ruled the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-20/donald-trump-offered-julian-assange-presidential-pardon-alleged/11982676">evidence is admissible</a> at this week’s hearings.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-assange-faces-court-over-extradition-attempts-the-case-is-complex-and-the-stakes-are-high-128999">As Assange faces court over extradition attempts, the case is complex and the stakes are high</a>
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<p>The extradition hearing will focus on the UK’s <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/41/contents">Extradition Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/extradition-treaty-between-the-uk-and-the-usa-with-exchange-of-notes">UK-US Extradition Treaty</a>. </p>
<p>The treaty has been frequently criticised because it imposes unequal conditions on extradition between the countries. When the UK seeks to extradite someone from the US, it must demonstrate a “reasonable basis” for believing the accused committed the offence. The US does not need to provide similar evidence when requesting the extradition of someone from the UK.</p>
<p>However, there are still arguments available to Assange’s legal team under the UK Act that could lead to extradition being refused. In particular, they could argue either the extradition’s true purpose was to prosecute or punish Assange for his political opinions, or that he would be prejudiced at his trial because of those opinions. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316379/original/file-20200220-92530-bzqq19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316379/original/file-20200220-92530-bzqq19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316379/original/file-20200220-92530-bzqq19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316379/original/file-20200220-92530-bzqq19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316379/original/file-20200220-92530-bzqq19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316379/original/file-20200220-92530-bzqq19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316379/original/file-20200220-92530-bzqq19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Assange’s supporters are likely to ramp up their protests during this week’s extradition hearing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WILL OLIVER/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>A possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights</h2>
<p>There are also several scenarios which could unfold when the judge makes her decision. </p>
<p>Whether or not she orders extradition, an appeal from the losing side is almost inevitable. This would go to the Court of Appeal, and afterwards, probably to the UK Supreme Court. </p>
<p>If Assange loses at that stage, he may make an application to the European Court of Human Rights, which <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-146372%22%5D%7D">has decided</a> state parties to the European Convention on Human Rights may not extradite someone to another country where serious human rights violations are likely. This includes cases where they may be subject to a “whole life” sentence with no prospect of release. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">combined maximum sentence</a> in the US for the crimes Assange is accused of is 175 years.</p>
<p>Given this, human rights arguments will likely be a significant part of the legal process before the British and European courts. While the European Court of Human Rights has no enforcement powers, states do follow its rulings, including in cases when extradition would infringe human rights.</p>
<h2>What happens if Assange is deported to Australia?</h2>
<p>Pressure for the Australian government to intervene in Assange’s case has grown, led by MPs George Christensen and Andrew Wilkie, who <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/our-ratbag-julian-assange-suffers-from-psychological-torture-say-two-australian-mps-20200218-p5423b.html">visited Assange and his legal team</a> last week. They want the Australian government to intervene with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to stop the extradition.</p>
<p>If Assange does win the extradition fight and ends up deported to Australia, his lawyers have expressed concern the US could make a new extradition request. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-arbitrary-detention-of-julian-assange-54342">The Arbitrary Detention of Julian Assange</a>
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<p>However, there are mechanisms under the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2004C00101">Australia-US extradition treaty</a> that are not available under the UK-US treaty, which could be used to boost Assange’s case. Notably, either party can refuse to extradite its own nationals.</p>
<p>Much depends on politics. The US government would certainly put pressure on the Australian government to extradite, and Australia would be reluctant to refuse an extradition request from an ally. However, if the British courts find Assange is unlikely to receive a fair trial in the US, it would be difficult for the Australian government to ignore that ruling.</p>
<p>And if the Australian government does act to bring Assange back, it would be difficult for it to then support another extradition request. </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/our-ratbag-julian-assange-suffers-from-psychological-torture-say-two-australian-mps-20200218-p5423b.html">Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson has noted</a>, the threat of extradition will continue, at least in some form, until the US withdraws the charges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Cullen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Assange’s legal team is expected to argue the US extradition request is politically motivated and the Wikileaks founder is unlikely to receive a fair trial in the US.Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1289992019-12-19T00:37:51Z2019-12-19T00:37:51ZAs Assange faces court over extradition attempts, the case is complex and the stakes are high<p>Julian Assange may be an odious character in the eyes of some. He may not be a journalist in the estimation of others. He may be regarded as a serial pest by his detractors, but his case in the British courts has become a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/24/julian-assange-arrest-trump-free-speech-attack-experts">cause celebre for free speech</a> and civil liberties advocates.</p>
<p>In a London <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/17/julian-assanges-extradition-fight-could-turn-on-reports-he-was-spied-on-for-cia">magisrate’s court on Friday</a>, early shots will be fired in the Assange defence team’s efforts to block his extradition to the United States on <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wikileaks-assange-usa/u-s-charges-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-with-espionage-idUSKCN1ST2L4">17 charges under the Espionage Act</a> with a separate indictment under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.</p>
<p>Assange is facing a jail sentence of 175 years on alleged breaches of the Espionage Act, and further penalty under the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/11/what-law-is-julian-assange-accused-breaking/">Computer Fraud and Abuse Act</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-charges-does-julian-assange-face-and-whats-likely-to-happen-next-115362">Explainer: what charges does Julian Assange face, and what's likely to happen next?</a>
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<p>At issue, and separate from the extradition proceedings, is whether an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spied on Assange during his seven years in the Ecuador embassy, after taking refuge there in 2012.</p>
<p>He sought Ecuadorian diplomatic protection to avoid extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual misconduct. Those charges have been cancelled.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador-embassy.html">British authorities arrested Assange in April this year</a> after he was ejected from the embassy. Bail was refused on grounds he had absconded before.</p>
<p>Spain’s national court will hear evidence on whether Spanish surveillance company UC Global had provided transcripts, videos and other material from surveillance equipment secretly installed to monitor Assange’s private communications. It is alleged these were provided to the CIA.</p>
<p>Assange is due to give testimony via video link from Belmarsh prison outside London to the Spanish court, and in person, also by video link, at Westminster Magistrate’s Court.</p>
<p>Findings in this case will inform arguments against his extradition to the United States. Those extradition hearings are set to begin before a London magistrate’s court on February 24 2020.</p>
<p>Among <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/us/politics/assange-indictment.html">extradition claims</a> is that he coached former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning into <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/julian-assange-chelsea-manning-intertwined/story?id=62344376">cracking a password</a> on the Pentagon computer to obtain top-secret material about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>These became known as the “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11612731">war logs</a>” and included graphic video of an Apache helicopter attack on Iraqi civilians. This attack led to the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/julian-assange-arrested-journalists-defend/586936/">deaths of two Reuters journalists</a>.</p>
<p>The US application for extradition relates to Assange’s WikiLeaks activities before – not during – the 2016 presidential election. In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/20/us/politics/russia-trump-election-timeline.html">those elections it’s widely believed he collaborated with Russia</a> to publish leaked documents from the Democratic National Committee to undermine Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency.</p>
<p>During the 2016 campaign, Trump said more than once he <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-12/donald-trump-administration-pressing-charges-julian-assange/10995934">“loved” WikiLeaks</a>. However, within a year or so his administration was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/hatred-love-cold-indifference-julian-assange-trump-wikileaks">pursuing Assange</a> for alleged breaches of the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.</p>
<h2>What happens now?</h2>
<p>The Assange saga will drag on for months, if not years, before the UK courts, as his British lawyers fight the extradition proceedings tooth and nail.</p>
<p>This is a highly complex case – if it reaches the US court system, it will involve arguments about whether Assange was performing the role of a journalist or whistleblower and therefore entitled to First Amendment free speech protections.</p>
<p>In the first instance, his defence team will no doubt contend that his extradition is excluded under <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-charges-does-julian-assange-face-and-whats-likely-to-happen-next-115362">Britain’s extradition treaty with the US</a>. This includes an exception for political offences.</p>
<p>In other words, the case has the potential, even the likelihood, of becoming a broader argument about the extraterritorial reach of the US. This leaves aside a free speech argument about the definition of what is, and what is not, journalism in a social media age.</p>
<p>The Obama administration had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/23/julian-assange-indicted-what-charges-mean-for-free-speech">considered and then baulked</a> at seeking Assange’s extradition, after concluding it would be perilous to charge him under the Espionage Act. This act does not make a distinction between journalists and non-journalists.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-indictments-set-up-a-confrontation-between-the-us-and-julian-assange-117741">New indictments set up a confrontation between the US and Julian Assange</a>
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<p>Obama-era Justice Department attorneys had also concluded that a First Amendment defence, questioning the definition of what constitutes journalism in the US, would vastly complicate attempts to convict.</p>
<p>American publications, including principally The New York Times, had collaborated with Assange in the publication of material from war logs whose disclosure embarrassed the US government.</p>
<p>In its reporting of the Assange matter, the Times has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indictment.html">assiduous in its defence of journalistic inquiry</a>. The paper commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Though he is not a conventional journalist, much of what Mr Assange does at WikiLeaks is difficult to distinguish in a legally meaningful way from what traditional news organizations like the Times do: seek and publish information that officials want to be secret, including classified national security matters, and take steps to protect the confidentiality of sources.</p>
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<p>The above reflects widespread concern among American media about implications more broadly for reporting sensitive national security issues that might themselves become subject to the Espionage Act.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/jul/26/press-freedom-wikileaks">publications across the world</a>, among them The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais, also cooperated with Assange. Newspapers in his native Australia published extensively from the leaked documents.</p>
<h2>View from Assange’s homeland</h2>
<p>In Australia, support for Assange has been patchy. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/senatormarisepayne/posts/2359590340927198">The Australian government</a> has gone through the motions in providing him with consular assistance.</p>
<p>However, in recent months a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/15/australia-must-oppose-any-move-to-extradite-julian-assange-to-us-labor-mp-says">trickle of support</a> for Assange has emerged. Politicians from both sides of politics have expressed their concerns about the possibility of him being extradited to the US on charges that would confine him to jail for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>The prospect of a life sentence would be very real.</p>
<p>As Assange’s case proceeds, it is likely support for him will build. In the process, this will pressure the Australian government to do more to persuade the Americans to back off.</p>
<p>A risk for Canberra is that inaction would be interpreted as being complicit in Assange’s removal to the US.</p>
<p>Australian journalism has been conflicted over the degree to which Assange should be supported, with arguments for and against. These have centred on his practice of simply dumping documents into the public domain without subjecting them to rigorous editorial processes.</p>
<p>However, what has not been properly addressed by those Australian journalists who have been quick to disavow him is whether Assange should be extradited for what amounts to a capital crime for leaking material that their own news organisations disseminated.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should leave the last word to former Guardian editor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/26/prosecuting-julian-assange-for-espionage-poses-danger-freedom-of-press">Alan Rusbridger</a>, whose organisation collaborated with – then fell out with – Assange in the publication of the “war logs”.</p>
<p>Rusbridger defends Assange against attempts to extradite him on grounds that “whatever Assange got up to in 2010-11, it was not espionage”.</p>
<p>He alludes to perhaps the strongest argument against Assange’s removal to the US to face charges under the Espionage Act. This is that he is not a US citizen and his alleged crimes were committed outside the US. This is the extraterritorial argument.</p>
<p>Rusbridger quotes Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists who observed: </p>
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<p>Under this rubric anyone anywhere in the world who publishes information that the US government deems to be classified could be prosecuted for espionage.</p>
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<p>It is a good point.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128999/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As British courts this week hear arguments for and against the Wikileaks founder’s extradition to the US, the questions about journalism, the law and freedom of speech it raises are vital ones.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1210452019-08-04T20:07:00Z2019-08-04T20:07:00ZWhy investigative reporting in the digital age is waving, not drowning<p>You don’t need to look far to find doom and gloom stories about traditional media in the digital age. Yet linking media hardship to a view that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/nov/04/investigative-reporting-sheffield-docfest">investigative journalism is dying</a> is a misconception. </p>
<p>Yes, media outlets face many challenges. Last week’s 600-page <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/inquiries/digital-platforms-inquiry/final-report-executive-summary">ACCC report</a> showed traditional media organisations face a difficult economic environment as advertising and audiences have migrated to online tech giants like Google and Facebook. </p>
<p>Since the turn of the century, media companies’ revenue has been in free fall. Thousands of journalism jobs have gone, scores of mastheads have closed. Certain types of reporting, particularly on regional and local news, remain under threat for established Australian media outlets.</p>
<p>Then there were the recent <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-08/afp-raids-may-erode-business-investor-confidence/11192210">Australian Federal Police raids</a> on News Corp and ABC journalists, highlighting the political and legal pressures reporters face in the post-September 11 era.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/media-raids-raise-questions-about-afps-power-and-weak-protection-for-journalists-and-whistleblowers-118328">Media raids raise questions about AFP's power and weak protection for journalists and whistleblowers</a>
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<p>By doing their jobs reporting on stories in the public interest, journalists risk fines or even jail time. And their sources, the whistleblowers, face similar or worse fates.</p>
<p>Media freedom is a pressing global problem. Using the Australian example, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney warned at the recent <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/amal-clooney-issues-warning-to-australia-over-press-freedom">Defend Media Freedom conference</a> in London that the decline in press freedom is not limited to non-democracies like North Korea.</p>
<p>Another gloomy tale for news outlets is falling levels of public trust as more fake news confuses people about what is real and what is not. In turn, powerful world leaders from Donald Trump to Rodrigo Duterte <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Fake-News-Falsehood-Fabrication-and-Fantasy-in-Journalism/McNair/p/book/9781138306790">weaponise the term “fake news”</a> to weaken news media’s legitimacy.</p>
<p>These pressures on journalists matter because, as the ACCC reported, the news media play an important role in our democratic health. They inform us, and hold the powerful to account.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the market failure of news, my new book, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Investigative-Journalism-Democracy-and-the-Digital-Age-1st-Edition/Carson/p/book/9781138200524">Investigative Journalism, Democracy and the Digital Age</a>, finds that the watchdog role of journalism – investigative reporting – is adapting to its austere media environment. It is enduring, even thriving, in the digital age.</p>
<p>I undertook a nine-year study of investigative journalism in liberal democracies. This showed that journalists and their outlets undertake investigative reporting – which I define as a relatively uncommon form of journalism requiring more time and effort to unearth public interest information that others prefer were kept hidden – for different reasons. Some are commercial, to increase revenues; others are purely ideological with a commitment to be the “fourth estate”; others are a mix of the two.</p>
<p>In any case, we are witnessing a seismic shift in reporting practice. The old model of single-newsroom investigations marked by cut-throat rivalry has given way to a new model of multiple newsrooms cooperating and sharing information to expose systemic wrongdoing. A case in point is The Age and Sydney Morning Herald teaming up with Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes this week to expose the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/crown-s-unsavoury-business-links-how-australia-s-casino-got-tied-up-with-criminals-20190724-p52ag0.html">dodgy dealings of Crown Casino</a> and apparent regulatory failure. </p>
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<p>Investigative collaborations can challenge global power in ways not previously possible. For example, the reporting of the Panama Papers brought together almost 400 <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/">International Consortium of Investigative Journalists</a> (ICIJ) members to shine a spotlight on global tax avoidance. These stories led to governments recovering <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/">US$1.2 billion</a> through lost taxes and penalties.</p>
<p>The ICIJ is just one example of more than <a href="https://www.cima.ned.org/resource/global-investigative-journalism-strategies-for-support/">100 non-profit</a> investigative reporting organisations in 50 countries driving the new model of global investigative journalism. </p>
<p>Through 50 interviews with media experts, including investigative journalists from across the globe, analysing six decades of Australian newspapers, and analyses of prestigious journalism awards in Australia, Britain and the USA, I find that although traditional media has experienced immense hardship, it’s time to debunk the myth that investigative journalism is dying.</p>
<p>Instead, investigative journalism is often protected from newsroom cost-cutting.</p>
<p>It is in better shape than other forms of journalism because of its value to corporate branding and/or the public interest. Evidence-based investigative reporting re-establishes its publishers as quality media outlets in the digital age – when competition for attention is fierce – by offering unique public interest stories for which audiences are prepared to pay.</p>
<p>Here are seven of the book’s key findings.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The digital age is a renaissance period for investigative reporting. This has been made possible through collaboration and scaling up investigations to national and transnational levels. </p></li>
<li><p>The downside to scaling up investigations is that local inquiries may suffer. Investigations may also be more narrowly targeted to assure a story outcome. This means there is less tolerance for “fishing exercises” than in more profitable times for media.</p></li>
<li><p>There are different models of collaboration and established media play a critical role in all of them. Some partnerships have been more successful than others. WikiLeaks collapsed, in part, because power in the partnership was not distributed equally, and personal relationships were strained. </p></li>
<li><p>Data journalism plays a vital role in enabling reporters to interrogate information and find patterns in the data indicating systemic wrongdoing. This includes incorporating social science methods such as statistical analysis to reveal “hidden truths”.</p></li>
<li><p>Mass anonymous data leaks combined with large-scale investigative collaborations push back against national governments’ national security laws that hamper journalists’ access to, and use of, sensitive documents and hinder whistleblowers’ capacity to speak out. </p></li>
<li><p>Investigative journalism is evidence-based reporting. This makes it a vital counter-narrative to fake news. Verified news returns authority to mastheads and media brands, which can offset falling public trust in media. This is illustrated by the “Trump bump” – an increase in donations and newspaper sales for outlets undertaking investigative reporting. ProPublica, a specialist US investigative reporting bureau, <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/funding-the-news-foundations-and-nonprofit-media/">tripled its philanthropic income</a> from US$14.3 million in 2016 to US$43.5 million in 2017 after Trump’s election and demonisation of journalists.</p></li>
<li><p>There is no single solution for funding news or investigative journalism this century (yet). Rather, what is evident is the role of experimentation, adaptation and flexibility to find effective ways to fund investigative reporting. These include crowdsourcing, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Rise-of-NonProfit-Investigative-Journalism-in-the-United-States-1st/Birnbauer/p/book/9781138484474">philanthropy</a> and paywalls. Typically, news outlets adopt a hybrid funding model that relies on multiple revenue streams.</p></li>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-access-journalism-is-threatening-investigative-journalism-108831">How 'access journalism' is threatening investigative journalism</a>
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<p>While my book does not ignore limitations to investigative reporting, the evidence gathered suggests watchdog reporting’s future is one of optimism.</p>
<p>This matters because, in the words of one interviewee, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter <a href="https://gijn.org/election-of-board-for-gijn-2014/brant-houston/">Brant Houston</a>, when all other means of redressing injustice fail, investigative journalism is the “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Investigative-Journalism-Democracy-and-the-Digital-Age-1st-Edition/Carson/p/book/9781138200524">court of last resort</a>”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Carson is the author of 'Investigative Journalism, Democracy and the Digital Age' published by Routledge.</span></em></p>Despite media companies’ revenue declining in recent years, a nine-year study reveals that the greatly feared death of investigative journalism has not occurred.Andrea Carson, Associate Professor at La Trobe University. Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1201062019-07-10T10:41:05Z2019-07-10T10:41:05ZUK ambassador leaks: Donald Trump’s reaction to Kim Darroch’s criticism reeks of double standards<p>Kim Darroch, the UK’s ambassador to the US, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/jul/10/tory-leadership-latest-news-john-major-threatens-to-take-boris-johnson-to-court-to-stop-him-proroguing-parliament-for-no-deal-brexit-live-news">has resigned</a> following the tensions caused by the leak of highly critical diplomatic cables about the White House and the president.</p>
<p>Donald Trump hit out again at Darroch on July 8, in another Twitter outburst, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1148298496140820480">Trump criticised</a> the UK’s handling of Brexit, adding: “I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not well liked or well thought of within the US. We will no longer deal with him.”</p>
<p>In <a href="https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1148910500719267841">comments about his resignation</a>, Darroch wrote: “The current situation is making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like.”</p>
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<p>The latest turn in the UK-US “special relationship” is a useful reminder that transatlantic relations between Theresa May’s government and the Trump administration remain rocky, even after Trump’s <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/06/roaring-success-trumps-state-visit-proves-special-relationship/">successful state visit</a> to the UK in June.</p>
<p>This new spat in US-UK relations came after sensitive diplomatic cables were leaked to the Mail on Sunday newspaper, in which Darroch warned senior diplomats that Trump was “inept”, “insecure” and “incompetent”, and that his White House was “uniquely dysfunctional”. In one of the <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-britain/leak-of-ambassadors-memos-about-trump-could-harm-uk-u-s-relations-fox-idUKKCN1U30P1">most sensitive documents</a>, Darroch admitted: </p>
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<p>We don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.</p>
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<p>The leak of confidential cables – now subject to an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jul/08/who-could-be-prosecuted-leaked-diplomatic-emails-official-secrets-act-kim-darroch">internal investigation</a> – is damaging for Britain’s diplomatic relationship with Washington, putting the British government in an awkward position.</p>
<p>The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/jul/08/jeremy-hunt-says-trump-administration-is-highly-effective-video">said it was important</a> for diplomats to share frank views, even if he disagreed with Darroch’s assessment, adding <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-trump-uk-ambassador-kim-darroch-next-prime-minister-no-10-a8997546.html">that he would keep</a> Darroch in post. Boris Johnson, Hunt’s predecessor as foreign secretary, and rival for the Conservative leadership, has declared his “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/jul/09/boris-johnson-i-have-a-good-relationship-with-the-white-house-video">good relationship</a>” with Trump – though remained silent on whether he would keep Darroch <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0b57ad82-a212-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1">in place</a>. </p>
<p>Former head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Peter Ricketts, rightly observed that the real scandal isn’t Darroch’s reading of the situation, but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/08/embassy-leak-kim-darroch-foreign-office?CMP=share_btn_tw">the fact that</a>: “Someone inside the British system deliberately amassed a stash of his assessments, then chose the moment of maximum impact to leak it.”</p>
<p>In diplomacy, speaking truth to power is vital. Ambassadors and officials around the globe share their frank assessments about their host countries, but few are leaked resulting in diplomatic faux pas. But for all the hype – and suggestions that Darroch should be removed early – US diplomats have been just as critical of the UK.</p>
<h2>Double standards</h2>
<p>Among the 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables released by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks in 2010 were criticisms of UK foreign and defence policy, and even gossip about British MPs. US commanders noted that UK forces <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-afghan-british-military">had failed to secure</a> Sangin, Afghanistan, while a one-time Labour minister <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8166754/WikiLeaks-Labour-minister-was-a-hound-dog-with-women.html">was described as</a> a “bit of a hound dog where women are concerned”. </p>
<p>The leaks also showed that US ambassador Louis Susman <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8172277/WikiLeaks-Bank-chiefs-great-concerns-for-David-Cameron-and-George-Osborne.html">told the State Department about private remarks</a> made by then-governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, that Conservative Party leader David Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne had a “lack of depth”. Susman said both relied on a small circle of advisors and thought of issues “only in terms of politics, and how they might affect Tory electorability (sic)”. US president Barack Obama even thought Cameron was “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/8169382/WikiLeaks-Barack-Obama-regarded-David-Cameron-as-lightweight.html">lightweight</a>”. </p>
<p>But the most critical comments were reserved for Gordon Brown’s troubled premiership. In a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/144015">cable in March 2008</a>, following Labour’s spring conference in Birmingham, Susman’s predecessor, Robert Tuttle, reported that Brown’s vision of an economy for the future fell flat. Activists had little “enthusiasm” with a general “lack of energy”. According to Tuttle, the only excitement was when David Miliband, then foreign secretary, appeared as hundreds of Labour students “clearly idolized him”. </p>
<p>In July, following a surprise by-election defeat to the Scottish National Party in Glasgow East, Tuttle <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8178109/WikiLeaks-Gordon-Brown-lurched-from-disaster-to-disaster.html">cabled Washington</a>: “As Gordon Brown lurches from political disaster to disaster, Westminster is abuzz with speculation about whether he will be replaced as prime minister and Labour party leader.” He went on: “Brown’s leadership of the party, and his premiership, may now be beyond repair.”</p>
<p>While relations between the UK and US improved in the short term, within months, US assessments of Brown’s premiership quickly went downhill. By April 2009, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-gordon-brown-abysmal-prime-minister">the embassy believed</a>: “That any Labour politician with his or her eye on the future would be willing to take on the sinking ship that is the current Labour Party”, which needed a “process of rebulding”.</p>
<h2>The long run</h2>
<p>Response to these Wikileaks revelations in London were relatively muted compared to the furore over the latest story – partially, as Labour was no longer in power. Cameron, now prime minister, was also eager not to rock the boat – later describing US-UK ties as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/13/barack-obama-david-cameron-essential-relationship">essential</a>”. Downing Street officials condemned the leaks, citing national security, but refused to comment on particular examples.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/d-day-75-years-on-special-relationship-forged-on-the-beaches-of-france-now-poised-to-enter-a-new-era-118215">D-Day 75 years on: 'special relationship' forged on the beaches of France now poised to enter a new era</a>
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<p>While certainly embarrassing, revealing what US diplomats really thought about their allies, strong US-UK ties remained following the publication of the Wikileaks cables. As former UK ambassador to Washington Christopher Meyer wisely observed in 2010, shortly after the story broke, the leaks made little “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11859333">difference at all</a>” in day-to-day relations – a comment that has some validity today.</p>
<p>In diplomacy, being honest matters. While the “special relationship” is important, it shouldn’t restrict criticism of Trump or the White House. After all, what Darroch said was probably true – the problem is he was caught saying it. For all Washington’s upset at the comments, US diplomats have been critical of the UK, too. Frankness is what makes the relationship special.</p>
<p><em>This article has been amended to reflect Kim Darroch’s resignation as UK ambassador to the US on Wednesday July 10.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Lomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The leak of US dipomatic cables by Wikileaks revealed some equally frank assessments of British politicians.Dan Lomas, Programme Leader, MA Intelligence and Security Studies, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177852019-05-25T14:23:24Z2019-05-25T14:23:24ZAssange’s new indictment: Espionage and the First Amendment<p>Julian Assange, the co-founder of <a href="https://wikileaks.org/-Leaks-.html">WikiLeaks</a>, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165636/download">has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice</a> with a slew of Espionage Act violations that could keep him in prison for the rest of his life. </p>
<p>The new indictment expands an earlier one charging Assange with conspiring with Chelsea Manning, the former soldier convicted of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador-embassy.html?module=inline">to hack into a government computer</a>.</p>
<p>Assange is responsible for the dissemination of troves of classified American documents, including <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/22/wikileaks.iraq/index.html">hundreds of thousands of military reports</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable-leak-diplomacy-crisis">hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/24/wikileaks.guantanamo/index.html">hundreds of reports from the military prison in Guantanamo Bay</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html">thousands of secret CIA documents</a> revealing the agency’s techniques for hacking and surveillance.</p>
<p>The Espionage Act, a sweeping <a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5721240">federal statute enacted a century ago</a>, imposes heavy criminal penalties for obtaining or disclosing classified information without proper authorization.</p>
<p>Beginning under President Barack Obama, recent years saw a dramatic increase in <a href="https://www.cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-surveillance-post-911.php">prosecutions under the Espionage Act</a>. But these prosecutions were directed at leakers of classified information — all government employees and government contractors — not at journalists or publishers. </p>
<p>That makes Assange’s indictment a watershed.</p>
<h2>Scarcity of prosecutions</h2>
<p>To be sure, threats of Espionage Act charges against journalists and newspapers were previously made, and in one case charges were even submitted to a grand jury. </p>
<p>In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the Chicago Tribune published a front-page story titled, “Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea.” The story implied that the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-tribune-espionage-act-book-web-post-out-20171024-story.html">U.S. military had cracked Japan’s secret naval code</a> – which it had. </p>
<p>An incensed President Franklin Roosevelt demanded that Espionage Act charges be brought against the reporter, the managing editor and the Tribune itself. But unlike Assange’s grand jury, the Tribune’s grand jury <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-battle-midway-japan-war-code-tribune-roosevelt-edit-0924-md-20160922-story.html">refused to issue indictments</a>.</p>
<p>In 1971 President Richard Nixon’s attorney general threatened the New York Times and the Washington Post with such prosecutions when the newspapers published the classified <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/insider/1971-supreme-court-allows-publication-of-pentagon-papers.html">Pentagon Papers</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, Alberto Gonzales, attorney general under President George W. Bush, suggested that the New York Times and the Washington Post violated the Espionage Act when disclosing the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program and <a href="http://old.seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2003019333_ryan26.html">the CIA’s secret prisons – the so-called “black sites”</a>. </p>
<p>But no prosecutions were brought in these matters.</p>
<p>One reason for the scarcity of such prosecutions is their questionable constitutionality. The language of the Espionage Act is so broad that, undoubtedly, some of its applications run afoul of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution</a>.</p>
<p>Yet some Espionage Act charges against journalists and publishers are likely to pass constitutional muster.</p>
<h2>Pentagon Papers to rape victims’ names</h2>
<p>In 1972 the U.S. government tried to stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Department of Defense study on the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>In its well-known decision, the Supreme Court held that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/713/">preventing the publication violated the First Amendment</a>. But a majority of the justices also thought that the newspapers could be possibly punished for the publication, even if stopping the publication was unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The Pentagon Papers decision was about the ability of government to stop the publication of information – in other words, its ability to impose a “prior restraint.” It left open the possibility of prosecuting the publishers after the publication.</p>
<p>A number of subsequent Supreme Court decisions did protect publishers who had published truthful information in violation of the law. For example, the court prohibited the punishment of a television station that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/420/469/">broadcast the name of a rape victim</a> in violation of a state law, prohibited the punishment of a newspaper that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/435/829/">published the content of confidential judicial proceedings</a>, and prohibited the punishment of a radio station that broke a federal statute by <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/532/514/">broadcasting an unlawfully recorded phone conversation</a>.</p>
<p>But while these publications were all constitutionally protected by the freedoms of speech and the press, none of them involved national security information. The outcome may be very different when it comes to the disclosure of secret national security materials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276407/original/file-20190524-187182-96j05r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chicago Tribune of June 7, 1942, featuring story, ‘Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-battle-midway-japan-war-code-tribune-roosevelt-edit-0924-md-20160922-story.html">Screenshot, Chicago Tribune</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The constitutionality of prosecutions for the unauthorized possession and publication of national security information is likely to depend on the specific dangers caused by the disclosure. </p>
<p>“No one would question but that a government might prevent … the publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops,” <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/283/697/">said the Supreme Court in 1931</a>. </p>
<p>The pivotal questions are likely to be <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11882092">whether lives were endangered</a> by the disclosure, or whether the government was simply trying <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/403/713">to suppress information</a> embarrassing to itself.</p>
<p>At the same time, some judges are likely to defer to the government’s own assessment of the materials and refuse to conduct an independent evaluation of the risks they posed.</p>
<p>“In my judgment the judiciary may not … redetermine for itself the probable impact of disclosure on the national security,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/01/archives/texts-of-the-supreme-court-decision-opinions-and-dissents-in.html">wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan</a> for himself and two other justices in the Pentagon Papers decision. Some of today’s Supreme Court justices – <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZD1.html">Justice Clarence Thomas, for example – are likely to agree with the sentiment</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1037-julian-assange-espionage-act-indictment/426b4e534ab60553ba6c/optimized/full.pdf#page=1">The Assange indictment</a> includes specific allegations of publication of life-threatening information. The indictment accuses Assange of publishing the names of American intelligence sources, knowing full well that the publication would endanger their lives.</p>
<p>These charges might be found constitutional. Judges may be understandably reluctant to prohibit the government from punishing the publication of such sensitive life-threatening information.</p>
<h2>Dubious charges</h2>
<p>Assange’s indictment also involves a number of charges that are less likely to withstand constitutional scrutiny. </p>
<p>Assange is charged with “obtaining” information, including detainees’ assessment briefs from Guantanamo and Iraq rules-of-engagement files. </p>
<p>The danger posed by the disclosure of such information is far more questionable (and much of that information was also obtained and published by respectable media outlets).</p>
<p>Moreover, some of the charges against Assange are based on the theory that Assange aided and abetted <a href="https://www.apnews.com/569631f2b11c400cac05a29e0853624b">Chelsea Manning</a> to leak classified information to Assange himself. </p>
<p>Given that aiding and abetting can take the form of cajoling and encouraging, many national security journalists could become instant felons under this theory.</p>
<p>In fact, this is not the first time that the federal government advances such a constitutionally questionable claim in regard to a mainstream journalist. </p>
<p>In 2009 Fox News reporter James Rosen wrote an article that contained leaked classified information about North Korea. In 2010 the Obama administration <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/25/us/politics/james-rosen-affidavit.html?_r=0">filed a search warrant application</a> where it argued that Rosen was a criminal aider and abettor of his State Department source in the criminal disclosure of classified information. </p>
<p>The warrant was granted, although Rosen was never indicted for the alleged crime. Indeed when the matter became known and an outcry ensued, the Department of Justice explicitly repudiated the theory as a basis for prosecuting journalists.</p>
<p>Nominally, that repudiation still stands today. Defending against the charge that the new indictment endangers the freedom of American journalism, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165636/download">Department of Justice issued a statement declaring that “Julian Assange is no journalist</a>.” </p>
<p>But that assertion lacks constitutional significance: First Amendment protections do not depend on one’s status as a journalist. First Amendment doctrine does not extend any special protections to the press.</p>
<p>What goes for Assange also goes for any person who obtains or discloses classified information.</p>
<p>That includes any journalist, including those at the New York Times – which in fact published much of the information mentioned in Assange’s indictment, albeit after careful reductions of potentially dangerous materials.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-assange-indictment-a-threat-to-the-first-amendment-115420">an article</a> originally published on May 1, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ofer Raban does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Julian Assange’s indictment under the Espionage Act, a sweeping law with heavy penalties for unauthorized receiving or disclosing of classified information, poses a threat to press freedom.Ofer Raban, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177412019-05-25T06:15:22Z2019-05-25T06:15:22ZNew indictments set up a confrontation between the US and Julian Assange<p>Australians woke to the news on Friday that the United States had unveiled new charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1165556/download">indictment</a>, issued by the US Department of Justice, includes 17 charges of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793">espionage</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>one count of conspiracy to receive national defense information </li>
<li>seven counts of obtaining national defense information </li>
<li>nine counts of disclosing national defense information. </li>
</ul>
<p>These charges are in addition to the charge of conspiracy to commit computer misuse contained in the initial US request for extradition in April. </p>
<p>Here’s what the new charges mean for Assange, how he could fight them, and what’s likely to happen next.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/julian-assange-on-google-surveillance-and-predatory-capitalism-43176">Julian Assange on Google, surveillance and predatory capitalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What factors will affect whether the UK approves extradition to the US?</h2>
<p>Extradition includes a mixture of judicial and political processes. Assange could plead a number of legal objections to his extradition, including human rights concerns. This could see the case go through all levels of the English court system, as <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2011-0264.html">happened in 2011-12</a>. The charges could also be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.</p>
<p>Assange’s main legal objection to extradition is likely to be that the offences charged are political offences, and therefore not extraditable offences under the treaty.</p>
<p>In addition to the American extradition request, the Swedish prosecutor has announced she is reopening the investigation of a rape accusation against Assange. She <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/20/julian-assange-sweden-files-request-arrest-rape-allegation">has applied to the Swedish courts</a> for a detention order, which is the first step towards the issuing of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW). </p>
<p>Both the EU’s <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32002F0584">Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant</a> and the US-UK extradition treaty allow the UK to decide which of the two competing extradition requests to prioritise. There’s a good chance that the UK would decide to prioritise the Swedish request because the rape prosecution must be brought by August 2020, at the latest. It’s likely that the English courts would expedite any legal challenges to prevent time running out. </p>
<p>If the UK decides to prioritise the American request, it would effectively prevent the Swedish prosecution being brought in time.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chelsea-manning-and-the-rise-of-big-data-whistleblowing-in-the-digital-age-102479">Chelsea Manning and the rise of 'big data' whistleblowing in the digital age</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>If he goes to Sweden first to face the rape charges, would Sweden be more or less favourable on the US indictment?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=16&ved=2ahUKEwiFu4WHrrTiAhXv6XMBHZ1HDv0QFjAPegQIBxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftreaties.un.org%2Fdoc%2FPublication%2FUNTS%2FVolume%2520494%2Fvolume-494-I-7231-English.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3geBB-eA2HIVx_8Q1zsGJ3">US-Swedish extradition treaty</a> appears to be stricter than the US-UK treaty. It only allows extradition for listed offences, and espionage is not listed. </p>
<p>Given that the treaty was adopted in 1961, computer crimes are not listed, although they might be understood to be included in one of the forms of fraud listed in the treaty. </p>
<p>The US-Swedish treaty also prohibits extradition for political offences or when the death penalty is imposed. </p>
<p>The Swedish government <a href="https://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/ministry-of-justice/international-judicial-co-operation/extradition-for-criminal-offences/">declares that it will not extradite</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>if there is reason to fear that the person whose extradition is requested runs a risk – on account of his or her ethnic origins, membership of a particular social group or religious or political beliefs – of being subjected to persecution threatening his or her life or freedom, or is serious in some other respect.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Do these charges attract the death penalty?</h2>
<p>These offences could lead to a long prison sentence, but do not attract the death penalty. </p>
<p>Like the US-Swedish treaty, the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/243246/7146.pdf">US-UK extradition treaty</a> also allows the UK to refuse extradition if the accused is likely to face the death penalty, unless the US gives assurances that the death penalty will not be imposed.</p>
<h2>Could Assange be protected under the US constitution?</h2>
<p>Civil liberties groups and journalists in the United States argue that the charges in the new indictment are unconstitutional. The First Amendment of the American Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, and American courts have historically provided strong protection for journalism. </p>
<p>Many argue that what Assange and Wikileaks did in obtaining information from Chelsea Manning about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and rules of engagement in Iraq, and disseminating it, is not meaningfully different from what news outlets do on a regular basis. American officials who worked for the Obama administration <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/23/julian-assange-indicted-what-charges-mean-for-free-speech">say their decision</a> not to pursue Assange was based on concerns that such a prosecution would be contrary to the First Amendment. </p>
<p>Assange’s legal team are likely to argue that extradition to the US would constitute a violation of Assange’s right to freedom of expression under international law. If the extradition occurs, it’s likely they would seek to have the charges thrown out by American courts as unconstitutional.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-part-of-chelsea-mannings-legacy-increased-surveillance-71607">Is part of Chelsea Manning's legacy increased surveillance?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Will these new charges change the way the Australian government treats the case?</h2>
<p>The new charges are much more serious than the computer misuse charge in the initial extradition request. The total sentence could be up to 175 years in jail – effectively a “whole of life” sentence, which some human rights advocates consider to be a form of cruel and inhumane treatment. </p>
<p>Australian government support for its nationals caught up in criminal proceedings overseas is largely negotiated out of the public eye. Nonetheless, there have been cases, such as the recent campaign to bring <a href="https://theconversation.com/hakeem-al-araibis-case-is-a-test-of-world-soccers-human-rights-credentials-heres-why-110580">Hakeem al-Araibi</a> back to Australia from Thailand, where the government was a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-intervenes-in-hakeem-al-araibi-case-20190129-p50ubd.html">public advocate</a>. </p>
<p>Assange’s Australian legal adviser <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/24/assange-extradition-could-test-patience-of-australia-and-us-allies-bob-carr-warns">Greg Barns</a> has called on Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to raise his case personally with the US and UK governments.</p>
<p>Assange’s case is certainly exceptional, and the human rights concerns over US extradition could justify exceptional intervention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Cullen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new charges are much more serious than the computer misuse charge in the initial US extradition request. Will the Australian government intervene?Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1161732019-05-03T02:01:44Z2019-05-03T02:01:44ZJulian Assange has refused to surrender himself for extradition to the US. What now?<p>In the case of Julian Assange, focus has turned to the United States’ efforts to extradite him from Britain to the US to face a charge of conspiracy “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-11/julian-assange-arrested-in-london/10995280">to commit computer intrusion</a>”. </p>
<p>The initial extradition hearing, which took place on Thursday, was a preliminary step in what will be a long, drawn-out process. Assange appeared before the court by video link and made it clear he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/world/europe/julian-assange-us-extradition.html">opposes extradition</a>. The next procedural hearing is set for May 30. </p>
<p>Assange had been arrested by London Metropolitan police on April 11, and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy. He had been granted asylum by the embassy seven years earlier, after fleeing arrest out of fear he would be extradited to the United States.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, Assange was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/01/julian-assange-jailed-for-50-weeks-for-breaching-bail-in-2012">convicted</a> of breaking the conditions of his bail in 2012, and sentenced to <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/sentencing-remarks-assange-010519.pdf">50 weeks imprisonment</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-assange-indictment-a-threat-to-the-first-amendment-115420">Is the Assange indictment a threat to the First Amendment?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The actual extradition hearing will be some time off, following these preliminary hearings. After an initial decision by a judge, either side may have access to an appeal procedure through the courts. </p>
<p>Regardless of that outcome, the final step rests with <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review?fbclid=IwAR2dYyGKIS_gbQUyIrhBZLVhPW8JRiEGTY79UTO3OGphUVvzq4i_GUIRhA0#extradition-from-the-uk-category-2-territories">Home Secretary Sajid Javid</a>. Despite <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/13/uk-lawmakers-urge-british-government-to-extradite-wikileaks-founder-assange-to-sweden.html">pressure from UK lawmakers</a>, Javid cannot make a political decision on whether to extradite Assange – rather, his role is to approve a court order for extradition unless there are statutory provisions that prohibit it.</p>
<p>His decision to extradite Assange might also be subject to High Court appeal.</p>
<h2>What is extradition?</h2>
<p>Extradition is a legal process that states use to facilitate the <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/Internationalrelations/Internationalcrimecooperationarrangements/Extradition/Pages/default.aspx">transfer of a person from one jurisdiction to another</a> in order for that person to be prosecuted for a crime. Many extradition arrangements between states rely on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/extradition-processes-and-review">bi-</a> and <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/024">multilateral</a> extradition and mutual assistance treaties.</p>
<p>The US and UK signed an <a href="https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/187784.pdf">extradition treaty in 2003</a>. Under this treaty, both countries agreed to extradite people sought for trial or punishment for extraditable offences. An offence is extraditable where the conduct is punishable under the laws of both countries</p>
<blockquote>
<p>by deprivation of liberty for a period of one year or more.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The offence for which Assange is wanted in the US is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. It is grounded in an <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/04/16/unpacking-the-alleged-assange-manning-password-hacking-conspiracy/#53b601406ee8">allegation</a> that Assange engaged in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/clemency-for-chelsea-manning-but-will-assange-or-snowden-also-find-the-us-merciful-71473">conspiracy</a> with Chelsea Manning to hack US Department of Defence files, and publish classified information on Wikileaks.</p>
<p>Assange maintains his innocence, and his defenders argue that his extradition would set a <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6031078/assange-extradition-dangerous-precedent/?cs=14231">dangerous precedent</a> for journalism and the publication of truthful information – particularly as it may affect the US.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1116393667193909249"}"></div></p>
<p>It is important to note the parallel, but now lapsed extradition claim from Sweden, which had earlier sought Assange for a preliminary investigation and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/16/she-accused-assange-rape-give-her-chance-justice">possible prosecution</a> for rape charges. Assange had claimed an extradition to Sweden to face those charges would result in another extradition from there to the US. Having lost his protection under Ecuador, Assange now faces exactly that prospect.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/julian-assange-q-a-wikileaks-founder-arrested-in-london-115325">Julian Assange Q+A: WikiLeaks founder arrested in London</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Constraints on extradition</h2>
<p>Extradition is a heavily regulated and multi-stage process. Rules and procedures within and beyond the 2003 Extradition Treaty potentially protect Assange from extradition to the US, or at least constrain its conditions. </p>
<h3>Political offences</h3>
<p>The 2003 extradition treaty between the UK and the US explicitly provides:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Extradition shall not be granted if the offence for which extradition is requested is a political offense.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is common for countries to retain a power to refuse extradition where it is sought in relation to political offences. Such an exemption can protect whistleblowers and others who legitimately challenge the exercise of governmental power. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1443&context=ilj">Pure</a> political offences are those that directly target the government, such as treason, sedition or espionage. Relative political offences are ordinary offences that are “<a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-political-offense-exception-punishing-whistleblowers-abroad/">committed for political motives or in a political context</a>”.</p>
<p>The UK does not have a <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-political-offense-exception-punishing-whistleblowers-abroad/">statutory or generally accepted judicial definition</a> of a relative political offence. However, the Anglo-American system uses the “incidence-test” <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-political-offense-exception-punishing-whistleblowers-abroad/">according to which</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>the act must be incidental to and forming a part of political disturbances.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The “requested state” may also refuse extradition if it determines that the request was politically motivated.</p>
<p>Assange’s lawyers are expected to make this a chief <a href="https://m.cnn.com/en/article/h_b04d7872de1ef20cb9ebf4a2c29a5806">argument against extradition</a>. Such an argument could not succeed on the basis that conspiracy to commit computer intrusion is a pure political offence under UK legislation, because it is not. </p>
<p>However, the UK courts or authorities may regard the charge Assange faces as a relative political offence. Alternatively, they may be convinced by Assange’s argument that his work with WikiLeaks is purely journalistic and the US charge <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/europe/julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador-embassy.html">politically motivated</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-charges-does-julian-assange-face-and-whats-likely-to-happen-next-115362">Explainer: what charges does Julian Assange face, and what's likely to happen next?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h3>The ‘Rule of Speciality’</h3>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/187784.pdf">Rule of Speciality</a>” under the extradition treaty offers Assange protection against new charges. According to this rule, an extradited person may only be charged for the offence for which the extradition is granted, or for crimes committed thereafter. However, the requested state may waive the rule of speciality in which case Assange may end up facing more charges than originally specified.</p>
<p>This rule is important for both Assange and the UK authorities. The UK is entirely opposed to the imposition of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/strategy-for-abolition-of-the-death-penalty-2010-2015">death penalty</a> in any circumstances. The UK would be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/15/letters-support-claim-julian-assange-would-not-be-extradited-to-us">bound to refuse</a> to extradite Assange to the US were he to face charges that carried a possible death penalty. </p>
<p>There will be pressure on the UK authorities to respect the rule of speciality, in which case Assange would face a maximum of five years imprisonment should he be extradited to the US. </p>
<h3>Time and appeal procedures</h3>
<p>Final decisions on extradition requests take considerable time. For example, the extradition of Abu Hamza from the UK to the US <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/sep/24/abu-hamza-extradition-us">took eight years</a>. Progress of the extradition request is likely to be slow through the UK courts and bureaucracy. It will be further delayed by any appeal procedures Assange seeks to utilise, whether through the UK courts or the European human rights system. </p>
<p>It is impossible to say, for now, what awaits Assange. At the very least, following the completion of his current prison sentence, there will be renewed uncertainty about his liberty. Controversy, of course, will persist over whether Assange deserves <a href="https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2019/04/18/julian-assange-political-prisoner/">protection against political prosecution</a>, if he may actually have nefarious <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/russia-if-youre-listening/julian-assange-russias-favourite-publisher/11029806">links to Russia</a>, or indeed whether the most just course would be for the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47910820">Swedish charges</a> to be revived first.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Extradition is a heavily regulated and multi-stage process. For now, it’s impossible to say what awaits Assange.Samuel Berhanu Woldemariam, PhD Candidate (Law), University of NewcastleAmy Maguire, Associate professor, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1156862019-04-18T23:12:45Z2019-04-18T23:12:45ZMueller report: How Congress can and will follow up on an incomplete and redacted document<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270077/original/file-20190418-28084-1jkig0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Morning clouds cover Capitol Hill in Washington, April 12, 2019</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Washington-Daily-Life-Congress/2c211910907843349a17e76c9f7ba756/29/0">AP/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://time.com/5567077/mueller-report-release/">release on April 18 of a redacted version of the Mueller report</a> came after two years of allegations, speculation and insinuation – but not a lot of official information about what really happened between the Trump campaign and Russia. </p>
<p>Nor had there been much light shed on whether the president tried to obstruct the investigation into his campaign.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190418155122/https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf">report</a> prepared by <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sco">special counsel Robert Mueller</a> and issued by the Justice Department provided greater detail about those questions. And it offered more information about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. </p>
<p>The Trump administration will want to argue that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/trump-allies-dismiss-mueller-report-details-claim-total-vindication.html">the release of the Mueller report is the end of investigating</a> the Russia scandal. </p>
<p>On the contrary, the version of the report released is only the start of wide-ranging and intensive House investigations. </p>
<p>I served as <a href="http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=about.viewContributors&bioid=75">special deputy chief counsel of the House Iran-contra investigation</a> of the Reagan administration. We did <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210016413021;view=1up;seq=3">months of hearings</a> on the type of material that is either incomplete or redacted, as today’s Congress will find, in the Mueller report.</p>
<p>Here are some of the ways the House will likely follow up with more investigation. </p>
<h2>1. Bring in witnesses to testify</h2>
<p>The House will call some of the witnesses mentioned in the report for their full story, not just their cameo appearance in this incomplete report. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/18/18411170/mueller-report-release-doj-trump-mcgahn-flynn">the report has the public’s first account</a> from Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser. So, there are a number of contacts mentioned for the first time on the public record between Flynn and Russia that in my reading consistently demonstrate Trump’s partiality to Putin and Russia. </p>
<p>But, until we get a House public hearing with Flynn as a witness, we will not know the full story. </p>
<p>Why did Trump have such a strong bond with Putin? Did Trump have a personal reason, not some foreign policy reason, to favor Russia? Why did Trump push Flynn to be favorable to Russia? </p>
<p>The report does not say. </p>
<p>With Flynn, as with many others, the report is the start, not the finish, of getting the full story.</p>
<h2>2. Intelligence committee investigation</h2>
<p>Attorney General Barr has announced that a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/politics/redacted-mueller-report-congress/index.html">“less redacted” version</a> is, or will be, prepared for a few congressional figures. Presumably he means that the classified parts of the report that describe secret intelligence, which have been redacted, will be shown to the congressional leadership. </p>
<p>But, the leadership cannot itself undertake an investigation. </p>
<p>This is the kind of material that normally goes to the entire <a href="https://intelligence.house.gov/">House Intelligence Committee</a>. That committee can follow up with demands for documents and closed hearings. And that committee has the trusted expertise to determine that the conclusions of their inquiry can be made public, either via open hearings or by report to the House and the public. </p>
<p>The committee could determine what is actually known by investigators about how Russia viewed Trump and what Russia may have done that secured Trump’s favor.</p>
<h2>3. Release grand jury information</h2>
<p>Furthermore, the report redacts not just classified information, but grand jury information as well. And Barr may well have omitted, rather than redacted, invaluable grand jury evidence, especially documents. </p>
<p>These could be released by the attorney general to Congress with a court order under what is called <a href="https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/frcrimp/rule6/">Federal Criminal Rule 6(e)</a>. </p>
<p>Barr <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/william-barr-house-appropriations-hearing_n_5ca7a84be4b0a00f6d3f77e8">refused at congressional hearings</a> to seek such an order. But, under sufficient pressure from Congress – against the background of a public that wants the full report and the full story – he could reconsider. </p>
<p>In the Watergate scandal, the prosecutors got <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/01/23/archives/the-nixon-inquiry-exceptions-to-grand-jury-secrecy-prosecution.html">exactly such a court order</a> so they could make invaluable evidence available to the House Judiciary Committee.</p>
<h2>4. Limit what’s limited by ‘HOM’</h2>
<p>There is a great deal of key material redacted in the report with Barr’s label, “HOM” or “<a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/the-most-redacted-sections-of-the-mueller-report.html">Harm to Ongoing Matter</a>.” That means the redacted material likely relates to an ongoing investigation by law enforcement.</p>
<p>This appears to have been done with a very broad brush. Under pressure from the House, backed by the public, this could be treated by Barr with a fine scalpel instead.</p>
<p>For example, one of the most promising avenues to investigate is the potential overlap between Russia’s attempts to help Trump, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html">WikiLeaks’ dissemination of material embarrassing to Hillary Clinton</a>, and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-democratic-convention-2016-live-donald-trump-invites-russia-to-hack-1469636224-htmlstory.html">Trump’s requests for help</a> in making material damaging to Clinton public. Who can forget Trump shouting, “<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-wikileaks-campaign-speeches-julian-assange-2017-11">I love WikiLeaks</a>”? </p>
<p>Yet, Barr’s broad-brush redactions wipe out a whole section on WikiLeaks. Presumably Barr is saying, by this redaction, that the case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/politics/assange-justice-department/index.html">ongoing matter</a>. </p>
<p>As the recent arrest of Assange makes clear, there is currently an investigation into his actions by the U.S., which has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-assange/u-s-charges-assange-after-london-arrest-ends-seven-years-in-ecuador-embassy-idUSKCN1RN10R">charged him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion</a>. That means that WikiLeaks’ interaction with the Trump campaign is not the heart of that judicial matter. Rather, the heart is about Assange working with hackers who stole the damaging material. </p>
<p>So the House should be allowed to pursue the part – WikiLeaks and its interactions with the Trump campaign – which is central to the House’s concerns but peripheral to prosecutors of Assange.</p>
<h2>5. Documents, documents, documents</h2>
<p>Finally, this is just Mueller’s report. Behind it is much more that would be of vital interest to congressional investigators and the public. </p>
<p>This 400-plus page report is not the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-trump-and-barr-could-stretch-claims-of-executive-privilege-and-grand-jury-secrecy-114166">underlying information alluded to in the report</a>, like copies of emails or other documents, that provides broader information about so many matters. </p>
<p>The House has every reason to seek and to receive the underlying information.</p>
<p>These various examples are just the beginning of what the House can seek to find as it takes off from the incomplete and redacted Mueller report. </p>
<p>When I was an attorney for the <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/thehearings.php">House Iran-contra Committee</a>, we received far more encouragement and cooperation from independent counsel <a href="https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/">Lawrence Walsh</a> than is promised by Barr. And we went on to dig up striking material during months of hearings. </p>
<p>I believe the House will now pick up where the Department of Justice has left off.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Tiefer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Mueller report is out, heavily redacted and the investigative materials it’s based on aren’t public. That’s where Congress comes in, writes a former House counsel. Now they can investigate.Charles Tiefer, Professor of law, University of BaltimoreLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1154212019-04-16T10:45:05Z2019-04-16T10:45:05ZJournalism’s Assange problem<p>These days, anybody with an internet connection can be a publisher.</p>
<p>That doesn’t make everybody a journalist.</p>
<p>This distinction has become more important than ever in light of two recent events.</p>
<p>One was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/11/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-arrested-london-embassy/3432977002/">the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange</a>. The other was a proposal by lawmakers from Georgia, the Peach State, that looked more like an export from the Georgia that was part of the Soviet Union: a <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/georgia-house-republicans-file-bill-create-state-journalism-ethics-board/XuwvLwHYv2uxEgtazGCuHK/">so-called “ethics in journalism” act</a> that would have imposed onerous new requirements and potential civil penalties on reporters. </p>
<p>As soon as news broke of Assange’s potential extradition to the United States for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/11/digging-into-details-indictment-against-julian-assange/?utm_term=.6985af5fd561">trial on charges of conspiracy</a>, his allies began campaigning to make him a Fourth Estate martyr. </p>
<p>“Every journalist in the world” should be speaking out on Assange’s behalf, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/12/greenwald_every_journalist_in_the_world_should_speak_out_against_arrest_of_julian_assange.html">said Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald</a>. Another fugitive leaker of U.S. government secrets, Edward Snowden, tweeted that Assange’s arrest represents <a href="https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1116288726601277440">“a dark day for press freedom.”</a></p>
<p><a href="https://journalism.missouri.edu/staff/kathy-kiely/">As two</a> <a href="https://camd.northeastern.edu/faculty/laurel-leff/">journalism professors</a> who practiced the craft for many years before becoming teachers of it, we know firsthand how powerfully reporters are drawn to unpopular causes. It’s an admirable reflex that often makes for great journalism and a better society. </p>
<p>But granting Assange journalist status is beyond problematic: It’s likely to draw more attacks on press freedom such as the Georgia lawmakers’ thinly disguised attempt to sanction and ostracize journalists whose work they don’t like.</p>
<h2>Standards differentiate journalism</h2>
<p>As the Pew Research Center has shown, journalists already are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/30/newsroom-employment-dropped-nearly-a-quarter-in-less-than-10-years-with-greatest-decline-at-newspapers/">an endangered species</a>. In part that’s because the <a href="https://archives.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american.php">digital revolution eliminated the advertising</a> that subsidized newsrooms.</p>
<p>But as the Knight Foundation has documented, those financial problems are compounded by <a href="https://www.knightfoundation.org/reports/indicators-of-news-media-trust">a credibility crisis</a>.
“Most U.S. adults, including more than nine in 10 Republicans, say they personally have lost trust in the news media in recent years,” the foundation reported in September 2018. </p>
<p>There may be lots of reasons for this but it certainly doesn’t help that <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2018/">more Americans are getting their news from social media feeds</a> that intermingle journalism with the kind of propaganda that is keeping Facebook <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46904935">busy playing whack-a-mole</a> with trolls, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/real-consequences-fake-news-stories-brain-cant-ignore">sent a deluded man with a gun to a neighborhood pizza restaurant</a> in Washington, D.C. and stoked protests on a college campus with <a href="https://www.komu.com/mobile/story.cfm?id=92872-report-russians-meddled-in-mizzou-protests-using-fake-social-media-accounts">incendiary fake tweets</a>.</p>
<p>As a profession, <a href="https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-20736-isoj-panelists-say-journalists-must-overcome-lack-trust-media">journalists are becoming increasingly aware</a> of the need to advocate for, and try to uphold, standards that differentiate them from those who merely make information available. </p>
<p>The New York Times did exactly that in 2010, when it ran stories based on documents obtained from WikiLeaks. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29editornote.html">An editor’s note</a> explained why the Times believed publication to be in the public interest, how the paper gave government officials a chance to respond before publication, and how it redacted “information that would endanger confidential informants or compromise national security.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269362/original/file-20190415-147518-rx1zyn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The New York Times introduction to its publication of WikiLeaks material on the Afghan war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/middleeast/23intro.html">New York Times screenshot</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Times wrote that it shared its rationale for making the redactions with WikiLeaks “in the hope that they would similarly edit the documents,” but Assange does not appear to have been impressed. He followed no journalistic practices or journalism ethics in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/wikileaks-publishes-cache-unredacted-cables">subsequent data dumps</a>. </p>
<p>When WikiLeaks posted the emails of Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign staffers in 2016, <a href="https://gizmodo.com/wikileaks-just-published-tons-of-personal-data-like-a-b-1784140603">it included</a> home and email addresses, and credit card, Social Security and passport numbers, as well as the details of a staffer’s suicide attempt.</p>
<h2>Deserving a privilege</h2>
<p>In insisting that <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/journals/wikileaks-and-espionage-act-1917/">journalists should not be prosecuted for disclosing classified information</a> or for refusing to reveal confidential sources to grand juries, the press is seeking a privilege in both the legal and literal meaning of the term. </p>
<p>It’s not a privilege if everyone gets it. There has to be something special about what journalists do, and how and why they do it, that makes them worthy of a privilege that others don’t receive.</p>
<p>So far, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download">charges against Assange</a> are for conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network. As <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-committee-analysis-of-u-s-government-indictment-of-julian-assange/">Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press writes</a>, that “isn’t something that a newsroom lawyer would counsel a reporter to do.” </p>
<p>Rottman’s measured analysis also notes another concern for data reporters: The 1984 law at the heart of the Assange indictment, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030">Computer Fraud and Abuse Act</a> could, if interpreted in an overbroad fashion, endanger journalists (or other members of the public, <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-suing-the-federal-government-to-be-free-to-do-our-research-74676">such as academics</a>) who use computer programming to “scrape” otherwise hard-to-analyze information from public government websites. But that’s not the issue here.</p>
<p>Nor, significantly, is Assange charged with publishing on the WikiLeaks website documents obtained through that hack. Legal decisions have long offered a great deal of protection to those who publish information, nowhere near as much to those who seek access to government information or facilities, and virtually none to those who steal information. </p>
<p>The best way for press and press freedom organizations to ensure the Assange case doesn’t set precedent that interferes with the public’s right to access important information – even information the government doesn’t want to reveal – is through friend of the court briefs. </p>
<p>Editorial boards rushing to make Assange a poster boy for press freedom, as former New York Times lawyer and First Amendment icon James Goodale <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2019/04/more-than-a-data-dump-julian-assange/">recently suggested they should,</a> will only provoke lawmakers into pushing more proposals like the <a href="http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/Display/20192020/HB/734">journalism review board</a>. Thankfully, that died earlier this month when the Georgia legislature adjourned without acting on it. </p>
<p>Journalists are justifiably concerned that <a href="https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/ethics-journalism-act-georgia-welch.php">more such attacks are likely</a>. Heading them off will require journalists to help their audience understand and appreciate the professional and ethical standards that distinguish real reporters from mere disseminators. </p>
<p>In a digital age, the latter are a dime a dozen. It’s the reporters who need to be protected and defended.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s dangerous for the press to take up Julian Assange’s cause, two journalism scholars write. Assange is no journalist, they say, and making him out to be one is likely to damage press freedoms.Kathy Kiely, Professor and Lee Hills Chair of Free Press Studies, University of Missouri-ColumbiaLaurel Leff, Associate Professor of Journalism, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1153622019-04-12T06:08:02Z2019-04-12T06:08:02ZExplainer: what charges does Julian Assange face, and what’s likely to happen next?<p>Julian Assange, the Australian cofounder of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/wikileaks-1091">Wikileaks</a>, was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47891737">arrested on April 11 by British police at the Ecuadorian embassy</a> in London, where he had been claiming political asylum for almost seven years.</p>
<p>He has faced a range of criminal charges and extradition orders, and several crucial aspects of his situation remain to be resolved.</p>
<p><strong>What are the British charges against Assange, and what sentence could be imposed?</strong></p>
<p>Assange moved into the Ecuadorian embassy in London in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jun/20/julian-assange-asylum-ecuador-embassy-live">June 2012</a> after losing the final appeal against his transfer to Sweden on a <a href="https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_european_arrest_warrant-90-en.do">European Arrest Warrant (EAW)</a>. He was then charged with failing to surrender to the court. </p>
<p>While in the embassy, Assange could not be arrested because of the international legal protection of diplomatic premises, which meant police could not enter without Ecuador’s consent. On April 11, British police were invited into the embassy and made the arrest. On the same day, Assange was found guilty, and awaits sentencing. The charge of <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/63">failing to surrender</a> to the court carries a jail term of up to 12 months. </p>
<p><strong>What are the US charges against Assange?</strong></p>
<p>Also on April 11, the United States government unsealed an indictment made in March 2018, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-computer-hacking-conspiracy">charging Assange</a> with a conspiracy to help whistleblower <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/chelsea-manning-19496">Chelsea Manning</a> crack a password which enabled her to pass on classified documents that were then published by WikiLeaks. The US has requested that the UK extradite Assange to face these charges before a US court.</p>
<p><strong>What were the Swedish charges, and could they be revived?</strong></p>
<p>In 2010, a Swedish prosecutor issued the EAW requesting Assange’s transfer to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations, which he denies. In 2016, Assange was questioned by Swedish authorities by video link while he remained in the Ecuadorian embassy. In 2017, they closed their investigation. </p>
<p>After Assange was arrested and removed from the embassy, the lawyer for one of the complainants indicated she would ask the prosecutor to reopen the case, as the statute of limitations on the alleged offence does not expire until 2020. As of April 12, Sweden’s Prosecution Authority is formally reviewing the case and could renew its request for extradition.</p>
<p><strong>What are Britain’s legal obligations to extradite to Sweden or the US?</strong></p>
<p>The UK, as a member of the European Union (for now!), is obliged to execute an EAW. The law on EAWs is similar to extradition treaties. However, the law also says it is up to the UK to decide whether to act first on the EAW from Sweden or the US extradition request.</p>
<p>Bilateral extradition treaties are usually based on identical reciprocal obligations. But the current <a href="https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/187784.pdf">UK-US extradition treaty</a>, agreed in 2003, has been criticised for allowing the UK to extradite a person to the US solely on the basis of an allegation and an arrest warrant, without any evidence being produced, despite the fact that “probable cause” is required for extradition the other way. </p>
<p>The relative ease of extradition from the UK to the US has long been one of the concerns of Assange’s legal team. The treaty does not include a list of extraditable offences but allows for extradition for any non-political offence for which both states have criminalised the behaviour, which carries a sentence of at least one year in prison. </p>
<p>Espionage and treason are considered core “political offences”, which is why the US request is limited to the charge of computer fraud. Conspiracy to commit an extraditable offence is covered in the US-UK treaty, as it is in the EAW (and in the US-Australia extradition treaty).</p>
<p>Assange may legally challenge his extradition either to the US or to Sweden (as he previously did). Such challenges could take months or even years, particularly if Assange applies to the European Court of Human Rights arguing that an extradition request involved a human rights violation.</p>
<p>Given Assange’s previous conduct, and the likelihood that he will be sentenced to prison for failure to surrender to court, he will probably remain in a UK prison until all legal avenues are exhausted.</p>
<p><strong>What are Australia’s obligations to Assange?</strong></p>
<p>As an Australian citizen, Assange is entitled to consular protection by the Australian government, which means staff from the Australian High Commission in London will provide support for him in the legal process. The extent of that support is not set in stone, however, and both Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have declined to provide detail on the basis that the matter is before the courts.</p>
<p>One possibility is that Assange will serve his sentence for failing to surrender to the court, after which the UK will deport him to Australia. At that point, it is possible the US could request extradition from Australia, and the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2004C00101">US-Australian extradition treaty</a> would apply. The US charges would most likely be covered although not specifically mentioned in the treaty. </p>
<p>As with the UK-US treaty, political offences are excluded, and an extradited person can only be tried for the offence in the extradition request or a related offence, and in any event not for an offence not covered by the treaty. In addition, the treaty specifies that neither Australia nor the US is obliged to extradite its own nationals, but may do so. The fact that Australia has the option to refuse extradition purely on the ground of Assange’s nationality could lead to intense pressure on the government to do just that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Cullen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If the Swedish charges against Assange are revived he could face a second extradition request, on top of the existing request from the US. Then it will be up to the UK to decide which to prioritise.Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1153252019-04-11T18:41:56Z2019-04-11T18:41:56ZJulian Assange Q+A: WikiLeaks founder arrested in London<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/julian-assange-2002">Julian Assange</a>, founder of WikiLeaks, has been arrested in London and charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion over his alleged role in the leaking of classified United States government documents. Assange has already been found guilty of failing to surrender British police, who took him from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he has been living for nearly seven years, having claimed asylum there. Here’s what we know so far. </p>
<p><strong>Why was Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in the first place?</strong></p>
<p>Assange sought extraterritorial asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in June 2012 when an arrest warrant was issued against him in Sweden for accusations of sexual assault. He claimed that these charges were part of an international effort to silence his organisation WikiLeaks, which has become famous for publishing leaked, and often classified, information about governments across the world.</p>
<p>Importantly, the government of Ecuador took the view at the time that if the UK arrested him, he would be sent to the US to face treason charges relating to WikiLeaks exposures. Assange claimed that he could face the death penalty for those charges. Since both Ecuador and the UK are parties to the <a href="https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetailsII.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=V-2&chapter=5&Temp=mtdsg2&clang=_en">1951 Convention on Refugees</a>, they are obliged to consider whether there is a real risk that a person seeking asylum could lose their life if they were handed over to another authority when deciding whether they have to protect them.</p>
<p><strong>What were the charges against him in Sweden?</strong></p>
<p>The Swedish charges related essentially to a “preliminary investigation” into accusations of sexual offences, including an alleged rape. The proceedings began in 2012, but by August 2015, the Swedish prosecutors dropped parts of their investigation. The investigation into the allegation of rape was also dropped in May 2017. </p>
<p><strong>What are the charges against him in the US?</strong></p>
<p>The exact charges against Assange have not been clear up until now. This was partly why Ecuador and so many of his supporters backed his claims to political asylum. In the wake of Assange’s arrest, the US government has issued <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-computer-hacking-conspiracy">further details</a> about a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion “for agreeing to break a password to a classified US government computer”. A statement from the Department of Justice accuses Assange helped former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning crack a password that would enable her to download classified records to transmit to WikiLeaks. </p>
<p><strong>Assange has already been found guilty of failure to surrender. What does that mean?</strong></p>
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<p>In pursuit of the sexual assault charges, Sweden issued a European Arrest Warrant against Assange, which meant the UK authorities were required to act. Judges in the UK granted Assange bail at the time of this initial arrest, but with strict conditions. However, while the case was being considered, Assange entered the Ecuadorian embassy and was granted political asylum on June 16 2012. In failing to leave the embassy, he breached his bail conditions. When his asylum was revoked, he was immediately charged and subsequently found guilty of failing to surrender. He is yet to be sentenced but could face up to 12 months jail time under UK law.</p>
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<p><strong>Why were British police suddenly able to enter the Ecuadorian embassy?</strong></p>
<p>Simply put, the police could go into the embassy for the first time in nearly seven years because the Ecuadorian government revoked Assange’s asylum. The “premises of a diplomatic mission” including buildings or parts of buildings and the land ancillary to it are, inviolable according to the <a href="http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf">Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961</a>.</p>
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<p>However all such rights are subject to the right of a country to grant a waiver and the agents of a receiving state may enter diplomatic premises with the consent of the head of the mission. Such waivers are expected to be in writing and there will be a document to evidence this in the hands of the UK government.</p>
<p><strong>Why did the Ecuadorian government withdraw asylum from Assange?</strong></p>
<p>The Ecuadorian government issued a statement accusing Assange of “discourteous and aggressive behaviour” and of violating international asylum conventions. We don’t know exactly what he has done but Ecuadorian president Lenín Moreno said in a video statement that he had failed to abide by the norm of “not interfering in the internal affairs of other states”. </p>
<p>Assange has been a difficult guest in some ways. His continuous communication with the outside world and the way he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html">wrote himself into the legend</a> of the last US presidential elections would certainly have been against the intentions of Ecuador in granting him extraterritorial asylum.</p>
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<p>Extraterritorial asylum – which is asylum granted outside the territory of the state itself – is indeed a contested practice in international law and the UK had been quite accommodating in recognising what is, in essence, a subpractice of Latin American states within international law. </p>
<p><strong>What will happen to Assange now?</strong></p>
<p>Although the British authorities appear to have given some assurances to the Ecuadorean authorities that Assange will not be extradited to the US, they will probably embark on a very truncated extradition process in conjunction with the US authorities and he may soon be in the US. It is unclear what president Donald Trump’s position on his case is, but the president has spoken in his favour in the past. There might be a clash of political interests between the US intelligence community and the presidency about what to do with Assange. </p>
<p><strong>Can the UK demand that the US commit to not executing Assange if he is extradited?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, this demand can be easily made and will most likely be granted because it is simply not in line with modern democracies to apply the death sentence in political and crimes of conscience cases. The US government has said he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gbenga Oduntan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Wikileaks founder has been removed from the Ecuadorean embassy after nearly seven years.Gbenga Oduntan, Reader (Associate Professor) in Law, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956392018-04-27T01:13:30Z2018-04-27T01:13:30ZWhy Democrats have filed a lawsuit against Russia – and what Australian politicians should learn from it<p>Last week, the Democratic Party in the United States brought an unprecedented lawsuit against a foreign country, Russia, and persons connected to the Kremlin. Predictably, this has received <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/devin-nunes-dnc-lawsuit-is-a-fundraising-scheme">condemnation from Republicans</a> and the <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com%2Fmedia%2Ftrump-campaign-responds-to-frivolous-dnc-lawsuit&usg=AOvVaw181tEyydTOE-I5WJN1M6MO">Trump campaign</a>.
The Russian government – the primary target of the case – has not responded publicly.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/21/democratic-lawsuit-protect-our-elections-donald-trump-column/538031002/">Democratic party faithful have been supportive</a>, invoking memories of their successful legal action against the Nixon campaign. That action yielded a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/democratic-party-lawsuit-trump-russia-wikileaks-2018-4?r=UK&IR=T">settlement worth US$750,000</a> in 1974.</p>
<p>The recent filings provide important insights for Australian politicians.</p>
<h2>The case</h2>
<p>The case has several defendants. These include Russia, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU), the Trump campaign, senior Trump advisor (and First Son-in-law) Jared Kushner, former campaign advisor Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., Wikileaks, and several Russian individuals.</p>
<p>The case will be heard in the US District Court for the Southern District of NY. The legal action is brought under provisions of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030">Computer Fraud and Abuse Act</a>, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-96">Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act</a> (RICO), the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-121">Stored Communications Act</a>, and the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/digital_millennium_copyright_act">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-manage-russia-becomes-one-of-the-most-pressing-questions-in-us-and-world-affairs-71221">How to manage Russia becomes one of the most pressing questions in US, and world, affairs</a>
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<p>Essentially, <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">Russia is alleged to have hacked</a> into the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) computers. The government and related entities are accused of accessing the party’s telecommunications and obtaining tens of thousands of documents and emails. </p>
<p>This “stolen information” was allegedly used to advance Russia’s own interests, destabilise the US political environment and denigrate Hillary Clinton. Russia is also accused of supporting Trump’s campaign because his “<a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">policies would benefit the Kremlin</a>”.</p>
<p>The Trump campaign is also <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">alleged to have engaged in a conspiracy</a> with the Russians to ensure the election of Trump.</p>
<h2>Chronology of events</h2>
<p>Shortly after Trump announced his candidacy for president in June 2015, European intelligence agencies <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">intercepted communications</a> between his campaign and Russian operatives.</p>
<p>By July 27 2015, Russia had conducted cyber attacks on Democratic National Convention (DNC) systems, which contained “some of the DNC’s <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">most sensitive</a> strategic and operational data”.</p>
<p>In October of that same year, Trump signed a letter of intent to develop real estate in Russia financed by a Russian bank (<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=31294502">Vneshtorgbank</a>) that was under under US Treasury <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwio0ueo0NbaAhXJXbwKHSKkCYQQtwIIWTAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmoney.cnn.com%2Fvideo%2Fnews%2F2018%2F04%2F07%2Fqmb-andrey-kostin-on-sanctions-list-exclusive-richard-quest.cnnmoney%2Findex.html&usg=AOvVaw2Fm3Z2R4M-8Mna-yif1Kyh">sanctions</a>. </p>
<p>This deal was brokered by real estate developer Felix Sater, who claimed in a <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">November 3 email</a>: </p>
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<p>I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. </p>
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<p>The DNC complaint alleges that in 2016, Kremlin operatives:</p>
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<p>notified the Trump campaign that Russia intended to interfere and expressed their government’s backing of Trump via meetings, emails, and other communications. </p>
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<p>This included a willingness on Russia’s part “to use stolen emails and other information to damage” Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>The Russians hacked into the DNC’s servers for the second time in April 2016. GRU agents hacked the DNC’s research, IT, and other departments, and document repositories.</p>
<p>On April 26, then foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, George Papadopoulos, <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">met with a Russian agent</a> who told him that the Russians had dirt on Clinton in “thousands of emails”. Papadopoulos only reported this to his employers and not law enforcement. </p>
<p>He also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F12%2F30%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fhow-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html&usg=AOvVaw21TD8xz9BvcFDeLdBG8S6r">confided in an Australian diplomat</a>, who reported this to US officials, prompting an FBI inquiry into connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. </p>
<p>But for this <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fpolitics-news%2Fpapadopoulos-brag-australian-diplomat-was-key-factor-fbi-s-russia-n833691&usg=AOvVaw3H0oT_i_0r3l5ju3PR_FXy">crucial error by Papadopoulos</a>, Trump may not have been in his current predicament.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-approach-to-security-is-deeply-troubling-and-its-not-just-about-trump-91239">US approach to security is deeply troubling – and it's not just about Trump</a>
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<p>Russia continued its presence on DNC servers. By May, it had <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">hacked data including donor information</a>, opposition research and plans for political activities, as well as thousands of confidential emails.</p>
<p><a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">Donald Trump Jr. was contacted on June 3</a> with an offer of damaging information about Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump”. Soon after, Trump Jr., Manafort, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/26/16964328/trump-tower-meeting-mueller-russia">Kushner had the now infamous meeting with Russians</a> in Trump Tower. </p>
<p>A GRU operative publicly <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">disseminated illegally obtained</a> documents on June 15. </p>
<p>On July 22, prior to the DNC Convention, Wikileaks publicly disseminated DNC emails and other documents.</p>
<p>The complaint documents contact between Rick Gates (Trump Campaign Deputy Chair), Assange, and a GRU Operative.</p>
<h2>What the DNC claims</h2>
<p>After learning of the hacking, the DNC commissioned a forensic analysis by IT firm Crowdstrike, which confirmed hacking by two Russian state-sponsored entities.</p>
<p>The entities were codenamed “<a href="https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/who-is-cozy-bear/">Cozy Bear</a>” and “<a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2016/0615/Meet-Fancy-Bear-and-Cozy-Bear-Russian-groups-blamed-for-DNC-hack">Fancy Bear</a>”. The latter was an agent of GRU.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">analysis found that user credentials</a> were used to access information that was then posted online by the GRU operative. Hackers also accessed phone calls and voicemail.</p>
<p>The DNC claims the motivations for the conspiracy were twofold. First, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/watch-the-election-clash-that-fueled-putins-ire-against-clinton/">Putin’s intense dislike of Clinton</a>, stemming from his belief that she was behind massive protests in Russia in December 2011. Putin is quoted in the <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">complaint</a>, accusing Clinton of setting “the tone for some of our actors in the country”.</p>
<p>Second, Trump’s admiration of Putin made him valuable to Russia.</p>
<p>The DNC claims these two motivations provided the “common purpose” for the conspiracy. They <a href="https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2018cv03501/492363/6">argue Assange was part of the conspiracy</a> because of his long <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/15/wikileaks-julian-assange-donald-trump-jr-hillary-clinton/">history of conflict with Clinton</a>.</p>
<h2>Lessons for Australia</h2>
<p>This case provides the most detailed view of Russia’s tactics in election manipulation – providing a roadmap for other countries where it might try similar methods. </p>
<p>Australia may be <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-public-has-a-vital-role-to-play-in-preventing-future-cyber-attacks-95141">vulnerable</a> because of <a href="http://smartraveller.gov.au/Countries/europe/eastern/Pages/russia.aspx">tensions with Russia</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-15/north-korea-warns-australia-face-disaster-continues-support-us/9051156">North Korea</a> in recent times. With a federal election on the horizon, it would be sensible for Australian political parties to upgrade their cyber security and protect IT equipment in close consultation with intelligence agencies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/could-russian-hacking-pose-a-threat-to-australian-democracy-71405">Could Russian hacking pose a threat to Australian democracy?</a>
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<p>Parties should be wary of approaches by unknown entities with promises of assistance and carefully vet any foreign commercial contacts or deals. They should also assume that sensitive information is likely to be leaked and dirty tricks against the opposition could backfire. Individual politicians should be careful not to become pawns of foreign governments.</p>
<p>Finally, Australian political operatives should carefully scrutinise social media information trends for manipulation and invest in human monitors, and of course, report anything suspicious immediately to law enforcement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandeep Gopalan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US Democratic Party has filed an unprecedented lawsuit against Russia for alleged hacking during the 2016 presidential campaign. The case contains lessons for Australian politicians.Sandeep Gopalan, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic Innovation) & Professor of Law, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816452017-07-31T15:27:34Z2017-07-31T15:27:34ZRisk: Julian Assange film by Laura Poitras blurs the line between film and filmmaker<p>Laura Poitras’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/29/laura-poitras-wikileaks-film-risk-julian-assange">new documentary, Risk</a>, has all the conspiracy and paranoia you could wish for – much of it behind the camera as well as on screen. The latest film from this Oscar-winning filmmaker, <a href="http://riskfilm.org/">billed as</a> a “personal and intimate” character study of Julian Assange, is arguably more notable for the inside story of its making than it is for any unmasking of the founder of WikiLeaks. </p>
<p>Poitras first unveiled Risk at Cannes in 2016 and critics once again admired – as they had with her Oscar-winning study of Edward Snowden, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/laura-poitras-citizenfour-edward-snowden-oscar-win/385750/">Citizenfour</a> – her repeated ability to use the camera as a guerrilla weapon in the war against secretive state culture.</p>
<p>Poitras’s “<a href="http://brooklynrail.org/2015/02/film/surveillance-aesthetics-on-laura-poitrass-911-trilogy">surveillance aesthetic</a>” is clearly marked in the movie. She lets images of rainy streets linger in the mind; a walk in the woods is suddenly filled with tension; Assange and his mother in a hotel room is littered with paranoid thriller references. All these images are accompanied by inter-titles: WikiLeaks’ release of classified documents, watchlists, Poitras’s apartment being broken into and more – that are both menacing in their suggestiveness and opaque at the same time.</p>
<p>But the real significance of Risk is not what’s on screen. To the extent that we know Assange at all, revelations appear to be in short supply and little is new or shocking. What is revelatory is how this film’s exposure of surveillance culture is increasingly tangled up in the agendas of its filmmaker and subject – with puzzles and perplexity that can risk clouding viewers’ judgement that threaten to obscure one of the most important issues of our time: state surveillance of the citizenry on a grand scale.</p>
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<p>Two fundamental problems gnaw away at Poitras’s exposé. One is that the film she <a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/risk-review-julian-assange-wikileaks-laura-poitras-1201778557/">showed at the Cannes film festival</a> in 2016 is not the Risk released in the US and UK this spring and summer. Among other things, Poitras recut the film – inserting a voiceover that reportedly virtually <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/film/laura-poitrass-documentary-risk-wrestles-with-the-truth-of-the-man-with-the-secrets-8185766">rewrites her impressions of Assange</a> and is far more critical than the original. </p>
<p>Poitras periodically filmed Assange between 2011 and 2013. She then diverted her attention towards Snowden and made Citizenfour, only returning to Assange in 2015 and finding “his manner was new to me”. Risk duly records her doubts about the relationship: “It’s a mystery why he trusts me because I don’t think he likes me,” she says at one point in the film – and it’s true that Assange <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/29/laura-poitras-wikileaks-film-risk-julian-assange">had been unhappy</a> with the Cannes version of Risk, despite it being reputedly sympathetic towards him.</p>
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<p>Poitras took the film away regardless and layered this new version with more self-absorbed meanderings from Assange and an enhanced focus on the accusations of sexual assault in Sweden that trailed him to London in 2010. A particularly <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-is-an-egomaniacal-sexist-creep-in-risk">excoriating scene with Helena Kennedy</a> sees the high-profile barrister attempting to mould Assange’s public language about the accusations while he keeps insisting it is all part of his accusers’ ongoing lesbian conspiracy. “What’s their <a href="https://www.the-pool.com/news-views/latest-news/2017/21/phoebe-luckhurst-on-julian-assange-rape-allegations">lesbian nightclub</a> got to do with the price of fish?” Kennedy asks him in arguably the film’s priceless moment.</p>
<h2>Personal baggage</h2>
<p>The film’s second problem is that it inhabits the same territory as Alex Gibney’s much-praised <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/14/we-steal-secrets-wikileaks-review">We Steal Secrets</a> documentary from 2013. Given that so much in Assange’s world is built upon shifting sands, it’s easy to forget Gibney’s earlier movie which – unlike Risk – was dogged by the director’s inability to pin Assange down to an interview. But the critical immediacy of We Steal Secrets is fleshed out by commentary from some of WikiLeaks’ key former personnel, including <a href="https://www.icij.org/journalists/james-ball">James Ball</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2011/02/wikileaks-book/">Daniel Domscheit-Berg</a>, who Poitras neglects in Risk.</p>
<p>Instead she relies on access to Assange’s right-hand spokesperson <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/sarah-harrison-the-woman-behind-whistblowers-edward-snowden-and-julian-assange-a3342546.html">Sarah Harrison</a> and his lawyer <a href="http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/jennifer-robinson-julian-assanges-consigliere/3682">Jennifer Robinson</a> and, most controversially, WikiLeaks’ tech consultant <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/meet-the-american-hacker-behind-wikileaks-20101201">Jacob Appelbaum</a>. Controversial because Appelbaum is someone Poitras admitted to having had an intimate relationship with. Risk’s voiceover confesses that they were “involved briefly in 2014” which resulted in <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/documentary-inside-julian-assange-world-593037">some questioning</a> Poitras’s recollection of the time frame, let alone her objectivity.</p>
<p>Only adding to the subtextual complexities, Appelbaum was then the subject of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/jacob-appelbaum-tor-project-sexual-assault-allegations">sexual assault allegations</a> himself in 2016, including by someone <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/julian-assange-documentary-risk-wikileaks-laura-poitras-1202406948/">Poitras claimed</a> was a friend – and Risk feels obliged to dwell upon these contentions. As a result, Poitras loses much of the film’s main thrust when she indulges in the personal and starts citing Appelbaum’s questions to her about loyalty and betrayal – loyalty to whom and for what, we’re never told.</p>
<h2>Becoming a protagnist</h2>
<p>If Risk’s web of entanglement seems suspicious, it results from such total immersion into Assange’s world that the film stands accused of not knowing where Poitras’ impressions of the WikiLeaks organisation should stop and the verifiable details of their actions must take over. Has Poitras been duped into believing the myths surrounding Assange or is she complicit in reassembling those myths for the film? Here is someone who is no longer chronicler but an active participant in the surveillance war. “In the last two films, I have become more of a protagonist,” she <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/laura-poitras-interview-julian-assange-documentary-chelsea-manning-wikileaks-edward-snowden-a7820546.html">claimed recently</a>, adding that: “It is very uncomfortable.”</p>
<p>Risk is an intriguing yet frustrating documentary. Poitras tempts us with a gripping finale: <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/wikileaks-trump-twitter-clinton-635506">Assange’s part</a> in Donald Trump’s dramatic US presidential election win. But the conclusion seems more fascinated with Poitras’s and Assange’s falling out over the first version of Risk than it is in WikiLeaks’ part in Russian collusion with Trump. The film’s somewhat illusory climax therefore asks considerable questions of the intent of both filmmaker and film.</p>
<p>In this “golden age” of documentary, Steve Rose <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/08/two-sides-to-every-story-whitney-tupac-assange-and-the-trouble-with-making-biopics">recently observed</a> that: “Filmmakers start to outnumber potential subjects” – and the investigative credentials of factual films are surely tested as a result. Poitras, Assange and Risk certainly testify to the age of “alternative facts” and “fake news”. But answers to the big questions about surveillance politics only get more difficult when the distinctions between message and messenger become this blurred.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Poitras’s latest film shows you can get too involved with your subject.Ian Scott, Senior Lecturer in American Studies/Film, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780722017-05-23T03:48:49Z2017-05-23T03:48:49ZTrump, Saudi Arabia and yet another arms deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170378/original/file-20170522-7361-19zc7y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Saudi king presents Trump with The Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud medal on May 20, 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first stop on Donald Trump’s first trip as U.S. president was to Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>That was no accident. </p>
<p>His decision was surely based on the fact that the alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States is one of the foundations of American foreign policy in the Middle East. </p>
<p>While Trump was there, Saudi King Salman awarded him the kingdom’s highest civilian honor. Trump came bearing gifts of his own in the form of <a href="https://nyti.ms/2rx4yA4">US$110 billion worth of military equipment</a>, some of which had been approved by <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/19/trump-comes-to-riyadh-bearing-gifts-weapons-approved-by-obama/">Barack Obama</a>. </p>
<p>The Saudi’s extravagant welcome of Trump indicates a significant warming of relations that had cooled under Obama and indicates a return to the two countries searching for linkage rather than leverage. Yet, this is far from the first time that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have shifted their perceptions of each other.</p>
<h2>Old friends</h2>
<p>The partnership between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. emerged in 1930 with the formation of what would become the <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=10072">Arabian American Oil Company</a>. Shared economic and security interests have kept the two partners close over the decades. This in spite of the dramatic differences in the way the two countries are governed. </p>
<p>The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became vital for American defense during World War II when Saudi Arabia joined the Allies. During the Cold War, Saudi Arabia acted as a key support for preserving for the free flow of oil and keeping Soviet influence out of the region. Along with support for Israel, these concerns constituted the three pillars of American Middle East policy. </p>
<p>But contradictions between these objectives has insured that the Saudi-American relationship has never been trouble-free. </p>
<h2>From boycotts to Iran</h2>
<p>One troubled period was the Saudi leadership of the 1973 oil boycott against the U.S. in retaliation for American support for Israel in the October War. </p>
<p>Yet, as soon as that crisis was resolved, cooperation between the two countries returned. <a href="http://www.merip.org/mer/mer155/saudi-arabia-reagan-doctrine">Then</a> as <a href="https://nyti.ms/2rx4yA4">now</a>, Saudi Arabia spent a great deal of its oil wealth on U.S.-made weapons. Over the years the Saudis have bristled at American support for Israel, but not enough to undermine the relationship.</p>
<p>In 1979, an Islamic revolution <a href="http://iranprimer.usip.org/">overthrew the pro-American shah of Iran</a>. This transformed Iran from an ally into America and Saudi Arabia’s biggest regional adversary. While most analysis points toward the inherent conflict between Saudi’s hard-line interpretations of Sunni Islam with Iran’s post-1979 revolutionary Shi’ite activism, it is as easy to see the two states jockeying for <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/beyond-sectarianism-the-new-middle-east-cold-war/">geopolitical power</a>.</p>
<p>Saudi has pressured the United States to weaken Iran – especially its nascent nuclear program. This was famously captured when <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/150519">Wikileaks</a> released 2008 correspondence from then-King Abdullah, pressing the U.S. to “chop the head off the snake” and attack Iran. </p>
<p>The other source of tension between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia stems from the blow-back from their Cold War cooperation. Joint American and Saudi support for Sunni Islamist militants to combat the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan resulted in the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the">birth of al-Qaida</a> when warriors returned home after the Cold War. These <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-exactly-are-radical-muslims-73098">militants</a> attacked both the Saudi and other Middle Eastern regimes despite being an outgrowth of official Saudi Islamic ideas. The militants turned to attack the U.S. and the West. The alliance between the U.S. and the Saudis continued after the fall of the Soviet Union around a new pillar of U.S. policy, counterterrorism. </p>
<h2>Obama’s legacy</h2>
<p>Under the Obama administration, Saudi–American relations weakened because of the administration’s <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/07/17/revisiting-obamas-riyadh-meeting/">disengagement</a> from the Middle East. Relations particularly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/28/barack-obama-saudi-arabia-syria-iran">deteriorated</a> in the wake of the Arab Spring protests in 2011. My research has shown that the Saudis, and other monarchs, rode out the wave of protests <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21534764.2014.971648">better than republics in the region</a>.
Repression at home has also led to a more <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030438711000937">adventurous foreign policy</a> abroad by supporting proxies in Syria and Yemen without coordination with the United States.</p>
<p>With the ascension of King Salman in 2015 and the rise of his son, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/saudi-arabias-return-to-aggressive-foreign-policy/article28029555">this accelerated</a>. </p>
<p>Previously, the Saudis supported groups in the Syrian civil war that evolved into <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-versus-daish-or-daesh-the-political-battle-over-naming-50822">the Islamic State</a> terrorist group. Since 2013, however, the Saudis have turned toward supporting other, <a href="https://nyti.ms/2kcxxp3">more “moderate” groups</a> who will cooperate with the U.S. At the same time, their demand for the fall of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has not wavered. This has led the Syrian civil war to become a new venue for Saudi-Iranian rivalry, as Iran is one of the Syrian president’s biggest supporters.</p>
<p>The Saudis also have directly intervened militarily in next-door <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/yemen-crisis">Yemen</a> to prevent the Houthi movement, a Shi'ite group from northern Yemen, from emerging victorious in that country’s civil war. The Saudis <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-houthis-and-the-risks-of-internationalizing-the-yemeni-crisis-36729">accuse Iran of supporting</a> the Houthis. The Saudi-led campaign, however, has not resulted in a quick victory. Instead it is contributing to another stalemated <a href="http://www.care.org/emergencies/yemen-humanitarian-crisis">humanitarian emergency in the region</a>. The Trump administration may find <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/22/medea_benjamin_congress_should_halt_trumps">congressional opposition</a> to the arms deal because of the Saudi’s possibly using these arms in Yemen. </p>
<h2>The nuclear deal</h2>
<p>But what truly annoyed Saudi leaders about Obama was his forging the agreement between Iran, the U.S. and other partners to limit Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. The Saudis felt that the agreement was made over their objections.</p>
<p>Candidate Trump promised to rip up the Iran agreement, but as president he has not done so yet. If he still intends to do so, that promise may have become harder to keep after Iranian voters voiced their support for the agreement by <a href="https://nyti.ms/2rGLDTy">reelecting President Hassan Rouhani</a>. </p>
<p>The Saudis are hoping that President Trump continues to walk back his campaign trail “<a href="http://wapo.st/2qCmaNc">Islam hates us</a>” talk to focus instead on shared cooperation against Iran and “<a href="http://wapo.st/2qDIeqJ">Islamic extremism</a>.” </p>
<p>However, it still remains to be seen if it is Trump’s new claim that “we are not here to tell other people how to live” or if it is the old-fashioned art of the (arms) deal that has warmed up the U.S.-Saudi relationship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Russell E. Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shared economic and security interests have kept Saudi Arabia and the US close over the decades despite dramatic differences in the way the two countries are governed.Russell E. Lucas, Director of Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities; Associate Professor of Arab Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/776462017-05-17T10:45:44Z2017-05-17T10:45:44ZChelsea Manning emerges into a different US – but not much has really changed since the WikiLeaks affair<p>Chelsea Manning, the US army whistleblower who was sentenced to 35 years for leaking sensitive documents to WikiLeaks <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/05/15/chelsea-mannings-mum-happy-about-release">is being released</a> after a pardon by Barack Obama, issued during his last days as president. She entered prison as Bradley Manning but, after being diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2013, will emerge into a new US under a new president as Chelsea.</p>
<p>Nearly four months into the Trump presidency, it is timely to review the extent to which US security policy has changed; and whether the release of Manning is in itself any indicator. The degree to which the incoming president was anticipated to significantly change his country’s security policy was, arguably, unprecedented. President Trump’s opponents foresaw large-scale change (for the worse) while his supporters anticipated radical (and in their view positive) change. The <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/liveblogs/2017/02/president-trump-addresses-congress/518112/">result</a> to date: far less than either side might have imagined.</p>
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<span class="caption">Artist’s impression of how Chelsea Manning sees herself, commissioned by the Chelsea Manning Support Network in 2014.</span>
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<p>Let us examine a number of issues. The most high-profile initial action sought to “secure” the US from the threat of extreme Islamic terrorism through an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/28/airports-us-immigration-ban-muslim-countries-trump">executive order</a> which imposed a temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim countries. Not only were the measures dismissed <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-loses-appeal-but-travel-ban-fight-isnt-over-yet-72648">on legal grounds</a>, but the extent to which they might have been effective is also questionable. </p>
<p>Some within the US leadership might have believed that these measures would add to the country’s feeling of – if not actual – security, but this has to be balanced against the wider issues that affect Ammerica’s national security. </p>
<p>The US is a major trading nation and, particularly in the fields of high technology and arms sales, the global leader. The very region that the travel ban might have impacted, the Middle East, is a <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/24/politics/us-arms-sales-worldwide/">major purchaser</a> of American military hardware. </p>
<p>It is also in the interests of the US for the Middle East to be stable – not least, for reasons of national security – so it needs to remain engaged in the region in order to be able to apply influence. America’s lack of involvement in Syria is a clear example: not only has this allowed Russia to dominate the local, and to an increasing extent regional, debate, but <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23849587">the chances</a> of there being any settlement that would be in America’s broader interests are significantly decreased. </p>
<p>Put simply, America remains a trading nation and a global superpower. Isolationism of any form will simply not advance its interests, and president Trump, as both a businessman and a realist, will be aware of this – or at least be becoming aware.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the president’s suggestions of a closer relationship with Putin’s Kremlin show few signs of being translated into action, notwithstanding the ongoing domestic investigations into <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-us-russia-relations-worse-military-syria-chemical-attack-barack-obama-a7679796.html">alleged involvement of Russia</a> in the presidential election. This reflects a greater degree of continuity in American security policy than might have been anticipated. </p>
<p>Likewise, the lack of real progress in the construction of the border wall with Mexico suggests that realpolitik is exerting a greater hold over the creation and direction of US foreign and security policy than campaign promises. </p>
<p>While there have been new levels of rhetoric in foreign policy, particularly where there is a significant and direct security element, what is more significant is the consistency. An examination of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/18/asia/north-korea-donald-trump-timeline/index.html">the administration’s response</a> to the North Korean missile tests reveals greater and harder rhetoric, with threats and demonstrations of power, and a greater reaching out to China. But is this really that different from the Obama era? </p>
<p>Obama, like Trump, recognised both the regional and wider security threats that a potentially nuclear – and ballistic missile – capable North Korea represents. The only <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-may-be-the-real-smart-cookie-on-north-korea-after-all/article/2622821">difference between them</a> appears to be their respective enthusiasm for the Roosevelt doctrine of “speak softly, and carry a big stick”. Obama was more willing to speak softly, but both acknowledge the need for the big stick. Indeed, the differences are arguably more of approach than substance.</p>
<p>But what of domestic policies and how these affect security policy? Again, there is more consistency than was first imagined. </p>
<p>Gun law (Obama’s greatest regret was failing to better control firearms) shows <a href="http://time.com/money/4565146/donald-trump-gun-sales/">little chance</a> of changing, and the closure of mosques is as unlikely now as it was 100 or more days ago, when Trump entered office. And despite changes in senior appointments within national security agencies and the White House, it is unlikely this will lead to significant change in internal American security policy.</p>
<p>So where does the release of Manning fit into all this? President Trump denounced Obama’s decision to offer Manning the clemency that will lead to her serving seven years of her 35-year sentence. But it was a decision <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/can-donald-trump-rescind-chelsea-mannings-clemency">he was unable to overturn</a>. </p>
<p>It is possible, probable even, that there will be negative, provocative even, 2am tweets from the Oval Office, but the release will go ahead. The debate about whether Manning should have received a full pardon (the liberal viewpoint) or is a traitor (the conservative viewpoint) <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/dont-let-politics-leak-away-chelsea-manning-wikileaks-trump-dnc/19361">will continue</a> but changes as a result of the WikiLeaks affair are as unlikely under this president as under his predecessors: the move to a fully open government and society as proposed by the adherents of WikiLeaks just has not happened. President Trump has been vocal <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/21/jackie-speier/did-trump-really-mention-wikileaks-over-160-times-/">in his criticism of WikiLeaks</a>. Internal US security policy will likely mimic the lack of change in external policy. To put it bluntly, wider national interests will be seen to be best served by a broad continuation of present security policies.</p>
<p>There have been changes in US security policy, but more in the rhetoric than the substance. Promising significant change while on the campaign trail is one thing, but faced with a “far tougher than I imagined” job, overriding national needs, and the realities of global politics, Trump is struggling to enact real and significant change. Be prepared for more bluster (it is this president’s style) but few changes of true significance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Shields does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>National interest trumps open approach to US security policy.Ian Shields, Associate Lecturer in International Relations, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/743372017-03-09T18:32:42Z2017-03-09T18:32:42ZCIA hacking Q&A: can your TV spy on you and is your phone listening in?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160198/original/image-20170309-21056-1jzu87c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/europe/wikileaks-cia-hacking.html">WikiLeaks has released</a> <a href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/">thousands of documents</a> that appear to show how the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is able to spy on smartphones, computers and other internet-connected devices. They apparently have the ability to break into any Android and iPhone smartphone, as well as devices running Windows, Mac OS or Linux operating systems. Though the leak doesn’t tell us how widely these techniques are used, it does highlight just how vulnerable the technology on which we increasingly rely is to security breaches.</p>
<h2>How can the CIA hack these devices?</h2>
<p>The leaked documents suggest the CIA has a catalogue of <a href="http://www.pctools.com/security-news/zero-day-vulnerability/">“zero-day” vulnerabilities</a>. A software vulnerability is typically a flaw in a program that a hacker can use to undermine the security of a system and break in to control it or steal its data. Usually, vulnerabilities are reported to vendors so they can produce a software patch that will fix the flaw and to eliminate or reduce the chances of a successful attack. Those flaws that the software manufacturer doesn’t know about are called zero-day vulnerabilities (referring to the number of days the manufacturer has known about the problem).</p>
<p>By exploiting these zero-day vulnerabilities, the CIA could theoretically undermine the controls of computer operating systems and smartphones. This would allow it to bypass, for example, the security of many messaging apps that are considered secure, such as WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. It doesn’t show that these apps have had their strong encryption methods broken – instead the messages can be read directly from the operating system before being encrypted.</p>
<h2>What can the CIA do with these techniques?</h2>
<p>The leaked documents also detail a highly technical catalogue of hacking tools, such as instructions for compromising Skype, Wi-Fi networks, PDF documents and commercial anti-virus programs. There are also instructions on how to steal passwords, such as those inputted into internet browsers. For example, a technique called “QuarkMatter” can insert stealthy spying software on an Apple computer by hiding it in the EFI system partition, the part of the hard drive where the startup files are kept.</p>
<p>The documents also report that the CIA might be able to listen to conversations heard by the microphones in smart TVs even when the TVs appear to be switched off. But that doesn’t mean the CIA can exploit anyone’s smart TV. The program, called “Weeping Angel”, was designed specifically for the Samsung F8000 TV. And it is entirely possible that the CIA created this technique (and others like it) just to target specific individuals. It also seems that the program can only be loaded onto a television via a software update from a USB device. So someone would have to enter your house and access your TV to be able to hack it.</p>
<p>But we should also note that other “Internet of Things” connected devices could be used for similar purposes, such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-echo-will-bring-genuinely-helpful-ai-into-our-homes-much-sooner-than-expected-65495">Amazon Echo</a> home assistant. The CIA has, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/03/08/what-we-know-about-car-hacking-the-cia-and-those-wikileaks-claims/?utm_term=.539046e94eec">it is claimed</a>, even explored ways of remotely controlling and hacking into cars in order to crash them, creating a “nearly undetectable assassination”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160200/original/image-20170309-21047-1bswd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160200/original/image-20170309-21047-1bswd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160200/original/image-20170309-21047-1bswd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160200/original/image-20170309-21047-1bswd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160200/original/image-20170309-21047-1bswd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160200/original/image-20170309-21047-1bswd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160200/original/image-20170309-21047-1bswd1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Watching what you’re doing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How serious is the issue?</h2>
<p>Many commenters have noted that some of the vulnerabilities that are shown in the catalogue are old and some of them have <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/apple-says-many-of-the-cias-alleged-iphone-hacks-have-already-been-patched">already been patched</a> up. For example, the Samsung TV hack is not possible anymore in recent devices with updated firmware. But that doesn’t mean that the CIA (or any other intelligence agency) hasn’t updated its arsenal to exploit newer vulnerabilities.</p>
<p>The document suggests the CIA is willing to exploit public technology for spying and put it at further risk of hacking. If manufacturers don’t know about vulnerabilities then they can’t fix them and so they are also available for malicious hackers or other governments to exploit as well.</p>
<p>The US government has established the <a href="https://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/vep/">Vulnerabilities Equities Process</a> (VEP) as a way of helping its agencies deciding whether or not to disclose or not a vulnerability. If the CIA is stockpiling a catalogue of vulnerabilities it discovers, as other agencies <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/06/nsa-zero-days-stockpile-security-vulnerability-defcon">have previously denied doing</a>, then it may be ignoring this protocol. There are exceptions, such as if the exploit has “a clear national security or law enforcement need”. But as we don’t know how the vulnerabilities have been exploited, it isn’t clear if they fall into this category.</p>
<p>It’s also not clear what other hacking activities the CIA may be undertaking. The leak includes 8,761 documents and files, many of which haven’t yet been analysed, and there are likely more documents to come. Some documents have been redacted by WikiLeaks editors to avoid disclosing the actual programming code for the attacks, to make it difficult to copy them. </p>
<p>Finally, it appears that the entire archive of disclosed CIA toolkit consists of several hundred million lines of code (by comparison, Windows 7 is composed of 25m lines of code). So it might take some time to fully understand the extent of their hacking capabilities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniele Sgandurra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The latest WikiLeaks revelation shows how far the CIA can take its cyber attacks.Daniele Sgandurra, Lecturer in Information Security, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/742262017-03-09T04:19:45Z2017-03-09T04:19:45ZThe WikiLeaks CIA release: When will we learn?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160100/original/image-20170309-21018-1gx6ex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The world is searching – will we protect ourselves?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/wikileaks-document-leaked-secret-confidential-digital-550243126">Graphic via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week’s WikiLeaks release of what is apparently a <a href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/">trove of Central Intelligence Agency information related to its computer hacking</a> should surprise no one: Despite its complaints of being targeted by cyberattackers from other countries, the U.S. does a fair amount of its own hacking. Multiple federal agencies are involved, including the CIA and the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/top-secret-snowden-document-reveals-what-the-nsa-knew-about-previous-russian-hacking/">National Security Agency</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/history-of-5-eyes-explainer">even friendly nations</a>. These latest disclosures also remind us of the cybersecurity truism that any electronic device connected to a network can be hacked. </p>
<p>As cybersecurity researchers conducting a preliminary review of the data released in what WikiLeaks calls “Vault 7,” we find the documents mostly confirm existing knowledge about how common hacking is and <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/03/wikileaks-publishes-what-it-says-is-trove-of-cia-hacking-tools/">how many potential targets</a> there are in the world. </p>
<p>This round of leaks, of documents dating from 2013 to 2016, also reinforces perhaps the most troubling piece of information we already knew: Individuals and the government itself must step up cyberdefense efforts to protect sensitive information.</p>
<h2>Almost everything is hackable</h2>
<p>For years, security experts and researchers have warned that if something is connected to the internet it is <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/227576/everything_is_hackable_and_cyber_criminals_cant_be_tracked.html">vulnerable to attack</a>. And spies around the world <a href="http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2013/cyber/timeline/EN/index.htm">routinely gather intelligence electronically</a> for diplomatic, economic and national security purposes.</p>
<p>As a result, we and <a href="https://law.vanderbilt.edu/news/snowden-revelations-not-surprising-to-those-following-expansion-of-government-surveillance-programs-according-to-christopher-slobogin/">others in the cybersecurity community</a> were not surprised by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files">2013 revelations from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden</a>. We knew that the spying programs he disclosed were possible if not likely. By contrast, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/snowden-a-picture-of-the-cybersecurity-state-65310">general public and many politicians were astounded</a> and worried by the Snowden documents, just as many citizens are surprised by this week’s WikiLeaks disclosure.</p>
<p>One element of the new WikiLeaks “Vault 7” release provides more insight into the scope of government spying. In a project called “<a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/weeping-angel-hack-samsung-smart-tv-cia-wikileaks/">Weeping Angel</a>,” CIA hackers and their U.K. counterparts worked to turn <a href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_12353643.html">Samsung F8000 smart television sets into remote surveillance tools</a>. Hacked TV’s could record what their owners said nearby, even when they appeared to be turned off.</p>
<p>The fact that the CIA specifically targeted smart televisions should serve as yet another a wake-up call to the general public and technology manufacturers about <a href="http://www.snopes.com/2016/02/12/samsung-smart-tvs-spying/">cybersecurity issues inherent in modern devices</a>. Specifically, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/security-risks-in-the-age-of-smart-homes-58756">smart home</a>” and <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-the-year-2020-hows-your-cybersecurity-57868">Internet of Things devices</a> represent a massive vulnerability. They are open to attack not only by government organizations seeking intelligence on national security information, but terrorists, criminals or other adversaries.</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily a good idea to have always-on and network-enabled microphones or cameras in every room of the house. Despite many of these devices being sold with <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/01/theres-no-good-way-to-patch-the-internet-of-things-and-thats-a-huge-problem/">insecure default settings</a>, the market is <a href="https://www.verizon.com/about/sites/default/files/state-of-the-internet-of-things-market-report-2016.pdf">growing very rapidly</a>. More and more people are buying <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/3128791/data-privacy/how-google-homes-always-on-will-affect-privacy.html">Google Home</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/21/amazon-echo-alexa-home-robot-privacy-cloud">Amazon Echo</a> devices, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-monitors-connect-internet-vulnerable-hackers-cybersecurity/">Wi-Fi enabled baby monitors</a> and even <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2498510,00.asp">internet-connected home-security equipment</a>.</p>
<p>These have already caused problems for families whose <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/7/14200210/amazon-alexa-tech-news-anchor-order-dollhouse">devices overheard a TV newscaster and ordered dollhouses</a> or whose <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/02/creepy-iot-teddy-bear-leaks-2-million-parents-and-kids-voice-messages/">kids were tracked by a teddy bear</a>. And large parts of the internet were disrupted when many “smart” devices were <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/11/akamai-on-the-record-krebsonsecurity-attack/">hijacked and used to attack other networked systems</a>.</p>
<h2>Phones were a key target</h2>
<p>The CIA also explored ways to take control of <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/03/07/the-cia-didnt-break-signal-or-whatsapp-despite-what-youve-heard/">smartphone operating systems</a>, allowing the agency to monitor everything a phone’s user did, said or typed on the device. Doing so would provide a way around <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/06/22/battle-of-the-secure-messaging-apps-how-signal-beats-whatsapp/">post-Snowden encrypted communications apps</a> like WhatsApp and Signal. However, some of the CIA’s methods of attack have <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/08/apple-ios-wikileaks-cia-exploits/">already been blocked</a> by technology vendors’ security updates.</p>
<p>The CIA’s apparent ability to hack smartphones casts doubt on the need for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/us/politics/fbi-director-repeats-call-that-ability-to-read-encrypted-messages-is-crucial.html">officials’ repeated calls</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-fbi-versus-apple-government-strengthened-techs-hand-on-privacy-55353">weaken mobile phone encryption features</a>. It also weakens the <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140413/07094726892/obama-tells-nsa-to-reveal-not-exploit-flaws-except-all-times-it-wants-to-do-opposite.shtml">government’s claim</a> that it must strengthen surveillance by <a href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13205587.html">not telling tech companies when it learns of security weaknesses</a> in everyday products. Just like the door to your house, technological vulnerabilities work equally well in providing access to both “good guys” and “bad guys.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, as a society, we must continue to debate the trade-offs between the conveniences of modern technologies and security/privacy. There are definite benefits and conveniences from pervasive and wearable computing, smart cars and televisions, internet-enabled refrigerators and thermostats, and the like. But there are very real security and privacy concerns associated with installing and using them in our personal environments and private spaces. Additional problems can come from how our governments address these issues while respecting popular opinion and acknowledging the capabilities of modern technology.</p>
<p>As citizens, we must decide what level of risk we – as a nation, a society and as individuals – are willing to face when using internet-connected products.</p>
<h2>We’re frequent attackers – but bad defenders</h2>
<p>The WikiLeaks release also reconfirms a reality the U.S. might prefer to keep quiet: While the government objects to others’ offensive cyberattacks against the United States, we launch them too. This isn’t news, but it hurts America’s reputation as a fair and aboveboard player on the international stage. It also also reduces American officials’ credibility when they object to other countries’ electronic activities. </p>
<p>Leaks like this reveal America’s methods to the world, providing plenty of direction for adversaries who want to replicate what government agents do – or even potentially launch attacks that appear to come from American agencies to conceal their own involvement or deflect attribution.</p>
<p>But perhaps the most disturbing message the WikiLeaks disclosure represents is in the leak itself: It’s another high-profile, high-volume breach of information from a major U.S. government agency – and at least the third significant one from the secretive intelligence community. </p>
<p>Perhaps the largest U.S. government data loss incident was the 2014 <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/10/inside-cyberattack-shocked-us-government/">Office of Personnel Management breach</a> that affected <a href="https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/">more than 20 million current and former federal workers</a> and their families (including this article’s authors). But the U.S. has never truly secured its digital data against cyberattackers. In the 1990s there was <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/russia-cyber-war-fred-kaplan-book-213746">Moonlight Maze</a>; in the 2000s there was <a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/titan_rain_1.html">Titan Rain</a>. And that’s just for starters.</p>
<p>Our government needs to focus more on the mundane tasks of cyberdefense. Keeping others out of key systems is crucial to American national security, and to the proper function of our government, military and civilian systems.</p>
<p>Achieving this is no easy task. In the wake of this latest WikiLeaks release, it’s certain that the CIA and other agencies will further step up their <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-governments-and-companies-can-prevent-the-next-insider-attack-72235">insider-threat protections</a> and other defenses. But part of the problem is the amount of data the country is trying to keep secret in the first place.</p>
<p>We recommend the federal government review its classification policies to determine, frankly, if too much information is needlessly declared secret. Reportedly, as many as <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Reports%20and%20Pubs/2015-Annual_Report_on_Security_Clearance_Determinations.pdf">4.2 million people</a> – federal employees and contractors – have security clearances. If so many people need or are given access to handle classified material, is there just too much of it to begin with? In any case, the information our government declares secret is available to a very large group of people.</p>
<p>If the U.S. is going to be successful at securing its crucial government information, it must do a better job managing the volume of information generated and controlling access to it, both authorized and otherwise. Granted, neither is an easy task. However, absent fundamental changes that fix the proverbial <a href="https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/i-could-tell-you-id-have-kill-you-cult-classification-intelligence">cult of classification</a>, there likely will be many more WikiLeaks-type disclosures in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74226/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Forno has received research funding related to cybersecurity from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Defense (DOD) during his academic career.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anupam Joshi receives funding from a variety of governmental (NSF, DoD, NIST etc.) as well as industrial (IBM, GE, Northrop Grumman etc.) sources to support his research and educational activities as a faculty member.</span></em></p>The latest release from WikiLeaks, of information about CIA hacking efforts, is yet another reminder of how Americans and our government must better protect our secret information.Richard Forno, Senior Lecturer, Cybersecurity & Internet Researcher, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyAnupam Joshi, Oros Family Professor and Chair, Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.