This from former federal prosecutor and current defense attorney Renato Mariotti.
Today Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London today on a charge that he conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to commit computer intrusion by hacking the password of a Pentagon server. Link to indictment:
This indictment does not implicate press freedom in any way. It is a crime for any person, whether you sell hotdogs or write for newspapers, to agree to help someone hack into a protected computer server in the United States. I prosecuted non-journalists for that crime myself.
There has been a lot of speculation that the U.S. would indict Assange merely for distributing classified material. You have heard a lot of concern about that, and it is justified. Many legitimate press publications in the U.S. distribute classified material at times.
But this indictment does not implicate that at all. No reporter should try to help sources hack into servers.
So what does this mean for Assange? He'll try to fight extradition and likely fail. That's important, because once he's in the U.S., DOJ has more leverage over him.
The big question on my mind is whether DOJ will add more charges once they get him in the U.S., and what type of charges they will be. has written an excellent thread that details how the US-UK extradition treaty could potentially limit the charges DOJ could add.
He's right, but the UK government could decide to let the U.S. do whatever it wants, and they [have] an incentive to keep the U.S. government happy. Also, the facts underlying the existing charge could be construed broadly to permit a variety of charges even over their objection.
If Assange faces only trial on the narrow crime in the existing indictment, the case is not a slam dunk for the DOJ. They have to prove a criminal conspiracy between Manning and Assange, and Manning does not appear to be cooperative.
But there is no question a jury (or a judge, if Assange elects a bench trial, which he should consider) would take seriously allegations that Assange helped an Army analyst hack into Pentagon files. He is in a difficult position even without any additional charges added.
Assange's legal team has some difficult choices coming up. One obvious option for him is to try to cooperate with the DOJ in exchange for a reduced sentence. Presumably he knows a lot of things that would assist the DOJ. Cooperating could be his best alternative.
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