Two of us, Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, testified for Assange at his extradition hearing last year. In Ellsberg’s words then, the WikiLeaks publications that Assange is being charged for are “amongst the most important truthful revelations of hidden criminal state behavior that have been made public in U.S. history.” The American public “needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.”
That the US law forbids such acts is a no brainer. But it’s still “Telling the truth”. imho this qualifies him for the nobel peace price rather than incarceration.
No it isn’t telling the truth. He isn’t being pursued for sharing the info but rather in directly committing crimes to get the info. The NYT could publish the Pentagon Papers because they did not steal them.
Assange is accused of being involved in the theft. He’s also now a Russian stooge so probably deserves nothing other than what the US prison system will give him.
Debatable. But even if he did, that means he helped uncover the human rights abuses of the US and it’s allies and their unbelievable collateral damage(~60% of deaths in Irak where civilians). Again maybe legally wrong, but ethically it was the right thing to do.
I don’t know where you get that info from, but if I had messed with the largest military industrial complex on the planet, I’d be looking for friends in other contries aswell. Snowden understadably did the same.
I wouldn’t even want my worst enemy to experience US prisons. They are inhumane and they torture prisoners (extended solitary confinement) on a daily basis as a form of coercion. How could you wish this on anyone?
It isn’t debatable as that is what he is charged with. The fact that his crimes might have produced benefits for someone is immaterial to the fact he broke the law.
Given that he is without question in the employ if the Kremlin at this point, and possibly always was, he’s not someone I would hold up as being heroic or ethical.
His crimes are crimes. He isn’t protected by 1A if he broke the law to get the info he shared.