Much of the discussion over the recent arrest and indictment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has revolved around whether or not his activities qualified as journalism.
In truth, much of the government's affidavit against Assange describes perfectly legal and legitimate technology-assisted journalism.
In December of 2017, the FBI filed an affidavit to support a criminal complaint against Assange based on an alleged conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
We don't know if they were successful, by the way-not that it matters in the eyes of the CFAA. But it's pretty incredible that for all of Assange's supposed black hattery, the only thing the government could nab him on is a passing conversation on rainbow tables.
The very fact that password guessing was brought up in the course of hundreds of chats discussing the publication of newsworthy documents is enough under the CFAA. As the affidavit crows, "The recovered chats described above reflect an agreement between Manning and Assange to crack the hash." Gotcha.
If that's all that Assange is accused of, why the 40 pages of exhaustive detail in the affidavit? This brings us to one of the more troubling and less discussed elements of the Assange indictment: It demonizes standard journalistic tools like encryption technologies by association.
The Bureau's press release condemns Assange for "Actively encouraging Manning to provide more information." Well, what investigative journalist hasn't? You want to get the full story right.
https://reason.com/2019/04/23/the-government-is-treating-assange-like-a-hacker-to-punish-his-journalism/
In truth, much of the government's affidavit against Assange describes perfectly legal and legitimate technology-assisted journalism.
In December of 2017, the FBI filed an affidavit to support a criminal complaint against Assange based on an alleged conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
We don't know if they were successful, by the way-not that it matters in the eyes of the CFAA. But it's pretty incredible that for all of Assange's supposed black hattery, the only thing the government could nab him on is a passing conversation on rainbow tables.
The very fact that password guessing was brought up in the course of hundreds of chats discussing the publication of newsworthy documents is enough under the CFAA. As the affidavit crows, "The recovered chats described above reflect an agreement between Manning and Assange to crack the hash." Gotcha.
If that's all that Assange is accused of, why the 40 pages of exhaustive detail in the affidavit? This brings us to one of the more troubling and less discussed elements of the Assange indictment: It demonizes standard journalistic tools like encryption technologies by association.
The Bureau's press release condemns Assange for "Actively encouraging Manning to provide more information." Well, what investigative journalist hasn't? You want to get the full story right.
https://reason.com/2019/04/23/the-government-is-treating-assange-like-a-hacker-to-punish-his-journalism/
No comments:
Post a Comment