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In Closing Argument For Assanges Extradition, Prosecutors Cast WikiLeaks As
Criminal Enterprise
Crown Prosecution Authority lawyers representing the US government contend
WikiLeaks was in the business of encouraging individuals to hack into
computers.
Kevin Gosztola
Dec 1
A United States counterintelligence strategy document signed by President
Donald Trump warned the number of actors targeting the United States is
growing.
Lumped in with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and terrorist groups
were ideologically motivated entities, such as hacktivists, leaktivists,
and public disclosure organizations that U.S. intelligence agents view as
significant threats. [PDF]
In the closing argument for the extradition case against WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange, Crown Prosecution Authority lawyers cast WikiLeaks as an
ideologically motivated entity that was in the business of encouraging
individuals to hack into computers.
Prosecutors further allege Assange encouraged the mass and indiscriminate
theft of a vast number of documents, and they sidestep issues of freedom of
expression by maintaining WikiLeaks cannot be compared to the New York
Times.
WikiLeaks very purpose and design was to recruit persons to break the
lawby circumventing classification restrictions and computer and access
restrictions, the submission states. They solicited classified information
through a Most Wanted Leaks list and invited insiders to break the law or
outsiders to hack into government agencies.
Referring to a third indictment that was announced in June and served on the
defense weeks before the extradition trial, prosecutors claim Assange told
an audience of hackers there was a small vulnerability within the Congress
document distribution system. He publicized materials he wanted obtained
by hacking and exhorted the public to join the CIA in order to steal
information.
It mentions a 17-year-old who Assange allegedly asked to commit computer
intrusions and steal audio recordings of conversations between high ranking
officials of a NATO country. He also allegedly instructed this minor to
break into someones computer and delete chat logs.
This minor referred to as the Teenager is Sigurdur Siggi Thordarson was,
according to the defense, convicted in Iceland of fraud, theft, and
impersonation of Julian Assange. He sold merchandise through a WikiLeaks
store without authorization and embezzled $50,000.
The Iceland Monitor reported in 2015 that Thordarson was sentenced to three
years in prison for sexual violations against nine boys. He abused one
boy over forty times over the period of two years when the boy was aged
15-17. Each boy was promised payment in exchange for oral and anal sex,
and he also offered to pay for things such as internet connections,
telephone bills and television subscription and even to open up overseas
bank accounts.
Thordarson was an FBI informant, who begged agents for money. They
eventually paid him $5,000 for the work he missed while meeting with
agents in Alexandria, Virginia, where the grand jury investigation into
WikiLeaks was empaneled.
The defense recalled, The Icelandic Interior Minister of the time is
reported to have ordered a number of FBI prosecutors, who had arrived in
Iceland to investigate the Teenagers claims, to leave Iceland. The
Interior Minister made statements at the time and has made statements since
that he believed the investigation was in order to frame Assange.'
At the Hacking at Random conference in the Netherlands in 2009, Assange
allegedly said WikiLeaks identified a small vulnerability inside the
document distribution system of the United States Congress that could be
used to download reports of the Congressional Research Service that were
not available to the public.
Until 2016, unclassified CRS reports were needlessly kept secret by
Congress. WikiLeaks posted nearly 7,000 of the reports in 2009 to subvert a
gray market around the documents, where opportunists smuggled out reports
and offered them to lobbyists, law firms, multinational corporations, and
foreign governments.
The inspector general of the Library of Congress investigated the
publication of CRS reports but was apparently unable to connect the leakor
exploitation of a security vulnerabilityto WikiLeaks.
Following NSA whistleblower Edward Snowdens revelations on U.S. mass
surveillance programs, Assange addressed the Chaos Computer Club conference
in Germany in December 2013. He encouraged young systems administrators to
join the CIA.
Go in there, Assange said. Go into the ballpark and get the ball and
bring it outwith the understanding, with the paranoia, that all those
organizations will be infiltrated by this generation, by an ideology that is
spread across the Internet. And every young person is educated on the
Internet.
To the Justice Department, Assanges comment exhorted the next generation
of people to become CIA employees to steal classified information and hack
into government computer systems. However, Assange did not specifically ask
anyone to engage in any conspiracy. He appealed to young people to address a
crisis of corruption in government by forcing transparency at a time when
governments universally use secrecy regimes to conceal crimes, unlawful
programs, and other abusive acts.
The Most Wanted Leaks list is a central part of the governments
conspiracy theory against Assange. But Pfc. Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army
whistleblower who was the source of materials at issue in this case, never
provided any of the bulk databases that were included in the list.
As David Coombs, who was Mannings defense attorney, stated during her
court-martial, military prosecutors were only able to remotely tie her to
four of the things on the list.
On June 8, 2013, at her trial, her defense heavily disputed whether Manning
had ever seen a draft of the Most Wanted Leaks list. Manning did not
mention the list at all in her statement to the court when she pled guilty
to some offenses.
Rainey Reitman and Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
highlighted this aspect of the case. Unlike much of Wikileaks.org, the
Most Wanted Leaks was actually a publicly-editable wiki.
Rather than viewing this document as a wishlist generated by Wikileaks
staff or a reflection of Assanges personal priorities, we must understand
that this was a publicly-generated list developed by contributors who felt
each wanted document offered information that would be valuable to the
public, Reitman and Opsahl contended.
Or put another way: Coombs described the list as WikiLeaks saying, look,
tell us, humanitarians, activists, NGOs, fellow reporters, what do you want
to know in your country? What in your country is being hidden from the
public that you believe the public should know? Give us a list.
We are going to compile that list, and we are going to work to obtain that
list. What does this sound like? Any journalistic organization that has like
a hotline or anything else says, call us. You got a story. Call us. Well
investigate.
The U.S. government is dependent on the Most Wanted Leaks list to create
the impression that Manning was working for WikiLeaks. If Manning was not
recruited, it becomes harder to argue that Assange aided, abetted, or
conspired to steal classified documents.
Prosecutors tried to address this dilemma by subpoenaing Manning to testify
before a grand jury and jailing her for a year. Manning held to her
principles and resisted prosecutors, believing they intended to set a
perjury trap that would force her into additional legal jeopardy.
The Crown Prosecution Authority deals with this in their closing argument by
relying on Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg and maintaining the U.S.
prosecution is not bound to accept the account given by Ms. Manning in her
own defense or mitigation.
After Ms Mannings guilty pleas, a providence inquiry was initiated to
ensure that the plea was voluntary and grounded in fact. This was a limited
enquiry into the facts which Ms Manning had chosen to admit, and she was not
subjected to exhaustive questioning about the offences or surrounding
circumstances [Kromberg 1, CB2 §§142-3, Kromberg 4, CB8 §42]. Thereafter Ms.
Manning refused to testify before a grand jury and has been found to be in
contempt [§§145-156]. The second affidavit of Gordon Kromberg [CB3 §§12 and
13] maintains the factual position of the prosecution. Ms. Manning is
alleged to have responded to requests made in the Most Wanted list.
It is unclear what allegations Kromberg or the Justice Department are
referring to in their case. None, in particular, were relied upon by
military prosecutors.
Unfortunately, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is likely to find this is a
dispute between prosecutors and defense attorneys that could be settled at
trial.
The defense submitted their closing argument on November 6, and they had an
opportunity to submit a rebuttal to the prosecution after November 20.
Baraitser will rule on the extradition request on January 4.
Assange was charged in April 2019 with 17 counts of violating the Espionage
Act and one count of conspiracy to commit a computer intrusion that contains
elements of an Espionage Act offense. He is detained at the Belmarsh
high-security prison in London, where he recently endured a COVID-19
outbreak.
Charges against Assange generally criminalize the act of receiving
classified information, as well as the publication of state secrets from the
U.S. government. It targets common practices in newsgathering, which is why
the case is widely opposed by press freedom organizations throughout the
world.
