Pdf Download Assange Indictment Uncle Sam Charges Julian Assange with Conspiracy to Commit Computer Intrusion
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
pdf download assange indictment Uncle Sam charges Julian Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. As Brit judge finds him guilty of breaching his bail conditions. One-time Aussie cupboard-dweller Julian Assange has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion by the US government. Shortly after his arrest in London today – which followed the Ecuadorian embassy handing him over to British police – a US indictment dated March 2018 was unsealed. It charges Assange for his part in a computer-hacking conspiracy from 2010, when hundreds of thousands of secret US cables, war reports and briefs were released after being leaked by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. The US Department of Justice alleged that Assange had conspired with Manning – who had top secret security clearance – to break into Pentagon computers and snag the document cache. The indictment (PDF) was made in the Eastern District of Virginia. It alleges that Manning and Assange had multiple conversations about getting the files, with Assange helping her hack a password stored on Department of Defense computers, in a "password-cracking agreement", and discussed measures to conceal Manning as the source. The indictment said that Manning downloaded four nearly complete databases, and the vast majority of the documents contained were then released on Assange's WikiLeaks website. These contained, according to the indictment, about 90,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activity reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs and 250,000 US Department of State cables. The government said Manning told Assange she was "throwing everything" at getting a set of documents, but that was "all I really have got left". To which Assange allegedly replied: "Curious eyes never run dry in my experience." Manning was then said to have used a Department of Defense computer to download the State department cables. According to the indictment, Assange faces a maximum of five years in prison if convicted of the charge. Assange was arrested in London this morning for a breach of his UK bail conditions, and then later further arrested on behalf of the US after the Met received an extradition request. He is currently in court in Westminster, central London, where District Judge Michael Snow has reportedly found him guilty of failing to surrender on 29 June 2012, and has sent him to the Crown Court for sentencing. District Judge Michael Snow finds Julian Assange guilty of failing to surrender — Daniel Sandford (@BBCDanielS) April 11, 2019. WikiLeaks Founder Charged in Superseding Indictment. A federal grand jury returned a second superseding indictment today charging Julian P. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, with offenses that relate to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States. The new indictment does not add additional counts to the prior 18-count superseding indictment returned against Assange in May 2019. It does, however, broaden the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with which Assange was previously charged. According to the charging document, Assange and others at WikiLeaks recruited and agreed with hackers to commit computer intrusions to benefit WikiLeaks. Since the early days of WikiLeaks, Assange has spoken at hacking conferences to tout his own history as a “famous teenage hacker in Australia” and to encourage others to hack to obtain information for WikiLeaks. In 2009, for instance, Assange told the Hacking At Random conference that WikiLeaks had obtained nonpublic documents from the Congressional Research Service by exploiting “a small vulnerability” inside the document distribution system of the United States Congress, and then asserted that “[t]his is what any one of you would find if you were actually looking.” In 2010, Assange gained unauthorized access to a government computer system of a NATO country. In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack. With respect to one target, Assange asked the LulzSec leader to look for (and provide to WikiLeaks) mail and documents, databases and pdfs. In another communication, Assange told the LulzSec leader that the most impactful release of hacked materials would be from the CIA, NSA, or the New York Times . WikiLeaks obtained and published emails from a data breach committed against an American intelligence consulting company by an “Anonymous” and LulzSec-affiliated hacker. According to that hacker, Assange indirectly asked him to spam that victim company again. In addition, the broadened hacking conspiracy continues to allege that Assange conspired with Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer. An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Assange is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count except for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, for which he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and James A. Dawson, Special Agent in Charge, Criminal Division, FBI Washington Field Office, made the announcement. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Doherty-McCormick, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kellen S. Dwyer, Thomas W. Traxler, Alexander P. Berrang, and Gordon D. Kromberg, and Trial Attorneys Adam L. Small and Nicholas O. Hunter of the Justice Department’s National Security Division are prosecuting the case. Assange is currently detained in the United Kingdom on an extradition request from the United States. Assange’s extradition to the United States is being handled by the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and UK authorities, including the Home Office and the Crown Prosecution Service for England and Wales. Wikileaks: DOJ Witness In Assange Indictment ‘Sociopath, Conman, Child Abuser’ Yesterday, the US Department of Justice published a summary (.pdf) of a federal grand jury’s second superseding indictment against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently in custody, on charges of “offenses that relate to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.” In response, Wikileaks tweeted: “The ‘Star Witness’ of the new superseding indictment is a diagnosed sociopath/ convicted conman/ child abuser/ FBI informant who was found guilty in Iceland of impersonating #Assange”, with a link to the indictment summary. The person Wikileaks is referring to is Sigurður Ingi Þórðarson, better known in the media as Siggi hakkari, or Siggi the Hacker. While the full text of the indictment does not mention Sigurður by name, it does state in part: “In early 2010, around the same time that ASSANGE was working with [Chelsea] Manning to obtain classified information, ASSANGE met a 17-year-old in NATO Country-1 (“Teenager”), who provided ASSANGE with data stolen from a bank.” Iceland is indeed a NATO country, and Sigurður was 17 at the time this alleged incident took place. Further details in the indictment make it clear that the “Teenager” in question can be no one other than Sigurður. Wikileaks’ characterisation of Sigurður in their tweet is a matter of public record. In 2014, Sigurður was charged embezzlement, fraud, and theft adding up to about 30 million ISK. He ended up being ordered to pay WikiLeaks 7 million ISK as well as being sentenced to prison for 2 years for embezzlement and financial fraud. In 2015, he was sentenced to three years in prison for sexually assaulting nine boys between the ages of 15 and 20 on multiple occasions (note that the linked article also details his other financial crimes). A psychologist who examined him found that, while he was competent to stand trial, that he was psychopathic. All of this, incidentally, happened after Sigurður began working as an informant against Wikileaks for the FBI, in 2011. Assange is currently in custody in the UK, awaiting extradition to the United States. In a recent interview with the Grapevine, Wikileaks editor-in- chief Kristinn Hrafnsson vowed that they would fight the extradition, stating in part that Assange’s arrest violates both international law and “moral decency”. Note: Due to the effect the Coronavirus is having on tourism in Iceland, it’s become increasingly difficult for the Grapevine to survive. If you enjoy our content and want to help the Grapevine’s journalists do things like eat and pay rent, please consider joining our High Five Club. You can also support us by checking out our shop, loaded with books, apparel and other cool merch, that you can buy and have delivered right to your door. WikiLeaks Founder Charged in Computer Hacking Conspiracy. ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Julian P. Assange, 47, the founder of WikiLeaks, was arrested today in the United Kingdom pursuant to the U.S./UK Extradition Treaty, in connection with a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer. According to court documents unsealed today, the charge relates to Assange’s alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States. The indictment alleges that in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on U.S.