The Government's Case Against Julian Assange Is Falling Apart

The Government's Case Against Julian Assange Is Falling Apart
Jason Linkins - HUFFPOST REPORTING
First Posted: 02/ 9/11 12:49 PM Updated: 02/ 9/11 02:19 PM

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With popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt spinning along, each with a certain amount of world-reshaping potential, there's been a lot of new attention focused on the role that WikiLeaks has played in these events. Ian Black, the Middle East editor of The Guardian, one of the key newspapers disseminating diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks' trove, told NPR last night that he didn't feel the leaked cables were the primary driver of these uprisings. Nevertheless, WikiLeaks seems to have helped to remove the people now demonstrating on the streets from their isolation by providing a "confirmation of what people in these countries know and feel intuitively," about the conditions under which they have lived.

If you spend any time at all reading about Bradley Manning, the young U.S. Army private who stands accused of providing WikiLeaks with massive amounts of intelligence pulled from the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network used by the Pentagon and the State Department, the picture that emerges is one of a young man who also felt isolated, one who saw WikiLeaks as a means of ameliorating that feeling. Manning remains in custody -- a particularly brutal form of solitary confinement, actually -- at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va.

Manning still faces charges of his own, but he's played a larger role in the tensions between U.S. government officials and WikiLeaks, in that he is seen as the key figure in building a larger criminal case against WikiLeaks founder and figurehead Julian Assange. That Manning willingly provided WikiLeaks with classified information does not appear to be in dispute. The issue, rather, is one of "did Manning jump or was he pushed?"

U.S. officials have been gamely attempting to make the case that Assange induced Manning to provide WikiLeaks with government documents. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal's Julian Barnes and Evan Perez, that case has cratered:

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More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/julian-assange-case-falling-apart_n_820790.html

WSJ Piece: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703313304576132543747598766.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

:kick:

And if true, damn good news.

Has there been a shift in The Force????

Not a big fan of the decision, but as long as it puts out valuable stuff... well, we'll see.

Plus... a lesson I learned from the owner of one of the bars I tended in the '90s.

After I told him I was going to check out the scene at a couple of his competitor's bars, he says to me, "Your gonna go spend money at THAT asshole's bar?"

And I smiled and looked back at him and said, "If I can't spend money at bars owned by assholes, I'm gonna have to quit drinking in this town!"

He gave me a huge smile and a one-finger salute, and we both laughed as I went on my way.

:evilgrin:

:hi:

there are some here, who want to lynch him, nonetheless.

:shrug:

Rec