[HN Gopher] Jury finds former CIA programmer guilty of leaking C...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Jury finds former CIA programmer guilty of leaking CIA hacking
       materials
        
       Author : Trouble_007
       Score  : 205 points
       Date   : 2022-07-15 08:34 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thedissenter.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thedissenter.org)
        
       | bogomipz wrote:
       | This article seems to use quotes and then provide no context for
       | them which makes for confusing reading:
       | 
       | >Assistant US Attorney Michael D. Lockard asserted that on April
       | 20, 2016, Schulte "stole the entirety of the CIA's highly
       | sensitive cyber intelligence capabilities." This occurred just
       | days after the CIA "locked the defendant out of the secure
       | restricted vault-like location on the network."
       | 
       | So is the prosecution asserting that he hacked into the network
       | after having his access revoked? In the next article the article
       | states:
       | 
       | >"Shortly after stealing this extraordinarily sensitive
       | intelligence information, the defendant transmitted those backups
       | to WikiLeaks, knowing full well that WikiLeaks would put it up on
       | the internet," Lockard argued.
       | 
       | Is the assertion here that the dump obtained via a local backup
       | this the defendant made? This is really kind of a poorly written
       | article.
        
       | joshgroban wrote:
        
       | peterkelly wrote:
       | ... but finds CIA innocent of hacking
        
         | hereforphone wrote:
         | Because it's their job?
        
           | leothecool wrote:
           | That doesn't matter. Drug dealers, hitmen, prostitutes, etc.
           | go to jail all the time even though its their job.
        
             | upupandup wrote:
             | All those ppl you listed serve themselves, not the state.
             | can't believe i have to spell this out on HN.
        
               | kennend3 wrote:
               | Remember when the CIA was trafficking cocaine?
               | 
               | So.. same thing?
               | 
               | Drug dealers do it for themselves, and the CIA - who were
               | they dealing drugs for again? The state? They were giving
               | the proceeds of crime back to the US government?
        
               | Schroedingersat wrote:
               | So same as the CIA then.
        
             | hereforphone wrote:
             | Just wait until you hit your 30s or so, you'll understand.
        
               | notch656a wrote:
               | I'm in my 30s, so explain to me why supporting drug
               | traffickers is better when the CIA does it.
        
               | hereforphone wrote:
               | Ah, I see. Put on that Anonymous mask, vote for Sanders,
               | and change the world then.
        
         | smiddereens wrote:
         | When are the cops gonna be charged with kidnapping drunk
         | drivers?
        
       | unnouinceput wrote:
       | Quote: "Schulte is now confined at the Metropolitan Detention
       | Center in Brooklyn. He has several child pornography charges
       | pending against him that stem from the FBI raid on his Manhattan
       | apartment on March 15, 2017."
       | 
       | Now that's just textbook setting up a patsy. If I had any doubt
       | that the guy is innocent this one cleared that for me. I mean, at
       | this moment, this is plain obvious it's just a CIA setup getting
       | rid of a "no" man. They need them spineless, not actual thinkers.
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | > _If I had any doubt that the guy is innocent this one cleared
         | that for me_
         | 
         | The Bayesian needle suddenly swings with force.
        
       | jonnycomputer wrote:
       | https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/07/14/how-josh-schulte-got-j...
       | 
       | There is a lot here, and I think people should avoid leaping to
       | conclusions.
        
         | muglug wrote:
         | That builds up to a conclusion that this guy is the sort of
         | super-hacker you see in the movies. I don't believe he was
         | stupid/clever enough to infect the trial judge's computer with
         | a virus.
        
       | Cenk wrote:
       | Here's a good article about him:
       | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...
        
         | adrr wrote:
         | Interesting this guy called for Chelsea manning to be executed
         | on Twitter. Wonder if he will keep up that consistency during
         | sentencing.
        
           | boomboomsubban wrote:
           | He still claims innocence, so I doubt he thinks he deserves
           | the same punishment.
        
             | upupandup wrote:
             | While he may not be executed, its a lot more serious than
             | Mannings leak. It is far more damaging from the hacking
             | tools he released. He's also going to become an example so
             | they will make he sentencing more harsh.
             | 
             | My estimate is 40 years minimum. No parole.
        
               | boomboomsubban wrote:
               | I think you're forgetting that Manning got a 35 year
               | sentence, 40 isn't much more severe.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | throwaway4good wrote:
         | I find interesting that 'they' feel the need to do a character
         | assination on the man (where they being the people who are the
         | source for this and similar articles, I guess his former
         | employer).
         | 
         | The original article says:
         | 
         | "But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to
         | specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking
         | materials on WikiLeaks."
         | 
         | Maybe the issue here is that the case isn't that strong after
         | all.
        
           | upupandup wrote:
        
             | the_only_law wrote:
        
             | asveikau wrote:
             | I don't know anything about this case, but it seems from
             | reading comments like evidence is pretty thin.
             | 
             | You can't just say "he's a traitor" and it makes him
             | guilty. Even if he is, he's also a human being. Labeling
             | people as "traitor" and dismissing their humanity is pretty
             | weak.
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | Character assassination? He assassinated his own character.
           | Character suicide.
           | 
           | He ran a child porn server:
           | 
           | > At one point, he volunteered to grant his new friends
           | access to the child-porn archive on his server.
           | 
           | Sexually assaulted a passed-out roommate:
           | 
           | > When F.B.I. investigators searched Schulte's phone, they
           | found something especially alarming: a photograph that looked
           | as though it had been taken inside the house in Sterling,
           | Virginia, where he had lived while working for the C.I.A. The
           | photograph was of a woman who looked like she was passed out
           | on the bathroom floor. Her underwear appeared to have been
           | removed and the hand of an unseen person was touching her
           | genitals. State investigators in Loudoun County subsequently
           | identified the woman and interviewed her. She has not been
           | publicly named, but she told them that she had been Schulte's
           | roommate and had passed out one night, with no memory of what
           | had happened. The encounter in the photograph was not
           | consensual, she assured them.
        
             | skhr0680 wrote:
             | Is there an enemy of the CIA who _isn't_ a pedo or rapist?
        
               | googlryas wrote:
               | Sure. But pedophilia is probably comorbid with
               | psychological problems which lead people to believe they
               | are in some kind of battle with the CIA, so one might
               | expect it to appear a bit more commonly. No one's ever
               | accused Jeffrey Sterling of being a pedo or rapist.
        
               | ClumsyPilot wrote:
               | In UK we sent over 100 people to jail because software
               | was buggy, said they stole money, a private company knew
               | about the problem but lied under oath and nobody checked.
               | 
               | the chance that anyone would ever discover that
               | someafiles were planted by an arm of the state seems to
               | be zero.
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scand
               | al
        
           | woodruffw wrote:
           | You've avoided saying it directly, but the oblique claim in
           | your post is that (1) the CIA is the New Yorker's source for
           | the claims in the article, and (2) the New Yorker _acceeded_
           | to an intentional character assassination.
           | 
           | These are extraordinary claims, ones that you haven't
           | presented correspondingly extraordinary evidence for.
        
           | sigmoid10 wrote:
           | >Maybe the issue here is that the case isn't that strong
           | after all.
           | 
           | It doesn't need to be. It just needs to be _someone._ Imagine
           | you 're the head of a department and everyone up to the
           | president is breathing down your neck about how this data
           | made it out of your supposedly air-gapped system. Do you
           | simply blame it on the Russians or Chinese, essentially
           | admitting that a foreign intelligence service was able to
           | walk past your security with all that confidential data? Or
           | do you pick the weakest link among your own? Someone who will
           | soothe superiors, can't really stand up for himself and will
           | absorb all the blame?
        
             | leoh wrote:
             | Tell them the best thing we can do is prevent it from
             | happening again by auditing systems and adding safeguards.
        
           | paganel wrote:
           | > I find interesting that 'they' feel the need to do a
           | character assination on the man
           | 
           | That's par for the course for the mainstream US (and Western,
           | more generally, I would say) media nowadays. It wasn't always
           | like that, but the last few years and especially the current
           | war against Russia have accelerated this trend.
        
             | lakomen wrote:
             | War against Russia? I'm not aware the US or EU declared war
             | against Russia
        
               | jessaustin wrote:
               | USA didn't declare war against DPRK, Vietnam, Iraq, etc.
               | That's not something we do. However, "serious
               | politicians" have "mistakenly" mentioned that we're at
               | war with Russia for months.
               | 
               | https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/ukraine-nato-
               | rus...
        
               | googlryas wrote:
               | Yes, but in all those instances the US sent troops there
               | with weapons and they fired those weapons at the other
               | side, which is how most people visualize "war". That's
               | not what is happening here. We're sending weapons and
               | money, not men. It would be like saying America entered
               | WWII when they signed the Lend-Lease act, not after Pearl
               | Harbor.
        
               | jessaustin wrote:
               | USA military and CIA had been present in Korea and
               | Vietnam for years, with little fanfare, before those wars
               | really got going. Their roles in Laos, Indonesia, Iran,
               | Nicaragua, etc. were never acknowledged. They are
               | currently present though unacknowledged in dozens of
               | nations, with the hopes of kicking off future wars for
               | the profit of armaments manufacturers. USA "special
               | forces" have been embedded with various more-or-less-
               | official military units in Donbas for years, during which
               | time UN estimates that 14,000 people died in violent
               | military action including more than 3,000 civilians. Over
               | the same time, various American and western European neo-
               | nazis also found their way to Donbas, forming a
               | convenient cover for the "operators".
               | 
               | Americans have been in Ukraine for a long time, and
               | that's not even to mention e.g. Victoria Nuland. This is
               | a stupid argument anyway. Congress has committed to
               | spending Russia's entire annual military budget to fill
               | Ukraine with deadly weapons. That doesn't count the
               | billions we already spent over the last 15 years. A
               | president was impeached because he proposed (without
               | actually doing) a temporary slowdown of the flow of
               | American weapons to Ukraine. Our masters wanted a war,
               | and now they have what they wanted. Very few mammalian
               | Americans want a war, but after twenty years of stupid
               | wars it's clear that the peace we want doesn't matter.
        
               | trasz wrote:
               | So it's USA's fault that Russia became a fascist country
               | and decided to invade?
        
               | googlryas wrote:
               | > Our masters wanted a war, and now they have what they
               | wanted.
               | 
               | How does sending weapons to a country encourage another
               | country to attack it? Wouldn't it decrease the chances
               | they attacked it - since it is fairly clear that the
               | Ukraine could not invade Russia.
               | 
               | > Very few mammalian Americans want a war
               | 
               | As opposed to reptilian Americans? I'm just joking, I
               | assume this is a typo but I can't figure out what it is
               | meant to be.
               | 
               | Do Americans actually want peace between the Ukraine and
               | Russia(if it would just mean acceding to Russia's
               | demands)? Granted I live in a fairly liberal area, but I
               | see blue and yellow flags all over the place right now.
        
               | watwut wrote:
               | Just to mention, Russia invaded Ukraine and never
               | declared it war. Russians are also comiting genocide in
               | Ukraine. Russians call it special operation, it is
               | illegal to call it war in Russia.
               | 
               | USA offered to fly Ukrainian president to safety.
               | Ukrainian president refused and Ukrainian army started to
               | fight. USA did very decent thing after - supported
               | Ukrainian army with guns.
               | 
               | Not a single American Army soldier fought.
        
               | avgcorrection wrote:
               | > Just to mention, Russia invaded Ukraine and never
               | declared it war.
               | 
               | So you agree with jessaustin?
        
               | JacobThreeThree wrote:
               | Every serious person acknowledges that what's going on in
               | Ukraine is a NATO proxy war.
               | 
               | Here's Leon Panetta (former Def Sec and CIA Director)
               | saying it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWu7cPPVv0
        
               | trasz wrote:
               | Of course it is - but it's a defensive proxy war. The
               | aggressor is Russia, not NATO.
        
               | sophacles wrote:
               | I don't understand this perennial thread of "No one
               | declared it, it's not a war" when armies are trying their
               | hardest to exterminate each other. What makes the magic
               | words "i declare war" by some old buffoon who just wants
               | the children of his nation to die in cruel ways make a
               | magical difference?
               | 
               | Seriously - if you look at pictures of the children
               | dismembering each other in Ukraine during ww2 and the
               | children dismembering each other in Ukraine in 2022, the
               | only major differences are fashion and how effective
               | technology lets them be at cruelty.
               | 
               | The legalistic bullshit of needing magic words sounds
               | like something the monsters that want dead children say
               | to each other to get a little distance from the fact that
               | the dead children are still their fault.
        
               | watwut wrote:
               | I think that the commenter takes issue with the
               | implications that USA is in war with Russia rather then
               | Russia being in aggressive war against Ukraine.
               | 
               | It is popular framing among pro-russia people - trying to
               | frame it as if Ukraine did not mattered at all. Or as if
               | did not even existed.
        
             | trasz wrote:
             | ,,War against Russia" is a rather strange way to describe
             | defense against Russian invasion.
        
           | jamespo wrote:
           | The New Yorker story suggests there was some digital
           | evidence, not of upload to wikileaks but of unauthorised
           | access and download:
           | 
           | And, on the sixth day of the trial, prosecutors laid out what
           | they regarded as a coup de grace--the digital equivalent of
           | fingerprints at a crime scene. Even after Schulte was
           | stripped of his administrative privileges, he had secretly
           | retained the ability to access the O.S.B. network through a
           | back door, by using a special key that he had set up. The
           | password was KingJosh3000. The government contended that on
           | April 20, 2016, Schulte had used his key to enter the system.
           | The files were backed up every day, and while he was logged
           | on Schulte accessed one particular backup--not from that day
           | but from six weeks earlier, on March 3rd. The O.S.B. files
           | released by WikiLeaks were identical to the backup from March
           | 3, 2016. As Denton told the jurors, it was the "exact backup,
           | the exact secrets, put out by WikiLeaks."
        
             | throwaway4good wrote:
             | Ahh.
             | 
             | The password was 'KingJosh3000'.
             | 
             | That is just the password some professional working in IT-
             | security and cutting edge hacking would pick ... in
             | particular if they were about to commit treason by leaking
             | states secrets.
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | Sounds like exactly the kind of password an emotionally
               | immature junior employee subject to poor judgment would
               | pick, though.
               | 
               | Whether that's a fair description here, I can't say--but
               | the New Yorker story is certainly _internally_ consistent
               | (and, it must be said, doesn 't exactly make the CIA look
               | good, either).
        
               | jamespo wrote:
               | If you think the Government created this back door to
               | frame him why would they choose that password?
        
               | nyolfen wrote:
               | contains his name, lines up with their descriptions of
               | him as a deranged narcissist. it honestly does seem a
               | little pat
        
               | hannasanarion wrote:
               | It lines up with his _history_ as a deranged narcissist.
               | 
               | > In a 2009 exchange... one person Schulte interacted
               | with went by "hbp." Another went by "Sturm." Josh's
               | username was "Josh." At one point, he volunteered to
               | grant his new friends access to the child-porn archive on
               | his server. He had titled it /home/josh/http/porn. Sturm,
               | taken aback, warned Schulte to "rename these things for
               | god's sake."
        
               | game-of-throws wrote:
               | Also how do they know the password at all? Is the CIA
               | storing passwords for classified material in plain text?
        
               | snickerbockers wrote:
               | its (allegedly) his backdoor, nit the CIA's
        
               | jxcole wrote:
               | I bet it was a co worker who wanted to leak but also
               | didn't want to be blamed. Or maybe even a coworker who
               | had a grudge against the defendant and didn't care about
               | the leaks at all.
               | 
               | It would be pretty easy to set up. If you work in the
               | same room or building as a coworker how hard is it to set
               | up a camera or a physical key logger to steal their
               | password? Once you have someone's username and password
               | you can make it look like they did anything. You could
               | even do something nefarious on their computer when they
               | went home for the evening.
               | 
               | You may think that as security professionals they would
               | definitely notice a key logger, but do you honestly think
               | _anyone_ checks the back of their computer every time
               | they come back from a lunch break?
        
               | always2slow wrote:
               | Right? From the article it sounded like Amol had motive,
               | got revenge by framing Josh. Who knows.
        
           | rougka wrote:
           | I don't know about how strong the case is, but the stories
           | about his character makes sense in the context of someone who
           | would leak that.
           | 
           | Notice who you call as 'they' didn't portray him as a self-
           | proclaimed idealist, but someone with an unstable personality
           | and who weaponizes workplace bureaucracy for petty fights
           | 
           | We do know for a fact that he filed for a restraining order
           | against his coworker, that seems extremely weird to me, and I
           | don't work for the CIA.
           | 
           | Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
        
           | criley2 wrote:
           | >"But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to
           | specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA
           | hacking materials on WikiLeaks."
           | 
           | I mean, getting into forensic evidence of what he did at the
           | CIA would likely require exposing top secret classified
           | material in a court room. Suffice to say, prosecutors
           | generally can't do this except as a last resort.
           | 
           | When the guy left his phone full of passwords, and his
           | computer full of encrypted child sex assault material, I'm
           | not so sure the prosecutor feels the need to burn CIA secrets
           | in court anymore.
        
             | mandmandam wrote:
             | "Sprinkle some crack on him Johnson" -
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ESzLDC4B14
        
             | aaaaaaaaata wrote:
             | A CIA hacker "left his phone full of passwords, and his
             | computer full of encrypted child sex assault material".
             | 
             | This doesn't sound weird to you?
        
               | formerkrogemp wrote:
               | Does it seem plausible that someone would be that stupid?
               | Sure. Is it convenient for the CIA to attack this
               | person's character? Also reasonable.
        
               | criley2 wrote:
               | Not really, opsec is a fascinating thing but in my
               | personal experience very very few people, even trained
               | professionals, actually go through the hassle of rigorous
               | opsec for their personal projects and lives. The idea
               | that a CIA hacker didn't follow rigorous opsec is about
               | as believable as the idea that the NSA left their hacking
               | tools publically available
               | https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/nsa-hacking-tool-
               | exploits....
               | 
               | Although, based on the strength of the assumption that it
               | must be planted, I would say that working for the CIA
               | would be a strong cover for a pedophile, since it's
               | apparently impossible in the public eye for someone there
               | to authentically trade in CSAM
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Discussed here:
         | 
         |  _A CIA hacker's revenge_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 - June 2022 (252
         | comments)
        
         | l2silver wrote:
         | This is also one of the best reads of the year.
         | 
         | One of the guy's nicknames at work was "the nuclear option"...
         | 
         | And don't forget the child pornography charges.
        
           | jamal-kumar wrote:
           | My favorite part was how insanely petty the whole thing
           | sounded... How he insisted his nickname should be "Badass"
           | but people called him what you mentioned as well as
           | "Voldemort" more often than his self appointed nickname...
           | What a goof. If this article is accurate it paints a picture
           | of an incredibly socially immature workplace where people who
           | didn't advance past the point of high school in that aspect
           | left the guy feeling bullied enough that he did the leak.
           | This was something like my first and only experience doing
           | government contracting at a large corporation, on my tour of
           | the offices one of the things I pointed out to my boss were
           | these print out clip art stop signs that said "STOP BULLYING"
           | on the walls everywhere and that I hadn't seen something like
           | that since high school. He rolled his eyes pretty hard at
           | that one but these people were responsible for systems that
           | enormous amounts of people's lives depended on. I remember
           | when these systems failed multiple times over multiple
           | incidences and just thought of the stop sign shit.
        
             | md_ wrote:
             | Hah. I was deeply struck by how immature the whole thing
             | sounds.
             | 
             | Nobody here looks good, of course. But even top flight tech
             | companies have this sort of time-wasting, so it's not
             | exactly a surprise you'd find it at a TLA as well.
        
               | jamal-kumar wrote:
               | I got reprimanded one time at a previous job for
               | pretending to throw a bee at my supervisor. A nest had
               | formed in some concrete overhang in the building, he
               | freaked out and got adrenaline ampules at the pharmacy
               | (epipen shortage year) like "you need to inject me with
               | this if I get stung". So later on, I walked up to him
               | sitting next to a coworker with nothing in my hands and a
               | shit eating grin on my face. "What's that?" "A BEE!" as I
               | opened my hands with nothing in them... He fell over in
               | his chair and everyone in the office stood up and pointed
               | and laughed at him. It was ultra funny though he insisted
               | I was insane for this and demanded I see a psychiatrist
               | if I wanted to keep my job. Just ended up getting xanax
               | pills I really didn't want or need. This was close to a
               | decade ago and I wouldn't pull something like that now,
               | but I mean what do you expect out of hiring people in
               | their early 20s?
        
               | yolovoe wrote:
               | I certainly wouldn't expect this from any of my coworker
               | in their early 20s. This is bullying. I would have
               | reported a coworker to HR for this.
        
       | lizardactivist wrote:
       | The world should move to recognize the CIA as the state-sponsored
       | terrorist organization it is.
        
         | upupandup wrote:
        
       | dr-detroit wrote:
        
       | lakomen wrote:
       | Tell me again why we're the good guys?
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | we keep the spice flowing
        
         | harry8 wrote:
         | Because "we" aren't the CIA. Perhaps it's "they" as in. Are
         | they the enemy of the people just like the KGB or GRU?
        
         | president wrote:
         | Because there are worse people trying to do worse harm than the
         | US? The real world is a dog eat dog world and if you're not up
         | to snuff, there will always be someone else trying to eat your
         | lunch.
        
           | avgcorrection wrote:
           | Hmm. I'd better steal that guy's lunch before some meaner kid
           | does it.
        
         | throwaway4good wrote:
         | History is written by the victors.
        
         | kleer001 wrote:
         | Define "we" and define "good", be as exhaustive and precise as
         | philosophically possible.
        
         | NoGravitas wrote:
         | A very successful propaganda machine.
        
       | psiops wrote:
       | Off topic: Anybody else get a weird optic movement effect looking
       | at the picture of the courthouse in the article?
        
         | ecef9-8c0f-4374 wrote:
         | yes
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | The entire ledge/cornice above "United States Court House" is
         | dancing.
        
       | r721 wrote:
       | Recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32089814
        
       | edm0nd wrote:
       | A great read!
       | 
       | https://github.com/sterling0x1/CIA-Hacking-Tools
       | 
       | tl;dr they use a lot of RATs and also do a lot of supply chain
       | intercepts on hardware before it arrives to their targets. They
       | will insert malicious hardware like charging cables or adapters
       | or actually infect the HDD or phone with a backdoor.
        
       | rob_c wrote:
       | And again another one gets hot with a CP charge that nobody
       | questions after a character assassination... Something KGB about
       | all that imo.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | turnsout wrote:
         | After he was charged for child pornography, he called it a "a
         | non-violent, victimless crime." So, even if it was planted...
         | this guy is the worst.
        
         | davidro80 wrote:
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | > _about all that_
         | 
         | ? If your reference is to Yuri A, the  "charge" is "mental
         | illness".
        
         | tunap wrote:
         | Indeed.
         | 
         | "lack of evidence is not evidence of innocence."
         | 
         | Wow.
        
           | x86x87 wrote:
        
         | orangepurple wrote:
         | CP is the nuclear weapon of the Internet that nobody questions
         | when it shows up on someone's devices. It's radioactive;
         | anybody that comes in contact with it immediately gets slammed.
         | Absolute guarantee Assange is going to get hit with a CP charge
         | to socially discredit him when they get a hold of him too.
        
           | rob_c wrote:
           | I'm surprised they're dragging his situation out so much, I
           | think the intent now is that he's the living example if how
           | they will screw with you if you seriously step out of line
           | even for the right reasons. That, or he will learn to love
           | the party and accept we were always at war...
        
             | orangepurple wrote:
             | They are grinding him through the bureaucracy as much as
             | possible until he eventually runs out of time and dies.
        
           | mdp2021 wrote:
           | > _is going to get hit_
           | 
           | I very clearly remember he got hit in that direction, almost
           | immediately... And again the general reaction was "You must
           | have a very diversified public, if you believe that boosts
           | credit instead of doubts".
        
       | nobleach wrote:
       | > There was scant coverage of both trials from the US news media
       | 
       | And yet there were days of trial coverage for an actor and his
       | actress ex.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | anonym29 wrote:
       | I find the US government guilty of making secret malware that was
       | deployed against both US citizens and friendly allies.
        
         | ed25519FUUU wrote:
         | What Julian Assange is teaching us is that the intelligence and
         | military apparatus can do whatever they want, but exposing them
         | is a serious crime worthy of life in prison.
        
       | yellow_lead wrote:
       | > But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to
       | specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking
       | materials on WikiLeaks.
       | 
       | Makes you wonder how he was found guilty. The accused have a big
       | disadvantage at trial. He also represented himself (probably a
       | huge mistake)
        
         | icare_1er wrote:
         | So your credentials to access an internal repo at the CIA's
         | office does not count as evidence enough ?
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | I would hope not. Just because I have a key to unlock a door
           | does not mean that I did unlock the door. It just means when
           | the door is unlocked, I'm one of the people that gets called
           | in to discuss if I had done it or not.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | badrabbit wrote:
         | Juries are notoriously 50/50 outcome regardless of what went on
         | during trial. He should have picked bench trial.
        
         | nojito wrote:
         | Why do you need to show that he uploaded information to
         | Wikileaks?
         | 
         | All they need to show is that he had unauthorized access to the
         | information and downloaded that information.
        
           | bonzini wrote:
           | I guess some charges only kick in if the information is
           | redistributed.
        
           | ClumsyPilot wrote:
           | why do I need to prove you stabbed someone.
           | 
           | All I need to show is that you have a kitchen knife
        
         | weberer wrote:
         | Maybe we'll find out how they got him in the next leak.
        
         | sha256sum wrote:
         | This was the third trial. The first two were declared
         | mistrials. So yes, certainly makes one wonder.
        
           | yieldcrv wrote:
           | The government can do infinite retrials, starving you of
           | resources to maintain adequate representation
           | 
           | I think we need greater protections against this
           | 
           | And the dual sovereignty loophole in our protection against
           | double jeopardy should be addressed as well
        
             | panda-giddiness wrote:
             | No, they can't. If the defendant is acquitted, that's the
             | end of the line (barring a few dual sovereignty loopholes,
             | as you mentioned, but those also aren't limitless).
        
               | yieldcrv wrote:
               | If acquitted or convicted correct
               | 
               | But a hung jury can be retried infinitely
               | 
               | I think hung should be just as good as acquittal, or at
               | least ONE other try or something different than
               | potentially infinite retries until the prosecutor gets a
               | tap on the shoulder to move on
        
               | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
               | > _But a hung jury can be retried infinitely_
               | 
               | A hung jury is just one of the causes of a mistrial; and
               | the net effect of a mistrial is that no verdict is
               | reached. The common law has no prohibition on retrying a
               | defendant after a mistrial.
        
               | ClumsyPilot wrote:
               | well the argument is that if the state is so inconpetent
               | that it keeps mistrying an individual, then that's
               | potentially harrasment of an innosent person and can't be
               | allowed
        
               | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
               | You get mistrials due to defendant counsel misconduct, or
               | juror misconduct, too.
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | Plenty of other countries allow conviction by simple or
               | supermajorities.
               | 
               | I'm far from a punitive-justice kind of person, but
               | arguing that a single dissenting juror should be
               | sufficient to acquit strikes me as not at all obvious.
               | 
               | As long as I can convince one in twelve that I'm
               | innocent, I should be considered innocent?
        
               | catskul2 wrote:
               | Just to clarify, in the US at least, juries don't
               | determine innocence, but rather "not guilty", aka,
               | inefficient evidence of guilt.
               | 
               | From cornell law website:
               | 
               | > _A not guilty verdict does not mean that the defendant
               | truly is innocent but rather that for legal purposes they
               | will be found not guilty because the prosecution did not
               | meet the burden._
        
               | alasdair_ wrote:
               | As an interesting quirk, Scottish law has three verdicts:
               | "guilty", "not guilty" and "not proven" where the latter
               | is basically "we think you're guilty but the prosecution
               | sucked so we have to let you go"
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven
               | 
               | This turned out to be a big deal because of the trial of
               | the Lockerbie bombers who blew up a Pan-Am flight over
               | Scotland and were ultimately tried under Scots law. There
               | was a real possibility that the bombers could have gone
               | free with a "not proven" verdict.
        
               | giobox wrote:
               | While its true Megrahi and co were tried under Scottish
               | law, it wasn't in a court room in Scotland. There are a
               | number of features of how the Megrahi case was tried by
               | Scottish judges in an area of the Netherlands on a US
               | airforce base that was legally declared part of Scotland
               | that are unusual, it was a very unique process that has
               | never been repeated:
               | 
               | > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Court_in_the_Net
               | herla...
               | 
               | > https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/07/lockerbie
               | 
               | There are aspects of how that trial unfolded that have
               | long been subject of concern even from victims families
               | (Dr Jim Swire famously); politically a "not proven"
               | verdict would have been so unpalatable I'm honestly not
               | sure how much chance there ever was of that occurring -
               | politics is how we ended up in the bizarre Scottish
               | courtroom in the Netherlands situation in the first
               | place. Even the way in which the judges deliberated is
               | not standard for a typical High Court of Justiciary case
               | in its normal home in Scotland.
        
               | phendrenad2 wrote:
               | This reminds me of video games where you can report
               | players for "harassment", "cheating", and "low skill".
               | "Low skill" reports go to /dev/null.
               | 
               | Moral of the story is: Sometimes you need to give people
               | the button they really want to push, even if it does
               | nothing.
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | Of course. I should have said "acquitted", as opposed to
               | a hung jury.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | jxcole wrote:
               | Having been on a jury in the US one time (attempted
               | murder), the purpose of this system is probably not at
               | all obvious. The idea is to put 12 people in a room and
               | force them to agree to the same thing. You can deliberate
               | almost any amount of time you want. If you try to tell
               | the judge after a single day of delibrations that you are
               | a hung jury, the judge will force you to stay longer.
               | Only in extreme cases where the jury has been hung for a
               | very long time does the judge allow a mistrial.
               | 
               | So the idea is to force 12 people to convince each other
               | of one idea or the other.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | >So the idea is to force 12 people to convince each other
               | of one idea or the other.
               | 
               | You said nothing to contradict the GP. If someone is on
               | trial, all they need is one of the twelve to not be
               | convinced of guilt. Your phrasing of "force" that one
               | person to change their mind is absolutely insane to me.
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | Well, I think the clarification is important. It's not
               | like you just go for a vote, and if there's no consensus
               | outcome, boom, mistrial.
               | 
               | Judges aim for consensus, and juries are intended to
               | debate/discuss until they can reach it. So the complaint
               | about "well, prosecutors can just keep trying" rings a
               | little more hollow in that case.
               | 
               | (Again, there are a ton of _other_ reasonable complaints
               | --bullshit forensic  "science", the fact that expert
               | witnesses cost money that defendants don't have,
               | mandatory minimum sentences, federal prosecutors'
               | aversion to risking losses at trial, the awful penal
               | system, etc. But this is a weird one to be hung up on, I
               | think.)
        
               | jcadam wrote:
               | Having been stuck on several courts-martial panels in the
               | military as well as a civilian jury later for an assault
               | trial, I found the military court system seemed, in many
               | ways, more fair to the accused.
               | 
               | On the flip side, the verdict does not have to be
               | unanimous.
        
               | chasil wrote:
               | In the final play of the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus,
               | the goddess Athena convenes a jury of twelve citizens to
               | decide the guilt of Orestes in the murder of his mother,
               | Clytemnestra.
               | 
               | The jury is evenly split, and Athena adds a final vote
               | for innocence, calling it her precedent.
               | 
               | It is unfortunate that the United States did not follow
               | this ancient judicial custom EDIT: to acquit if half the
               | jury refuses to convict.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia#The_Eumenides
               | 
               | (I live in a midsize U.S. town that happens to have the
               | oldest community theater that performs Greek plays in
               | mask every year.)
        
               | dragonwriter wrote:
               | > It is unfortunate that the United States did not follow
               | this ancient judicial custom.
               | 
               | Requiring a simple majority of the jury for a serious
               | criminal conviction, but splitting ties for the defense,
               | rather than the US practice of requiring a unanimous
               | verdict for conviction?
        
               | muststopmyths wrote:
               | To play devils advocate, if unanimity is required for
               | guilt why doesn't lack of unanimity mean innocence?
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | Sure, maybe. I guess you can argue two things:
               | 
               | 1. That outcomes should be binary, i.e. "guilty" or
               | "innocent" with no mistrials. 2. That outcomes should be
               | decided by unanimous, supermajority, majority, or some
               | other arrangements.
               | 
               | I don't think either of those arguments are especially
               | fundamental. My point was only that it's a bit hyperbolic
               | to view the whole hung jury rule as some sort of Bill of
               | Rights violation.
        
               | jjoonathan wrote:
               | The high bar for acquittal is what makes the hung jury
               | rule look like a Double Jeopardy problem.
        
               | xhkkffbf wrote:
               | It gives too much power to one person. It only takes one
               | hold out to hang a jury.
        
               | namelessoracle wrote:
               | This almost never happens. The jury basically has to not
               | make up its mind for at least a week. (and the judge can
               | keep it going as long as they want) Its almost never just
               | 1 person either. But if one person is willing to hold
               | their ground for a week it means there is something going
               | on. Either that person is a committed ideological actor,
               | saw something, or had some major bias. It takes an
               | immense will to deal with 11 other people for a week
               | straight who all want to go home and get back to their
               | lives, usually if its just one person they give in after
               | a few days to the social pressure. So if a jury hangs it
               | usually points to more than 1 disagreeing. This is where
               | we get into "compromise" verdicts, where maybe 1 person
               | is being stubborn but will go along with the group if
               | they are allowed to win on one point, which is why
               | prosecution throws the kitchen sink at criminal
               | defendants.
        
               | yieldcrv wrote:
               | Who cares about statistics I saw it happen and finally
               | the next presidential administration appointee hit up the
               | prosecutor to stop on or after the third trial
        
               | salawat wrote:
               | >Either that person is a committed ideological actor, saw
               | something, or had some major bias.
               | 
               | ...Or they haven't been convinced beyond a reasonable
               | doubt.
               | 
               | You realize as a juror, your job isn't to kowtow to the
               | state. You're literally the last bulwark between said
               | state and your fellow man. If anything, ypu need to be
               | picking hard at any case you get presented, especially if
               | it smells like a political/railroad case.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | goodluckchuck wrote:
               | Only an acquittal, meaning the jury agreed that guilt was
               | not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. One mistrial makes
               | sense. Perhaps there was someone with doubts, but those
               | doubts were unreasonable. Or there was one person who
               | believed the accused was guilty and that person was
               | unreasonable. This could be fixed with a new jury.
               | 
               | After two mistrials (for failure to reach a consensus)
               | it'd appear that reasonable minds may differ and the case
               | must not have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
        
               | ianhawes wrote:
               | Often times, when a mistrial is declared and a retrial
               | occurs, prosecutors will change strategy. Additionally,
               | rulings from the previous trial are not automatically
               | carried over, so suppressed evidence (for example) can be
               | potentially displayed during a trial if the judge rules
               | differently.
               | 
               | Another factor, which is more common in state courts, is
               | the lesser charge consideration. Upon a retrial, the
               | judge can instruct the jury to find a defendant guilty of
               | a lesser crime in lieu of the originally charged crime.
               | For example, manslaughter instead of murder.
               | 
               | Overall it's obviously stacked against the defendant in
               | federal court. Adding in unlimited retrials basically
               | guarantees a defendant will be found guilty eventually.
        
               | jjoonathan wrote:
               | Don't you just love how first you learn about the Bill of
               | Rights, and then you learn that there's a bullshit
               | loophole our judicial system uses to bypass every goddamn
               | rule in the entire Bill of Rights?
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | I mean, there are a _ton_ of problems with the criminal
               | justice system, but white, well-off defendants who can
               | afford non-court-appointed lawyers getting convicted
               | after a single mistrial isn 't really top of the list, is
               | it?
               | 
               | I read https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-
               | surreal-ca... and, well, this guy's not exactly a poster
               | child for "the system is out to get you."
               | 
               | I think the "our system is rigged" argument is a bit more
               | compelling when looking at, say, the mandatory minimum
               | sentences for crack possession.
        
               | jjoonathan wrote:
               | How on Earth is "other people have it worse" supposed to
               | be some kind of counterargument?
               | 
               | No shit other people have it worse. I'd put Speedy and
               | Public Trial and Due Process (Civil Asset Forfeiture)
               | problems as the top of the list, with Double Jeopardy
               | erosion a ways down. Mandatory minimums sound like they
               | belong on the list too, but I'm not familiar enough to
               | know exactly where to place them -- probably high on the
               | list. In any case, one bad thing on a list certainly does
               | not invalidate another bad thing on the list. That's an
               | even more dogshit idea than the loopholes themselves.
               | 
               | > this guy's not exactly a poster child
               | 
               | Standing up for rights means standing up for bastards.
               | Always has, always will, because that's when rights get
               | tested.
        
               | from wrote:
               | Interestingly, the federalists tried to argue against the
               | Bill of Rights by essentially saying if an individual
               | right was not mentioned in the Bill of Rights than that
               | omission could set a precedent that the individual did
               | not have that right. Of course now we know that
               | everything that isn't explicitly protected has been taken
               | from us so I guess it's good they ultimately lost that
               | debate.
               | 
               | On a somewhat positive note, there are things like the
               | Speedy Trial Act that mandate charges be dismissed if a
               | trial is not brought quickly enough. But it's often not
               | very effective because they are allowed to delay the
               | trial basically indefinitely if the judge finds it is in
               | the "ends of justice" to do so. There also have been
               | major cases thrown out over Brady (evidence disclosure)
               | violations recently which is a step in the right
               | direction. I think defendants now probably have more
               | rights than they ever did but the problem is that 1)
               | there are way more laws to break today than ever before
               | 2) federal prosecutors are less interested in the public
               | good and more in their political ambitions and careers
               | instead 3) good legal representation has become
               | incredibly expensive.
        
               | jfengel wrote:
               | _Of course now we know that everything that isn't
               | explicitly protected has been taken from us so I guess
               | it's good they ultimately lost that debate._
               | 
               | And even the things that are explicitly protected are
               | subject to the interpretation of the Constitution, via
               | the ouija board that the Supreme Court uses to contact
               | the "founders".
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | > Standing up for rights means standing up for bastards.
               | Always has, always will, because that's when rights get
               | tested.
               | 
               | What right of his do you think was violated?
        
               | JacobThreeThree wrote:
               | How is this person's race relevant?
               | 
               | Also, if he represented himself, is he really a "well off
               | defendant who can afford non-court-appointed lawyer"?
        
               | md_ wrote:
               | He had a lawyer in his first trial.
               | 
               | Race is, of course, relevant, since case outcomes
               | dramatically differ by race.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | willcipriano wrote:
               | The best part is magically none of these cases make it to
               | the Supreme Court. We have had several decades of open
               | and shut constitutional violations including mass
               | warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention without
               | trial, civil asset forfeiture, executive order overreach.
               | No ruling on any of it.
        
               | tannhauser23 wrote:
               | The defense also gets to retool its strategy in light of
               | the evidence. Defense also gets to make evidentiary
               | motions. Retrials don't always favor the prosecution.
               | 
               | I think the most retrials I've seen (stemming from hung
               | juries, not reversals) is the John Gotti Jr. case, where
               | he got four mistrials. Prosecutors decided not to seek
               | retrial after that.
        
               | R0b0t1 wrote:
               | They can intentionally mess up the trial, or refuse to
               | prosecute. There are people who get swept up in some old
               | but reopened case investigation launched by a DA that
               | wants to look tough. Trail might have died 10 years ago
               | with essentially an acquittal, but it can be set up so it
               | can be reopened at any point.
        
               | saghm wrote:
               | I think judges are allowed to dismiss cases "with
               | prejudice" (i.e. not allow for a retrial), and I feel
               | like this _should_ be done if the prosecution purposely
               | punts to try again later, but I'm not sure how often this
               | happens in practice
        
               | chiefalchemist wrote:
               | I think the point is, while there are limits, most of
               | those will last longer than the resources anyone would
               | have to defend themselves. It doesn't have to be
               | limitless, only a bit longer than anyone can "survive".
        
               | joshuamorton wrote:
               | This guy got a hung jury on his first trial with a public
               | defender. The government was paying for his defense.
        
             | spaetzleesser wrote:
             | "The government can do infinite retrials, starving you of
             | resources to maintain adequate representation"
             | 
             | I remember reading about a guy who had 5 or 6 trials for
             | murder. The prosecutor just kept trying.
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | You would have to give more details, because in general,
               | that's the very definition of double jeopardy.
               | 
               | Was it five or six hung juries?
        
               | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Flowers is one
               | example.
               | 
               | Convicted four times, but with conviction overturned on
               | appeal (including one time to the Supreme Court), plus
               | two mistrials. The new DA declined to seek a seventh
               | trial.
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | Ah, that makes more sense. It isn't double-jeopardy when
               | a conviction is remanded for re-trial (although _why_ it
               | 's not is unclear to me in a common-sense sense).
        
               | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
               | You usually cannot appeal simply on the basis that you
               | believe the jury made the wrong decision, i.e. on the
               | basis of an error of fact.
               | 
               | There has to be an error of law (e.g. the judge have a
               | wrong jury instruction, or evidence was inappropriately
               | allowed/excluded, or the trial was allowed to continue
               | when a mistrial should have been declared) or other
               | constitutional basis, like ineffective counsel.
               | 
               | In some cases, appeal courts will decide that there could
               | be no basis for conviction once the flaw is corrected (in
               | which case a conviction can be reversed), but oftentimes
               | the appropriate outcome is to remand the case back to the
               | lower court for retrial.
        
               | HWR_14 wrote:
               | It was Gotti, leader of one of the mafia families in NYC.
        
           | yellow_lead wrote:
           | Two mistrials? Sounds like justice /s
        
           | giaour wrote:
           | The article claims that this was the second trial, not his
           | third. He was convicted on some counts in his first trial,
           | but the jury was hung on the Espionage Act charges:
           | 
           | > This was the second trial against Schulte. In March 2020,
           | his first trial ended in a mistrial on several Espionage Act
           | charges, but he was found guilty of contempt of court and
           | lying to the FBI.
        
             | sha256sum wrote:
             | You are correct, there were two trials. In the first, the
             | jury convicted him of 1) contempt of court and 2) making
             | false statements to the FBI.
             | 
             | > In March 9, 2020, after hearing four weeks of testimony
             | and deliberating for six days, the jury convicted Schulte
             | on two counts: contempt of court and making false
             | statements to the FBI. However, jurors were deadlocked on
             | eight other counts, including the most serious of illegal
             | gathering and transmission of national defense information.
             | Although the judge declared a mistrial, the government
             | chose to retry the case.
        
       | jlkuester7 wrote:
       | > he had told the jury the "lack of evidence is not evidence of
       | innocence."
       | 
       | Wait, what? Since when in the US legal system did the defendant
       | need to prove "evidence of innocence"? I am really getting tired
       | of hearing BS like this from the prosecution team on high-profile
       | cases! If they are pulling this crap when everyone is watching,
       | what chance do any of us normal folks have at getting a fair
       | shake from the Justice system if we ever end up in the
       | defendant's chair?
        
         | the_only_law wrote:
         | It's the CIA, they can basically whatever the fuck they want,
         | with little regard for law or justice.
        
         | m348e912 wrote:
         | If you like that one, wait until you hear what's in store for
         | Julian Assange.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | avsteele wrote:
       | If he's guilty this is a more or less normal process. The real
       | shocker is the stuff surrounding the leak in the article:
       | 
       |  _It was one of the largest leaks of information in the history
       | of CIA and a huge embarrassment for then-CIA Director Mike
       | Pompeo, who responded by labeling WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile
       | intelligence agency" and developing "secret war plans" against
       | the media organization that included kidnapping or even killing
       | WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange._
       | 
       | Just so we are clear: if you are a member of an org, anywhere in
       | the world, with no particular obligation to keep the CIA's
       | secrets, but who's only mission is to make public CIA actions /
       | capabilities, they may try to extra-judicially murder you.
       | 
       | Real _are we the baddies?_ vibes. If you work there, or for them
       | as a contractor, please consider putting your abilities to more
       | ethical use.
        
         | wayfromeast wrote:
         | >If you work there, or for them as a contractor, please
         | consider putting your abilities to more ethical use.
         | 
         | Yes, we need more of the best and brightest to be contributing
         | to addictive social media apps and algorithms to subvert
         | artificial quirks in financial systems.
        
           | the_only_law wrote:
           | Nah instead, we need to contribute to the organization that's
           | committed some of the worst atrocities against US citizens
           | and gets away with it.
        
             | OkayPhysicist wrote:
             | And we get off easy compared to the rest of the world.
        
           | ta988 wrote:
           | There are so many other things to do in between. And it is
           | really sad your snarky and fallacious comment doesn't reflect
           | that
        
         | nonameiguess wrote:
         | You should always be asking yourselves these questions, but I
         | can't agree with the implications of no one should ever work
         | for the CIA. Out of full disclosure, I have been a US Army
         | officer and have also done technical contracting work for IC
         | agencies (not the CIA, purely collection-tasked agencies that
         | didn't perform any kind of field ops). So take from that what
         | you will. Maybe I'm just a bootlicker that doesn't want to
         | think of myself as evil.
         | 
         | But I'm well aware that the military and intelligence services
         | of the US have done some evil things. As far as I can tell,
         | every military and intelligence service has done evil things,
         | and maybe in some idealized world, that means these services
         | shouldn't exist, but right now, as a purely practical matter,
         | if every American simply refused to ever join the military or
         | work for an intelligence service (as opposed to objecting to
         | and refusing to obey illegal orders), we would just not have a
         | military or any intelligence services. But doing that would not
         | get rid of the others. We'd just be abdicating the global stage
         | to China. Personally, I don't believe that would make the world
         | better than it is now.
        
           | mandmandam wrote:
           | Is the choice between having no intelligence service at all,
           | and one that consists of warmongering, drug-running, black
           | site torturing, extrajudicial assassinating, media
           | infiltrating, Epstein exonerators?
           | 
           | Is that the only way to maintain a presence on the "global
           | stage"? Are we in a stronger position for having spent
           | trillions to replace the Taliban with... the Taliban? Was
           | Vietnam smart? Was all that murder in South America for
           | corporate profits justifiable?
           | 
           | > Maybe I'm just a bootlicker that doesn't want to think of
           | myself as evil.
           | 
           | I hope you really ask yourself that.
        
             | notch656a wrote:
             | Of course not. It's a false dichotomy. And I don't know why
             | anyone would want the US government in its current
             | incarnation "on the global stage."
        
           | trasz wrote:
           | Problem is not that some people do bad things; problem is
           | that Americans who do evil things go unpunished. It wouldn't
           | look so bad if you weren't so fixed at protecting your war
           | criminals from justice.
           | 
           | Also funny that you mention China, a country with
           | incomparably better track record when it comes to foreign
           | policy.
        
         | Tostino wrote:
         | This seems entirely in line with what I've read about the
         | history of the CIA.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | wollsmoth wrote:
         | Well it's... information warfare. People live and die based on
         | what intel these agencies can keep and lose. I'm not saying
         | they should have murdered him, but I'm unsurprised that they
         | considered it as an option.
        
         | NikolaNovak wrote:
         | I do respect a good "Are we the baddies?" reference :-)
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU
        
           | ho_schi wrote:
           | We shall always ask this ourselves.
           | 
           | Before, during and after an argument. Before, during and
           | after a conflict.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | tootie wrote:
         | I think the article is being deliberately misleading. Assange
         | is still only charged with the Cablegate leak, not this one.
         | And if his extradition is ever served he may fave additional
         | charges for his relationships with GRU and Roger Stone.
        
         | heresie-dabord wrote:
         | > Are we the baddies?
         | 
         | Well, the history of the CIA is clear. But that's not the
         | point.
         | 
         | This whole story is about failed management of a deranged
         | employee. The lesson for employers is to stop _toxic_ antics
         | and attitudes. You don 't need to be "woke" to know that when
         | employees are insulting and bullying one another, it will in
         | time destroy a project and maybe even ruin lives.
        
           | skinnymuch wrote:
           | I agree with your comment. Though there's enough people here
           | and elsewhere dying on the hill for the CIA that even their
           | history isn't clear. Like seeing all the coups as unselfish
           | acts of bringing freedom to the disenfranchised global south.
           | 
           | Nice bio too
        
           | the_only_law wrote:
           | > This whole story is about failed management of a deranged
           | employee
           | 
           | I thought this as just par for the course with the CIA.
        
             | heresie-dabord wrote:
             | Ha!
             | 
             | Deranged management of failure may also explain a few
             | things.
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | It is just developing plans, which is not as bad as developing
         | the plan and carrying it out like the Saudis.
        
           | toyg wrote:
           | The plans you hear of, those are the failures.
           | 
           | A well-executed assassination is one that is never linked
           | back to them.
        
             | albatross13 wrote:
             | This person gets it.
        
             | AyyWS wrote:
             | Julian Assange was not murdered, but we're hearing about
             | it.
        
               | toyg wrote:
               | Yes, that's a double failure. And it will be triple when
               | he's locked away - the US will suffer a reputational hit
               | as big as (or even bigger than) the one it suffered from
               | the material that him and Chelsea Manning surfaced.
        
               | throwaway6734 wrote:
               | Doubt it.
               | 
               | Assange is a bad faith actor that has shown that he has
               | no problem kissing Russian boots to attack the US.
               | 
               | With Russia's invasion and desire to genocide Ukraine,
               | associations with Russia are looked upon much less
               | kindly.
        
               | toyg wrote:
               | He's still effectively a journalist being thrown in jail
               | for doing journalism. From Europe, even given all that's
               | going on, the optics are terrible.
        
               | jhgb wrote:
               | Guilt by association is a terrible mindset.
        
               | throwaway6734 wrote:
               | What do you mean?
               | 
               | WikiLeaks has intentionally not published documents
               | damaging to the Russian govt
        
               | jhgb wrote:
               | Uh...and? That has no bearing on the fact that Russia --
               | not Wikileaks -- is responsible for "Russia's invasion
               | and desire to genocide Ukraine". I may not like Wikileaks
               | a lot but I won't blame them for invasions and genocides.
        
               | throwaway6734 wrote:
               | Furthering Russia's interests over the past few years
               | does not make them culpable for Russia's invasion but it
               | does show that they are more allied with Russian
               | interests than the US's
        
             | jjoonathan wrote:
             | Well, you can still hear of it -- JFK and Shinzo Abe spring
             | to mind -- but yes, the "never linked back" part is key.
        
               | catskul2 wrote:
               | What would be the point of killing Abe after he's already
               | out of office?
        
               | chubbnix wrote:
               | Perhaps threat messaging to current leaders who feel safe
               | and protected by the spotlight of political coverage. It
               | would have to be paired with additional messaging to
               | indicate the bad actors demands but I imagine most
               | politicians anticipate and hope for life after office.
        
           | jhgb wrote:
           | In many countries, the preparation of many serious crimes,
           | (murder included) is criminal on its own.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | I was being sarcastic to juxtapose the public reaction of
             | Saudis or MBS murdering Kashoggi (which is horrible no
             | doubt) to the US planning basically the same thing.
        
           | ta988 wrote:
           | Or Russia in UK and elsewhere.
        
         | janandonly wrote:
         | Accidentally, today an "are we the baddies?" post was also
         | discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32105908
        
           | sofixa wrote:
           | Wow that thread is a dumpster fire with showdead on.
        
         | president wrote:
         | If preventing future leaks by any means would ensure security
         | for you, your country, and your future generations, would you
         | do whatever it took to make sure it never happened again? I'm
         | not agreeing or disagreeing with it, I'm just saying people
         | that have a knee-jerk reaction to casting a negative
         | perspective on something because "CIA bad" never seem to think
         | what might the world look like without these agencies. I also
         | certainly don't think we're getting the full picture of what
         | transpired from just that quote.
        
           | trasz wrote:
           | Yeah, I wonder, what the world would look like without
           | destabilizing most of South America and Middle East.
        
         | shapefrog wrote:
         | _Just so we are clear: if you are anywhere in the world, they
         | may try to extra-judicially murder you._
         | 
         | All the extra words were surplus to requirements.
        
       | mherdeg wrote:
       | What is the Calyx Institute's interest in providing trial
       | transcripts here? That's an interesting service:
       | https://calyxinstitute.org/schulte
        
         | giobox wrote:
         | Access to trial transcripts in many jurisdictions is often
         | behind complex paywalls/distribution agreements or some really
         | archaic time consuming process to get official copies. It's not
         | unheard of for an interest group to reshare these materials
         | relevant to their objectives.
         | 
         | Its similar to the situation with scientific papers and the
         | sci-hub site trying to remove blockers to access; people have
         | tried before to make sci-hub clones for trial transcripts/court
         | decisions/published legislation but there is huge money in this
         | industry for companies like LexisNexis etc who often litigate
         | to shut them down. Legal firms who need access to these details
         | just see deals with companies like LexisNexis as standard cost
         | of doing legal business - much like you might need a github
         | account for every software engineer, lawyers will usually need
         | individual accounts for services like LexisNexis to get latest
         | court decisions and legislation.
        
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