Spies by definition are agents of foreign powers acting on your soil without proper registration—i.e., like the many representatives in embassies have registered as agents of that country and are allowed to operate on their behalf until/if expelled.
As far as Assange (IIRC) has not been in USA while the communiques were leaked, and it is not even claimed that he is an agent of some other power, then there was no act of espionage. It might be called espionage if and only if Manning was acting on behalf of some power—and even then, Manning would be the ‘spy’, not Assange.
I’m not an expert on relevant US legislative acts, but this is the legal definition in local laws here and I expect that the term of espionage have been defined a few centuries ago and would be mostly matching throughout the world.
A quick look at current US laws (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00000793----000-.html) does indicate that there is a penalty for such actions with ‘intent or reason to believe … for the injury of United States or advantage of any foreign nation’ - so simply acting to intentionally harm US would be punishable as well, but it’s not calling it espionage. And the Manning issue would depend on his intention/reason to believe about harming US vs. helping US nation, which may be clarified by evidence in his earlier communications with Adrian Lamo and others.
Whether Assange is intent on helping the US nation or damaging depends on how you define “the US nation”.
Assange likes the US constitution but hates the current US government.
If you try to let the government crumble with the goal of regime change to get a regime that honors the US constitution is that damaging the US nation?
Assange wrote in one of the interview that founding Wikileaks was a “forced move”.
Why is it a forced move? Because otherwise the war was lost.
Which war? http://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/events/920.en.html gives you the talk in the year before the founding of Wikileaks that resembles the admission that the war is lost.
It’s not really an accident that the CCC congress that happened in the last week had a keynote by a person who’s involved in Wikileaks and gave the “We lost the war”-talk I mentioned above was titled “We come in peace”: http://rop.gonggri.jp/?p=438
Then groups that challenge the status quo get generally misunderstood and the mainstream media pretends the idea that Wikileaks is simply Julian Assange and therefore ignores the intellectual environment that produced Wikileaks.
Yesterday Daniel Domscheit-Berg said that Wikileaks got 600 applications as volunteers after their talk at the CCC in 2009. A CCC foundation manges Wikileaks donations.
Even the the CCC distanced itself a bit from Wikileaks in the last year it’s still the intellectual basis from which Wikileaks rose.
A good soundbite from the keynote of the CCC:
“People ask me “Anonymous… That is the hackers striking back, right?” And then I have to explain that unlike Anonymous, people in this community would probably not issue press release with our real names in the PDF metadata. And that if this community were to get involved, the targets would probably be offline more often.”
Spies by definition are agents of foreign powers acting on your soil without proper registration—i.e., like the many representatives in embassies have registered as agents of that country and are allowed to operate on their behalf until/if expelled.
As far as Assange (IIRC) has not been in USA while the communiques were leaked, and it is not even claimed that he is an agent of some other power, then there was no act of espionage. It might be called espionage if and only if Manning was acting on behalf of some power—and even then, Manning would be the ‘spy’, not Assange.
Do you know whether that’s the definition used by the espionage act?
I’m not an expert on relevant US legislative acts, but this is the legal definition in local laws here and I expect that the term of espionage have been defined a few centuries ago and would be mostly matching throughout the world.
A quick look at current US laws (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00000793----000-.html) does indicate that there is a penalty for such actions with ‘intent or reason to believe … for the injury of United States or advantage of any foreign nation’ - so simply acting to intentionally harm US would be punishable as well, but it’s not calling it espionage. And the Manning issue would depend on his intention/reason to believe about harming US vs. helping US nation, which may be clarified by evidence in his earlier communications with Adrian Lamo and others.
Whether Assange is intent on helping the US nation or damaging depends on how you define “the US nation”. Assange likes the US constitution but hates the current US government.
If you try to let the government crumble with the goal of regime change to get a regime that honors the US constitution is that damaging the US nation?
Assange wrote in one of the interview that founding Wikileaks was a “forced move”. Why is it a forced move? Because otherwise the war was lost. Which war? http://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/events/920.en.html gives you the talk in the year before the founding of Wikileaks that resembles the admission that the war is lost.
It’s not really an accident that the CCC congress that happened in the last week had a keynote by a person who’s involved in Wikileaks and gave the “We lost the war”-talk I mentioned above was titled “We come in peace”: http://rop.gonggri.jp/?p=438
Then groups that challenge the status quo get generally misunderstood and the mainstream media pretends the idea that Wikileaks is simply Julian Assange and therefore ignores the intellectual environment that produced Wikileaks. Yesterday Daniel Domscheit-Berg said that Wikileaks got 600 applications as volunteers after their talk at the CCC in 2009. A CCC foundation manges Wikileaks donations.
Even the the CCC distanced itself a bit from Wikileaks in the last year it’s still the intellectual basis from which Wikileaks rose.
A good soundbite from the keynote of the CCC: “People ask me “Anonymous… That is the hackers striking back, right?” And then I have to explain that unlike Anonymous, people in this community would probably not issue press release with our real names in the PDF metadata. And that if this community were to get involved, the targets would probably be offline more often.”