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Inadvertent Court Filing Suggests that the U.S. DoJ is Preparing to Indict Julian Assange
Prosecutors Have Prepared Indictment of Julian Assange, a Filing Reveals
The Justice Department has prepared an indictment against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, marking a drastic escalation of the government's yearslong battle with him and his anti-secrecy group. It was not clear if prosecutors have filed charges against Mr. Assange. The indictment came to light late Thursday through an unrelated court filing in which prosecutors inadvertently mentioned charges against him. "The court filing was made in error," said Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the United States attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia. "That was not the intended name for this filing."
[...] Seamus Hughes, a terrorism expert at George Washington University who closely tracks court cases, uncovered the filing and posted it on Twitter.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to say on Thursday what led to the inadvertent disclosure. It was made in a recently unsealed filing in an apparently unrelated sex-crimes case charging a man named Seitu Sulayman Kokayi with coercing and enticing an underage person to engage in unlawful sexual activity. Mr. Kokayi was charged in early August, and on Aug. 22, prosecutors filed a three-page document laying out boilerplate arguments for why his case at that time needed to remain sealed.
While the filing started out referencing Mr. Kokayi, federal prosecutors abruptly switched on its second page to discussing the fact that someone named "Assange" had been secretly indicted, and went on to make clear that this person was the subject of significant publicity, lived abroad and would need to be extradited — suggesting that prosecutors had inadvertently pasted text from a similar court filing into the wrong document and then filed it.
"Another procedure short of sealing will not adequately protect the needs of law enforcement at this time because, due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged," prosecutors wrote. They added, "The complaint, supporting affidavit, and arrest warrant, as well as this motion and the proposed order, would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter."
#Vindicated.
Also at The Guardian, The Washington Post, MarketWatch, and The New Republic.
Previously: Prominent Whistleblowers and Journalists Defend Julian Assange at Online Vigil
Ecuador Reportedly Almost Ready to Hand Julian Assange Over to UK Authorities
DNC Serves WikiLeaks Lawsuit Over Twitter; US Senate Invites Assange to Testify for Russia Probe
The Guardian: Russian Diplomats Planned to Sneak Julian Assange Out of the UK
Julian Assange Sues Ecuador for "Violating His Fundamental Rights"
UK Said Assange Would Not be Extradited If He Leaves Embassy Refuge
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Friday November 16 2018, @09:29PM (12 children)
I don't know that he owes him a favor, but WHAT THE HELL would he be charged with that has a chance of sticking to a foreign reporter?
It would be funny to see the cognitive dissonance all around that a pardon would create though.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Osamabobama on Friday November 16 2018, @10:47PM (3 children)
Well, traditionally, that would be rape.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Friday November 16 2018, @11:07PM (1 child)
That's not a U.S. thing, and was weak sauce anyway.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Pav on Saturday November 17 2018, @12:18AM
"Sex, lies and Julian Assange" [abc.net.au] was a Four Corners (an Australian investigative news program) report into Assange, Wikileaks and the whole situation surrounding the rape allegations. Assange himself looks like a typical flawed human, but certainly no rapist. The Wikileaks backstory was frankly more interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @04:41AM
The rape charges were in europe, not the USA. But good call!
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday November 16 2018, @10:49PM
I'm sure they could find something. I know of at least two guys who had never been to the USA who were extradited there to face charges. The bloke from 'drink or die' in AU and another in the UK who supposedly hacked into NASA.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by lars on Friday November 16 2018, @11:04PM (6 children)
There are logs of chatting with Manning that were leaked. In them he gives Manning instructions on how to hack military computers. Specifically rainbow tables for password hashes IIRC. This takes from from receiving classified information (totally legal), to being part of a conspiracy to take it (very illegal).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Friday November 16 2018, @11:09PM (5 children)
Now THAT's one of the most potentially important bits and characteristically ignored. -sigh-
I'll dig around see if i can find info on it. Thanks :)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @03:10AM (3 children)
Here you go: https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1063479777632374784 [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Saturday November 17 2018, @12:36PM (2 children)
Raw text is always better. Articles try to sanitize important bits.
Quite possibly they were just using a widely known publicly available cracking/password auditing tool like l0phtcrack.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:08PM (1 child)
That's irrelevant. The fact is he went from being a passive receiver to actively advising. That's the line between legality and illegality.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday November 18 2018, @03:49PM
No doubt. I didn't mean to imply that. Just speculating that these weren't hacker geniuses, just likely using a common tool available at the time for Lanman hash auditing. Every NT admin of the late 90's ran L0PHT against their domain and got woke when they recovered half the passwords within hours. These guys did have an effect on password policies at least.
That doesn't mean that saying "Yeah, we can do ROT13" is not breaking the law (btw you should always use double ROT13, it's twice as secure), just that its a weak PW scheme.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Saturday November 17 2018, @12:16PM
Found some old articles with it:
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды