Being given government secrets and publishing them for the public interest should not be a crime, and it isn't. The New York Times won that case 8-1 or 9-0 at the Supreme Court for the Pentagon Papers.
Assisting with the exfiltration of that data is clearly a different beast. Professional journalists know the difference, and stay clear of it to protect themselves, their employer, and the trust journalists are granted.
Helping to crack a password clearly crosses the line, even if it's minor in the scheme of things, or unsuccessful. There will be endless handwringing here on HN over the precise definition of "assistance", because somehow the tech community cannot handle the ambiguity of non-binary real world situations. Would it be material assistance to let your whistleblower use your USB stick? What if you bought them a coffee on the morning they did the deed? etc... But the inability to precisely define the single tree that makes the forest doesn't stop us from making any "forest or desert?" decisions.
Of course this sets an ugly precedent. To the ignorant, it suddenly becomes far less extraordinary to see a publisher of secrets in jail. The Atlantic is rightly worried here, because who knows how long the courts will still operate independently, considering the current trajectory of other institutions like DoJ?
So he helped crack a password like, what a decade ago?
Time served for having to live in an embassy for the last several years?
You're right, it's illegal, but it just doesn't feel that bad to me. Not even remotely on the level of the problems we face as a country this day. It almost feels petty.
He didn’t have to live in the embassy. Sweden was by all accounts far less likely to extradite him, but he choose to flee rather than face his rape charges.
Even if he had been convicted in Sweden he would have been out by now.
Good comment. Though I expect the handwringing will be less over the nature of assistance and more whether an illegal act (cracking a password) is justified by the greater good (whistleblowing).
Assisting with the exfiltration of that data is clearly a different beast. Professional journalists know the difference, and stay clear of it to protect themselves, their employer, and the trust journalists are granted.
Helping to crack a password clearly crosses the line, even if it's minor in the scheme of things, or unsuccessful. There will be endless handwringing here on HN over the precise definition of "assistance", because somehow the tech community cannot handle the ambiguity of non-binary real world situations. Would it be material assistance to let your whistleblower use your USB stick? What if you bought them a coffee on the morning they did the deed? etc... But the inability to precisely define the single tree that makes the forest doesn't stop us from making any "forest or desert?" decisions.
Of course this sets an ugly precedent. To the ignorant, it suddenly becomes far less extraordinary to see a publisher of secrets in jail. The Atlantic is rightly worried here, because who knows how long the courts will still operate independently, considering the current trajectory of other institutions like DoJ?