Why business analysts and project managers get higher salaries than programmers? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/45776/why-do-business-analysts-and-project-managers-get-higher-salaries-than-programmer/45814#45814 Whether project managers get higher salaries than programmers and business analysts at all exist as a class depends squarely on the software world you live in. <comment><USER3> Geesh. Was it me, or did that explanation run on for a long time?

I can say that because I was going to give a similar explanation, but I think it's even simpler than all of that. People get compensated more the more social IQ they have.

The real question is: why do we have roles? The answer to that question involves the film school and widgets and such, but as far as the simple issue of money, people skills beat technical skills.

I love coding, and I love being a code monkey. There's something about solving problems that I find very relaxing and rewarding. But I learned a long time ago that anything you do with more than 2 people quickly elevates social skills to a critical point -- something we coders hardly ever talk about. We're all off on SO reading articles about dependency injection while somebody else already knows dependency injection and is learning how to communicate with people who have different primary channels and personality types. Many times we find such training "fuzzy" or "fluffy" or somehow of dubious value. So somebody else becomes the code monkey who can do both and we become the person they are trying to help. That means the other person is more valuable. Life is not a intellectual test. It's a social game played by groups of people.

(Lionhearted is right too. Lots of times it's just there for the asking. But knowing when this is true and when it is not, knowing how to negotiate your rates, knowing how to ask -- we're right back to social skills again)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not anywhere I've ever worked.

Hmmm, makes me wonder about this meme...

      1. Ask why a myth is true.
      2. Discussion ensues.
      3. The mythiness gets lost and is accepted as a given.

<comment><USER5> I second this. I'm the product person at a startup w/ 5 devs. I know for a fact that rails developers in NY generally command a higher salary than I am making. I can't speak about their equity situation.

My responsibilities are to decide what we build and why. I'm also the shit umbrella for the developers, and end up having to speak with clients. Ultimately it's me who is held responsible for the success / failure of the product.

The myth of project / product people being paid more may be true in LargeCorp, Inc. but in Startup LLC., the developer is king.

<comment><USER6> I third it. Actually in every company I've worked at -- startup, midsized, fortune 500 -- a pm or analyst makes less than an engineer at the same experience level. It's always much harder to find good engineers, especially now a days.

The confusion might come from large companies where PMs tend to be more senior to a lot of the development team. But once a engineer matures and gains experince they will pass them. I my experience, it's very common to make more than the person who manages you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's purely confidence.

I just got a new fulltime job last week. I wasn't happy with the salary they offered, it was much lower than my previous fulltime job. I made it clear that salary would not work from the first conversation with HR. At no point did I change my stance.

I even suggested we should be creative asking if I could work from home twice a week so I could play hockey with some ex-pro's I'm in with (Stephen Yelle is my center...). I didn't even try to conceal why I wanted to work from home - <USER2> was straight up saying it was a quality of living issue.

They gave me the job and the two days off; they even came up halfway on the salary, going 8k above what they said they would ever pay for this position.

Bottom line: you have to ask for what you want; if you do that with confidence and a strong reason you can heartily defend you just may get everything you are asking for. It doesn't always work out this way, but I've never stuck to my guns so thoroughly before either and I gotta say, I am definitely going to always try to be creative when I negotiate now.

<comment><USER8> It takes people a while to figure it out (it took me almost 10 years in my career) - bosses pay more money to people they respect. Having standards is a respectable thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It really depends on how your departments runs. A lot of times the gathering of requirements for BAs is by far the hardest, most time consuming, most frustrating task on the project. They have to travel, deal with users / clients, play political games, etc. If the programmers are more of code monkeys in the organization: in that they get tech specs with pseudo code and just transition it to real code, then they do not necessarily deserve to get paid more.

I have been a support analyst, programmer, software architect, and BA (and worked with several PMs). You really can't have one blanket generalization in this area because it completely depends on structure and job responsibilities.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. The answer offered here is surprisingly ignorant and one-dimensional. The reality is that there aren't two types of software development companies, there are a spectrum of them.

At our company, because we don't sell products, client interaction, requirements gathering, coaching, politicking, etc. are all extremely important functions. It's really, really hard to find people who get our industry and can do this well. Often because of this they command a high salary.

On the flip side, we pay our developers above-market rates, and again it depends on their skill level and interaction with our clients and even with each other. Scrum Masters will earn more than developers (in most cases, not all). Senior developers will earn good money too. An entry-level developer will earn about the same as an "analyst" or product manager.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm going to ignore all the "social" aspects of the supposed pay difference in my analysis. I think they are valid and accurate, but don't paint the full picture. This is coming from the perspective of a programmer turned PM. Note, however, that I haven't actually observed any pay difference - in the current startup/tech climate, good engineers are in high demand and are commanding super-high salaries. The best engineers are often the highest paid (cash-wise) in the company.

The reason good PMs are paid highly is because they use leverage to create more value across the organization than they can provide as a single contributor. A great BA or PM guides the whole project and the whole team, making a group of people more efficient by properly prioritizing their work and getting more value for each hour worked. A great PM measures these results, and shows the difference they make. A great PM tunes the product to the customer.

Great PMs are held accountable for the product and its success in the marketplace. Great PMs can't do their jobs without great engineers and respect that fact.

You only need one great PM for every 5 great engineers, so you can be more discerning about who you hire and how much you pay them. Since great PMs are accountable, they command high equity value, and should accept that instead of higher salaries (like salesmen take commission).

If this isn't true where you work, you should work somewhere else where it is.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm also pretty sure this is why software houses run as widget factories will produce sub-standard solutions. The hierarchical structure gives more weight to the ideas of the people managing. This works if the manager is an expert (or at least as knowledgable as their reports) in their field but with software it results in the most informed opinions being ignored or devalued especially if the costs/benefits are not immediate, so lots of technical debt. If you are managing a team of good developers your role is one of administration and occasionally cat herder (someone has to call time on yak shaving arguments).

I've seen a bunch of government software contracts go down this road, they all try to use the same "tried and trusted" solution even when the assumptions that underpin it have changed wildly (developers are just looking to play with fancy toys and so can't be trusted). They hire based on cost, 3 developers being paid 20k are worth as much as one developer being paid 60k and generally won't fight to retain staff. I find this incredibly ironic since government projects are often challenging and novel, they are dealing with scales or activities that businesses (mostly) don't touch. It always struck me that the area crying out for a creative, original solutions implemented by a film crew team.

<comment><USER13> Apple is a widget factory run by an expert. When Jobs left the company, it took a nose-dive. He came back and immediately things started improving. The man is a dictator, but he knows his stuff. However, if I were an apple shareholder, I would be very worried about his medical condition. Because when he leaves, apple will dive again.

<comment><USER14> If he's not stupid he would have prepared for this contingency, and arranged for competent lieutenants who know how to do things "the Jobs way" to take over when he kicks off.

Of course the thing about power-mad dictators is that power-madness interferes with the ability to seriously consider transfers of power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Because programmers don't ask for more money often enough.

Seriously.

Here's the three minute version of doing it:

1\. Work hard on tangible stuff, document and claim credit for doing it, and notify people with _what benefit the work provides_. This sounds maybe stupidly obvious, but a lot of non-technical people don't understand the value in something. So, "Upgraded XYZ so our website loads faster, which is proven to make customers more likely to buy according to ZYX paper" - I know, what a waste of time, right? Wrong! It's going to make you a lot of money. Tell people what you did.

2\. Before you go to ask for more money, prepare a BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement) - if they say no, what will you do? You need to know this. Having other offers is obviously good. Savings are good. You don't even have to mention your BATNA, but you need a Plan B. Most people don't make one of these, so if their first attempt doesn't go swimmingly, they're in trouble.

3\. Go in and stress _how much more you'd like to do going forwards_. This is _huge_. Do not mention what you've done in the past, except in the context of how it proves how much more you can do going forwards. So go in and say, "Hi boss, as I mentioned in all my various weekly reports, I've been learning new stuff and kicking massive ass. [that was step one] Recently I've picked up some new skills, and I've been getting recruited for a bunch of projects [step 2], but I really like working here. Actually, I think I can deliver even more value here, if I take on new responsibilities. I'd like to train a successor to gradually take over my current role, while I do ABC-stimulating-enjoyable- task that will bring the business new money. I don't even want to be compensated much more for it - I'm going to be bringing in lots more value/assets/sales/cash/whatever, but a moderately small raise is enough for me because I like working here so much." Then lay out what you're asking for.

Business people learn how to do this. You're leaving lots of money on the table _and_ not getting a chance to work on cooler stuff that you'd like to do if you don't do this.

1\. Regularly update with the work you completed, and the benefit it provides.

2\. Decide what you want, and what you'll do as Plan B if your current company won't give it to you.

3\. Go stress that you'd be able to _produce more value_ if you transition your role to a more highly paid and enjoyable one. Be friendly and complimentary. Whenever possible, try not to ask for more money for the same role from the same company - people hate price increases, so it's better to expand your role to something that's also more enjoyable and produces more in their eyes. If you want a raise for doing the same exact work, it's probably good to start looking outside the current company as well for other offers.

<comment><USER16> I find that in practice, it's a lot easier to do steps 1 and 2, then simply take one of those offers to work someplace else. Your value as a developer increases so fast early in your career that you'll literally double your market rate during the course of your first job after college.

There's simply no way that you can convey to a company that they need to pay you twice as much as they did when they hired you 3 years ago. They simply won't believe it. Sadly, the only way is to demonstrate it for them by actually accepting a job somewhere else for twice the money.

The key is to remember that you're in this game for yourself first. It's nice to work for a good company with a good environment and a fun team, but at the end of the day it's not worth leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table just to stay there.

<comment><USER17> It's widely held that the best programmers are orders of magnitude better than the worst ones. [1] This also goes for you x years ago versus you now. Why this isn't reflected in pay everywhere is beyond me. While people exploit these inefficiencies (exhibit A:startups) I'm surprised that the market still allows things like this to exist. Perhaps it's because there isn't such a large disparity for the vast majority of other professions?

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html>

<comment><USER18> No, it's more likely the idea of "you don't get rich by writing checks" at work.

I think most programmers dislike the idea of what they see as kissing their boss's ass so much, that they'd rather start their own startup to get what they want (more interesting work, potentially higher pay, more amenable working conditions, etc). I can't say I blame them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Consider the possibility that PM/BAs are not paid more because they are perceived to _add_ more value but instead as a safeguard against them _destroying_ more value.

If you purchased a chainsaw and you had £10 left to spend on accessories, which would you rather purchase, a guard that protected against lethal chain breaks that happen 20% of the time or a more comfortable handle?

A bad developer will slow a project but in almost all cases will not destroy it. A bad PM can totally destroy a project and many, many BAs have specced projects that are at best irrelevant and at worst destructive.

In most businesses, the risk is not that a project will only deliver 100% of expected value it is that the project will fail. Given that avoiding failure is the primary goal, investment should follow accordingly and so we are willing to spend more to avoid a bad PM/BA than we are a bad developer.

</comment><comment><USER20> Here's an answer counter to the conventional wisdom, which feels a little too self-serving.

What if ideas are things that need to be worked on and hammered out as well? After all, isn't that why working on a startup is more rewarding? The programmer isn't just a programmer anymore, (s)he's also the PM _and_ analyst all rolled into one. Of course, the person in charge has to be good at it all in order for it to work out. Startup people have to "pivot".

I have friends at Apple and Google, and they tell me engineers are encouraged to work on their own ideas. Analysts have shown that those companies have fairly high productivity per worker. One of my closest friends at Apple does all the mockups for her team's features, despite officially being a programmer. It feels as if the role of PM is spread out amongst a number of programmers, who aren't exactly brain-dead with regards to what a polished product should be.

Now in most companies where PM is in charge, it feels as if the toolchain has been optimized to deemphasize the importance and reliance on good programming, hence PM/analyst becoming more proportionally value-dense (whether this is a good approach or not I will not debate).

</comment><comment><USER21> Project managers either deal with the money and set the wages or they hang out with the people who deal with the money and set the wages.

The further away you are from the money, despite how important your role is, the less you will be paid.

</comment><comment><USER22> I believe it's because it's far harder to find people with good people skills than find people with good technical skills.

If you talk to people who hire/interview and manage people as their primary role, you will often hear them say that the candidates attitude/people skills is more important than their technical ability.

If the candidate has good attitude/people skills, they can be taught (or will pick up on their own) good technical skills. But if they only have good technical skills, but lack a good attitude, that is something that is very difficult to teach/improve.

<comment><USER23> > I believe it's because it's far harder to find people with good people > skills than find people with good technical skills.

I disagree emphatically. Good people skills are far more common than good technical skills. However, it _is_ incredibly rare to find someone with both the technical skill and the people skill to be a technical manager.

<comment><USER22> Yes if you are taking about the general populace, I absolutely agree good people skills are far more common. However we're talking about BA/PMs in a technical company (at least that is my assumption given the original question) in which case there is already a pre-filtered environment of basic technical familiarity/knowledge. In this environment, good people skills and more specifically 'attitude' is a lot rarer than technical skills.

<comment><USER23> It sounds like we agree except on the semantics. My point is:

people skills = easy to find

technology skills = more difficult to find

technology skills + people skills = incredibly tough to find

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> TL;DR

Simple answer: people who knows how to negotiate a better deal often be able to negotiate a better salaries.

Now tell me who is a better negotiator: business analysts or programmers? (I skip project managers because quite a lot of them were programmers one point)

Or put it this way, if those programmers feel that this is not good and continue to work in a company like that, it would be their own problems since they either couldn't change the situation, or they don't know how to express that to who pay them.

Not to mention if the company itself also makes even more money in some cases.

</comment><comment><USER25> All else being equal, BA's and management are making higher level decisions which have more potential than developers to create stakeholder value. All else being equal, they are therefore worth more as measured by the potential return their work brings to stakeholders.

Unfortunately, those higher up in the decision tree aren't necessarily more competent than those lower down doing the actual work - often quite the opposite (maybe because these types of people are driven by different motivations). So the reverse situation can occur - developers can create a brilliant product which succeeds despite the best efforts of management.

I have a great deal of respect for genuinely good leadership, vision and management skills. Personally I find such things as quantum mechanics and reasoning about complex distributed systems far easier.

</comment><comment><USER26> As a Project Manager who has worked in Investment Banking for most of their career, I would say the risk is greater for a project manager.

I have quite often seen Project Managers "let go" when a project fails, but rarely do the developers on the team suffer the same fate.

Ultimately, in a corporate environment, the buck stops with the Project Manager.

Having said that, for esoteric technical skills (quant level programming, advanced risk stuff) the pay is probably higher for a developer.

</comment><comment><USER27> There's a lot of assumptions in that question: 1. that programmers are paid less than business analysts and project managers, and 2. that "programming is much more difficult than creating documentation or even creating Gantt chart and asking progress to programmers".

I would like to see some real-life numbers about point #1, and #2 is clearly biased. How can you compare two things that have so little in common? For one thing, you can't reduce BA/PM to this, and regardless of if #1 is true or not, the salary is not just based on skills. If having a good PM means that the project will be delivered on time and that it makes a big difference for the company, they might deserve more than the people who made the product. If the insights from a business analyst means that the product is exactly what the market wants, they might deserve more too.

It's very easy to imagine two products that require the same technical abilities but one being very well-defined and on-target, while the other misses the mark. The programmer's work in both cases would be the same. The work done by BA/PM makes the difference. (in that particular imaginary example)

And, of course, it's very easy to imagine the same product requirements being a great success or a fantastic failure, depending on the dev team that implements them...

TL;DR it's not as simple as that. And check your assumptions first.

</comment><comment><USER28> This isn't always the case. I don't feel comfortable disclosing my salary today, but for some reason I don't mind telling you my salary 4 years ago :)

At the time, I was a developer doing mostly web stuff, with 7.x years professional experience, in a low COL market, at $80k plus bonus.

My girlfriend was a "Jr. BA" (she held an MBA but little experience) and her wage was $45k. I doubt her salary would be doubled if she had a few more years experience.

</comment><comment><USER23> I can think of one valid reason why managers get more than programmers. Jobs don't pay people based on the value they're providing the company. They pay based on supply and demand. The best managers are ones who have been programmers before. Now how do you incentivize programmers to be managers? One possible way is to give them more money.

</comment><comment><USER29> Pay structures are stupidly hierarchical but who enforces that? The managers enforce it by threatening to quit if they discover someone below them on the org chart is being paid more. Sure, some managers are replaceable so let them quit, but the organization has to weigh the cost of disrupting an entire branch of the org chart, and perhaps losing a talented manager, vs. just giving them the raise (plus pile more work on their plate to justify it)

Programmers can be managers too by volunteering to lead new initiatives that will require new staffing. The key to being seen as a an effective manager is to manage down (relate and motivate your direct reports) and manage up (relate your team status and exciting initiatives to your boss) To continue up the org chart you must volunteer to take on more responsibility at every opportunity until you don't go home at night at which point you have to ask is this really worth it?

</comment><comment> saw-lau I believe the following answer is the best of the bunch:

[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/45776/why- do-...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/45776/why-do-business- analysts-and-project-managers-get-higher-salaries-than-programmer/45963#45963)

TL;DR - companies will get away with paying as little as possible.

</comment><comment><USER30> _reposted from the other dupe_

This is the best advice I got about this subject when I was a wee programming padawan:

Your skills are worth what you're getting paid. No more, no less.

As much as we'd like to say we create more value than other branches of the company, we don't. Value is determined by the buyer, not the creator. It's simple-much of the working world values the work of managers and analysts more than the work of the programmers. Therefore, they are paid more. Value is malleable so as you increase your perceived value, your pay will increase accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER31> I was going to challenge the assumption in the question but it seems that it might actually be correct: PMs and BAs do seem to make a bit more, on average. [1, 2, 3] At least, if one trusts salary.com's figures-- I can never decide if I should or not.

Nonetheless, I don't think the salary differences there are huge, or unreasonable. While I'm passionate about the importance of excellent engineering, I think excellent project management (and to a lesser extent, business analysis) is just as crucial to a business' success. Coders (myself included) tend to focus on the technical challenges of a project to the exclusion of the "why" behind it. As an illustration, I'm reminded of the frequent articles here and on proggit about programmers who built some awesome sprocket, only to later realize that there wasn't a market or need for the sprocket.

There's also a lot of truth to lionhearted's point that programmers often aren't the best negotiators. His advice is awesome and of the best variety: encouraging folks to make themselves more valuable by actually generating more value.

[1] [http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Programmer-V-Salary- Detai...](http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Programmer-V-Salary-Details- San%20Francisco,%20CA.aspx) [2] [http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Business- Systems-Analyst-...](http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Business-Systems- Analyst-V-Salary-Details-San-Francisco-CA.aspx) [3] [http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Project-Manager-III- Salar...](http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/Project-Manager-III-Salary- Details-San-Francisco-CA.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER32> It's a lot to do with risk ownership and the fact it can be a genuinely hard role to fill as a BA / PM. Yes, programmers make it happen, but in an organizational context, the bookends of a BA on the front and PM on the back make sure it happens in a context that provides business value and a tangible outcome.

I've known plenty of brilliant programmers in a corporate setting that while technically excellent couldn't get a real project completed to save their life. They're often a different breed from people building things in startups. They're almost robotic in their following of the prescribed scope and you have to hammer them to bring things in on time or in a controlled way.

Additionally if the whole project collapses in on itself or delivers something of little business value, it's not going to be the programmer that gets hung for it.

Note, this is just in a corp / large org structure setting. As mentioned, I find guys in startups and small shops much more competent and scope definition and management. Just don't underestimate how unbalanced the skillsets can get in some fields.

</comment><comment><USER33> Because the ability to deal with and lead people is, always has been, and always will be, the most valued skill anyone can possess.

</comment><comment><USER34> The referenced article is not even wrong.

Take the pool of qualified people who can do a job, order it by most able to least able. Now intersect that line with demand for people who can do the job. From the intersection point to the top you will see a gradual rise in salary with a sharp peak in the top 1%, below the line you will find unemployed folks.

Has nothing to do with vision, widgets, or films. The question is can you be replaced by someone who will be as productive as you are, for the same salary? Then you're on the short list. If you can be replaced for less salary, you will be.

Caveat the presence of an external force which warps the economics.

</comment><comment><USER35> Here's my twocents:

I think BAs and PMs are for the management side of the industry. Currently with big payout, however plateaued.

While programmers are on the innovation path, who will eventually (co-)create a really great startup. In the longrun, a really huge payout.

Though most programmers I know tend to jump from one company to the next, they target small tech-companies as the churning is acceptably high without the usual non-compete clause, and ask for higher salaries in each company. It is, apparently, a very good strategy, albeit opportunistic(?).

</comment><comment><USER36> Because the more real, tangible work you produce, the less need you feel to sell yourself as an employee. Programmers think their work should speak for itself. It doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER37> Higher compensation level for Managers has little to do with negotiation skills.

The real reason is that replacing average manager with good manager adds more value to the company than replacing average programmer with good programmer.

The reason for that difference is that good manager improves output of the whole team, while good programmer improves mostly single person output .

In order to attract and keep good managers companies are willing to pay more.

</comment><comment><USER38> Business Analysts and so on tend to have face to face interactions with many external/internal people, so they have to have good people skills and good negotiating skills in meetings and so on.

Programmers sit at their desk all day and work as part of a team, with little or no outside contact.

Businesses value people-skills more than anything IMO, that's why BAs and so on get a lot more money.

</comment><comment><USER39> +1 to what lionhearted wrote -

Because programmers don't ask for more money often enough.

 __

In particular, Programmers never focus on 'ensuring they get what they deserve'. Other people take advantage of the fact that programmers never focus on this part.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think about this a lot. A great pm can be a huge help to senior devs. However in the cases Ive seen senior devs end up doing most of the pm's thinking.

</comment><comment><USER41> Hopefully this comment won't get lost and I can get some contrary views. Everything IMHO; I'm trying to formulate my own views on this top. Be kind. :)

Among other things, I think open source and free software has devalued software and programming in the eyes of business owners. The root cause for this is that a culture of self-employment doesn't exist in the programmer community.

All of us are looking to polish our resumes and make them look good. The easiest way to do that is to clone some existing idea and make it open source so that it can be reviewed by a prospective employer.

IMHO, no other profession gives away their crown jewels for free like we programmers do.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is a beautiful answer, which thoughtfully explains what makes the difference between "big entreprise java coding monkeys" and "startup rockstars". I love it.

The difference between "widget factory" and "film crew" explains also most of the differences between Java (archetypal "widget factory" tool) and dynamic ( or lesser known) languages, too.

<comment><USER43> I don't get your point. The choice of a language determines how a company will be run? No startup would ever use Java to create their product? Java is a bad language because it's used in large companies? What _was_ your point exactly? Or is it that there is no point and you just felt the need to bash Java a little?

<comment><USER42> Many Java features are tailored to allow splitting a project in many submodules, and distribute tasks among a lot of coders with a spec. Many dynamic languages features are made to allow the quickest development by only a handful of developers.

Working in large teams with Ruby is harder than with Java. Getting a web app online in a week at 2 people is easier with Python than with Java.

Don't you agree that different languages are more or less adapted to various workflows, teams, applications, or environments?

Then about taste : passionate programmers learn by themselves. They may learn any language, Java, Python, C or Delphi. However the kind of people programming without passion mostly use Java, or C#, because the only matter of choice is language marketability. Therefore there many more poor, bland Java programmers than Python, Perl or Ruby programmers. There are many more Java programmers anyway :)</comment></comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Biz Stone, co-founder, Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/6097771970

<comment><AUTHOR> Design is a career where you learn creative decision making.

\- Biz Stone (@biz)

<http://startupquote.com/post/6097771970></comment>


Facebook animal trade exposed in Thailand - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45472159 <comment><USER2> I know it isn't Facebook's fault when things like this pop up (though they notoriously don't respond or react quickly/at all), but it's unfair that they ultimately don't face any consequences. If it were a small local site they'd likely be forced out of existence in short order.

Countries can't let Facebook get a free pass on these things just because they're Facebook.

<comment><USER3> You say it isn't facebook's fault and then go on to say they should be punished. Why should anyone be punished for something they didn't do?

<comment><USER2> I'm saying a lot of sites _are_ punished, but Facebook is able to get through/away with it because of scale. It's very much a two-tier punishment system.

Such a colossal platform is given leniency all around under the "we have too much content to police effectively" model.

<comment><USER4> most of it comes down to effective use of lawyers, not scale

although these things can be correlated, use of client-attorney privilege stonewalls a lot of pencil-pusher investigations and protects the entity from sanctions

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Article could very well be titled "Internet animal trade exposed in Thailand", but that would not be surfing the FB-hate wave.

</comment><comment><USER6> Facebook doing unethical things again. What a surprise.

If you think this is an accident, let me remind you that I've personally reported a lot of posts breaking their community guidelines and none of them were deleted.

I would bet good money the offending posts were also reported plenty of times but no action was taken because it's easier for FB to just close their eyes and pretend the problem doesn't exist.

<comment><USER7> It's that tug of war. When the Feds shut backpage because it was essentially a platform for illegal thigs, people were on the fence (buy it's only a platform). Here, on the other hand where FB is merely incidental, sure, let the hammer comr down. Mind you, I'm not a fan of FBs at all, just pointing out what seens a discrepancy.

<comment><USER8> I imagine the discrepancy is because a lot of people think that sex work shouldn't be illegal, and there are good reasons to think that shutting down sites like Backpage just makes things worse. Whereas here, most will probably say that this stuff should be illegal, and getting it banned from Facebook is probably an improvement.

<comment><USER7> Sex work is not the same as human trafficking —which was one of the things they were indicted for. Most people who are okay with consentual adult sex work are definitely not okay with human trafficking (and its implications)

<comment><USER8> Right, but didn't they shut down Backpage for their involvement with sex work, claiming that there were knockon effects for sex trafficking? I don't think they were directly advertising trafficking.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Announcing qboot, a minimal x86 firmware for QEMU - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/645455/ <comment><USER2> This is great, but lately I just can't keep up with the virtualisation changes. I got really excited about google's novm - that's dead now. kvmtools never got included into kernel afaik. qboot will be great, but it looks like it doesn't really support the light IO solutions (like novm's file, rather than block access). Now there's clear containers which is actually kvm, which looks like docker-meets-qboot. And many others in between.

This doesn't seem right, honestly. Half of the projects have the same approach or goals. (quick boot time and no legacy supported) So why do they die and get reinvented every single time?

Something is wrong...

<comment><USER3> > it doesn't really support the light IO solutions (like novm's file, rather > than block access)

That is incorrect. novm just implements the virtio-9p device that QEMU has supported for years.

Clear Linux does add something new: a pmem (NVDIMM) device that bypasses the guest kernel's page cache. This involves host kernel, guest kernel, and kvmtool changes.

The advantage of pmem is that short-lived VMs can directly access data from the host instead of copying in. But this feature needs to be added to QEMU/KVM anyway to support new persistent memory hardware (see [http://pmem.io/](http://pmem.io/)) so it won't be unique for long.

<comment><USER4> Also virtio-9p is slow as hell.

<comment><USER5> > Also virtio-9p is slow as hell.

I've heard that from others, but I wonder why that is. I would expect a file- level abstraction to be faster due to less I/O roundtrips for transfers and the removal of the block-abstraction. Is it just an inefficient protocol or are there some inherent bottlenecks in a file-level sharing protocol that I'm missing?

How slow is it really? Slower than NFS for example?

<comment><USER6> If you want both the host and the VM to have a coherent view of the filesystem, the VM can't really do efficient caching.

<comment><USER5> > If you want both the host and the VM to have a coherent view of the > filesystem, the VM can't really do efficient caching.

That makes sense, though it's surprising then that it's not possible to explicitly enable caching if that's the bottleneck and a coherent view from the host side is not a necessity for a given workload.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> New Industries (EC2 and friends) in hosting/cloud services were created with the advent of convenient virtualization. technologies.

I wonder what types of services/industries will be created when you can reliably spin up a hosted instance in 40-60 ms.

<comment><USER8> I don't want to spin up instances. I want to spin up functions.

<comment><USER7> Essentially that's what a call out to Amazon's varied AWS services are though, right?

<comment><USER8> Except that means you're calling out to fixed functions except for with Lambda, but the overheads with Lambda are still orders of magnitude above what you'd want for it to be practical to just decompose your app into functions run separately like that.

To be fair, making a system like that efficient is an unsolved problem even in far more tightly integrated supercomputer systems - IO quickly becomes a massive bottleneck and current hardware is CPU rich and IO poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Next up: a minimal QEMU.</comment>


Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/us/politics/assange-indicted-espionage-act-first-amendment.html <comment><USER2> This is troubling since the courts have also argued lawsuits over illegal wiretapping and other misconduct cannot move forward as they would... expose classified information:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/judge-dodges- legality-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/judge-dodges-legality-nsa- mass-spying-citing-secrecy-claims)

Without the ability for the press to publicize illegal actions so that voters can remove officials who allow it, the US government can engage in unconstitutional conduct with almost zero oversight by making the illegal conduct classified.

<comment><USER3> I would argue that this is the intended outcome. I do not believe we have enough control over our government.

Edit: I guess I should add that a lot of people in the US believe it is good for the US government to have absolute power in the world, because they think it's okay for "their side" to have absolute power over others. Often I think they associate "our side" to be the side of the "good guys" and thus find our grip on global hegemony acceptable. Except there are no "good guys" who always behave in a fair and even way, that is a childish fantasy used to keep us on board with the serious injustice perpetrated by governments the world over. The US government is responsible for oppression and murder the world over in addition to the good things we might do. We cannot blanket trust any government to behave appropriately in secrecy unless we want to simply abdicate our responsibility for the harm that governments then cause.

<comment><USER4> > _I do not believe we have enough control over our government._

And that's probably something that needs to be argued in front of the Supreme Court. It is vital in a democracy that a government can be held accountable. The government should not have a carte blanche to break the law in secret. There has to be some way to address this, and at the moment there clearly isn't.

Manning, Assange and Snowden provided a public service to the American public by showing them what their government was doing.

<comment><USER5> The gold standard here is Daniel Ellsberg who sent the pentagon papers to the Washington Post. Those were the documents that revealed that America had an illegal secret war in Cambodia.

In short, Assange is no Daniel Elssberg.

<comment><USER6> That's fine to say, but what does it actually mean?

How do we protect forces providing oversight and sunlight to parts of the government that we the people really should know about to be informed voters? How do we reasonably protect 'watchers', and how can we have reasonable oversight of the 'watchers'?

Part of the issue is that there is not a clear standard that must be adhered to; where does selection bias count as an editorial action and where does it count as being an agent of a foreign power? If someone is a completely dumb conduit that does not evaluate the data but republishes it without inner knowledge do they have more or less protections than someone that evaluates and 'publishes' the content (I.E. in technical terms 'the press', even if not part of something traditionally obvious as a news organization.)?

<comment><USER7> Personally, I think this should be part of the duties of the Office of the Inspector General, and the OIG should be shunted to being answerable to the either the Legislature, or the Courts.

Of course, I also believe that OIG should be hounding the Executive constantly, and have the authority and onus to declassify anything classified as soon as possible too. That means that classification stops being a privilege of the Executive, and instead becomes a maintenance item That requires periodic review to reclassify.

<comment><USER6> I believe you are correct in that the spirit is SOME official watchdog should exist within the government. Even better some department for EACH BRANCH.

However it is also commonly said that a "fourth estate" (or branch) exists, and the top search result that I get for that phrase is:

"What is the role of the Fourth Estate?

In the United States, the term fourth estate is sometimes used to place the press alongside the three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. The fourth estate refers to the watchdog role of the press, one that is important to a functioning democracy.Jan 3, 2019

What is the Fourth Estate? - ThoughtCo [https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the- fourth-estate-3368058"](https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-fourth- estate-3368058")

The press should also watch the government, and the oversight branches, and all of them should have oversight over the others as a completely closed system that roots out any actions that are may represent impropriety, immoral, OR illegal actions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Charges like these, which such heavy minimum sentences should he be convicted, are exactly what he claimed were waiting for him if he left the Embassy. Over the years, many observers claimed he was delusional in this regard. It appears he wasn't.

<comment><USER9> No, observers claimed he was delusional to think he would be charged with a _capital_ crime (meaning he could be executed if convicted), because that would violate the terms of any extradition.

Everyone thought he would be charged with a number of crimes if he ever left the embassy.

<comment><USER10> This is such a rewritting of history.

Everyone was claiming that there were no secret charges, and we were a conspiracy theorist if we thought so.

This went on for years.

<comment><USER11> I mean, our current information is that there _were_ no "secret charges" ... until 2018.

So for 6 of the 7 years he was in there, the "you all are crazy conspiracy people" people were correct, and only for the last year have the crazy conspiracy people been correct.

<comment><USER10> He only just now got out of the embassy.

The claim, all along, was that as soon as he is out of the embassy that the US will bring out their espionage charges.

And he just got out of the embassy,and guess what happened? He recieved espionage charges. Exactly as predicted.

<comment><USER11> The indictment leaked 5 months before Assange was kicked out of the embassy, 8 months after it was created.

It was, of course, the case that it was a sealed indictment and wasn't supposed to be released at all prior to the individual charged being arrested, but that is kind of a normal thing in our legal system; many of the charges against the individuals prosecuted as a result of the Mueller investigation came in the form of sealed charges, as another prominent instance of the practice.

<comment><USER10> > but that is kind of a normal thing in our legal system

Ok, well if it is normal then nobody should have been calling anyone at all a conspiracy theorist for saying that the US was going to have an extradition request the moment he stepped out of the embassy.

We were right. He stepped outside and now there are charges.

<comment><USER11> The DoJ at the time explicitly denied Assange being under sealed indictment, which, if he was, it should not have.

(In general, the US government is not supposed to explicitly lie to the American people, hence the "I can neither confirm nor deny" line that comes up when an issue is classified; you can't say P, because you can't reveal classified information, but you also can't say not-P because you aren't allowed to lie in an official capacity.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the most important part of the indictment, and it's right on page one:

> ASSANGE encouraged sources to (i) circumvent legal safeguards on > information; (ii) provide that protected information to WikiLeaks for public > dissemination; and (iii) continue the pattern of illegally procuring and > providing protected information to WikiLeaks for distribution to the public.

The main charge here is that Assange actively encouraged people to break the law. Since he wasn't a US citizen and had not signed a non-disclosure agreement with the United States, many of the laws protecting classified information do not apply to him directly.

The first section of the indictment describes the various ways in which Assange and/or Wikileaks said, more or less, "gee, it sure would be nice if someone got these classified documents for us." The next section, titled "B. Chelsea Manning Responded to ASSANGE'S Solicitation and Stole Classified Documents from the United States", explains how Assange's solicitation lead directly to the criminal acts committed by Manning.

Finally, we have a section labeled "C. ASSANGE Encouraged Manning to Continue Her Theft of Classified Documents and Agreed to Help Her Crack a Password Hash to a Military Computer". This described how Assange provided Chelsea Manning with tools allowing her to circumvent passwords and other protections on classified computers.

So this isn't as simple as "a journalist received classified information and is being prosecuted for it." This indictment lays out a very specific crime, which is (Assange) directly encouraging and enabling another individual (Manning) to commit a crime (Espionage) on his behalf.

You can argue about the validity of these charges, even the validity of the classifications levels assigned to some of the material given to Assange, but we should be clear about exactly what is being claimed by the government, as well.

<comment><USER13> This would criminalize a huge amount of investigative journalism in the United States. Journalists who work in this field solicit classified information all the time. They cultivate connections inside government, and ask for information. They aren't all just sitting back and waiting for sources to fall into their lap. When sources do come to them, they encourage those sources to share more information. That's how the business works, and if the US government wins its case against Assange, that business will be illegal.

<comment><USER9> The major difference is that journalists do not ask their sources to break the law to obtain information. Assange did, _and that makes all the difference._

<comment><USER14> I'm not convinced that his source broke the law. At the time, Manning was a legal agent of the US gov and presumably had the clearance to view confidential information. The information he attempted to obtain was password protected, but putting a password on a file doesn't doesn't make it a crime to access it if you have legal secret clearance. The crime was handing the info _to Assange_ , which was committed by Manning and who was prosecuted for it.

By analogy, an employee at a bank isn't a criminal for spinning the dial on the vault. They are a bank employee, they have permission to work on-site with the bank's money, be in the vault, and operate their teller station which has the vault's money. it may be against the _bank 's_ regulation to open the vault without authorization, but a guy on the outside asking a bank employee to try a vault combo isn't breaking the law if the bank employee was previously authorized to access it. The crime is taking the green papers from the vault and transporting them off bank premises.

<comment><USER15> Just because you have a secret clearance, and the information is classified at the secret level, doesn't mean you're authorized to view it. You also need to have a "need to know", and considering that Manning wasn't given the password, I doubt she needed to know what was in the document.

<comment><USER14> Oh, I get that. Unauthorized access is a violation of Manning's military policy. But she was _cleared_ to view confidential information and had access to other military networks. I contend it's not a crime for Assange to aide her in breaking an employment policy, not an espionage law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I still don't really understand how a journalist, non-U.S. citizen, operating entirely outside the U.S. is being indicted for anything.

I understand he obtained U.S. documents and published them.

However, if I obtain on-the-ground images of the Tiananmen Square protests and share them on Facebook with my friend group, should I be subject to Chinese laws?

I don't live in China, I don't have Chinese citizenship, I've never been to China. Should I be subject to Chinese law?

<comment><USER17> Yes, this is the entire premise of extradition treaties. If you conspire to commit a crime in a different country, you are potentially able to be sent there to be put on trial. As to whether or not those laws are just is a separate issue.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition)

<comment><USER18> This is not a good understanding of Extradition. Extradition before the age of the internet involved identifying people who had in the past committed a crime in a certain jurisdiction and transporting them back there to face justice. So for example, I murder someone, I flee to the UK, the USA asks the UK to extradite me back. Or indeed JA (allegedly) rapes someone, flees to the UK, Sweden asks for extradition.

What's at question here is: Given Assange was never in the US, how has he committed a crime in the US and the answer is that the US has a funny idea jurisdiction.

<comment><USER17> Crimes committed against the United States are seen as crimes committed in the United States. This is an issue of sovereignty, as there is no (for most intents and purposes) higher, international court to pursue the case in. Therefore, the case is tried in the United States. It's similar to any other foreign national conspiring in crime in the United States. They don't have to physically be in a country to break a country's laws.

The country that the individual was in when the crime was committed can certainly handle the issue and not extradite, however, generally these agreements avoid that.

This existed before the internet as well.

<comment><USER19> If US acknowledged international courts, you could make that argument. But as of now, the US doesn't acknowledge some of the most important international courts, like the ICC. Thus the argument that there are no higher courts is entirely bogus, as it is so by choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It really is a fucked up world we live in, where a whistle-blower exposing Western governments for acting illegally is arrested and the persons who were spying on people have little to no consequences. I hope these charges get dropped, he has done and continues to do a great service to the world. The West got caught with their trousers down and they just need to deal with it. If you don't like get caught, stop acting in bad faith against the people.

I think Assange's self-imprisonment should also be considered in any punishment, there's no doubt that it took a toll on his mental and physical well-being.

<comment><USER21> The journalist that leaked the panama papers was murdered while nobody was arrested for hundreds of billions in money laundering and tax evasion.

<comment><USER22> > The journalist that leaked the panama papers was murdered

How do we know that he was murdered when he was anonymous? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER23> I assume it's a reference to the journalist _reporting_ on the papers:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car- bomb...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb-kills- panama-papers-journalist)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder what will happen with regard to the extraditions. Apparently Sweden has issued an European Arrest Warrant to get him to Sweden after he has served his current British sentence (for skipping bail).

EAW's are (apparently) different to the normal extradition process, and is more streamlined and does not involve diplomatic channels. I've heard Swedish law commentators say that the EAW would be honoured before any non-EU extradition, if this was a normal case.

If he eventually get's to Sweden before the US, it will be very interesting to see if Sweden will turn him over. I would guess so, but perhaps that's just my teenage bitterness from the The Piratebay trial still lingering...

<comment><USER25> Precedence of the extradition requests is a matter for the Home Secretary, if I'm not mistaken, and there are various guidelines to determine which request should be given precedence.

Given the previous EAW was withdrawn due to the impossibility of serving it, it is relatively likely any new EAW will be considered practically identical to the original one and therefore the date of the original warrant used to grant precedence. There's also the matter of statute of limitations: the Swedish offences (one? two? I forget how many of the original four have passed the limit) need to go to court in the relatively near future, whereas the US offences have no limit as I understand it; this furthers the argument that the Swedish request should be given precedence.

As for whether he gets to Sweden before the US, remember that he can then challenge the extradition to the US in _both_ Swedish and English courts, and Sweden considers espionage a political crime for which it won't extradite. (Okay, very hypothetically extraordinary rendition has happened from Sweden with some level of Swedish consent before, but for such a thing to be done to such a high profile person would be… truly extraordinary.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> [Before Snowden]

People on HN: Of course the government aren't spying on citizens. What are you? Some kind of tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theory nutjob?

[After Snowden]

People on HN: Well _obviously_ the government were spying on everyone. Were you really that naïve?

[Before Assange Indictment]

People on HN: That Assange guy is a completely delusional whack-job. How can anyone be so stupid to believe the UK/Sweden would cooperate with the US in taking him down permanently?

[After Assange Indictment]

[crickets (for now at least)]

<comment><USER4> That's an extreme misrepresentation. Unless your argument is that on this site there was probably someone who held that opinion at the time. But before Snowden, many people here were under no delusions about US government spying, and few people have ever doubted the UK's willingness to cooperate with the US on anything. People only doubted, and still doubt, Sweden's willingness to extradite Assange to the US for espionage. They don't do that. Sweden wants him for rape.

<comment><USER27> Sweden allows the CIA to just black bag people, outside of the legal system. That's the fear of being extradited to Sweden; the UK doesn't allow the CIA to do that.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_and_Muhammad_al- Zery)

<comment><USER4> Not good, but also not the same thing. This was deportation of asylum seekers to Egypt, not extradition to the US.

Edit: it's also not true that the UK doesn't deport who shouldn't be deported. Just a random search result: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2019/may/09/revealed-fiv...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk- news/2019/may/09/revealed-five-men-killed-since-being-deported-uk-jamaica- home-office)

<comment><USER27> It wasn't deportation, because Sweden didn't go through their deportation process. It was Swedish police watching while CIA agents black bagged Swedish residents in the middle of the night.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So did he commit espionage, or expose war crimes? Let's hope the courts decide wisely, because this case will settle the question of whether governments and militaries can be held accountable by their people.

<comment><USER29> It's not an exclusive or. Assange worked with a number of people (including Manning) to obtain classified information. Some of that classified information detailed war crimes. Some did not; some of it was diplomatic cables, lists of informants, etc. Publishing the latter stuff almost certainly got people killed. Maybe we can agree to forgive him for the portion of the espionage which exposed war crimes, but I see no reason he should be given blanket immunity for everything he's done.

<comment><USER27> > Publishing the latter stuff almost certainly got people killed.

That was all greatly overstated

[https://web.archive.org/web/20101129044151/https://www.mccla...](https://web.archive.org/web/20101129044151/https://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/28/104404/officials- may-be-overstating-the.html)

<comment><USER30> In addition, The Guardian's editor (David Leigh) actually published several articles (that WikiLeaks wasn't going to publish) _BY ACCIDENT_. He then blamed the release of documents on Julian Assange[1].

In addition he published the password for a GPG-encrypted archive of documents that were shared via BitTorrent _in a book_ and claimed that WikiLeaks was given plenty of notice to fix the issue -- not understanding that you cannot change the password of an existing file that was already distributed and probably in the hands of the NSA.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=4818](https://youtu.be/vwjazrixP1Q?t=4818)

<comment><USER31> You're leaving out that the file in question was supposed to be temporary (via a server up for a few hours) and the BitTorrent leak happened later, unbeknownst to the Guardian staff, when WikiLeaks reused the same password for an insurance distribution.

Also, think analytically about what "probably in the hands of the NSA" contributes other than fearmongering: the data in question belonged to the U.S. State Department — if the NSA wanted it, they can just ask! (Or brute- force it, in all likelihood) It's everyone else who would be interested in the archive.

<comment><USER30> > the data in question belonged to the U.S. State Department — if the NSA > wanted it, they can just ask!

The US government may not have known exactly what the leaks contained, and providing the passphrase gives cryptographic evidence that they were in fact in possession of certain documents that might not have been revealed publicly. So my invocation of the NSA is not just fearmongering -- the reason why journalists may choose to not disclose something is for their own safety and not just the safety of the public or sources.

Also, it's a bit interesting you assume that the NSA could break GPG. If anything, the Snowden revelations showed that GPG is hard-to-break even for the NSA (if not secure).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks like all counts were from 2010, and not anything to do with the 2016 election. [DOJ Indictment: 1] Much of it has to do with First Amendment issues, sure. But not all of it. A large piece of his crimes were conspiracy to access computers without authorization.

I'm not sure the Julian Assange hill is the one I'd die on if I was worried about first amendment protection of the press.

[DOJ Indictment: 1] [https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press- release/file/1165566...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press- release/file/1165566/download)

<comment><USER32> Julian Assange is exactly the hill I'd die on, because rights apply to all people, even the worst. And that's how they start chipping away at them.

<comment><USER5> If you want to make sure (like I do) that journalism isn't criminalized -- then you probably should not label criminal activity as journalism.

<comment><USER23> Care to take a guess at what the password was? If you do, should we both be indicted for conspiracy to access a military computer system?

<comment><USER5> You mean guessing a password on a computer system with warning messages that say: "This is a classified system. Unauthorized access is a violation of US Code punishable by up to 20 years in prison" ?

No.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If the US government loses (it should based on the Pentagon Papers precedent, but who really knows how the conservative-stacked Supreme Court will rule), then it should settle hopefully once and for all that these sort of cases can't be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

The US government has kept threatening all national security whistleblowers with the Espionage Act so they take the 5-10 years in prison plea deals for the past couple of decades. Considering it's very unlikely Assange will take a plea deal on this one, I hope he gets to win, for all future national security whistleblowers' sake.

<comment><USER9> Assange is not a journalist, and thus is not protected by legal cases protecting members of the press.

(Posting unverified documents without making any attempts to verify them is not a journalistic activity.)

EDIT: downvotes don't change reality...Courts have analyzed what makes someone a journalist for purposes of these laws, and at a minimum, whether investigation/research or discourse (i.e., writing or video reporting) is involved, they all agree that _analysis_ of the investigated/researched material is required. Assange put no effort into analyzing the materials he received; he simply published everything (except the Trump stuff).

<comment><USER34> > (Posting unverified documents without making any attempts to verify them is > not a journalistic activity.)

Seems like main stream media in the US proved the last few years that they were not journalistic by not making any attempt to verify the Steele Dossier.

<comment><USER35> They absolutely tried to verify it.

And actually there aren't any parts that have been categorically disproven.

<comment><USER34> I don't think so:

"Yet, 10 months after the probe started and a month after Robert Mueller was named special counsel in the Russia probe, Comey cast doubt on the the Steele dossier, calling it "unverified" and "salacious" in sworn testimony before Congress.

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page further corroborated Comey's concerns in recent testimony before House lawmakers, revealing that the FBI had not corroborated the collusion charges by May 2017, despite nine months of exhaustive counterintelligence investigation." [1]

1\. [https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/419901-fbi-email-chain- may...](https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/419901-fbi-email-chain-may-provide- most-damning-evidence-of-fisa-abuses-yet)

<comment><USER35> It was unverified and it was salacious.

That doesn't mean any of it was wrong. And again nothing has been proven to be wrong.

<comment><USER34> And...we could say that nothing has been proven to be correct, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I suspect that it might be harder to extradite him on these offences because the extradition treaty between the US and the UK, like all such treaties, bans extradition for "political offences." (See article 4-1) If he is extradited on the hacking offence the US can't also try him for espionage without the UK's permission.

<comment><USER9> Espionage is not a political offense in either the US or the UK.

A political offense means something like being charged with a crime for offending the "good name" of the prime minister (see, e.g., Turkey or India for examples).

<comment><USER37> How in the world is being prosecuted for publishing a country's dirty laundry not the same as being prosecuted for a political offense... (Not saying you're wrong, just questioning whoever came up with that definition and if we should maybe change it.)

<comment><USER9> Well, for starters all the information that Assange published while running Wikileaks embarasses the previous political administration, not the current (Trump) administration... Moreover, Assange isn't being charged with embarassing anyone, since American journalists do that all the time. Assange is being charged with specific illegal acts that actual journalists don't do, like actually trying to break encryption on classified documents.

<comment><USER38> Journalists do try to break encryption on classified documents, and Assange is not being charged with that. The documents were not encrypted and were obtained in cleartext from Manning.

<comment><USER9> Journalists do not try to break encryption on classified documents (because the case law protecting them for publishing classified information does not protect them if they actively attempt to acquire it), and that is actually one of the acts Assange is charged with if you read the indictment...

<comment><USER38> I did read the indictments, and they contain no such charge that i can see. Which page do you believe indicates he tried to break encryption on classified documents?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's amazing to me the distinction the government is making here with Wikileaks. How many things related to the Russian probe were leaked last year? Wasn't it one "bombshell" after another? No problems there even though that information turned out to be false but was plastered across every tv screen in the country.

<comment><USER40> Reporters who reported on those leaks are largely in the clear.

Had they tried to give someone help someone " (i) circumvent legal safeguards on information" ... they likely would be in a lot of trouble. Such as "hey man here's how to hack Muller's computer" and so forth (that's a very blunt example but it would qualify).

That isn't a line that gets crossed by reporters very often in the US. It's hard to talk about in here as so few people want to talk about the actual charges, but that step in assisting (or trying to) is the key to these charges.

<comment><USER41> Of course reporters are largely in the clear based on what we know so far. But the DOJ and intelligence agency officers who selectively leaked information about the Russia investigation and unmasked people to the press in order to foment their own narrative should technically be prosecuted just as Manning and Snowden were.

If enough insiders keep doing it and they all mostly agree with each other, and they are the only ones in charge of initiating these prosecutions, obviously they aren't going to prosecute themselves for breaking the rules in the same manner they went after relative outsiders such as Manning and Snowden. And they obviously would turn a blind eye to reporters they are cozy with, compared to how deeply they looked into Assange.

<comment><USER40> It's a tough line to find there with what you propose. I'm not happy about all leaks, particularly those that seem to intend to deceive / distort.

On the other hand it's hard to really draw that line when it comes to intent for sure without shutting down all and any leaks, and leaks are an important part of democracy.

Every government has to find a way to deal with them, and hopefully not cross the ever moving line.

The hacking thing though, I think that's a legitimate line. How much Assange did or did at all, courts get to decide that.

Leaks are just such a difficult area to manage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Here's a link to the indictment: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jqe9dXY6AT8NY2Cg_SWavj5RIzA...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jqe9dXY6AT8NY2Cg_SWavj5RIzA2CWAV/preview)

<comment><USER43> Also, as backup: [https://cryptome.org/2019/05/assange-031.pdf](https://cryptome.org/2019/05/assange-031.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I am primarily concerned with how the government establishes jurisdiction in this case. Assange is a foreigner, and every single one of his actions were done in a foreign country. At what point does the United States government gain the authority to apply United States legal code to his actions? There might be an obvious answer to this, but I honestly don't understand it.

<comment><USER45> He conspired with a US citizen to break into a military computer. The jurisdiction applies to the whole conspiracy, so Assange can be charged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> In case anyone actually wants to read the indictment (which for some reason neither the Times nor the Post links to):

[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6024842/Assange-s...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6024842/Assange- superseding-indictment.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER46> We can only hope that US voters will end up electing a government with a functioning moral compass in the near future. Perhaps said government could end up pardoning the whistleblowers exposing the crimes of the previous governments.

You could spend all day arguing whether Assange is a journalist/publisher, or whether he's still just Mendax getting his rocks off. You could argue about Manning and Snowden's methods. You could argue about every other whistleblower's way of coming forward. But you can't deny that each of these people exposed serious crimes perpetrated by the US government. Spying on citizens, torture, war crimes, etc.

</comment><comment><USER47> Legal question: if Charlie steals classified files and gives them to Ann, and then Bob gives Charlie $1M (no known connection between Bob and Charlie), can Bob be prosecuted for post-facto "encouraging sources to (i) circumvent legal safeguards on information; (ii) provide that protected information to Ann for public dissemination; and (iii) continuing the pattern of illegally procuring and providing protected information to Ann for distribution to the public"?

</comment><comment><USER48> >> The United States has asked Britain to extradite Mr. Assange, who is fighting the move, and the filing of the new charges clears the way for British courts to weigh whether it would be lawful to transfer custody of him to a place where he will face Espionage Act charges.

Unfortunately, with Theresa May's resignation today (effective 7 June) the way the wind blows is that Boris Johnson will become the new leader of the Tory party and prime minister of the UK. I can't imagine that the US extradition request will be resisted for very long after that.

Interstingly, unless the UK finds a way to extradite Assange to two nations at once, this will rather leave the Swedish prosecutor who asked for it first with a bit of an embarassing turn of events to deal with. I really don't see the UK (especially the UK under BoJo) giving priority to a rape trial in Sweden over an espionage trial in the US. One of those is much more photogenic.

</comment><comment><USER49> I said it before if the US gets their hands on him, he's going away for life. Each charge is about 10 years x 18 charges.

<comment><USER50> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_imprisoned_spies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_imprisoned_spies) to see the sentences of spies.

Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years, but it was commuted after 7.

<comment><USER51> Her commutation came about as a bit of a surprise at the end of the Obama presidency. I'm not sure I'd expect that to happen here.

<comment><USER29> Given who she's been palling around with since, I wouldn't be surprised if the Obama administration let her go to see where she would lead them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> To see all the concern here in this community I trust to be objective and fair is heartening. Based on what you see in social and mainstream media, you'd think Assange is a demon who deserves no justice and that journalism/free speech is not a protected right.

</comment><comment><USER53> Peoples talking about loss of justice. Do i have to remind that long before Weinstein (but this case it typical), allegated suspects are found guilty and suffer from irrationnal blaming and crowd punishment long before they face a real judge...thanks to ww2 and Nuremberg. This is what happens when justice system is more based on Public Relation than establishing the reality of facts and make a judgement from it.

</comment><comment><USER54> Its funny how some people did 180 on Assange very quickly after the DNC email leaks. The whole point of auch leaks is you can not pick and choose which ones you like and which ones you dont!! Some even claimed that he was a Russian asset. This is really depressing.

</comment><comment><USER55> So many smart tech people see IP as an issue when in actuality it's not much different from xenophobia stemming from blue-collar job "loss" in the US.

Accept it will happen and become better from it.

</comment><comment><USER56> Any Australians have particular concern about their fellow citizen?

<comment><USER57> He is receiving his full consular assistance entitlements. They are scant. What I think about him isn't the point here, what needs to be understood is that he is entitled to help from the embassy, and though said through gritted teeth, no Australian Minister for foreign affairs has ever said they are denying him support, and have said in very luke-warm voice they confirm he is being offered them.

They don't amount to much. They confirm he has access to a lawyer. They confirm his state of health. They can't get him out of Belmarsh, or prevent the extradition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> What good could this possibly serve to imprison him? Shouldn't western governments be spending more time supporting destabilizing efforts in authoritarian countries?

<comment><USER59> >Shouldn't western governments be spending more time supporting destabilizing efforts in authoritarian countries?

No? That's for the people of the country to do, not foreign powers. There has never in history been a government that hasn't fallen to its own people. There also isn't an example of US or Western imperialist forces 'destabilizing' that has lead to better conditions for the people of that country. Libya has open slave trade right now while people die with arm floaties crossing the Mediterranean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This is very troubling. Very, very troubling. I really hope that the West doesnt become like the Chinese and Middle East governments...

</comment><comment><USER61> So death sentence is publicly a possibility now right?

<comment><USER62> The UK won't extradite Assange if he faces execution. The US will have to make a binding promise not to sentence him to death if it wants to actually get custody.

I'm not surprised to see new charges filed. But these charges seem very likely to backfire. By overcharging, the US may well cause the UK to balk. I have to assume that someone expects to negotiate a shorter list of charges, so they started with a crazy opening offer.

<comment><USER63> >The UK won't extradite Assange if he faces execution. The US will have to make a binding promise not to sentence him to death if it wants to actually get custody.

That may not be absolute, we seemingly have agreed to waive it elsewhere - [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44929067](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44929067)

<comment><USER62> Thanks. That's news to me.

I know that previous non-binding promises (which were then ignored; i.e., people were executed) caused diplomatic trouble, so I still expect the US to make a binding promise.

<comment><USER63> >I still expect the US to make a binding promise.

Even if it is expressly told, in private, by the Home Secretary, that it doesn't have to, even while the UK government claims a different policy in public, as has apparently already happened in this other case? Also, the Home Office could make an exception at the very last minute if it wants to. There would be questions asked, but it would be largely moot if he is already out of the country.

<comment><USER25> To extradite without such a guarantee is a blatant violation of the UK's obligations as a signatory of the ECHR, as to do so would violate his right to life.

If there's any reason to suspect that no such guarantee exists, they may well apply to the ECtHR after any Supreme Court decision to extradite him, and it would be unlikely that he'd be extradited until the ECtHR judgment had happened.

That said, if it comes to light after he's been extradited any application to the ECtHR would likely do little for him, though it would be politically damaging.

<comment><USER63> Given this;

>'The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner said a senior British government official told him that this case was not the first time that the UK had dropped its request for assurances that the death penalty would not be used.'

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44921910](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44921910)

And this;

>'What ministers and MPs believe is that Mr Javid is attempting to smooth the way for the Americans to take the cases by letting them know that the UK will not, for once, kick up a fuss about the death penalty.'

>'In other words, this is all part of a deal. And some sources suggest this is a deal with precedent, that this is not the first time the UK has turned a blind eye towards its death penalty policy.'

>'The Security Minister, Ben Wallace, told MPs that it had happened before but not while he has been in his job.'

>'He explained that little-known guidance to ministers, known as the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance guidance, that was last updated January 2017, allowed the Home Secretary to make an exception to the rule.'

>'It states "written assurances should be sought before agreeing to the provision of assistance that anyone found guilty would not face the death penalty" but "where no assurances are forthcoming or where there are strong reasons not to seek assurances, the case should automatically be deemed 'High Risk' and FCO Ministers should be consulted to determine whether, given the specific circumstances of the case, we should nevertheless provide assistance".'

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44929067](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44929067)

There is reason to strongly suspect that no such concrete guarantee exists and it is in fact entirely down to the personal whims of whomever currently happens to occupy the Home Office, while the Foreign Office is busy keeping an image going of something entirely different. As is tradition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I think this is largely a smoke screen and believe Assange will not be convicted of much. I think Assange has key information that will be useful in establishing that the prior administration used the DOJ and FBI to spy on political adversaries during a campaign year and I think the current administration, DOJ and FBI are intent on making that case.

</comment><comment><USER65> > tool of Russia's election interference

Now you know why 'lamestream' media is so mistrusted.

</comment><comment><USER66> I really wish I hadn't peaked the comments on there.

</comment><comment><USER67> Listen to Eisenhower's farewell address and read up on JFK assassination, about which Trump so conveniently blocked a load of material until 2021. How much more important can the secret service be than the government?

</comment><comment><USER68> Extremely interesting article!

</comment><comment><USER69> Way back before he holed-up in the Ecuadorian, well before his hero status in some quarters tarnished from the 2016 election, I had this guy pegged as a Russian operative. I'm sure he probably viewed himself as in charge.

The nature of espionage has certainly changed over the decades. We can't allow free-lance operatives (more in line, I think, with his self image) to conduct espionage against us. He's a legitimate target.

<comment><USER70> For what reason? Lots of "anti-USA" leaks?

<comment><USER69> It's fallen into the memory hole. See the current Wikipedia page, no mention of Assange's ideologies from teenage years all the way through founding WikiLeaks. And also no information doing simple internet searches. I'm not motivated to try digging deeper, because, well...not worth the effort.

IIRC (...and maybe I don't) it was easy to run across allegations (which seemed to make sense) of his ideological leanings...I think related to hangers-on of the cult his mother got the family involved in.

That and his frequent appearances on Russian media at the time (8+ years ago). People forget, and however it happens, information falls into the memory hole.</comment></comment></comment>