Assange was doing far more than giving a few tips and encouragement.
I'd draw your attention to paragraph 4-6, where Assange recruited hackers to collect a "most wanted" list of confidential material and explained how he had exploited a vulnerability in the Congressional Research Service to get copies of draft reports. Also paragraphs 19-22, where communications between Assange and Manning indicate that Assange was trying to help Manning log into the system with a different login than her own, by getting a password from a hash. Whether or not he actually succeeded, if he actually attempted to crack the password, that would be an illegal conspiracy. (Conspiracy doesn't require being successful--it's enough to take the first step towards an illegal goal, in this case logging into the DOD network using someone else's account.)
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/22/katharine-gun-w...
Gun was a GCHQ agent (a UK citizen that agreed to the restrictions that come with being a government intelligence analyst) that leaked evidence of the US plan to rig the UN vote around the Iraq War. She got off because the crown declined to prosecute because her defense strategy was one of necessity, showing that the government knew what they were doing was illegal and that it would imminently result in the deaths of innocents.
"Some of the information that would have been revealed at her trial, in particular Lord Goldsmith’s “conflicting arguments” as to the legality of the invasion, did not fully emerge until the publication of the report of the Chilcot inquiry in 2016. In its absence, Tony Blair won another election in 2005. Gun is grimly amused to see his current return to the moral high ground over Brexit."
In Mr. Assange's case, he is neither a US citizen nor a sworn intelligence analyst. He did in fact reveal crimes that horrified the world. They are trying to get him for running some code on a computer to see what the criminals were saying. Those people were knocking over countries and killing innocent people (something that he was able to show live in the helicopter gunship video).
The US standard for this case compared to Kat Gun is mind blowingly authoritarian and criminalizes effective dissent.
It seems just as likely to me that Assange was advocating for hackers to spend some of their time looking for documents he feels are in the public interest. I'm just speculating here, but isn't it likely that the congressional records system was not hacked but rather documents posted on it were simply difficult to find, and that if Assange could convince hackers to spend their time researching this then more information could be reported to the public?
Given how badly the prosecution has outright lied and also twisted facts to fit its narrative in this case, and how it has abused process and procedure, why should we give it any benefit of the doubt? Who says this indictment is based on evidence? It's not as if the prosecutor is going to be punished at all when he turns out to be lying.
Also, when reading paragraphs 19-22, it really looks to me that the supposedly criminal acts performed by Assange (attempted cracking of a password hash) was to protect the anonymity of the source - and that impression comes from the text of the indictment itself "Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of unauthorized disclosures of classified information."
There is a comical piece within the indictment that HN readers will enjoy:
"Manning did not have-administrative-level privileges, and used special software, namely a Linux operating system, to access the computer file"
The indictment isn't clear whether he succeeded or not. But if you look at the March 10th communication, it's clear that Assange tried to crack the hash. If so, that constitutes an illegal conspiracy.
Say your friend asks you to pick a lock so he can rob someone's house. You try to pick the lock and fail. Even though you haven't robbed the house yet, you're both guilty of conspiracy to rob the house. The attempted lock-picking is an "overt act" that completes the conspiracy: https://www.justia.com/criminal/offenses/inchoate-crimes/con...
> Finally, in most states, conspiracy requires an “overt act” taken in furtherance of the crime. This overt act does not have to be the crime itself, nor does it have to be an act that is illegal. Rather, the act must merely be a step taken in furtherance of the criminal objective, such as buying a weapon or holding a meeting to plan an attack. The act must also take place after the group of individuals has agreed to conspire.
If you looks at the logs, that is just not what happened. I see various discussions of it that sort of make up a story that isn't there. The actual chat is like this:
Bob> How big is that upload?
Alice> 440MB
Alice> It's a lot of scanned documents
Alice> How's your finances these days?
Alice> Hey are you any good at lock picking?
Bob> Yes [unclear if yes, scanned documents would account for that size, or yes, I'm good at lock picking, or something else]
Bob> Our finances are doing okay, but have trouble with some payments
Bob> We have extensive lock picking knowledge
Alice> [Sends photo of something, not clear what]
Alice> I think this is a lock, but I'm not sure. I pointed the camera at the door and took that photo.
Bob> What makes you think that's a lock?
Bob> Is it attached to a door?
Alice> Yeah
Bob> Sent the photo to someone who knows about locks
Alice> Thanks
[2 days later]
Bob> Any more hints about this picture you sent me?
Bob> No luck so far [not clear if luck with talking to the lock expert, or if the expert couldn't recognize this as a lock, or if tried to crack it... or if didn't send it anywhere at all and just mentioning it because he wants Alice to think he's helping her so that she keeps telling him what's going on]
In my view this is not even close to an overt act and that we can be sure of that given the context of all the other stuff they chat about. I'd expect some discussion of progress and technical details.
[PS. I think this is the third comment of yours I've replied to in this discussion. I don't mean to stalk you. Your points are well articulated even though I disagree with them]
If true, it would be more like this:
A friend sees that an illegal act is committed inside a house and asks you to pick the lock in order to go in and stop it.
All these documents turned out to reveal war crimes. The state shouldn't be able to hide behind these flimsy secrecy claims when they are murdering people.