The timing of this and Chelsey Mannings re-arrest are too close. They want both of them at the same time but what for?
They wanted Manning to testify against him so they can nail him with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He's alleged to have attempted to assist Manning in hacking an account password in order to obtain the files that were published by Wikileaks. Their evidence is chat logs, apparently.
Manning refused to cooperate, and was jailed for contempt, I think.
They obviously want Assange bad enough that they'll settle for getting him on a charge that only has a maximum of five years. Probably once they get him in a U.S. prison, they'll put him through something like MKULTRA, if that's even still a thing. He's on the shit-list, obviously, but fortunately we're forced to follow our own rules in order to get to him first. Not from lack of trying, the DOJ had certainly considered charging him with national security espionage shit, which would just fuck everything up for a semblance of free press across the globe. Anyone could extradite anyone from a cooperating country just for sharing information that was otherwise legally obtained.
The problem here is that if the allegations are legit, Assange dropped the ball on his "journalism" high-ground. He wouldn't be "just a publisher" and our constitution wouldn't protect him from being seen as an enemy agent. It's painfully obvious that he has an anti-establishment bias towards the West (and seems more than cozy with Russia), and that would be fine if he made efforts to avoid being an active participant in data theft/whisleblowing/etc.
In other words, he dun goofed. And they backtraced it. To the cyberpolice.
And the consequences will never be the same.
