> 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."
A lot of news orgs, and individual reporters, have explicitly asked for information about specific topics. Yes, usually not by explicitly mentioning it being classified, but for plenty topics that's basically implied.
By my read the indictment doesn't formulate any limiting principles on the more broad charges that could be levied against many reporters.
> 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.
Which is why the previous version, which had only this charge, was much less heavily criticized.
A lot of news orgs, and individual reporters, have explicitly asked for information about specific topics. Yes, usually not by explicitly mentioning it being classified, but for plenty topics that's basically implied.
By my read the indictment doesn't formulate any limiting principles on the more broad charges that could be levied against many reporters.
> 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.
Which is why the previous version, which had only this charge, was much less heavily criticized.