US Justice Department issued another superseding indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

While no charges were added, DOJ significantly—and alarmingly—expanded scope of computer crime conspiracy charge.

Let's take a deeper dive and unpack some crucial details.

WLA-2 is Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who was a spokesperson for WikiLeaks.

"The Most Wanted Leaks" list contained documents human rights groups, lawyers, historians, journalists, and activists believed the public deserved to read.

Prosecutors have grossly inflated its significance.

WLA-3 is Jacob Appelbaum, a digital privacy activist who sometimes represented WikiLeaks at conferences.

This is prime example of how prosecutors seized upon statements made by WikiLeaks staff/associates to criminalize any statements that encouraged sources to submit documents.

Prosecutors added an entire section to part covering Chelsea Manning, and they accuse Manning of being part of an alleged conspiracy against Iceland ("NATO Country-1") that involved FBI informant Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson ("Teenager").

Chelsea Manning was confined in jail for about a year for refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. This may point to what prosecutors wanted her to testify about because nowhere in her statement to military court were bank documents mentioned.

Prosecutors claim Assange "approved" establishment of a "relationship between WikiLeaks & LulzSec." Siggi made contact on June 16, 2011. However, Wired reported, "Thordarson decided to approach members of LulzSec hacking gang & solicit them to hack Icelandic govt systems"

Siggi, or "Teenager," didn't "leave." He was terminated from working with WikiLeaks. He embezzled about $50,000 from WikiLeaks. He refused to pay the money back. He later faced charges in Iceland for financial and tax crimes. And he received "institutional medical treatment."

More on Siggi (from Wired):

He “begged FBI for money." Agents ignored Siggi's requests, but eventually they paid him $5,000 for “work he missed while meeting with agents” in Alexandria, Virginia, where grand jury investigation was empaneled.

Activist Jeremy Hammond was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his involvement in hacking Stratfor intelligence consulting firm. He refused to testify before grand jury. So, vast majority of this section depends on statements from Hector Xavier Monsegur ("Sabu")—FBI informant.

Not that important but this caught my attention. In 2012, Assange hosted a show on RT called "The World Tomorrow." One of the guests was former Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg. DOJ knows he was detained. Saying "claimed to be" is a sick insult, given torture Begg survived.

Sabu, FBI informant, instigated the AntiSec hacking that prosecutors have incorporated into their indictment to supposedly bolster their case against Assange. Their informant helped create the conspiracy.

From my report:

Prosecutors contend WikiLeaks helped Snowden to "encourage leakers and hackers to provide stolen materials to WikiLeaks in the future." However, Sarah Harrison, who is WLA-4 in indictment, told "Democracy Now!" they helped Snowden so he didn't suffer same fate as Chelsea Manning.

Protecting sources might encourage future leaks, though this section doesn't accuse WikiLeaks of aiding and abetting a specific leak. It alleges a vague and overbroad conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Nearly anyone talking about protecting sources could be guilty.

Assange's case is a part of an information war waged by the United States. Prosecutors criminalize the Chaos Computer Club for hosting a panel discussion on radical transparency. They target speech rather aggressively, treating bold calls to action as "evidence" of conspiracy.

Doesn't this point to real threat WikiLeaks posed to the US government? That they would, with each publication, become more sophisticated in their abilities to protect sources and ensure authorities could not identify them. It would mean the US could not really protect secrets.

In Snowden's case, by helping him escape to asylum, WikiLeaks deprived the US government of an opportunity to crush a whistleblower who exposed a global mass surveillance apparatus. We could view this as another act of retaliation in decade-plus war on WikiLeaks.

Sarah Harrison: "...from the beginning [WikiLeaks'] mission has been to public classified, or in any other way, censored information that is of political, historical importance.’”

This is construed as solicitation, even though she is really expressing pride about WikiLeaks.

There are now officially WikiLeaks staff, who in the eyes of the Justice Department are "unindicted co-conspirators." They are right to stay in Germany, and once again, warnings about what the US government would do to them have become a public reality.

The activity criminalized in the conspiracy charge in the latest indictment spans from 2009 to 2015. The prior indictment was largely limited to November 2009-March 2010. Prosecutors are compensating for a weak case. Throw more "evidence" at a wall. See what might stick.

For more details, here's a full report on the latest superseding indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange https://medium.com/discourse/us-prosecution-of-assange-expands-to-criminalize-wikileaks-staff-who-helped-snowden-72f029276709