https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_cas...

The criticisms in the Wikipedia are very detailed and imply there are problems with the 650000 figure of which 186000 are due to US troops direct actions. That still seems high, but you know being caught in the middle of a civil war is challenging.

Even the transition period ended multiple days ago.

Assange is a journalist and an Australian. He has no ties or obligations to the US. His organization also rededicated almost all published documents to prevent doxing. He is no different than the New York Post.

Snowden was an NSA contractor. Personally I still think he's a disinformation campaign similar to Operation Mockingbird or COINTELPRO and likely still works for either the CIA or State Dept (look up "Limited Hangouts")

Manning swore and oath as a soldier and broke it; releasing information that was not filtered or screened.

Three entirely different cases.

Also to add to the confusion, many EU member states have "monist" systems of international and domestic law and never have incorporated via statute because their legal systems allow enforcement of convention rights directly. But in some of these countries the practical effect and applicability of the ECHR is actually less than in the UK via the HRA.

Sounds like not only the American politicians were drunk on something, what the hell are you talking about? In no way have the US been through the same pile of shit that Iraq has been through, and neither have any of those problems suddenly walked over the ocean home to the US. Sure, the US has their nose wet in Iraqi and Afghan blood, but let's not pretend and say that US takes any sort of responsibility for the bloodshed they've caused.

Otherwise I agree with your comment.

The UK government is about more than just Boris's ego.

I wouldn't speculate as to the exact mechanism as to how this ruling came about but to assume it came divorced from politics is naive, especially given the nature of the ruling.

The new Supreme Court is still composed of judges that must be approved by the Secretary of State for Justice (i.e. a government minister, a politician). Technically the appointment is made by the Queen, but overruling an elected minister would be considered an infringement of constitutional prerogatives of Parliament. That means a government can veto high-justices it doesn’t like.

Downstream of that, the judiciary cannot invalidate or overrule primary legislation. Parliament comes first.

What we have in UK is fundamentally a degree of protection of most judiciary elements from the otherwise-supreme power of Parliament. That’s not absolute separation, but rather a partial one - if very extended.

While the rape accusation was retracted.

There's no equivalence of a proven fact vs accusation. Assange is unquestionably on a moral high ground here.

[1] https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/boer-war-begins-...

Arguably, the same reason judges should be allowed to remove jurors who admit their intent to convict an innocent defendant: jurors must apply the law impartially. The LII has a pretty decent primer on all this entails[1].

And almost all state laws require a jury to unanimously vote to convict, so empaneling a jury that has someone who will always acquit means that the jury's decision has been set from the beginning.

Personally, I live in a state that requires a unanimous vote to convict or acquit, and prohibits the judge from "poking at" a deadlocked jury[2]. In the few times I've been selected for a jury I haven't gone far enough to be asked if I would be impartial, and I'm glad because I've yet to decide where my personal ethics take me.

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/i...

[2]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/allen_charge

One side puts forward an argument, and the other side puts forward their argument, and a judge decides which is true and then applies the law.

Here the judge decided that he was at risk of death if he went to a US prison, the US was unable to answer that point, and the judge then looks at law - ECHR article 2 - to decide whether to send him or not.

The judge seems pretty clear that Assange should be in jail. Just not in an inhumane US jail.

Your comment BTW is a great example of how toxic these convos can be. I loathe Assange and I don't care if he rots in prison. You've assumed that I think he should be walking free.

To add to DanBC, a country absolutely can decide not to extradite to another country they believe plans to imprison someone at well below what they consider to be the minimum standard for human rights, the same way many countries do not extradite to a country that tortures or has the death penalty. There is a difference between making the argument “I don’t want to go to jail because it is depressing” and “the country’s planned imprisonment would violate my basic human rights and is to such an inhumane level as it would likely cause severe physiological damage”.

Instead of discussing the issue, you are just dismissing the person based on a completely made up attribute about them.

> I'm one of the "old" Americans who stopped watching TV as soon as torture was promoted on American airwaves.

Calling yourself morally superior and acting as if your tv watching habits when discussing detention centers gives you any sort of credibility.

Just last year a professor and two Chinese nationals at Harvard were indicted for something similar: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-...

It is precisely role of the Judge to uphold the law and rights, they take precedence over any agreements

If the current state really isn't what the lawmakers had intended with their treaties, then they need to update the domestic laws that go along with them.

https://www.france24.com/en/video/20190412-wikileaks-fouder-...

The last public stance of the french government (that I could find) on the matter was that they don't "offer asylum to someone who’s not asking for it"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/julian-assan...

And he made a request in 2015 but was denied.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-assange/france-rej...

Plus, I'm not sure if he qualifies for the status of refugee (asylum seeker) as defined here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta...

As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

From the US point view at least (and the UK according to the latest judgment), he's being extradited for a crime not a political opinion.

> ...

> Let’s say he steps one foot out of the UK to another country that has an extradition treaty

Very much agree with this take, after all the US already forced the landing of the Bolivian presidential plane in Austria when they believed that Snowden could be aboard it in order to capture him and extradite him to the US

So why are Lauri Love and Gary McKinnon still free after the same extradition denial years ago?

Being watched by guards isn't one of the top 10 worst aspects of living in prison.

By that definition there's hardly anyone who could be called a journalist.

It's also a textbook example of a "no true scotsman" fallacy.

A journalist is someone who does journalistic work, so he's a journalist, even if he's a bad one.

Do you have an engineering degree?

Used to be that you'd have to be registered as a professional engineer before calling yourself one.

> In Crito, Socrates believes injustice may not be answered with injustice, personifies the Laws of Athens to prove this, and refuses Crito's offer to finance his escape from prison. The dialogue contains an ancient statement of the social contract theory of government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crito

Writing summary articles is not the definition of journalism.

To spell it out: prior to 9/11, institutionalized use of torture was anathema to our national mores as reflected by American cultural products. Only ad-hoc extra legal violence (various police shows) was on the entertainment menu.

After 9/11, institutionalized use of torture was promoted as "necessary" and "acceptable" and cultural products were duly modifed to represent that radical shift in American ethos.

American children who grew up post 9/11 are likely not even aware that as recently as 1992, use of torture was systemically held up as a sign of a repressive system. I merely bring up TV given that it is the main source of social conditioning for the masses. We could discuss academic and political content not on TV and see the same abrupt shift in our national value system.

You keep saying you "don't like fleeing", but you haven't provided an alternative that would both provide real change and not have him being threatened with the prospect of a firing squad.

Basic UK constitutional law: judges apply the law as written by Parliament, not the law as it ought to be written if the treaty had been properly implemented. If this leads to the UK not following their obligations, the remedy for this is Parliament need to modify primary legislation to satisfy their international obligations. All treaties need ratification by Parliament.

(There are two major exceptions to this: the European Convention of Human Rights which was "domesticated" by the Human Rights Act 1998, and EU law which, pre-Brexit, was brought into UK law by the European Communities Act, and has now been integrated into UK law through the EU Withdrawal Act.)

Hypothetically, let’s say the statute actually had a section with “no extraditions for unsavoury offences” in it. That’s pretty weird and ambiguous, so you might, subject to UK law on statutory interpretation, look to the treaty/treaties the Act is implementing to figure out what the legislature meant by unsavoury when they wrote it. Maybe a bunch of treaties had similar provisions using the word unsavoury, but the US one changed it, and you would analyse why they didn’t use the language again, or whether political offences as referred to by the US treaty would fit the bill... But according to the judgment, the Act is not ambiguous. There is nothing to look to the treaty for.

Still, the basis for the extradition is not the treaty. Treaties bind States (ie countries) against each other. The remedy for a treaty law breach is stern words from the UN, maybe a fine, whatever. But treaty law cannot establish domestic laws that govern things like extradition. The only requirement imposed by the treaty is on the UK as a State to implement the treaty in domestic law, which is how countries like the UK comply with the terms of the treaty. International law does not bind local decision makers who decide whether the extradition goes ahead. It also does not bind parliament, which can refuse to implement a treaty or decide to deviate from it. It should also be quite plain that Assange is not a State party to the extradition agreement, being neither the literal United States nor Kingdom, so he does not have standing to object to the UK’s implementation, and of course, is in utterly the wrong court for that :)

(That the UK is bound to comply makes for a strong suggestion that parliament actually intended to be true to the treaty when they implemented it, but this is only relevant where there is ambiguity in the domestic law requiring resolution, because of the primacy of legislative power and its ability to write laws in clear terms that can’t be wriggled out of.)

There’s a difference, as I’m sure you’re now aware having stopped accusing her of being extremely suspect, between judgments that are simply annoying for your team, and producing utterly biased, pre-decided results that match the tie of the President that nominated you. You’ll find that the former happened here, and the latter isn’t nearly as big a problem in the UK as you seem to have assumed to be the case.

So... somewhat disingenuous.

Those all stem from the US though, I think he's only detained by the UK for extradition?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julia...

Why does this matter?

> one of the highest per capita GDPs in the world, thanks in large part to being one of the highest per capita oil exporters in the world for decades

Their GDP per capita is almost identical to the US. (And the US has tons of oil too for what it's worth.)

Because it is currently fashionable in the US to esteem, exalt, or even hallow many things Scandavian. If you live in the US, you’ve no doubt seen this.

To many in the US, the Scandavians have just nailed it everything social-economic. Personally, I wish we’d take more influence from their diet (fish! fish! more fish!)

[1] http://www.aublr.org/2017/11/private-prison-contracts-minimu...

This scenario is more like person who's never left B gets shipped off to C because he said something C didn't like.

Extradition cases sadly fails all three of those. They are extremely selective enforced, there are few safeguards, and generally no punishment against officials that fails to uphold the few safeguards that exist. The whole ordeal is intertwined with diplomatic relations and politics of both national and international nature.

> If a citizen of A commits murder in B and there is credible evidence, but the person has fled to C, should C not be able to extradite the person to B under any circumstances?

Perhaps in certain circumstances. But in general, this is a dispute between A and B. C should let those two countries handle it. I.e., deport the citizen back to A, their home country. [edited: s/extradite/deport]

Consider: in many countries, certain forms of speech are illegal. I shouldn't need to worry that I may have said something illegal in China in order to visit South Korea. It's hard enough to learn all the laws in the country I am visiting, let alone every country that directly or indirectly has an extraction treaty.

The one scenario where I could see this being reasonable is within a bloc of countries that have free travel between and a somewhat unified set of laws, and only for breaking one of those bloc-level laws.

This is not far removed from "Think of the children" style rhetoric that is used in the US to pass all kinds of oppressive laws and regulations

Everyone can generally agree that having a murderer stand trail is a good thing, but what about someone that illegal distributes a file to one nation thus committing a "crime" in that nation.

What about other less extreme crimes, which is more often what extradition treaties are used for, not murder as your strawman desires it to be

Espionage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_the_Unit...

The conduct being refereed to is part of the issue many people are having here. As the defense argued the conduct is that of an investigative journalist. If such conduct constitutes an offense in the law, then some are worried that there is precedent to charge a wider range of conduct then previously though possible. Weather this is true or not remains to be seen I guess. Either way its a meaningful determination that this judge made.

It is true that the UK technically doesn't guarantee 'freedom of the press' per se, it does have laws however that protect the freedom of expression, not as strongly as the 1st Amendment but still.

Further, there's a long precedent of British newspapers doing what WikiLeaks does and even collaborating with WikiLeaks without being prosecuted.

It's clear Assange is someone who the intelligence community views as an individual who crossed them and needs to be used to deter others. Reading the judgment it is hard not to come to the conclusion she agrees with this view.

The journalist in your example should not be accessory to a crime.

If Manning asked for gloves to hide her fingerprints, Assange should have answered "send me the documents when you have them, but I can't help you hiding your fingerprints"

If you imagine the hack being another crime, maybe it's clearer.

Imagine Manning told Assange she could get the files but in order to get them she had to kill the guards at the door and asked Assange if he had a gun.

And, no doubt the celebrity's supporters would argue that he'd crossed the line from journalism to hacking as well.

If Assange were a Russian holed up in Belarus being extradited to Russia for uncovering Russian war crimes by cracking password hashes I really wonder how many people here would still be arguing that he "crossed the line".

My guess is precisely zero, and any Russians who did so would be mocked and accused of being shills.

Additionally in the eyes of the law, hacking a celebrity does not bring a higher punishment than hacking a nation state, despite its good intentions and the public interest of the released information.

And he isn't accused of "helping to protect an intelligence source", because that's not a crime. One claim raised by the prosecution is that Assange was sent hashes and ran them against a rainbow table in an attempt to provide assistance to manning in order to grant further access to confidential government systems.

If this claim is true or not, we don't know because it hasn't gone to court yet, but the accusation is more than "just protecting a source".

And personally I think there should be an exception to releasing documents that show government wrongdoing which means it isn't illegal - however this is not codified in law.

> as if there would have been alternative to leaking hunan rights violations.

The comment you're responding to did not make either of these claims.

I fully support Assange FYI, but at the same time I think he possibly broke laws while doing his (incredibly important) work, or at least there would be enough ambiguity around law to bring a case to the crown court (remember this is the magistrates).

There is no proven accusation because Assange hasn't gone to trial, which is the part of the process where that standard applies.

The credible allegation part is the indictment handed down from a federal grand jury; this is the 'probable cause' standard.

No, which is why in the judgment every reference to a supposed attempt of "cracking a hash" is preceded by "alleged".

That the judge is making a novel argument that there is no longer any barrier to extraditing people from the UK to the US for political offenses, despite what it clearly says in the treaty. As I understand it, this is a contentious issue, and most commentators had previously expected the political offenses exception to hold. The argument that the judge made - that the terms set out in extradition treaties are irrelevant in extradition hearings - does not appear to be as straightforwardly accepted as you're claiming. My understanding is that the Extradition Act of 2003 itself, without the treaty, is not sufficient to extradite Assange. If the treaty with the US did not also exist, there would be no extradition to the US. So to argue that the defendant derives no protections from the text of the treaty is quite a strange argument.

If people can now be extradited from the UK to the US for political offenses, that is a major development with extremely worrying consequences. Now that the US is treating national security reporting as espionage, if UK journalists are no longer protected by the traditional political offenses exception, they are open to prosecution in the US.

"""On 12 July 2018 the higher court in Schleswig-Holstein [Germany] confirmed that Puigdemont could not be extradited by the crime of rebellion, but may still be extradited based on charges of misuse of public funds. Puigdemont's legal team said they would appeal any decision to extradite him. Ultimately, though, Spain dropped its European arrest warrant, ending the extradition attempt. Puigdemont was once again free to travel, and chose to return to Belgium.""" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carles_Puigdemont

Because the intelligence community hates Assange and what he represents. They spied on US lawmakers, tortured, manufactured evidence... I find it hard to believe they WOULDN'T meddle in this case.

> Obama's DoJ apparently decided not to pursue the case, why would we expect Biden's DoJ to come to a different conclusion?

Because post 2016 election the Democrats are no friends of Assange and WiliLeaks, regardless of the implications for press freedom.

Honestly I don't understand how Americans still trust our news sources today.

[1] https://radiopaedia.org/articles/dose-limits?lang=us

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5019040/

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S165836551...

The difference in intensity is 3,600 fold. It's the difference between being subjected to 1 hour of 30 degree celcius heat and 1 second of 108,000 degree celcius heat.

    > "(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he/she:
    > (a) uses threatening [or abusive] words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
    > (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening [or abusive],
    > within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby."

> If an aggrieved third party had been present, and her refusal to cover up created a likelihood of imminent breach of the peace then - perhaps - a temporary arrest might be justified, would you accept?

In principle, if the language had been bad enough, yes. In this case? No, I would not. It's not nearly offensive enough language that you won't hear far worse on a regular basis. If someone can't handle seeing a t-shirt like that, they would not last long in London.

Here she'd be more likely to cause offence people by wearing a "Boris is great" t-shirt. Personally I'd find that horribly offensive (I'm not being facetious - the guy is a threat to life and liberty), but I wouldn't argue for it to be banned, because it's nowhere near bad enough for a reasonable person to disturb public order over.

[This is especially true because Boris is a politician, and people need to expect coarser language used to express frustration]

If an actual aggrieved party had been present and reported her, then they would have had a reason to intervene to at least consider the issue. But that aggrieved party is and was entirely hypothetical.

If your point is that there is in fact an express importation of the various treaties’ terms into UK law, you need to point to the words in an Act of Parliament that say that. If your point is that the threshold requirement in the first section of Part 2 of the Act that a treaty relation exist actually constitutes an importation of treaty terms, or that an express importation is not actually required for this kind of thing, then go ahead and argue that based on UK statutory interpretation law. The defence didn’t manage it, but I look forward to seeing their attempt in any appeal proceedings. It’s not really obvious how “Extradition to the US is enabled by this treaty” is an argument for either; you’re only really saying it meets the threshold requirement, which was a given. You have to argue based on the words in the Act and UK law first, and your instinct about what treaties should mean second.

Edit: While you’re at it, you’ll have to rebut quite a lot of points about the intention of Parliament in EA2003, when it deliberately omitted the previous domestic implementation of treaties that refer to political offences. Read the judgment 41-63 over and over to see what you’re up against.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/new-nigerian-law-means-seven-y...

There are countless examples of state sponsored hacking. There's no way the actor would be punished in the country of origin if their country of origin was not only OK with their actions but supporting them. Does that mean whoever did it should be free to travel anywhere they want without repercussions? You're essentially saying that countries are no longer allowed to enforce their laws on any foreign citizens... that seems EXTREMELY short sighted.

Furthermore, how would the country of origin even prosecute when the victim wasn't one of their citizens. What are the mental gymnastics to say that your citizens can't be prosecuted anywhere but their country of origin...b ut the victims have to what? Travel to your country to get justice? If a nigerian scammer is caught, you expect a US citizen to fly to nigeria on their own dime to try make their case?

Assange tried (at least he claims he tried) to get the US government to help him remove names that it felt should not be released. The US government refused. Which is perfectly understandable: why should the US government tell Wikileaks exactly which names in some leaked documents are the names of actual US government informants? That would be stupid.

Assange then chose to release all the material anyway, putting the life of anyone whose names were in that material potentially at risk. Newspapers, in the same position, did not publish the names. Whether you agree or not with either action, the fact remains that they are clearly different actions, and that one involves publishing people's names and potentially putting their lives at risk and the other does not.

Which is why all the war crimes detailed in Manning's leaks have been prosecuted with the criminals behind bars.

Further, a crime isn't just a crime. A journalist attempting to protect their source is an essential part of their freedom of the press. Prosecuting them for that action infringes on their rights, making it unconstitutional. Even if you disagree with my assessment of Assange's actions, it should be clear that justice does care about the context.

I get the feeling people in this thread are getting mixed up between the difference of what people think is right or should be right and what the courts and laws say.

I think Assange was a hero. At the same time, the claim that he tried to help crack a US military hash to assist with extracting files does sound pretty illegal on the face of it, despite its good intentions and positive outcomes for truth and journalism.

Just because you did good by breaking the law, or that you broke the law in the name of journalism, doesn't provide you protection from the courts in the eyes of the law (And particularly not at a magistrates court!).

An individual can't 'make war', only countries can do that.

We are talking about an allegation (not proven!) of a crime, highly political in nature to boot, not 'retaliation'

So how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on?

> I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange

Right. That is exactly my problem. When we're talking about war criminals I'd hope the person who exposed it would be the last to get some blame in the matter.

It's the U.S. government who committed war crimes here and used secrecy to conceal their crimes. Of course it's the U.S. government's fault. The option to not commit war crimes and use the secrets act to conceal it was there. They didn't take it.

The U.S. Government proved it will use 'top secret' to hide not only information that is actually top secret but also information that is embarrassing. This would be a pretty clear motivator for the Pentagon not to respond and for WikiLeaks to go ahead with the publication.

> Wikileaks could have published that information without publishing anyone's name.

No. Names as such are vital. It lets you know WHO needs to be held accountable. Most leaks are published with names in them. There are names that the U.S. government could have suggested (not demand) to be redacted and WikiLeaks could have agreed to either some or all of the requests. They refused to cooperate. It's pretty clearly on them.

I also love how the people exposing war crimes are getting more heat that the actual war criminals who never spent a day behind bars. Speaks volumes.

In practical terms, a journalist covering a protest should not be treated the same by security forces as a protestor. I am sure other, similar scenarios can be imagined.

"I'll help" is not a problem, if they are not helping someone to commit a crime (clarification: when I say "it's a problem" I mean it's a problem for whoever says "I'll help" because they are being accessory to a crime).

What routinely escapes from the prosecution of the law is irrelevant.

The fact that I have downloaded copyrighted material without any consequence doesn't make it legal.

A crime is a crime by the law, the court has to decide if you either committed it or not (regardless if you did it for real, if the court can prove you did it, you did it).

That doesn't mean that killing a baby and downloading an episode of a TV show illegally is the same thing, it means that if I helped you to download the content and you are accused of downloading that content and the court can prove it, I am accessory to the crime even if people routinely get by.

> unauthorized possession's of classified information is a crime

Are you referring to this?

> Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.

What journalists do is not retain them, it's publish them, which AFAIK is not illegal.

I'm being downvoted for basically stating the obvious and, worse than that, by people that do not stop a second to think about what other people wrote.

I'm not putting Assange on trial, I'm not a judge, this is not a tribunal, I was just clarifying what he's been accused of!

Having said that: yes, if you are the driver in a Bank robbery, you can get arrested for "basically driving a car"

The crime is not driving, is helping other criminals to commit the crime.

Which is what Assange is accused of. He's not accused of running hashcat.

Even if he did the decryption with pen and paper and failed he would be an "accessory to the crime" (allegedly, because he's only accused of doing it)

To put it in other words, he is accused of being

> a person who knowingly and voluntarily participates in the commission of a crime.

Regardless of the crime, the simple fact that he (allegedly) helped is a crime.

Investigative journalism is a difficult profession. Yet people manage. Throwing your hands up is a disservice to the profession. Calling someone who does so a journalist is a disservice to actual investigative journalists.

“...Assange wrote that WikiLeaks would consider recommendations made by the International Security Assistance Force "on the identification of innocents for this material if it is willing to provide reviewers."

That’s from your salon.com article.

So Assange would “consider” redacting (not promising anything) and only if a group from the United Nations identified “innocent” names. There’s no mention that the Pentagon has any input at all. And there’s no reason to think anyone at the ISA should know the names of undercover intelligence agents in those documents, especially the documents completely unrelated to Afghanistan... since the ISA was involved only with issues in Afghanistan.

IMO this would actually be a valid argument--Assange has already effectively served a sentence even though he hasn't been officially tried--but Assange's defense apparently did not make it.\

I note, btw, that this kind of consideration (as well as other considerations you have raised) is also one that a US President could take into account in deciding whether or not to pardon Assange. Do you think the President should do that?

No, they asked for those names knowing that the US government couldn't possibly give them since that would expose the identities of people who would then be put at risk of their lives. In other words, they purposely put the US government in a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. As I've already said upthread.

The ones that had so cozy of a relationship with the Pentagon that they saw no problem in being government mouthpieces and getting the public to support a war in Iraq that killed 200k+ people on a made up pretense of WMDs. Same for Lybia, Syria etc.?

Because that's how you get the level of government access to be what you'd consider a 'real' journalist.

I am glad that you don't get to define who makes a 'real' journalist and who doesn't. Julian is not one of these[1] indeed.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_journalism

Sorry if I insist on this, but helping != being accessory to a crime.

You can help in many ways, most of them are not crimes.

If I ask you to help me to set on fire the car of someone who harassed my girlfriend and you say "I can't" you are not refusing to help, you are refusing to commit a crime in order to help me. You might help in other ways like saying "please, don't do this".