Julian Assange Pleads Guilty to Espionage, Securing His Freedom

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act, securing his freedom under a plea deal that saw its final act play out in a remote U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific.

He appeared in court wearing a black suit with his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States. He stood briefly and offered his plea more than a decade after he obtained and published classified secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, moving a convoluted case involving several countries and U.S. presidents closer to its conclusion.

After a few hours of proceedings, he boarded a plane for Australia, where arrived in the capital, Canberra, shortly before 8 p.m. He pumped his fist in the air as he exited the plane.

It was all part of an agreement allowing Mr. Assange to return to normal life after spending more than five years in British custody most of it fighting extradition to the United States.

His family and lawyers documented his journey from London to Bangkok and on to Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, posting photos and videos online from a chartered jet. His defense team said that in the negotiations over his plea deal, Mr. Assange had refused to appear in a court on the U.S. mainland, and that he had not been allowed to fly commercial.

His wife, Stella, a lawyer who is part of his legal team, posted a fund-raising appeal on the social media platform X, seeking help in covering the $520,000 cost of the flight, which she said would have to be repaid to the Australian government.

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Julian Assange Pleads Guilty to Espionage, Securing His Freedom

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is free, ending years-long legal saga …

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the United States Courthouse where he entered a guilty plea to an espionage charge. Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images hide caption

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked out of court a free man Wednesday after a hours-long court appearance in which he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating the Espionage Act.

Assange, 52, is best known for the publication of classified military and diplomatic cables in 2010. His hearing was held in federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. Assange was freed on the condition he leave the U.S. commonwealth.

Chief Judge Ramona Manglona said the time Assange had spent in Belmarsh prison in the U.K. 62 months was appropriate.

"I'm, in fact, sentencing you to your time served," she said.

She said she doubted there would be future breaches of the plea agreement, and allowed Assange to leave court a free man.

The proceedings ended a years-long legal saga involving the WikiLeaks founder who spent years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London before being imprisoned in the U.K. He is expected to return to his native Australia after the proceedings.

During his court appearance, Judge Manglona asked Assange what he did to constitute the crime charged, he replied: "Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity."

He added: "I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all these circumstances."

Assange pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to obtain and disclose information related to the national defense in a U.S. federal court.

Assange wore a black blazer, a white button-down shirt, dress pants and a gold-beige tie. He was calm and didn't talk much, except to his counsel. He appeared composed and his tone was measured. He was charming and playful as he interacted with the judge.

Prior to his plea, Assange answered basic questions from Judge Manglona and told him he waived his right to indictment by a grand jury. When Manglona asked him whether he was happy with his legal representation, Assange replied: That might depend on the outcome of the hearing, prompting laughter.

Under the terms of the agreement, Assange faces a sentence of 62 months, equivalent to the time he has already served at Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom while fighting extradition to the United States. The judge said Assange was required to direct WikiLeaks tto destroy material containing classified information, though given how long this case has gone on, such an action is likely to have minimal impact.

A federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Assange on espionage and computer misuse charges in 2019, in what the Justice Department described as one of the largest compromises of classified information in American history.

The indictment accused Assange of conspiring with then-military Private Chelsea Manning to obtain and then publish secret reports about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables. Prosecutors said Assange published those materials on his site WikiLeaks without properly scrubbing them of sensitive information, putting informants and others at grave risk of harm.

Manning was arrested in 2010 and served seven years in prison before President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Assanges case attracted support from human rights and journalism groups including Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, fearing the Espionage Act case against Assange could create precedent for charging journalists with national security crimes.

His interactions with the justice system have followed a byzantine path. Assange spent seven years hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Swedish officials accused him of sexual assault, an arrangement that appeared to frustrate both Assange and his hosts.

Ultimately, Swedish police withdrew the accusations, but, next, authorities in the U.K. took him into custody for allegedly violating bail.

Then, the American government sought to extradite him, a process that limped through the courts for years. The plea deal averts more legal proceedings over the extradition that had been set for early July.

Rao, a reporter for Isla Public Media in Guam, reported from Saipan; Johnson from Washington

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is free, ending years-long legal saga ...

Cryptocurrency Prices, Charts, and Crypto Market Cap | CoinGecko

Your All-in-One Platform For Cryptocurrency Market Data

Welcome to CoinGecko! As crypto traders and investors ourselves, we understand the hassle of browsing multiple websites and exchanges to find reliable information and market data for a coin. Thats why we built CoinGecko so you can access all crypto information in one place.

Crypto prices and market data have always been at the core of our product its what we do best. We provide unbiased cryptocurrency data for the community, whether to help you make an investment decision or check the value of your crypto assets.

We use an average price as crypto prices vary between markets. Crypto priceson an exchange depend on its market condition, influenced by factors like liquidity, trading pairs, offerings, and economic conditions. As exchanges may sometimes show abnormal prices, the crypto community relies on tools like CoinGecko for more accurate coin prices.

Crypto prices alone dont mean much, so weve included data like market cap and fully diluted value. Its only when you pair current prices with historical data, statistics, news, and more that you get a full picture of a coins performance.

Another popular feature on CoinGecko is our free and powerful crypto charts. Whats neat is you can compare a coins performance against Bitcoin and/or Ethereum on a single graph. Our price charts come in both line and candlestick formats, and we also offer market cap charts.

Our prices are calculated using an average price formula based on available trading pairs across multiple exchanges. We also have algorithms to detect and exclude anomalous tickers from our prices. Learn more about our methodology.

You can get real-time coin prices with our cryptocurrency price tracker by clicking on the coins in the table above. Our price trackers are usually sufficient for regular investors. But if youre an advanced trader looking for more granular price data or a developer building crypto applications showing market data, our API gives you a comprehensive set of crypto data, including live and historical crypto prices, market cap, market volume, and more.

If youre looking for crypto prices in your local currencies, check out our cryptocurrency pairs:

Crypto market cap is the total value of a cryptocurrency in circulation, calculated by multiplying the total number of coins by the current market price. Its used to determine the valuation of a cryptocurrency based on the total money invested, not just the price.

Investors use crypto market caps to determine if a coin has more room for growth or is currently overvalued by comparing it to established cryptocurrencies with similar use cases as a benchmark. While market cap is important, its only one of many factors to consider when investing in a coin.

Crypto market cap can be divided into three categories:

These categories are often used in investment strategies, and a good market cap depends on your risk appetite. If youre willing to take on higher risks, you can look into small- or mid-cap cryptocurrencies. For risk-averse investors, consider large-cap cryptocurrencies.

Our cryptocurrency list features the top cryptocurrencies today, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and over ten thousand altcoins. What sets our list apart is we aggregate cryptos from various exchanges to give a full picture of the crypto market and not just for coins on a particular exchange.

Our team curates the cryptocurrency list. We vet each coin to reduce the risk of scams and remove inactive coins or dead projects to keep our list relevant to the market. If you cant find a coin on CoinGecko, try searching on our DEX tracker GeckoTerminal.

We rank cryptocurrencies by market cap. Market cap represents the market share of a coin or token, so the higher the crypto rank, the more dominant it is in the crypto market.

Altcoins are every other cryptocurrency created after Bitcoin, and they can be coins or tokens. Coins are native currencies to the blockchain, while tokens are cryptos built on the blockchain.

There are many types of altcoins. Stablecoins are altcoins whose value is pegged to assets like fiat currencies and commodities. Another example is governance tokens, which let you vote for the Web3 projects future. You can explore more types of altcoins on our categories pages.

Getting into crypto can be daunting. But our beginner-friendly articles and videos are there to help you take your first steps into the decentralized internet.

As for crypto investors, you can create custom portfolios to track the performance of coins you're interested in. Many of our pro-users use our crypto highlights to discover crypto gems and see whats popular today.

No matter where you are in your crypto journey, we want to empower you with unbiased fundamental crypto data you need to thrive in this Web3 world. Were excited to see you around!

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Cryptocurrency Prices, Charts, and Crypto Market Cap | CoinGecko

Transcribe your recordings – Microsoft Support

Your transcript is associated with the OneNote pageits attached to, until you remove it from that document. If you close and reopen the pane orthe document, the transcript remains saved with the document.

You can interact with the transcript these different ways.

Access the audio file

The audio file, whether it is recorded or uploaded, is stored in theTranscribed Filesfolder in OneDrive.

Play back the audio

Use the controls at the top of theTranscribepane to play back your audio. The relevant transcript section highlights as it plays.

Select the timestamp of any transcript section to play that portion of audio.

Change the playback speed up to 2x.

Relabel a speaker or edit a section

The transcription service identifies and separates different speakers and labels them "Speaker 1," "Speaker 2," etc. You can edit the speaker label and change all occurrences of it to something else. You can also edit the content of a section to correct any issues in transcription.

In the Transcribe pane, hover over a section you want to edit.

Select the Edit transcript section icon.

Edit the content or change the label. To change all instances of a label, selectChange all Speaker [x].

To save your changes, select the Confirmicon.

Add a transcript to the document

Unlike Dictate, Transcribe doesn't automatically add audio to the document. Instead, from the Transcribe pane, you can add the entire transcript, or specific sections of it, to the document.

To add a specific transcript section, hover over the section and select the Add section to page icon.

To add the entire transcript to the document, select Add to page.

To delete the transcript or create a new one, select New transcription.

Note:You can only store one transcript per document; if you create a new transcript for the document, the current transcript will be deleted. However, any transcript sections you've added to the document remain in the document, but not in the Transcribe pane.

Rename a recorded audio file

You can rename an audio file that has been recorded.

Go to theTranscribed Filesfolder in OneDrive, or at the top of theTranscribepane. Selectthe name of the recording. When the audio player interface appears, close it to return to theTranscribed Filesfolder.

Find your recording, then selectActions>Renameandrename the recording file.

Close the Transcribe pane in OneNote and then reopen it to see the name update.

Note:TheTranscribed Filesfolder looks different depending on whether yourOneDriveaccount is for a business or personal.

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Transcribe your recordings - Microsoft Support

Use voice typing to talk instead of type on your PC

With voice typing, you can enter text on your PC by speaking. Voice typing uses online speech recognition, which is powered by Azure Speech services.

To use voice typing, you'll need to be connected to the internet, have a working microphone, and have your cursor in a text box.

Once you turn on voice typing, it will start listening automatically. Wait for the "Listening..." alert before you start speaking.

Action

Do this

Turn on voice typing

To stop voice typing

Note:Press Windows logo key + Alt + H to navigate through the voice typing menu with your keyboard.

You can use a voice typing language that's different than the one you've chosen for Windows. Here's how:

Select Start > Settings > Time & language > Language & region.

Find Preferred languages in the list and select Add a language.

Search for the language you'd like to install, then select Next.

Select Next orinstall any optional language features you'd like to use. These features, including speech recognition, aren't required for voice typing to work.

To see this feature's supported languages, see the list in this article.

To switch voice typing languages, you'll need to change the input language you use. Here's how:

Select the language switcher in the corner of your taskbar

Press Windows logo key + Spacebar on a hardware keyboard

Press the language switcher in the bottom right of the touch keyboard

These languages support voice typing in Windows 11:

Bulgarian

Chinese (Simplified, China)

Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR)

Chinese(Traditional, Taiwan)

Croatian

Czech

Danish

Dutch (Netherlands)

English (Australia)

English (Canada)

English (India)

English (New Zealand)

English (United Kingdom)

English (United States)

Estonian

Finnish

French (Canada)

French (France)

German

Gujarati

Hindi

Hungarian

Irish

Italian (Italy)

Japanese

Korean

Latvian

Lithuanian

Maltese

Marathi

Norwegian (Bokml)

Polish

Portuguese (Brazil)

Portuguese (Portugal)

Romanian (Romania)

Russian

Slovak

Slovenian

Spanish (Mexico)

Spanish (Spain)

Swedish (Sweden)

Tamil (India)

Telugu

Thai

Turkish

Vietnamese

Use voice typing commands to quickly edit text by saying things like "delete that" or "select that".

The following list tells you what you can say. To view supported commands for other languages, change the dropdown to your desired language.

Voice typing command

What you can say

Stop or pause voice typing

Delete last spoken word or phrase

Select last spoken word or phrase

Voice typing command

What you can say

Stop or pause voice typing

Delete last spoken word or phrase

Select last spoken word or phrase

Voice typing command

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Use voice typing to talk instead of type on your PC

Censorship – Suppression, Expression, Liberty | Britannica

Lord Radcliffe could speak as well about the apparent indifference of censors of all kinds to the depiction or portrayal of mindless violence and brutality, that witless rejection of civility that threatens to be the Black Death of the twentieth century. Thus, it is not usually noticed today that Mill recognized that a people has to be trained properly to make use of the considerable liberty he advocates. If, for example, a community believes that video games are corrupting the young and generally playing havoc with education and the public character, is it really helpless to do anything about it? Would it be censorship to abolish altogether such a baleful influence? And if abolition of video games should be considered censorship, may not that suggest that censorship is not altogether bad? What, in short, is the popular character presupposed for effective self-government, and how is that character properly to be developed and maintained?

Such questions reflect the fact that censorship and freedom of the press problems depend for their sensible resolution upon more general considerations of liberty, of the common good, and of the rights, virtues, and duties of citizens entrusted with self-government. Thus, Tocqueville could observe in Democracy in America (183540):

It cannot be repeated too often: nothing is more fertile in marvels than the art of being free, but nothing is harder than freedoms apprenticeship. The same is not true of despotism. Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order. People are lulled to sleep by the temporary prosperity it engenders, and when they do wake up, they are wretched. But liberty is generally born in stormy weather, growing with difficulty amid civil discords, and only when it is already old does one see the blessings it has brought.

Among the blessings of liberty may be found the philosophical pursuits that have sometimes appeared so threatening to public order. Laurence Berns has reformulated the ancient dilemma posed by the trial of Socrates, the greatest hero of freedom of thoughta dilemma that exposes one of the roots of the perennial censorship controversy:

Is philosophy, the intransigent quest for truth (including the truth about politics and religion), inherently subversive? Does it necessarily undermine political society and conventional morality, or, on the contrary, is a good society impossible without freedom to philosophize?

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Censorship - Suppression, Expression, Liberty | Britannica