On World Press Freedom Day last week, US President Joe Biden’s administration should have been asked about the one case officials do not want to talk about: the US Department of Justice’s dangerous prosecution of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange.
Assange is a polarizing individual who millions of Americans, especially liberals, have incredibly strong and negative feelings about. I am not here to change your mind about Assange the person, but if you care about press freedom, it is important that you change your mind about Assange the legal case.
There are several facts that are critical to understand about the department’s charges against Assange, whether you love or hate him.
First, the charges have nothing to do with the 2016 US election, then-US presidential candidates Donald Trump vs Hillary Rodham Clinton or Russia. Those phrases are not even mentioned in the indictment.
The crux of the case stems from the US Department of State cables, and Iraq and Afghanistan war logs that then-US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning gave to WikiLeaks in 2010 and were subsequently shared with news outlets around the world, including the Guardian.
Second, the justice department likes to pretend this case is only about hacking and not journalism. They are lying. Seventeen of the 18 charges against Julian Assange are under the Espionage Act, and have nothing to do with hacking. Then again, they have nothing to do with “espionage” either.
The US government does not allege Assange sold any secrets to foreign governments, only that he received classified documents from a source inside the US military, spoke with that source, held on to the documents and eventually published some of them — things national security reporters at the nation’s most mainstream outlets do every day.
Third, whether one considers Julian Assange a journalist or not does not matter. Whether or not Assange fits anyone’s definition of “journalist” is irrelevant when talking about the First Amendment’s guarantee of press freedom. It is a right that is afforded to everyone.
All that matters in this case is that Assange was engaging in acts of journalism indistinguishable from the acts carried out every day in the New York Times, the Guardian and elsewhere. If he can be prosecuted for those acts, so can they.
It is why virtually every single civil liberties, press freedom and human rights organization in the world has repeatedly urged the justice department to drop these dangerous charges.
Now, all newspapers know this. It is why when the charges first came out every editor condemned them. Since then, the New York Times and the Guardian have signed a letter calling the charges “dangerous” and for them to be dropped.
Yet that is not enough. There has not been consistent pressure on the justice department, there has been no campaigning by the newspapers, there are no constant reminders on social media — nothing.
We know the Biden administration is amenable to pressure from news outlets, too. At the beginning of the administration, the public learned that the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN had been secretly spied on by then-US president Trump’s justice department, and journalists were rightly outraged.
It was not only countless social media posts, but repeated and pointed questioning at White House and justice department news conferences that forced the administration’s hand. Biden quickly responded, condemning what had happened, and within a few days had ordered the justice department to cease spying on journalists under his administration.
Just last month, when respected Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on sham “espionage” charges, the Journal marshaled its resources to help its colleague, thousands of journalists expressed outrage on social media and protests sprung up everywhere.
The White House and state department felt the pressure, and they were soon out in front, promising to do whatever they possibly could to bring Evan home.
Even if one trusts Biden not to go after journalists, think about who might follow him. Trump is on the campaign trail right now literally musing about throwing journalists in jail. Who would love to use Assange as precedent more than him?
This is not some hypothetical, far-flung, slippery-slope argument. Officials in previous administrations — such as those of former US presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush — have wanted to use the Espionage Act to prosecute journalists. Each time, they were thwarted because it was assumed that such a prosecution would contravene the constitution.
Right now, Assange sits where he has for the past several years, behind bars at His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in the UK, waiting to see if he will be extradited to the US. Assange’s legal team has sent an appeal to Britain’s highest court.
Many observers were expecting the court to rule more than five months ago, but there has been no word since last year.
While Assange can still appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if he loses, his chances could be running out.
If he is extradited, his case will go from being ignored in the US to an absolute circus. The justice department is likely to dig its heels in even further to avoid the embarrassment of dropping the charges during a media firestorm.
By then it could be too late anyway. A new president might be in office, who would not only ignore pleas from journalists but could revel in them.
Ask yourself: do you trust Trump not to turn around and use this precedent on the reporters he considers the “enemies of the people” and has previously wanted thrown in jail? If not, then now is the time to take a stand about the dangerous case against Assange.
If we wait until the next World Press Freedom Day, it could be too late.
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