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JULIAN ASSANGE’S LAST CHANCE TO AVOID EXTRADITION  
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Kevin Gosztola
February 20, 2024
The Progressive
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_ Prosecuting Assange gives a green light to countries around the
world that it is possible to protect their government secrets by
charging international reporters or editors with crimes. _

Protestors demonstrating in solidarity with Julian Assange on a road
outside Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom, January 2022, Alisdare
Hickson, CC BY--SA 4.0

 

ikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is perilously close to extradition to
the United States from Belmarsh Prison in London. He has one final
opportunity on February 20 to persuade the British High Court of
Justice that his rights would be violated if the appeals court allows
the U.S. government to put him on trial.

Julian Assange during a press conference attended by international
media at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, August 2014.

David G. Silvers, Cancillería del Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0

The case has been widely condemned by civil liberties
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rights
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and press freedom
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because the allegations against Assange criminalize him for engaging
in standard news gathering activities. Yet the U.S. Justice Department
(DOJ) under President Joe Biden has refused to heed calls,
including from
[[link removed]] members
of Congress, to drop the charges.

In 2010, Assange received hundreds of thousands of classified U.S.
documents from U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. They
were published
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WikiLeaks, exposing torture, war crimes, and unreported civilian
deaths. Leaked State Department cables revealed
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stark gap between what U.S. ambassadors say in public and do in
private.

Manning was charged with Espionage Act-related offenses
and prosecuted
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a military court-martial. She received a thirty-five-year sentence
that President Barack Obama later commuted
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But Assange was not indicted for publishing documents. As _The
Washington Post_ reported
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2013, the DOJ determined there was no way to prosecute Assange without
having to also prosecute _The New York Times_.

Such First Amendment concerns were not a problem for the DOJ once
President Donald Trump was elected. Following
WikiLeaks’ publication [[link removed]] of
materials on the CIA’s hacking capabilities, CIA Director Mike
Pompeo sought revenge
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions made
[[link removed]] arresting
Assange a priority.

Assange was charged with
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counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917
[[link removed].] and
one count of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.”
Prosecutors accused Assange of soliciting information that he was not
authorized to receive because he did not possess a U.S. security
clearance. They maintained that Assange should have destroyed the
documents he obtained from Manning and others or “returned” them
to the U.S. government.

Journalists and media organizations throughout the world routinely
ask [[link removed]] potential sources to leak
information that is in the public interest. At least seventy-five news
gathering organizations operate a submission system called
SecureDrop developed
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the Freedom of the Press Foundation that is similar to the submission
system which WikiLeaks initially pioneered
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Imagine the uproar if any U.S. prosecutor ever asked _The Washington
Post_, ProPublica, or NBC News to destroy documents, or their staff
would face criminal charges. 

WikiLeaks logo (Wikileaks, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Assange is an Australian citizen. The Espionage Act has never been
extraterritorially applied against anyone outside the United States
before. By prosecuting Assange with the Espionage Act, the U.S.
government has mounted an unprecedented attack on global press freedom
that puts investigative journalism at risk.

Prosecuting Assange gives a green light to countries around the world
that it is possible to protect their government secrets by charging
international reporters or editors with crimes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently justified the detention of
Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for _The Wall Street
Journal_, telling
[[link removed]] Tucker
Carlson: “If a person gets secret information and does that in a
conspiratorial manner, then this is qualified as espionage.”

Although what Putin said is authoritarian, this is not far off from
the logic that underpins the U.S. case against Assange. Putin believes
that Gershkovich was collecting secrets and should be jailed. The U.S.
government believes that Assange was collecting secrets and should be
jailed. Both are wrong. Both are fueling a race to the bottom that
endangers journalism. 

There is no U.S. law against publishing classified information, and
the First Amendment
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the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect a person’s right to
publish information, even if the material was hacked or stolen. 

The British legal system is unlikely to spare Assange. If the High
Court rules against Assange, he could petition the European Court of
Human Rights to hear an appeal. Or he could be extradited within days.
If extradited, his wife Stella Assange says
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due to his poor mental and physical health.

Only a political solution can end this case and prevent the U.S.
government from doing further damage to the freedom of the press.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian
Parliament have passed
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demanding the United States and United Kingdom free Assange and allow
him to return home to Australia. 

A similar resolution was introduced
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the U.S. House of Representatives. It states that “regular
journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment,”
and that the United States ought to drop all charges and abandon all
efforts to extradite Assange.

Groups around the world are calling on the United States government to
immediately drop its charges against Assange and cease all efforts to
extradite him from Britain. More information can be found at the
website freedom.press/assange [[link removed]]/.

_Kevin Gosztola is the author of "Guilty of Journalism: The Political
Case Against Julian Assange" from Censored Press and Seven Stories
Press. He edits and publishes "The Dissenter" newsletter, which
regularly covers press freedom at TheDissenter.org_

_Since 1909, The Progressive has aimed to amplify voices of dissent
and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of
championing grassroots progressive politics. Our bedrock values are
nonviolence and freedom of speech._

_Based in Madison, Wisconsin, we publish on national politics,
culture, and events including U.S. foreign policy; we also focus on
issues of particular importance to the heartland. Two flagship
projects of The Progressive include Public School Shakedown
[[link removed]], which covers efforts
to resist the privatization of public education, and The Progressive
Media Project [[link removed]], aiming to diversify our
nation’s op-ed pages. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. _

* Free Press
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* Julian Assange
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* WikiLeaks
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* Free Speech
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