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Assange Is Free, But US Spite Will Chill Reporting for Years Ari Paul ([link removed])


CBS: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange returns to Australia a free man after pleading guilty to publishing U.S. secrets

WikiLeaks director Julian Assange pleaded guilty "to a charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information" (CBS, 6/25/24 ([link removed]) ).

In some ways, the nightmare for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is coming to an end. After taking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, he was arrested in 2019 by Britain, who have since been trying to extradite him to the United States on charges that by publishing official secrets he violated the Espionage Act ([link removed]) (FAIR.org, 12/13/20 ([link removed]) ; BBC, 6/25/24 ([link removed]) ). Once he enters a guilty plea, he will be sentenced to time served and walk away a free man (CBS, 6/25/24 ([link removed]) ).

Assange’s case has attracted the attention of critics of US foreign policy, and those who value free speech and a free press. His family has rightly contended that his treatment in prison was atrocious (France24, 11/1/19 ([link removed]) ; Independent, 2/20/24 ([link removed]) ). A group of doctors said he was a victim of “torture” tactics (Lancet, 6/25/20 ([link removed]) ). In 2017, Yahoo! News (9/26/21
([link removed]) ) reported that the “CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation” and that CIA and Trump administration insiders “even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request ‘sketches’ or ‘options’ for how to assassinate him.”

His supporters noted that the charges against him came after he harmed the US imperial project, particularly by leaking a video showing US troops killing Reuters journalists in Iraq (New York Times, 4/5/10 ([link removed]) ). Under his watch, WikiLeaks also leaked a trove of diplomatic cables that the New York Times (11/28/10 ([link removed]) ) described as an “unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders, and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.”

Press freedom and human rights groups like the International Federation of Journalists ([link removed]) and Amnesty International ([link removed]) had long called for his release. Several major news outlets from the US and Europe—the New York Times, Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País—signed a letter calling for his release (New York Times,11/28/22 ([link removed]) ). They said his “indictment sets a dangerous precedent and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press.”


** Hostility toward press freedom
------------------------------------------------------------
Guardian: Julian Assange’s wife speaks of elation over plea deal

Assange will owe the Australian government half a million US dollars for his flight home from US custody (Guardian, 6/25/24 ([link removed]) ).

Assange’s loved ones and supporters are certainly glad to see him come home (Guardian, 6/25/24 ([link removed]) ). But let’s be perfectly clear-eyed: The entire ordeal and his plea deal are proof of a hostile climate toward a free press in the United States and the wider world, and its chilling effect on investigative journalism could substantially worsen.

Assange’s deal has echoes of the end of the West Memphis Three case, where three Arkansas men were wrongfully convicted as teenagers of a heinous triple homicide in 1993 (Innocence Project, 8/19/11 ([link removed]) ). The three re-entered guilty pleas in exchange for time served. They won their freedom, but their names were still attached to a terrible crime, and the state of Arkansas was able to close the case, ensuring the real killer or killers would never be held accountable. It was an imperfect resolution, but no one could blame the victims of a gross injustice for taking the freedom grudgingly offered.

Something similar is happening with Assange. It compounds the persecution already inflicted on him to force him to declare that exposing US government misdeeds was itself a high crime.

“On a human level, we're thrilled that he’s out of prison, including the time in the embassy,” said Chuck Zlatkin, a founding member of NYC Free Assange ([link removed]) , a group that has held regular protests calling for his release. “We're thrilled for him personally.”

But the deal shows how eager the US government is to both save face and remain a threatening force against investigative reporters.


** 'Criminalization of routine journalistic conduct'
------------------------------------------------------------
Freedom of the Press Foundation: Justice Dept. and Julian Assange reach plea deal in case that threatens press freedom

Freedom of the Press Foundation (6/24/24 ([link removed]) ): "Under the legal theory used in the indictment, any journalist could be convicted of violating the Espionage Act for obtaining national defense information from a source, communicating with a source to encourage them to provide national defense information, or publishing national defense information."

As Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation (6/24/24 ([link removed]) ), said in a statement:

It’s good news that the DoJ is putting an end to this embarrassing saga. But it’s alarming that the Biden administration felt the need to extract a guilty plea for the purported crime of obtaining and publishing government secrets. That’s what investigative journalists do every day.

The plea deal won’t have the precedential effect of a court ruling, but it will still hang over the heads of national security reporters for years to come. The deal doesn’t add any more prison time or punishment for Assange. It’s purely symbolic. The administration could’ve easily just dropped the case, but chose to instead legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct and encourage future administrations to follow suit. And they made that choice knowing that Donald Trump would love nothing more than to find a way to throw journalists in jail.

And that is all happening while threats against leakers and journalists remain. Edward Snowden, the source in the Guardian’s investigation (6/11/13 ([link removed]) ) into National Security Agency surveillance, still resides in Russia in order to evade arrest. I recently wrote about the excessive sentencing of the man who leaked tax documents to ProPublica and the New York Times showing how lopsided the tax system is in favor of the rich (FAIR.org, 2/2/24 ([link removed]) ). NSA contractor Reality Winner was sentenced to five years in prison for leaking documents to the Intercept on the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 US election (Vanity Fair, 10/12/23 ([link removed]) ).

Laura Poitras, one of the journalists who brought Snowden's revelations about NSA surveillance to light, said that Assange’s conviction could silence reporters doing investigative reporting on the US government (New York Times, 12/21/20 ([link removed]) ). Chelsea Manning, Assange’s source for these investigations, spent only seven years in prison out of the 35 years of her sentence thanks to presidential clemency, but that is still a harrowing experience (NPR, 5/17/17 ([link removed]) ).


** 'Not transparency' but 'sabotage'
------------------------------------------------------------
NY Post: Julian Assange is not a hero — but a self-righteous lowlife lucky to be set free

The New York Post (6/25/24 ([link removed]) ) predicted that Assange's release would be cheered by "anarchists and America-haters."

Worse, some in the so-called free press have rallied behind the government. The Wall Street Journal editorial board (4/11/19 ([link removed]) ) cheered the legal crusade against Assange, arguing that the leaks harmed national security. "Assange has never been a hero of transparency or democratic accountability,” the Murdoch-owned broadsheet proclaimed.

The neoconservative journal Commentary (4/12/19 ([link removed]) ) dismissed the free press defenders of Assange, saying of Wikileaks’ investigations into US power: “This was not transparency. It was sabotage.”

And the British Economist (4/17/19 ([link removed]) ) said, in support of Assange’s extradition to the US:

WikiLeaks did some good in its early years, exposing political corruption, financial malfeasance and military wrongdoing. But the decision to publish over 250,000 diplomatic cables in 2010 was malicious. The vast majority of messages revealed no illegality or misdeeds. Mr. Assange’s reckless publication of the unredacted versions of those cables the following year harmed America’s interests by putting its diplomatic sources at risk of reprisals, persecution or worse.

Unsurprisingly, Murdoch outlets gave the plea deal a thumbs down. "Don’t fall for the idea that Mr. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a persecuted 'publisher,'” the Wall Street Journal editorial board (6/25/24 ([link removed]) ) warned.

The New York Post editorial board (6/25/24 ([link removed]) ) disparaged Assange’s motives, saying he “wasn’t interested in justice or exposing true abuse; he simply relished obtaining and releasing any secret government or political material, particularly if US-based.” Alleging that the documents he published were sensitive, the paper argued in favor of government secrecy: “Uncle Sam needs to keep some critical secrets, especially when lives are on the line.”

In reality, US intelligence and military officials have never been able to trace any deaths to WikiLeaks' revelations (BBC, 12/1/10 ([link removed]) ; Guardian, 7/31/13 ([link removed]) ; NPR, 4/12/19 ([link removed]) )—and certainly have never identified any damage anywhere nearly as serious as the very real harms it exposed. (NPR did quote a former State Department lawyer who complained that WikiLeaks' exposes "can really chill the ability of those American personnel to build those sorts of relationships and have frank conversations with their contacts.") Alas, some publications side with state power even if journalistic freedom is at stake (FAIR.org, 4/18/19 ([link removed]) ).


** 'Punished for telling the truth'
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CNN: Trump and his allies are threatening retribution against the press. Their menacing words should not be ignored

The vindictive plea bargain the Biden administration forced on Assange might provide Donald Trump in a potential second term with tools he could use to put establishment journalists in prison (CNN, 12/7/23 ([link removed]) ).

Assange’s case is over, but he walks away a battered man as a result of the legal struggle. And that serves as a warning to other journalists who rely on brave people in high levels of power to disclose injustices. Stern is right: Another Trump administration would be horrendous for journalists ([link removed]) . But the current situation with the Democratic administration is already chilling.

“All he was being punished for was telling the truth about war crimes committed by this country,” Zlatkin told FAIR.

And without a real change in how the Espionage Act is used against journalists, the ability to tell the truth to the rest of the world is at risk.

“We're still not in a situation where we as a general population are getting the truth of what's being done in our name,” Zlatkin said. “So the struggle continues.”
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