WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange charged with violating Espionage Act

By artappraiser on Thu, 05/23/2019 - 8:15pm |

The new charges dramatically raise the stakes of the case both for Assange and the news media, raising questions about the limits of the First Amendment and protections for publishers of classified information https://t.co/MpiGgncnuD
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) May 23, 2019

URL:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-charged-with-violating-espionage-act/2019/05/23/42a2c6cc-7d6a-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html?utm_term=.7e88600d6bec

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The debate over this summarized down to two tweets:

FTFY ==> This is a deliberate effort to establish a precedent that can be used to prosecute fake journalists who are working as agents of hostile foreign intelligence services to subvert Western democracies, their laws & their security.

You're welcome.https://t.co/Cx9rQB8OaP
— John Schindler (@20committee) May 23, 2019

by artappraiser on Thu, 05/23/2019 - 11:10pm

The Editorial Board of the New York Times, 30 mins. ago:

Julian Assange’s Indictment Aims at the Heart of the First Amendment
The Trump administration seeks to use the Espionage Act to redefine what journalists can and cannot publish.

by artappraiser on Fri, 05/24/2019 - 12:26am

Wikileaks and Ed Snowden:

This is madness. It is the end of national security journalism and the first amendment. https://t.co/wlhsmsenFw
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 23, 2019

The Department of Justice just declared war––not on Wikileaks, but on journalism itself. This is no longer about Julian Assange: This case will decide the future of media. https://t.co/a5WHmTCDpg
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) May 23, 2019

by artappraiser on Fri, 05/24/2019 - 12:34am

A comment on EmptyWheel's thread suggests this is a way Team Trump makes sure Assange is never extradited to the US to face attacks for the normal parts of Wikileaks' journalism, thus Assange's collusion/conspiracy with Trump/Manafort/Stone (and Trump's participation & obstruction kept less certain).
Yes, it does seem like an attack on journalism, such as making overtly illegal what Jason Leopold does, who's inarguably a journalist.
[combine the DoJ's tapping *everything* coming through 20-30 different lines of AP's for likea half year without telling anyone - UNDER OBAMA/HOLDER - to try to find a leak by 1 reporter - and *then* promoting the idea that it's okay to snoop on reporters' sources as long as they don't take content - pretty heavy-handed intimidation of the 4th Estate. Go USA - resting on unearned laurels for 243 years.]

by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/24/2019 - 5:55am

WaPo editorial board's more than two cents published yesterday:

Julian Assange isn’t a journalist. But the way the Trump administration has charged him is an attack on journalism. Our editorial ⁦@PostOpinions⁩ https://t.co/ZgKNKrAvIn
— Fred Hiatt (@hiattf) May 25, 2019

by artappraiser on Sat, 05/25/2019 - 5:20pm

"Assange is not charged simply because he is a publisher.” — U.S. Attorney Zachary Terwilliger pic.twitter.com/1DliNtQ8YS
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) May 23, 2019

by artappraiser on Sat, 05/25/2019 - 10:36pm

Sorry, it's still not clear. There's no "mea culpa" on the part of the government for atrocities committed in its name by contractors, etc, and Obama/Holder were brutal on whistleblowers as well, and those dumps helped bring about the Arab Spring - a momentary ray of light into the Mideast's gloomy dictator mindset.

Oddly, Hillary as Secretary of State seemed to shrug off the inconvenience caused by the dump -"It hasn't made things easier" was as outraged as she got. But she became Assange Enemy #1 *after* the dumps, more than Obama.

ETA: Marcy notes other contradictions (and 1 comment piqued my interest re Trump's two-fer: keep Assange out of US courts but attack the press.)

https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/05/24/the-logic-of-assanges-edva-indictm...

by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 05/26/2019 - 12:36am

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