Assange hit with 17 new indictments, free press advocates see peril for journalism

[SaysWho?]

The indictment charging Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange with obtaining and publishing classified material represents a grave threat to all Americans' First Amendment rights, advocates across the political spectrum said Thursday.

 

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The superseding indictment adds 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 to a single previous count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion that was revealed last month. Specifically, it accuses Assange, 47, of having illegally induced Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning to send him classified documents, some of which he published without redacting the names of confidential sources who provided information to U.S. diplomats.
 

Advocates and legal scholars said the indictment seeks to criminalize activity engaged in by journalists every day — publishing news of vital interest that they receive from someone who shouldn't have given it to them.

 

"For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information," said Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

 

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"This is really what free speech and free press advocates have been worrying about," Jaffer said in an interview on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes."

 

"It really does cross a new frontier," he said.

 

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Similarly, Eli Lake, a neoconservative columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, said the indictment "represents a profound danger to any reporter who has published state secrets."

 

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And Matthew Miller, a justice analyst for MSNBC, pointed out that the Justice Department declined to charge Assange for just that reason during the administration of former President Barack Obama, when he was its chief spokesman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assange/Wikileaks were idiots for helping Trump.

[CayceG]

I'm no Assange fan. I think what he did is not journalism and he has gone far beyond being a journalist and his actions deserve consequence. 

 

But these charges are ridiculous. They are plainly applicable to journalism outlets like WaPo or the NYT. These charges, if they are allowed to progress, and if he's convicted of any of them, will set a horrendous precedent in our justice system that will allow the government to go after the press and reporters and journalists for receiving, holding, and printing vital secret government documents. 

 

Obama fucked up. Not by refusing to charge Assange--but by going after OTHER people that were actual journalists in much of these same ways.