What the U.S. charges against Julian Assange mean for press freedom
The United States today filed 17 new charges against Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. Assange is charged with publishing classified material. The Justice Department says they charged this because he revealed the names of confidential sources.
I believe this was announced as a distraction from the Trump administration's excruciatingly bad infrastructure week.
The decision to charge Assange in this manner should be of great concern to press freedom advocates.
Journalists also publish classified material.
Reactions from news reporters and observers on Twitter, below.
The Espionage indictment of Assange for publishing is an extremely dangerous, frontal attack on the free press. Bad, bad, bad.
- Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) May 23, 2019
Concur. Xeni "worse than a Jew" Jardin here, Julian Assange threatened and harassed me. Today's news is extremely bad. https://t.co/vTYgRnGc8B
- Xeni Jardin (@xeni) May 23, 2019
It was probably unwise for Julian Assange to help elect the party with less sympathetic views toward press freedom.
- Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) May 23, 2019
NEWS: Prosecutors are charging Julian Assange with the espionage act in an 18 count indictment. These new charges are crossing over into very dangerous territory. The espionage act could be used against reporters who publish critical information. https://t.co/SE1uCVOp0L
- Yashar Ali
(@yashar) May 23, 2019
BREAKING: A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia has returned an 18-count superseding indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, DOJ officials tell us. He's been charged with violating the Espionage Act. Story TK.
- Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 23, 2019
I find it remarkable that it was the Trump administration, not the Obama administration (with a Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton) that brought charges against Assange.
- Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) May 23, 2019
This is a deliberate effort to establish a precedent that can be used to prosecute journalists for doing their jobs and publishing information that embarrasses the government or exposes wrongdoing. https://t.co/xPGAn4QZCg
- Adam Serwer
(@AdamSerwer) May 23, 2019
Some of you are so eager to punish Assange for helping Trump that you're willing to hand Trump a tool for prosecuting the reporters exposing his corruption. That's plainly idiotic.
- Adam Serwer
The issue isn't whether Assange is a "journalist"; this will be a major test case because the text of the _Espionage Act_ doesn't distinguish between what Assange allegedly did and what mainstream outlets sometimes do, even if the underlying facts/motives are radically different.
- Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) May 23, 2019
It's sick to watch liberals cheer the prosecution of Assange by Trump's Justice Department, headed by William "Exonerate the Iran Contra Criminals" Barr, as though this prosecution is not a massive attack on press freedom, rather some gotcha about the 2016 election. It's deranged
- jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) May 23, 2019
Even those who agree Assange is not a journalist will be concerned that this opens the door to prosecuting journalists when the government doesn't like their publishing decisions. Which happens all the time. https://t.co/9RZjQZs0cA
- Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) May 23, 2019
BREAKING: In a stunning escalation of the war on the free press, the Trump administration has indicted a publisher for revealing government secrets. https://t.co/8E95whChki
- Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) May 23, 2019
Today the Trump DOJ becomes the first administration to ever charge a publisher with *espionage* - an assertive, unprecedented legal crackdown on the traditional rights and protections for publishers.
That is a legal fact, regardless of one's views of Julian Assange.
- Ari Melber (@AriMelber) May 23, 2019