Julian Assange is above everything else a victim of Hussein Obama’s corrupt Department of Justice
The Wikileaks founder is being punished for the crime of journalism, says Fraser Myers
Everything about the Assange extradition is rotten
The Wikileaks founder is being punished for the crime of journalism.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is one step closer to facing 175 years in a US prison. Last week, UK home secretary Priti Patel formally approved Assange’s extradition to the US, where he faces 18 criminal charges under the Espionage Act.
Everything about the Assange extradition is rotten. The US is pursuing a politically motivated vendetta against Assange – and yet the protections that are supposed to exist in UK law, which ban extradition to the US for ‘political purposes’, seem to have fallen by the wayside. Worse still, Assange is essentially being indicted for the crime of journalism. That is, publishing information that is true and accurate and which the authorities do not want in the public domain.
Don’t just take my word for it – this was the assessment of the US government in the aftermath of Assange’s most infamous leaks. Back in 2010, Assange and Wikileaks became household names when they published the ‘Collateral Murder’ footage, the ‘Afghan War Diary’, the ‘Iraq War logs’ and the US State Department’s diplomatic cables. These generated stories that filled the pages of mainstream news outlets the world over.
Hypocrisy: Julian Assange Blasts Media for Publishing Leaks About Him
You just can’t make this stuff up. According to the Times of London (subscription required), Julian Assange is angry at the UK Guardian for publishing details of sexual assault allegations against him based on…wait for it…a leaked police report. Stones, glass houses, etc.
Assange is especially peeved, the Times reported, that the Guardian “selectively published” details of that report. Gee, you mean that publishing only sensational excerpts of leaked private information might present an incomplete and misleading narrative to the paper’s readers that could damage the reputations of those involved? You don’t say. Read More (News Busters)
Tim Blair has a go too, here: CATCHING UP As always, there’s more: Assange is now screaming like a bitch because businesses choose not to support him. WIKITRUTHERS
Continued:
The Obama administration successfully prosecuted Chelsea (née Bradley) Manning, the source of most of the major Wikileaks stories. And it attempted to indict Assange alongside Manning for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, though this indictment remained sealed until 2019. (As I have previously explained on spiked, this ‘conspiracy’ amounts to nothing more than the normal journalistic practice of cultivating a source, getting more information out of them and maintaining their anonymity.)
Crucially, the Obama administration recognised an important distinction between leaking or stealing classified information and being the recipient and publisher of classified information. To criminalise the latter would mean opening the door to criminalising investigative journalism.
From 2012 onwards Assange claimed asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to escape charges from the Swedish authorities for four alleged sexual assaults – charges that have since been dropped. He was expelled from the embassy in 2019 and arrested by the UK authorities, opening the door to the US indictments. During this period, Wikileaks continued to rile up the US security state. In March 2017, it published ‘Vault7’, made up of more than 8,000 CIA documents, revealing the CIA’s arsenal of computer-hacking techniques.