Julian Assange Indicted Under The Espionage Act, Provoking First Amendment Advocates
Julian Assange, the founder of "Wikileaks" and advocate of free speech, has been indicted by a US federal grand jury for 18 counts of violating "The Espionage Act" on May 23rd, despite the fact that the legislation was debated vociferously by Congress due to containing censorship provisions in 1917, resulting in the "censorship amendment" being removed by Congress before The Espionage Act passed by a narrow 39-38 vote on the Senate floor. It has been long understood that censorship of the press would be a rot at the very core of free and open democracy.
Assange, who we we told by officials previously would not be indicted under the Espionage Act, has been pursued relentlessly since taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he lived in isolation for 7 years. He has made it his undying mission to expose the corrupt interests of the powerful, inevitably curating a lengthy list of powerful enemies, and a greater swath of support from those adamant about the role of the press to hold those in positions of power to account. In fact, when his arrest was behind the smokescreen of "hacking conspiracy", "The Guardian" penned the following regarding the computer hacking charge:
"By charging Assange with hacking rather than for publishing classified information, US prosecutors avoided having to directly challenge the press freedoms guaranteed under the first amendment of the US constitution."
"By charging Assange with hacking rather than for publishing classified information, US prosecutors avoided having to directly challenge the press freedoms guaranteed under the first amendment of the US constitution."
This chain of indictments poses an objective risk to investigative journalists who have engaged in precisely the same sort of activity in decades past, such as the Pentagon Papers published by The Washington Post, and The Paradise Papers, published collectively between The New York Times, The Guardian, and the German outlet "Süddeutsche Zeitung". It should be noted likewise that other outlets have used Wikileaks as a source when it was more politically expedient to do so, one possible reason why mainstream outlets who have tossed Assange aside as a "Kremlin stooge" are suddenly treating the charges as a First Amendment crisis.
Coincidentally, the series of new indictments comes just days after Assange's primary source, Chelsea Manning (who was detained and subsequently tortured by the Obama administration for her part in exposing corruption) was detained yet again for her refusal to testify against the Wikileaks founder, which was of course labeled "contempt of court". Manning was ordered behind bars again, this time being charged $500/day after the first 30 days, and $1000/day after 60 days in indefinite detention, in violation of her 1st, 5th & 8th amendment rights. She spoke out on May 24th against the indictments, saying "Today, they use the law as a sword, and have shown their willingness to bring the full power of the state against the very institution intended to shield us from such excesses."
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