The Legacy of Assange’s Prosecution
Julian Assange was released from prison this week after agreeing to plead guilty to conspiring to disclose classified documents related to national security. After five years behind bars, it’s hard to exactly call this a win for the WikiLeaks founder. But on the surface, it is a loss for the U.S. government, which wanted to put Assange away for a much, much longer period of time.
And yet, on some level, authorities got exactly what it seems they wanted: a warning to anyone who would dare to publish information that makes the government look bad. It provides a clear view of what happens when you actively try to expose government secrets. Shots have already been fired against future renegade journalists.
“I hope journalists and editors and publishers everywhere realize the danger of the US case against Julian that criminalizes, that has secured a conviction for, news gathering and publishing information that was true, that the public deserved to know,” said Assange’s wife, Stella, at a press conference in Australia today. “That precedent now can and will be used in the future against the rest of the press.”
Even if that prediction doesn’t exactly come to pass, Assange’s prosecution almost certainly serves as a deterrent for journalists who would encourage whistleblowers (as Assange did with Chelsea Manning) or any outlet that would aim to function, like WikiLeaks, as a source for unredacted publications of government information.
And while social media was supposed to make exposing government corruption easier, its current iteration only makes more clear why entities like WikiLeaks are so necessary.
5 Years Behind Bars for Exposing U.S. War Brutality
Julian Assange “left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there,” WikiLeaks posted to X (formerly Twitter) on Monday night. “After more than five years in a 2×3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day, he will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars.”
Assange is now back in Australia, where he is from.
Landing in 30 minutes. Julian Assange is in US airspace.
Follow flight VJT199: https://t.co/gxcbvNyvnj #AssangeJet pic.twitter.com/sgwdF0MMiY
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 25, 2024
The acts that cost Assange these five years of his life relate to WikiLeaks 2010-2011 publication of material sent by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. In 2018, Assange was indicted on multiple counts related to the publication of this material, which, among other things, exposed the cruelty and carelessness of U.S. military actions in Iraq.
Assange was eventually indicted on 18 counts, which came with a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison.
At a hearing yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, Assange pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disclose classified national security documents. He “received a court-imposed 62-month time-served sentence, reflecting the time he served in U.K. prison as a result of the U.S. charges,” the Department of Justice said.
The case has obviously been a travesty for Assange and his loved ones, but it also goes so much beyond them.
Making a Mockery of the First Amendment
As Stella Assange pointed out, the prosecution paves the way for journalists of all sorts—including investigative reporters and national security writers at major newspapers—to be prosecuted for publishing pieces about classified information. It seriously imperils the free press
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