The Guardian view on the WikiLeaks plea
deal: good for Julian Assange, not
journalism
Editorial
This case remains alarming despite his release. The battle for press freedom must be
vigorously pursued
Tue 25 Jun 2024 19.48 CEST
Julian Assange should never have been charged with espionage by the US.
The release of the WikiLeaks founder from custody in the UK is good news,
and it is especially welcome to his family and supporters. He is due to plead
guilty to a single charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US
national defence documents at a hearing early on Wednesday, but is not
expected to face further jail time. The court in Saipan, a remote Pacific
island which is a US territory, is expected to approve the deal, crediting him
for the five years he has already spent on remand in prison.
His opportunity to live with his young family comes thanks to Australian
diplomacy under the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who had made
clear his desire for a resolution, and the Biden administration’s keenness to
get a controversial case off its plate, particularly in an election year.
Seventeen of the charges have been dropped. The one that remains,
however, is cause for serious alarm. It was the Trump administration that
brought this case. But while the Biden administration has dropped 17 of
the 18 charges, it insisted on a charge under the 1917 Espionage Act, rather
than the one first brought against him of conspiracy to commit computer
intrusion.
This is no triumph for press freedom. Mr Assange’s plea has prevented the
setting of a frightening judicial precedent for journalists, avoiding a decision
that might bind future courts. Nonetheless, this is the first conviction for
basic journalistic efforts under the 1917 act.
Using espionage charges was always a bad and cynical move. The case
relates to hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as diplomatic cables, which were made
public by WikiLeaks working with the Guardian and other media
organisations. They revealed appalling abuses by the US and other
governments, which would not otherwise have been exposed – and for
which no one has been held liable, despite the pursuit of Mr Assange.
National security laws are necessary. But it is also necessary to acknowledge
that governments keep secrets for bad reasons as well as good. Alarmingly,
the Espionage Act allows no public interest defence, preventing defendants
from discussing the material leaked, why they shared it, and why they
believe the public should know about it. The Obama administration
correctly identified the chilling effect that spying charges could have on
investigative journalism, and chose not to bring them on that basis. The
Biden administration – which proclaims itself a champion of press freedom
globally – should not have pursued them. The UK government should never
have agreed to Mr Assange’s extradition.
The bad news is that the prosecutorial policy is now clear. Federal
prosecutors can chalk this one up as a win. It is possible that future
administrations could take this case as encouragement to pursue the press
under the Espionage Act. It is likely that an emboldened second Trump
administration would do so. The Republican candidate has repeatedly cast
the media as his “real opponent” and the enemy of the people.
The political solution to this lengthy saga is welcome, particularly given the
reported impact on Mr Assange’s health after years holed up in London’s
Ecuadorian embassy and then in Belmarsh prison. But the threat to press
freedom has not ended. Its defence cannot rest either.
[Link]
plea-deal-good-for-him-not-journalism
Opinion
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Why the World Needs WikiLeaks
By Sarah Harrison
Nov. 17, 2016
Journalists on Monday outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Julian Assange,
founder of WikiLeaks, has been in [Link]...Rex Features, via Associated Press
Berlin — My organization, WikiLeaks, took a lot of heat during the run-up to the
recent presidential election. We have been accused of abetting the candidacy of
Donald J. Trump by publishing cryptographically authenticated information about
Hillary Clinton’s campaign and its influence over the Democratic National
Committee, the implication being that a news organization should have withheld
accurate, newsworthy information from the public.
The Obama Justice Department continues to pursue its six-year criminal
investigation of WikiLeaks, the largest known of its kind, into the publishing of
classified documents and articles about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Guantánamo Bay and Mrs. Clinton’s first year as secretary of state. According to the
trial testimony of one F.B.I. agent, the investigation includes several of WikiLeaks
founders, owners and managers. And last month our editor, Julian Assange, who has
asylum at Ecuador’s London embassy, had his internet connection severed.
I can understand the frustration, however misplaced, from Clinton supporters. But
the WikiLeaks staff is committed to the mandate set by Mr. Assange, and we are not
going to go away, no matter how much he is abused. That’s something that
Democrats, along with everyone who believes in the accountability of governments,
should be happy about.
Despite the mounting legal and political pressure coming from Washington, we
continue to publish valuable material, and submissions keep pouring in. There is a
desperate need for our work: The world is connected by largely unaccountable
networks of power that span industries and countries, political parties, corporations
and institutions; WikiLeaks shines a light on these by revealing not just individual
incidents, but information about entire structures of power.
While a single document might give a picture of a particular event, the best way to
shed light on a whole system is to fully uncover the mechanisms around it — the
hierarchy, ideology, habits and economic forces that sustain it. It is the trends and
details visible in the large archives we are committed to publishing that reveal the
details that tell us about the nature of these structures. It is the constellations, not
stars alone, that allow us to read the night sky.
There are two contradictory myths about how we operate: on one hand, that we
simply dump whatever comes to us into the public’s arms; and on the other, that we
pick and choose material to harm our alleged political enemies.
We do neither. Yes, we believe in the integrity of source material, in the value of
conserving pristine collections of documents, and we strive to make this historical
record accessible to the public. We publish in full, in an uncensored and uncensorable
fashion. But we also research, validate and contextualize the submissions we receive.
While it can be difficult to balance the needs of the public to have timely access to
large archives with individual privacy, such concerns have mostly been disingenuous.
At times we receive individual documents, but we have come to specialize in large
collections. Over the last decade we have vetted, indexed and published an average of
3,000 documents per day, including over 300,000 reports covering the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, more than two million emails from Syrian political figures and over
120,000 documents from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We also
curate the Public Library of United States Diplomacy, the world’s largest collection of
diplomatic cables (nearly three million).
[Link]
Wikileaks: Document dumps that
shook the world
25 June 2024
Julian Assange's Wikileaks - which has published thousands of classified
documents covering everything from the film industry to national security
and wars - has been dividing opinion for years.
To its supporters, the whistleblowing website is a key player in exposing
secrets governments and companies would rather keep hidden.
But to those who found their documents exposed on the web, it is a dangerous
and reckless force.
The US government has argued that the publication of the Wikileaks files -
which disclosed information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars - went as far
as endangering lives.
Here are a few of the leaks which went on to make headlines around the world.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange freed after US plea deal
A timeline of the Julian Assange saga
Who is Wikileaks' Julian Assange and what did he do?
Wife of Julian Assange 'elated' by US plea deal
The helicopter attack
In 2010, Wikileaks published a video from a US military helicopter showing the
killing of civilians in Baghdad, Iraq.
A voice on the transmission urged the pilots to "light 'em all up" and the
individuals on the street were fired at from the helicopter.
When a van arrived on the scene to pick up the wounded, it too was fired at.
Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his assistant Saeed Chmagh
were both killed in the attack.
2010: WikiLeaks posts video of 'US military killings' in Iraq
US Army Intelligence
Wikileaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents leaked by
former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
Documents relating to the war in Afghanistan revealed how the US military had
killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents.
Further documents from the Iraq war revealed that 66,000 civilians had been
killed - more than previously reported. The documents also showed that
prisoners had been tortured by Iraqi forces.
Among the leaks were more than 250,000 messages sent by US diplomats.
They revealed that the US wanted to collect "biographic and biometric"
information - including iris scans, DNA samples and fingerprints - of key
officials at the UN.
2010: Hidden US Afghan war details revealed
2010: Iraq war logs 'reveal truth about conflict'
2010: Wikileaks publishes US diplomatic cables
9/11 pager messages
About 573,000 intercepted pager messages sent during the 9/11 terror attacks
in the United States were published by Wikileaks.
The messages include families checking up on their loved ones and
government departments reacting to the attacks.
"President has been rerouted won't be returning to Washington but not sure
where he will go," one message said.
2009: Wikileaks publishes '9/11 messages'
Democrat emails
Wikileaks published thousands of hacked emails from the account of Hillary
Clinton's campaign boss John Podesta, in the run-up to the US presidential
election in 2016.
In the emails, Mr Podesta called Mrs Clinton's election rival Bernie Sanders a
"doofus" for criticising the Paris climate change agreement.
The emails also suggested that a CNN contributor tipped off the Clinton
campaign about a question that was going to be asked during a debate hosted
by the broadcaster.
The timing of the leaks led to accusations that Wikileaks was deliberately trying
to discredit Mrs Clinton.
2016: 18 revelations from Wikileaks' hacked Clinton emails
The site also published leaked information from Republican Sarah Palin's
Yahoo email accounts in 2008.
British National Party members
In 2008, Wikileaks published the names, addresses and contact information of
more than 13,000 members of the British National Party.
The political party's manifesto proposed banning immigration from Muslim
countries and encouraging some UK residents to return to "their lands of ethnic
origin".
A former member was later fined £200 for the leak.
2008: BNP activists' details published
The Sony Pictures hack
A leak of more than 170,000 emails and 20,000 documents from movie studio
Sony Pictures was published on Wikileaks in 2015.
The entertainment company suffered a cyber-attack weeks before releasing
The Interview, a film that poked fun at North Korea.
The emails revealed that actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams
received a lower fee than their male co-stars in American Hustle.
There were also messages from producers and executives insulting celebrities
such as Angelina Jolie.
Leonardo DiCaprio was called "despicable" for turning down a role in a Sony
Pictures film.
Mr Assange said the emails were in the public interest because they showed
the inner working of a multinational company and were "at the centre of a geo-
political conflict".
2015: Wikileaks publishes hacked Sony emails
2015: What we know from the Sony leaks
Who is Julian Assange?
Julian Assange Wikileaks United States
[Link]