Viewpoint: What Assange charges could mean for press freedom

For over a decade, there has been a raging debate over precisely what Julian Assange is - whistle-blower, journalist, or spy.

Now that question will have to be answered after the united states hit him with 17 new counts under the Espionage Act for receiving and publishing information from Army Intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.

The Trump administration has now crossed the line that many counselled it to avoid - and may have triggered the most important press freedom case in the United States of America in 300 years.

While the status of Assange has long been hotly debated, his actions in publishing classified information on Wikileaks is a common component of journalism. Indeed, the most celebrated cases in history - such as the failed attempts to stop the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 - were based on the publications of classified evidence.

Assange's supporters note that his publications revealed alleged war crimes in places like Afghanistan and Iraq that were unlikely to have been exposed otherwise. If it was a crime for Assange to receive and publish such information, much of the journalism in the US would become a de facto criminal enterprise.

In April, the government avoided this threshold question by charging Assange with a single count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The charge related to helping Manning obtain access to defence department computers in 2010. In doing so, the justice department stayed clear of charging him as a publisher as opposed to an intruder. That is until Thursday.

The charges were brought under the controversial Espionage Act of 1917. Passed after World War One, it was used to target anti-war activists and political dissidents.

The government charged figures ranging from German-American Socialist congressman (and newspaper editor) Victor Berger to anarchist and author Emma Goldman to five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs.

The law has long been denounced as unconstitutional in its criminalising of receiving and publishing classified information. It is no surprise that the justice department had to use this much-ridiculed law to achieve this ignoble goal.

Counts nine through 17 against Assange concern the publications of "national defence information." The justice department takes pains to try to argue that Assange is not a journalist and that the publication counts concern the disclosure of not just classified information but the actual names of intelligence sources. That however may establish that Assange is a poor journalist, but a journalist all the same.

If successful, the justice department would have not only the ability to prosecute but to investigate a wide array of journalists. This danger is made all the more acute in an administration headed by a president who routinely calls the press "the enemy of the people".

However, the danger did not begin with President Trump. The Obama administration used this law to conduct surveillance on mainstream journalists, including a well-regarded Fox News reporter.

The Obama administration reportedly rejected the option of a criminal charge against Assange under the Espionage Act, in recognition of the danger to press freedom. Mr Trump and Attorney General William Barr have now crossed that Rubicon.

This also comes at a particularly precarious time for journalists around the world. Reporters are being arrested and killed in increasing numbers. Some countries like China and Russia have even taken up the Trump trope of "fake news" to crack down on the press. Most vividly, Saudi Arabia's crown prince is accused of ordering the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi - yet has suffered few consequences from the Trump administration.

It is not just the "usual suspects" attacking the free press. Just this week, the French government put three journalists under criminal investigation for disclosing alleged lies by French officials on the country's role in the war in Yemen.

A couple days later a senior reporter, Ariane Chemin, at the renowned French Le Monde, was called in for questioning after revealing embarrassing details about a former bodyguard to President Emmanuel Macron.

Source: https://aderonkebamidele.com/viewpoint-what-assange-charges-could-mean-for-press-freedom/