Julian Assange Arrested

The bipartisan consensus following WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's arrest Thursday morning was that justice is finally being served. Few, if any, politicians defended Assange or suggested that it might be wrong to prosecute him.

British police arrested Assange, who had been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Ecuadorian officials reportedly got tired of harboring him. Federal prosecutors in the U.S. are now trying to extradite Assange so he can face a "charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer," according to a Department of Justice press release.

The response from elected officials in Washington, D.C., was almost universally celebratory. While President Donald Trump simply said he "know[s] nothing about WikiLeaks," plenty of Republican and Democratic members of Congress praised Assange's arrest.

"I'm glad to see the wheels of justice are finally turning when it comes to Julian Assange," tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "In my book, he has NEVER been a hero."

Lawmakers pointed to Assange's involvement in leaking thousands of Democratic National Committee emails prior to the 2016 presidential election. Assange has been accused of working with the Russian government to release the messages.

"Whatever Julian Assange's intentions were for WikiLeaks, what he's become is a direct participant in Russian efforts to weaken the West and undermine American security," added one of Graham's Democratic colleagues, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. "I hope British courts will quickly transfer him to U.S. custody so he can finally get the justice he deserves."

It's worth noting, as Reason's Nick Gillespie did Thursday morning, that there are indeed valid questions about Assange's relationship with the Russian government. However, the charge he's currently facing relates to WikiLeaks' efforts to release hundreds of thousands of classified documents about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has nothing to do with the 2016 election. Back in 2010, prosecutors say Assange helped crack a password stored on government computers in order to access classified information.

"Julian Assange has long been a wicked tool of Vladimir Putin and the Russian intelligence services. He deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison," Sen. Ben Sasse (R–Neb.) wrote on Twitter.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R–Colo.), meanwhile, praised British police for taking Assange into custody and called for Assange to be extradited so he could "answer for aiding & abetting a foreign power to undermine US democracy & laws."

Sen. Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.) put it even more bluntly. "He is our property, and we can get the facts and the truth from him," Manchin said on CNN's New Day.

Republican Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Richard Burr (N.C.) also criticized Assange. Cotton claimed he "endangered the lives of American troops in a time of war," and said that "since Assange is used to living inside, I'm sure he'll be prepared for federal prison."

Burr, meanwhile, said Assange "engaged in a conspiracy to steal classified information, putting millions of lives at risk all over the world."

Members of the House expressed similar sentiments. Rep. Eliot Engel (D–N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called Assange "a tool of Vladimir Putin and the Russian intelligence service," and expressed hope that he'll be extradited to the U.S. to "finally face justice."

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D–Fla.), referred to WikiLeaks as "a menace to American national security" and said Assange's arrest "is an important development and a condition precedent for justice to prevail in this matter.

Perhaps just as notable as the widespread cheering of Assange's arrest was the silence from advocates for government transparency and critics of U.S. intervention abroad.

Libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), for instance, suggested in August that Assange could be given immunity if he testified before Congress about the DNC leaks. Reason reached out to Paul's office for comment on Assange's arrest, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii), a 2020 presidential candidate, said in February that "the information that has been put out [by WikiLeaks] has exposed a lot of things that have been happening that the American people were not aware of and have spurred some necessary change there." A spokesperson for Gabbard did not provide an official response to Assange's arrest prior to publication.

Reason also reached out to the offices of Reps. Justin Amash (R–Mich.) and Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), as well as Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah). None of them provided a response.

The widespread criticism of Assange and the silence of some lawmakers highlights the bipartisan consensus that Assange is a criminal who deserves to be locked up. This perception can be dangerous because it ignores the fact that the information WikiLeaks has released, particularly in regard to America's actions abroad, has shone a light on important secrets that regular citizens otherwise wouldn't have known about.

It's easy to dunk on Assange, but it's important we remember his actions have, in fact, helped erode government secrecy and shined a bright light on the violent excesses of the American government.

Newly arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange needs to “answer for what he has done,” Hillary Clinton said on Thursday.

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and former secretary of state weighed in on Assange while at a speaking event with her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Assange was arrested earlier Thursday at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and the US has charged him with conspiring with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer at the Pentagon.

WikiLeaks’ publication of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers during the 2016 election season hurt Clinton’s presidential campaign. Donald Trump, Clinton’s Republican opponent, frequently showered praise on Assange during the final weeks of the campaign and cheered on the release of damaging emails from Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta....

An unprecedented attack on free speech and the free press is afoot, as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charges Julian Assange with espionage over leaked documents published on WikiLeaks. This is "the first time in the history of our country [that] the government has brought criminal charges under the Espionage Act against a publisher for the publication of truthful information," warns the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The Espionage Act is typically used to punish the leakers themselves, people like Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, and most recently Daniel Hale," noted Reason's Scott Shackford last night. This prosecution extends the law's reach.

Some have expressed a little schadenfreude to see Assange, an alleged Trump supporter, get screwed over by Trump's administration. But as journalist Adam Serwer points out, this isn't necessarily about Assange so much as "establishing a precedent that can be used to prosecute journalists for doing their jobs and publishing information that embarrasses the government or exposes wrongdoing."

Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, calls the prosecution a "threat to all journalists everywhere who publish information that governments would like to keep secret."

Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) says he is "extremely concerned about the precedent this may set and potential dangers to the work of journalists and the First Amendment."

The New York Times editorial board is aghast, saying the Assange prosecution "is aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment."

The authorities are attempting to justify this egregious abuse of power by declaring that "Assange is no journalist," as DOJ National Security Chief John Demers put it yesterday. But receiving and disseminating information from a government whistleblower, as WikiLeaks did, is of course what many undeniably real journalists have done and exactly the kind of activity the First Amendment is there to protect.

The new 18-count indictment from a federal grand jury concerns classified documents Assange received in 2010 from Chelsea Manning, who was then an army intelligence analyst. The documents revealed damning details about U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Manning—who is currently being held in a federal detention center in Virginia because she is refusing to testify before a grand jury about Assange—says she continues "to accept full and sole responsibility for those disclosures."

"It's telling that the government appears to have already obtained this indictment before my contempt hearing last week," Manning adds in her statement:



The spy charges come in addition to the "hacking" charges against Assange that were revealed last month. Assange supposedly violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by suggesting Manning try different passwords on government computers. "We should all be worried about such abuses of 'hacking' laws to crush ideological enemies," Andrea O'Sullivan noted at the time.

The new charges seem even more worrying.



The latest indictment alleges that Assange conspired with Manning, "was complicit…in unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense," and "aided and abetted Manning in communicating classified documents." These are all activities that journalists do regularly in the course of communicating with whistleblowers and other confidential sources.

"Put simply, these unprecedented charges against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are the most significant and terrifying threat to the First Amendment in the 21st century," says Freedom of the Press Foundation co-founder Trevor Timm.

"As a practical matter, I suspect that very few reporters actively help their sources crack passwords (even just to hide the sources' own tracks), just as very few reporters provide sources with lock picks or instructions on breaking into safes," argues law professor Eugene Volokh. He can even see some merit in the theory that Assange solicited Manning to commit a crime. But "the most striking counts are counts 15-17, which allege, in relevant part:"



Volokh notes that

Federal prosecutors are pursuing a deal to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to avoid espionage charges and instead plead guilty to the misdemeanor of mishandling classified data. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the talks between U.S. authorities and Assange's lawyers on Wednesday. The independent outlet Consortium News then confirmed that it had learned the same details "off the record" several months ago.

Assange has been detained in Britain for five years awaiting extradition, and the Journal reported that he "would likely be free to leave prison shortly after any deal was concluded" due to time served.

Although it's not a done deal, the proposal is good news for the First Amendment, because it avoids setting a precedent that allows the U.S. government to treat journalists as spies.

Attorney General Merrick Garland still has to sign off on any deal, according to the Journal. And Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton told Consortium News that Assange is dead-set against signing a deal that would require him to come to the United States, due to worries that the U.S. government could change the terms at the last minute.

After the news broke, Assange's lawyer Barry J. Pollack stated, "We have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case." Pollack didn't deny that negotiations were happening, and accusing the other side of being unserious could be a negotiating tactic.

But both sides have a strong incentive to avoid a trial. In addition to saving Assange from significant jail time, a plea deal could allow the Biden administration to wriggle out of a self-inflicted political conundrum.

WikiLeaks became a thorn in the U.S. government's side in the early 2010s when it published classified data provided by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, including a database of U.S. diplomatic cables and a video of a U.S. Army helicopter gunning down a news crew in Iraq.

The Obama administration prosecuted Manning but decided not to prosecute Assange because of the "New York Times problem." Even though WikiLeaks is not a traditional newspaper, its activities are legally not so different from The New York Times and other news organizations, which often publish stories based on leaked classified information.

Indeed, Assange partnered with the Times, The Guardian, and other international outlets for the "Cablegate" leaks. When the Trump administration finally decided to prosecute Assange for espionage in 2019, the Times editorial board called the case a weapon "aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment."

Because of Assange's case, a bipartisan group in Congress is pushing for a law to overhaul the Espionage Act completely.

With a misdemeanor plea deal, prosecutors could avoid a fight over the Espionage Act and the First Amendment, without looking like the Biden administration backed down. As the Journal put it, putting Assange on trial "would throw a political hot potato into the lap of the Biden administration."

Yesterday, Britain's High Court ruled that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange—who stands accused of violating the Espionage Act due to his 2010 decision to publish classified documents leaked by whistleblower Chelsea Manning that revealed disturbing U.S. military actions—cannot be extradited to the United States until greater assurances are provided about how he will be treated in custody and at trial, including receiving First Amendment protections.

The court gave U.S. authorities three weeks to provide assurances that Assange "is permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution…that he is not prejudiced at trial (including sentence) by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen and that the death penalty is not imposed."

This decision had been anxiously awaited by Assange-watchers, given that he is very close to the end of the road, in terms of appeals, within the British court system.

The U.S. has until May 20 to provide these assurances to the British High Court; if they are not satisfactory, he will receive a full appeal hearing in the U.K. Concurrently, Assange's legal team is seeking an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights, which could possibly delay extradition further.

In other words, his fate remains uncertain, but this move by the British court is a decidedly good one. For more on Assange's case, watch this episode of my show, Just Asking Questions, in which Zach Weissmueller and I interviewed Julian's wife, Stella (who also happens to be an attorney who has worked on his case).

It won't give him back the years he's spent in confinement, but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may finally get a bit of justice after years of persecution for embarrassing U.S. officials. Under pressure from the government of the journalist's home country of Australia, President Joe Biden said he's "considering" dropping the case against Assange. It's been a long time coming, but such a move would be welcomed not just by the prisoner, but by people everywhere who scrutinize government conduct.

A Belated Change of Policy?

"We're considering it," President Biden said at the White House last week in response to a question about honoring Australia's request that Assange be released.

"This is an encouraging statement from President Biden," responded Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. "I have said that we have raised, on behalf of Mr. Assange, Australia's national interests, that enough is enough, that this needs to be brought to a conclusion."

Albanese has long made an issue of Assange's incarceration, commenting in February: "Our view is very clear. It is the same view I had in Opposition, it is the same view I have as Prime Minister, which is enough is enough. There is nothing to be served from the ongoing incarceration of Mr. Assange and he should be allowed to come home."

The prime minister spoke days after his country's parliament voted 86–42 in favor of asking the U.S. and the U.K. to bring "the matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia."

Of course, "we're considering it" isn't exactly an admission of error in the legal proceedings against the founder of WikiLeaks, let alone a grant of the man's freedom. But it's a significant shift for a government that pursued Assange across three administrations and that just months ago, in the person of State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, insisted WikiLeaks's acquisition and publication of information embarrassing to U.S. officials was "not a legitimate journalistic activity."

Espionage or Journalism?

Assange faces charges under the Espionage Act, which dates to 1917. His alleged "crime" is publishing classified U.S. government documents on WikiLeaks, including the "Collateral Murder" video of a U.S. airstrike killing civilians in Baghdad. The publications were based on leaks from U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. The U.S. government, which found the revelations extremely inconvenient, called the leaks "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States" in a 2020 superseding indictment of Assange.

Manning served seven years in prison, then was briefly jailed again in 2020 for refusing to testify against Assange. The WikiLeaks founder was then, as now, in British custody awaiting extradition to the U.S. after seven years of refuge/exile in Ecuador's London embassy. After a change of government, Ecuador turned him over to the U.K., which has held him since 2019.

That's a high price to pay for making officials uncomfortable via journalism—which is what Assange did, even if government flunkies insist that unauthorized disclosures of secrets must necessarily be spying.

"The U.S. Department of Justice claims that Assange broke the law by receiving classified documents from a source, speaking with that source, possessing the documents, and publishing some of them. In other words, things journalists at news outlets around the country do every day," points out the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

"Journalists and their unions have recognised since the outset that Julian Assange is being targeted for carrying out tasks that are the daily work of many journalists – seeking out a whistleblower and exposing criminality," according to Maja Sever, president of the European Federation of Journalists.

Elite Media Types Against Journalism

The U.S. government may say Assange's actions don't constitute journalism, but actual journalists disagree. Well, most do. In fact, the persecution of Assange got cover from some name-brand media types and institutions. They resented that he got a high-profile scoop that escaped them, his status outside elite press circles, and his frankly difficult personality and sometimes sketchy conduct—as if assholes are unknown in an ego-driven industry.

"Mr. Assange is not a free-press hero," sniffed The Washington Post's editorial board in 2019. "Yes, WikiLeaks acquired and published secret government documents, many of them newsworthy," the board allowed, but he did so "contrary to the norms of journalism."

"The administration has begun well by charging Mr. Assange with an indisputable crime," The New York Times editorial board agreed. It did, however, hedge its bets and allow that "the prosecution of Mr. Assange could become an assault on the First Amendment and whistle-blowers."

This was absolutely bizarre coming from two newspapers key in publishing, in 1971, the leaked government documents known as the Pentagon Papers, which revealed secret analyses of America's involvement in Indochina. But it made sense given the elite media's growing separation from the U.S. public, and the status of many big-name outlets as temporary resting places for intelligence and law enforcement officials taking brief breaks from government careers. Entwined with the state, too many high-profile media names have become flacks for authoritarianism.

But regular people doing journalism recognize Assange as one of them. Advocates for liberty see the dangers in prosecuting those who reveal government misconduct. And Australians want one of their own to come home.

The Triumph of Realpolitik

At a time when freedom barely gets lip service in government circles, that last point may be the deciding factor. With tensions rising between the West and China, the U.S. needs allies in the Pacific.

"The United States has allied with Britain and Australia to form a new anti-China grouping," The Atlantic's Tom McTague noted in 2021. That AUKUS alliance will include nuclear-powered attack submarines for Australia, we learned last year, as well as trilateral naval cooperation among the partners.

Ultimately, realpolitik may succeed where civil libertarian concerns and simple decency failed. If Julian Assange finally regains his freedom, it may be due to U.S. willingness to move past revelations of its past foreign policy failures so it can make way for new diplomatic and military ventures.

Undoubtedly, that will leave a need for Assanges of the future to cover the results.