Julian Assange’s Prosecution for Publishing Leaked Government Documents Is an Extremely Dangerous Precedent
The US government is trying to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for publishing leaked US government documents. That should be extremely concerning to anyone who cares about holding governments and the powerful accountable.
Julian Assange faces seventeen counts of allegedly violating the Espionage Act. This law has never in its history been directed against a journalist or a publisher. (Espen Moe / Wikimedia Commons)
A trademark paradox of the Trump era is that many of the same quarters who have been the loudest in warning about the president’s authoritarianism and hostility to press freedoms have also been silent or even cheered on one of his most dangerous actions: his attempt to extradite and prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing leaked US government documents.
In a time when journalists soliciting leaks from high-level sources have been cast as the vanguard of the resistance to Trump, his efforts to criminalize that very practice seem to have been given a free pass.
Since 2016, Assange has become a bipartisan enemy of the state, hated by conservatives for exposing US government war crimes and general malfeasance, and hated by liberal politicians for exposing various misdeeds of the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, which they believe cost her the election.
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