From 2010 to 2011, WikiLeaks showed us what “the world according to US empire” looks like. Thanks to a cache of cables, including the Iraq and Afghan War Logs, State Department Cables, and Guantanamo Bay prisoner files, released by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, the world was given an unprecedented look into American abuses of power around the world. Using the US government’s own documents, WikiLeaks produced a searing indictment of the US national security state.

But it is not the US national security state that today finds itself indicted, but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The United States has charged Assange under the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. While the Espionage Act has become the go-to weapon against whistleblowers, this is the first time a publisher or journalist has ever been indicted under the Espionage Act. If convicted, Assange faces over 170 years in prison, likely to be served in solitary confinement in a US supermax prison.

Assange is an Australian national who operates outside the United States. In a sweeping move, the United States is claiming the right to apply the Espionage Act to anyone anywhere in the world who has the audacity to publish truthful information about its own crimes. As part of their attempts to apply the Espionage Act extraterritorially, they have requested that the UK extradite him to the United States.