The Assange Case is Complicated
By Kent R. Kroeger (April 13, 2019)
The mainstream media and the U.S. government tell us the indictment of Julian Assange is merely a case of prosecuting a man for aiding and abetting a felonious act and has little to do with press freedoms. Civil libertarians, in contrast, say the U.S. Attorney’s Office action is a clear-cut attack on the constitutional right of journalists to investigate and publish information that exposes government wrongdoing.
The reality is messier than either side want to believe.
Since the website’s inception over a decade ago, I have been uneasy about the WikiLeaks journalism model: Publishing large quantities of private (usually stolen) information under the rationale that it brings necessary transparency to important institutions in our society.
Assange sits in a British jail cell today because the U.S. government wants to prosecute him for aiding and abetting Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, in removing Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and diplomatic cables from a classified U.S. Dept. of Defense computer network (SIPRNet) in 2010. Manning, as well, sits in a Virginia jail cell today for refusing to testify before a grand jury regarding the Assange case.
