MAY 24, 2019
It seemed flimsy from the
start, but the US Department of Justice is keen to get their man. What has
certainly transpired of late is that Mike Pompeo was being unusually faithful
to the truth when director of the CIA: every means would be found to prosecute
the case against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. His assessment of the
publishing outfit in 2017 as a “non-state hostile intelligence service” finds
its way into the latest Justice Department’s indictment,
which adds a further 18 counts.
The prosecution effort was
initially focused on a charge of computer intrusion, with a stress on
conspiracy. It was feeble but intentionally narrow, fit for extradition
purpose. Now, a few more eggs have been added to the basket in a broader effort
to capture the entire field of national security publishing. The Espionage Act
of 1917, that ghoulish reminder of police state nervousness, has been brought
into play.
Drafted to combat spies as the
United States made its way into the First World War, the act has become a blunt
instrument against journalists and whistleblowers. But Assange, being no US
citizen, is essentially being sought out for not abiding by the legislation.
The counts range from the first, “conspiracy to receive national defense
information” (s. 793(g) of the Espionage Act) to “obtaining national defense
information,” to the disclosures of such information.
The first part is problematic,
as prosecutors are arguing that Assange does not have to release the said
“national defence” information to an unauthorised recipient. In short, as a
publisher to the world at large of such material, he can be punished. The
second round of charges, drawn from section 793(b) of the Act, makes the
prosecution purpose even clearer. The provision, dealing with the copying,
taking, making, obtaining, or attempting to do so, material connected with
national defence, would suggest the punishment of the source itself. Not so,
claim the prosecutors: the publisher or journalist can be caught in its web.
Section 793(c), upon which
four counts rest, is intended to capture instances of soliciting the leaks in
question or the recipient of that information, one who “agrees or attempts to
receive or obtain it, that it has been or will be obtained, taken, made or
disposed of by any person contrary to the provisions of this chapter.”
If there was any doubt about
what the indictment does to media organisations who facilitate the means to
receive confidential material or leaks, the following should allay it:
“WikiLeaks’s website explicitly solicited, otherwise restricted, and until
September 2010, ‘classified materials’. As the website then-stated, ‘WikiLeaks
accepts classified, censored, or otherwise restricted material
of political, diplomatic or ethical significance.” From the
perspective of prosecutors, “Assange and WikiLeaks have repeatedly sought,
obtained, and disseminated information that the United States classified due to
the serious risk that unauthorized disclosure could harm the national security
of the United States.”
Seething with venom, the
indictment also takes issue with instances where Assange sought to popularise
the effort to obtain leaks. Assange “intended the ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ list to
encourage and cause individuals to illegally obtain and disclose protected
information, including classified information, to WikiLeaks contrary to law.”
The standout feature of this
angle is that Chelsea Manning, the key source for WikiLeaks as former
intelligence analyst for the US Army, is less important than Assange the
mesmerising Svengali. It was the WikiLeaks’s publisher who convinced Manning to
respond to his seductive call, a point the prosecutors insist is proved by
search terms plugged into the classified network search engine, Intelink.
The response from the
scribbling fraternity, and anybody who might wish to write about national
security matters, has been one of bracing alarm, tinged by characteristic
apologias. On the latter point, Assange the principle, and Assange the man,
have proven confusing to fence sitters and traditional Fourth Estate sell outs.
Sam Vinograd shines in this
regard as CNN national security analyst, an important point because such hacks
previously served as advisors or agents to political masters. They can be
trusted to toe the line. In Vinograd’s case, it was as senior advisor in the
Obama administration. Triumphantly, she claims,
Assange “knowingly endangered the lives of journalists, religious leaders,
human rights advocates, and political dissidents and did incredible harm to our
national security.” No evidence is supplied for any of these assertions – the
claims in the indictment will do. Obscenely, we are to take at face value that
the US Justice Department is doing us, not to mention journalists, a favour.
Wither analysis.
The mistake often made is that
such previous experience as a national security advisor or some such will
enable in-stable media figures to speak openly about topics when the opposite
is true. Their goggles remain permanently blurred to the broader implications
of punishing media outlets: they, after all, speak power to truth.
Those like John Pilger, one of
Assange’s more tireless defenders, have been unequivocal and, thus far,
accurate. “The war on Julian Assange is now a war on all,” he tweeted.
“Eighteen absurd charges including espionage send a burning message to every
journalist, every publisher.” WikiLeaks’s current publisher-in-chief, Kristinn
Hrafnsson expressed “no
satisfaction in saying ‘I told you so’ to those who for 9 years scorned us for
warning this moment would come.”
The ACLU has also made the pertinent
point that the charges against Assange are easily replicable across
the board: do it to Assange and you might give the nod of approval to other
states to do the same. They “are equally dangerous for US journalists who
uncover the secrets of other nations. If the US can prosecute a foreign
publisher for violating our secrecy laws, there’s nothing preventing China, or
Russia, from doing the same.” Fairly precise, that.
Trevor Timm, Freedom of the
Press Foundation executive director, did not mince his words. “Put simply,”
came his
statement, “these unprecedented charges against Julian Assange and
WikiLeaks are the most significant and terrifying threat to the First Amendment
in the 21st century.”
The silver lining – for even
in this charred landscape of desperation, there is one – is the overzealous
nature of this effort. For one thing, proving espionage requires the necessary
mental state, namely the “intent or reason to believe that the [leaked]
information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the
advantage of any foreign nation.” It was precisely such grounds that failed
to convince Colonel Denise Lind in Manning’s trial, who found that the
analyst was not “aiding the enemy” in supplying material to WikiLeaks.
By larding the charge folder
against Assange so heavily, the political intention of the prosecutors is
clear. It reeks of overreach, an attempt to get ahead of the queue of Sweden. A
sensible reading of any extradition effort now must conclude that Assange is as
much a target of political interest as anything else. Not a hacker, nor a
figure so personalised as to be reviled, but a symbol of publishing itself,
persecuted by the only superpower on the planet. The case, surmisesEdward
Snowden, “will decide the future of media.”
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