What Does Julian Assange’s Arrest Mean for Journalists?

What Does Julian Assange’s Arrest Mean for Journalists? The Observer, By Davis Richardson • 04/12/19 “……..“Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for Wikileaks’ publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations,” American Civil Liberties Union director Ben Wizner said in a statement. “Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public’s interest.”

While whistleblowers in the past have been prosecuted by the U.S. government, publishers have been spared. In 1971, former U.S. military analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers—a collection of classified studies regarding the Vietnam War—to The New York Times and other outlets. The government charged Ellsberg under the Espionage Act of 1917, but did not pursue a separate case against the Times or other publishers of the information. (The case was ultimately dropped, due to the government’s mishandling of the evidence gathering process.)

The government likewise pursued a case in 2010 against former National Security Agency (NSA) senior executive Thomas Drake for leaking information about the NSA to The Baltimore Sun. Like Ellsberg, Drake was prosecuted under the Espionage Act—but again, the case was dropped and neither The Baltimore Sun nor the author of the piece were included in the case.

Here, we’ve had a situation where Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking classified information to Julian Assange,” Dr. Sandy Davidson, a media law professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, told Observer. “But now it looks like an end run is going to be made around the First Amendment. If prosecutors are going to go after Assange, not because he published, but because he conspired with Chelsea Manning, now we’ve got a whole new ballgame.”

What Does This Mean for Journalists?

Wikileaks is undoubtedly a controversial group, which has been accused of abiding foreign nationals and participating in disinformation campaigns. But the organization is still a publisher, and Assange in 2010 was working to publish information.

“If we start having publishers fearing an end-run around the first amendment, they will be attacked through conspiracy laws. We could be in what the Supreme Court has called, in other contexts, a ‘chilling effect,’” explained Davidson. “A chilling effect will hit everybody who wants access to information.”…….. https://observer.com/2019/04/julian-assange-arrest-journalist-publisher-prosecution/

April 13, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, media

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