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The subtle game of the prosecution has been to deny that the charges against Mr Assange are about the disclosure of information that the public had the right to know, such as the Collateral Murder video. They have rather claimed to have identified WikiLeaks fault in the failure to redact the secret papers in deleting names of people who gave information to the American military and intelligence services whose life could have been in danger after the release.

However, several WikiLeaks media partners were heard in Court testifying that strenuous steps had been taken by Wikileaks to redact any names before the release of documents.

John Goetz, the German journalist who collaborated with WikiLeaks on their reporting about the U.S. military Afghan and Iraq War logs before publication, testified under oath that the redaction initiative put in place by Assange was “robust” and had involved a huge investment by WikiLeaks, both financially and in human resources.

The Court also heard from one of the most celebrated whistleblowers in history, former U.S. Marines officer Daniel Ellsberg, best known for leaking to the New York Times in 1970 the huge tranche of U.S. Government documents on the Vietnam War – the “Pentagon Papers” – showing that the American Government had lied to the public from the very beginning of the conflict.

Ellsberg told the packed court that Assange’s approach was the exact opposite of that of a reckless publication. He also explained that the U.S. Government could have prevented sensitive names from being released merely by revealing those that raised concerns, so they could be redacted. They didn’t do this, Ellsberg suggested, so to leave open the possibility of future prosecution………..

Debunked myth two: On the Trump supporters desperately believing he was going to save AssangeIf before September hearings we could have said that only a complete ignorance of the case had led people to think of U.S. President Donald Trump as a “hope” for Assange, now, after listening to the witness statements, we have a complete dossier of facts proving how harshly the incumbent U.S. President is fighting against WikiLeaks and investigative journalism. ………..

Moreover, the naïve vision of Trump as Assange’s saviour does not match with the witness statement of Mark Feldstein, Professor in the Journalism Department of the University of Maryland.

He told the Court that the Trump Administration wanted a “head on a spike” to discourage future leaks.

Feldstein explained that in 2010 and 2011, the Obama Administration wanted to prosecute WikiLeaks. However, the Justice Department stated that this would have been unconstitutional and would have set a precedent that could lead to many other journalists being prosecuted, as Assange’s conduct was “too similar” to that of journalists in hundreds of different newspapers.

However, the Trump Administration decided to prosecute him anyway, leveraging the attempt by Assange to access classified documents. “It can’t be right that the only way journalists can get information is anonymously by post,” Feldstein said, concluding by highlighting that the nature of the accusation showed that the Trump Administration had journalism firmly in its sights.

Debunked myth three: On the fact that Assange prosecution will only destroy his lifeKey witnesses have been clear: Assange’s conviction would criminalise all journalists.

Trevor Timm, the founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told the court that there have been numerous attempts by the U.S. Government to use espionage charges against journalists and none have ever succeeded. His qualified opinion is that this prosecution would mean that any journalist in possession of confidential information could be arrested.

As he explained, if the charges against Assange were applied in 1970, the journalists who revealed the Watergate scandal under the Richard Nixon Administration – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein – could have been thrown in jail under this standard. Reconnecting the issue to the present, he said that if asking a source for classified information is espionage, then the secure “dropbox” systems used by more than 80 publications worldwide to encourage whistleblowers to send them information would also be illegal, since they “solicit classified information” — one of the charges against Assange.

Despite this, we are still waiting for a massive reaction from journalists. Of course, the International Federation of Journalists has taken action and the UK National Union of Journalists is finally organising to do the same. However, a lot of work still needs to be done to explain the impact that a decision to extradite Assange would have on the freedom of the press to inform the public, so the people could truly assess the action of their rulers.https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/julian-assange-three-myths-destroyed-by-defence-witness-statements,14531