Julian Assange is now a free man, but he should never have been charged with a crime to begin with.
The Wikileaks founder, who has spent the last five years in a British prison, was released Monday after striking a deal with President Biden’s Department of Justice. Assange pleaded guilty to violation of the Espionage Act for publishing classified material about U.S. government operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan beginning in 2009. He traveled to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S.-controlled territory, on Tuesday and was expected to appear in court there on Wednesday before continuing on to his home country of Australia to be reunited with his family.
As Assange’s years-long ordeal comes to a close, it’s worth noting that what was done to him is criminal — and it poses a very real threat for journalists who dare to question the national security state. Put simply, what Assange did is no different than what The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and many other corporate media outlets do every day: they publish and report on classified material that was stolen or obtained illegally by sources.
The main difference between Assange and these outlets is that Assange did what he did in order to hold power to account, whereas the corporate press does it in service of power — at least when a Democratic administration is in the White House. From the earliest days of Wikileaks, Assange’s goal was to publish information that was beyond the control of states, specifically
