Julian Assange: Free Speech Martyr? | Stella Assange | EP 293
The New York Times publishes National Security defense National Defense information every day. Their unauthorized disclosures all the time because that is what journalists do—good journalists, at least. They publish if it's in the public interest. If you don't have that ability, then you basically do away with any serious journalism—full stop. The division line between public citizens and journalists has also become extremely blurry. If I go to the New York Times and I read an article that has been published without authorization and I share it on Facebook to my relatively numerous followers—although that's not necessarily relevant; it could be with even a family member—am I now a journalist who's disclosing state secrets? The answer to that is by no means clear because I’m certainly publishing it, and so that should make people very concerned because each of us is now a relatively powerful journalist in our own right.
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Hello everyone, I'm here today speaking with Stella Assange, who is the wife of Julian Paul Assange. I'm going to start with his bio in a strange twist since he at the moment can't speak for himself, and then I'm going to turn to hers. Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. In 2010, WikiLeaks published a series of leaks provided by American Intel analyst Chelsea Manning and attracted widespread international attention and outrage. I would say in early 2010, Manning, who reported being horrified by the behavior of then his colleagues, disclosed three quarters of a million classified and unclassified but sensitive military/diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, an online news site. The U.S. government then launched a continuing criminal investigation into WikiLeaks.
In 2010, Assange began to be pursued—I say began because it went on for a very long time—by Swedish authorities for alleged sexual misconduct episodes. Those charges were eventually rescinded. UK authorities, operating as a consequence of the Swedish call, arranged a potential extradition. Assange, at that point, broke bail, which violated UK law, and took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he remained under different conditions for many years from 2010 to 2019. He was finally arrested and returned to the UK, where he has been imprisoned since in Belmarsh, a category A prison in London. He currently faces the possibility of extradition to the U.S. and possible prosecution there on some 18 essentially espionage-related charges.
According to the Irish Times recently, it's now a year and a half since Assange completed his 50-week sentence for jumping bail, and this is where the Julian Assange story gets even stranger, if possible. Despite the fact that there are no new charges against him in the UK, he is still in the category A prison, Belmarsh, where he has spent much of his time in solitary confinement. In May 2019, Assange was brought up on 17 new charges relating to the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917, and they carried with them, those charges, a maximum sentence of 170 years. The Obama administration considered charging Assange similarly previously but decided not to, given concern that it might negatively affect investigative journalism as such and could well be unconstitutional.
The New York Times stated that it and other news organizations obtained documents in the same fashion as WikiLeaks and could not see that WikiLeaks publications differed legally from other journalists' publications of classified information. After Assange's arrest and first indictment, the New York Times editorial board wrote that "the case of Mr. Assange, who got his start as a computer hacker, I think this is a crucial insight here, illuminates the conflict of freedom and harm in the new technologies and could help draw a sharp line between legitimate journalism and dangerous cybercrime." They said that the administration has