journalism

US Lawmakers Renew Call for Biden to Drop Charges Against Julian Assange

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange protest outside London’s Old Bailey court on September 7, 2020 as his fight against extradition to the U.S. resumed. (Photo: Richard Baker/Getty Images)

“The bottom line is that journalism is not a crime,” said Rep. Jim McGovern. “The stakes are too high for us to remain silent.”

Imploring the Biden administration to “not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices,” a bipartisan group of 16 U.S. lawmakers have signed a letter dated Wednesday to President Joe Biden urging him to end the attempted extradition of Julian Assange and drop all charges against the jailed publisher.

“Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, faces multiple charges under the Espionage Act due to his role in publishing classified documents about the U.S. State Department, Guantánamo Bay, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” states the letter, which is led by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). “He has been detained on remand in London since 2019 and is pending extradition to the U.S., having lost his appeal of the extradition order in the courts of the United Kingdom.”

Assange—who suffers from physical and mental health problems including heart and respiratory issues—published materials, many of them provided by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, exposing U.S. and allied war crimes, including the “Collateral Murder” video showing a U.S. Army helicopter crew killing a group of Iraqi civilians, the Afghan War Diary, and the Iraq War Logs.

“Deep concerns about this case have been repeatedly expressed by international media outlets, human rights, and press freedom advocates, and members of Congress,” the lawmakers wrote. “In April of this year… members of the House argued to Attorney General Merrick Garland that ‘every day that the prosecution of Julian Assange continues is another day that our own government needlessly undermines our own moral authority abroad and rolls back the freedom of the press under the First Amendment at home.'”

The new letter has been signed by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Az.), Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Matthew Rosendale (R-Mont.), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

In a message last month inviting congressional colleagues to sign the letter, McGovern and Massie explained that their goal is”to strongly encourage the Biden administration to withdraw the U.S. extradition request currently pending against Australian publisher Julian Assange and halt all prosecutorial proceedings against him as soon as possible.”

McGovern said last month in a statement to The Intercept that “the bottom line is that journalism is not a crime.”

“The work reporters do is about transparency, trust, and speaking truth to power,” he added. “When they are unjustly targeted, we all suffer the consequences. The stakes are too high for us to remain silent.”

The new letter follows last month’s official state visit of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, an Assange supporter who raised the jailed journalist’s case with President Joe Biden, insisting that “enough is enough.” A cross-party delegation of Australian lawmakers also traveled to the U.S. ahead of Albanese’s visit in an effort to pressure the Biden administration “to cease its pursuit and prosecution of Julian Assange.”

Imploring Americans to put themselves in Australian shoes, former Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told reporters after meeting with U.S. officials during the lawmakers’ trip: “Imagine if the Australian government said, ‘Hey you in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as far as we’re concerned, you committed a crime, and you’re going to Canberra where we’re going to send you to jail for 175 years,‘ you’d be up us like a rat up a drainpipe.”

According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Assange has been arbitrarily deprived of his freedom since he was arrested on December 7, 2010. Since then he has been held under house arrest, confined for seven years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London while he was protected by the administration of former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and jailed in London’s notorious maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, where he is now.

If fully convicted of the Espionage Act charges, Assange—who fathered two children with attorney Stella Morris, whom he married last year, while holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy—could be sentenced to 175 years in prison.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingUS Lawmakers Renew Call for Biden to Drop Charges Against Julian Assange

When governments can decide what journalists say, we should all be worried

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Original article by Peter Geoghegan republished from openDemcracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

OPINION: UK National Security Bill is latest in long line of cynical attempts to maintain secrecy and stifle journalism

Journalism, as George Orwell famously said, is “printing what someone else does not want printed”.

But what happens if the someone who doesn’t want your story printed also has the power to put you in prison?

That sounds like the kind of question journalists in places like Iran or North Korea might have to contend with. But it’s a dilemma someone like me, living and working in the UK, could be asking soon, too.

The National Security Bill currently going through Westminster contains a clause saying that “providing” information that may “materially assist a foreign intelligence service” can be punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Here at openDemocracy we pride ourselves on publishing stories that the government and others in power would much rather never see the light of day.

We’ve revealed how the Treasury helped Putin’s sanctioned warlord to sue a British journalist in London, how Russian oligarchs have bankrolled the Conservatives, how dark money flows into British politics and more.

Investigative journalists like us at openDemocracy often receive sensitive information. Could our reporting be used by foreign powers to embarrass the British government?

The honest answer is ‘yes’. But does saving our government’s blushes mean the public shouldn’t know that the British army was aware of the dangers of ‘Snatch Land Rovers’, associated with the deaths of over 34 British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or how the UK’s corporate secrecy vehicles are used to hide oligarchs’ ill-gotten gains?

Crucially, Sharpe’s promise that journalists won’t get caught in the security bill’s dragnet will not be enshrined in law

In recent days, Rishi Sunak’s ministers have made some minor amendments to the National Security Bill in the face of organised opposition by openDemocracy and other media outlets. (A huge thank you to the more than 8,000 oD readers who sent emails to their MPs demanding changes to the bill.)

The government has been at pains to say we shouldn’t be worried. In the Lords this week, one minister, Andrew Sharpe, said that it is “almost inconceivable that genuine journalism will be caught within the threshold for criminal activity”.

But it’s the “almost” that should worry all of us.

The National Security Bill replaces older secrecy legislation, and is supposed to counter the activity of hostile foreign powers in the UK. But the bill’s provisions are so wide-ranging that it is not hard to see how journalists – and whistleblowers – could be caught by it.

Crucially, Sharpe’s promise that journalists won’t get caught in the security bill’s dragnet will not be enshrined in law.

Why can’t we just trust our leaders when they say that hacks like us have nothing to worry about?

Well, their track record isn’t good. This is a government that ran an Orwellian ‘Clearing House’ that vetted Freedom of Information requests from journalists and others. When we revealed what was happening, Michael Gove, the minister in charge, smeared us and our journalism.

The Clearing House has now been closed down, but journalism is still under threat.

London’s libel courts are still being used by the world’s rich and powerful to silence public criticism. Last year, Dominic Raab pledged to legislate to end so-called “strategic litigation against public participation” cases, or SLAPPs.

But Raab’s rhetoric has not turned into reality. openDemocracy is currently subject to a SLAPP case, as are many of our journalistic allies.

Rishi Sunak has allotted no parliamentary time for anti-Slapp legislation – which means it’s very unlikely to happen. Should we be surprised when one of Sunak’s own appointments, former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, issued legal threats against journalists and campaigners who asked questions about his tax affairs?

Sunak and his ministers are fond of saying how much they care about free speech and the freedom of the press. But when the government gets to decide what information journalists can – and can’t – report, we should all be worried.

Original article by Peter Geoghegan republished from openDemcracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingWhen governments can decide what journalists say, we should all be worried

Because ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime,’ Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges

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Original article from Common Dreams republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” The Guardian, The New York Times, and other media outlets warned.

JAKE JOHNSONNovember 28, 2022

The five major media outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks in 2010 to publish explosive stories based on confidential diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department sent a letter Monday calling on the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange, who has been languishing in a high-security London prison for more than three years in connection with his publication of classified documents.

“Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate,’ it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” reads the letter signed by the editors and publishers of The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País. “Publishing is not a crime.”

The letter comes as Assange, the founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, is fighting the U.S. government’s attempt to extradite him to face charges of violating the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. If found guilty on all counts, Assange would face a prison sentence of up to 175 years for publishing classified information—a common journalistic practice.

Press freedom organizations have vocally warned that Assange’s prosecution would pose a threat to journalists the world over, a message that the five newspapers echoed in their letter Monday.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” the letter reads. “Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”

The “Cablegate” leak consisted of more than 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that offered what the Times characterized as “an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world.”

Among other revelations, the documents confirmed that the U.S. carried out a 2009 airstrike in Yemen that killed dozens of civilians. Cables released by WikiLeaks showed that then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh assured U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus that the Yemeni government would “continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.”

The media outlets’ letter notes that “the Obama-Biden administration, in office during the WikiLeaks publication in 2010, refrained from indicting Assange, explaining that they would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets too.”

“Their position placed a premium on press freedom, despite its uncomfortable consequences,” the letter continues. “Under Donald Trump, however, the position changed. The [Department of Justice] relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during World War One), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster.”

Despite dire warnings from rights groups, the Biden administration has decided to continue pursuing Assange’s extradition and prosecution.

In June, the United Kingdom formally approved the U.S. extradition request even after a judge warned extradition would threaten Assange’s life.

Assange’s legal team filed an appeal in August, alleging that the WikiLeaks founder is “being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions.”

Original article from Common Dreams republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Additional video is a little dated: Jun 17, 2022 and refers to former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Continue ReadingBecause ‘Publishing Is Not a Crime,’ Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges