{"id":20148,"date":"2024-06-26T07:55:56","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T11:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=20148"},"modified":"2024-06-26T07:55:56","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T11:55:56","slug":"assange-is-free-but-feds-war-on-free-speech-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/26\/assange-is-free-but-feds-war-on-free-speech-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Assange Is Free, But Feds\u2019 War On Free Speech Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Conservative, June 26, 2024<\/h2>\n

Assange Is Free, But Feds\u2019 War On Free Speech Continues<\/a><\/h1>\n
\n

Unless we presume politicians have a divine right to deceive the governed, America should honor individuals who expose federal crimes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

After 1,900 days locked away in Britain\u2019s maximum-security Belmarsh prison, Julian Assange finally escaped this week and fled back towards his Australian homeland. His breakout was enabled by a shameless legal charade that was a far better choice than life in prison.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday,\u00a0Assange is scheduled to appear before a U.S. judge in the Northern Mariana Islands to enter a formal guilty plea to one charge of conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act, \u201creceiving and obtaining\u201d secret documents, and \u201cwillfully communicating\u201d them \u201cto persons not entitled to receive them.\u201d\u00a0The Espionage Act is a World War I relic that presidents are increasingly using to suppress exposure of U.S. government crimes at home and abroad.<\/strong>\u00a0No wonder so many press organizations championed Assange\u2019s cause, since this guilty plea sets a precedent to target far more journalists in the future. As Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted, the Justice Department wanted Assange \u201cconvicted under the Espionage Act for acts of journalism<\/em>, which would leave many reporters exposed to the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange\u2019s lawyers cut a deal to assure that he would never have to appear before a judge in the notorious federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, which is known for harshly punishing anyone accused of tarnishing the image of the U.S. government or its Deep-State agencies.\u00a0The Justice Department stated in its announcement of the settlement that the Pacific Ocean\u2013based site was chosen\u00a0\u201cin light of the defendant\u2019s opposition to traveling to the continental United States to enter his guilty plea.\u201d The only thing that would have been more appropriate than Assange appearing in a Northern Mariana federal courtroom is if his case was being adjudicated by the U.S. Space Force\u00a0on Mars, since the rationales for prosecution are so far out of this world.<\/p>\n

Assange has been in the federal crosshairs ever since his organization, Wikileaks,\u00a0released scores of thousands of documents in 2010 exposing lies and atrocities regarding the Afghan and Iraq wars, thanks to leaks from\u00a0Army Corporal Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning.<\/p>\n

Among other heroic achievements, Assange provoked some of America\u2019s biggest political scoundrels to show their stripes.<\/strong> In 2010,\u00a0Vice President Joe Biden denounced Assange as a \u201chigh tech terrorist.\u201d\u00a0Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bizarrely claimed that the disclosures were \u201cnot just an attack on America\u2014it\u2019s an attack on the international community,\u201d and the leaks \u201ctear at the fabric\u201d of responsible government.\u00a0Clinton never forgave Assange for exposing so many of her lies on foreign policy.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced WikiLeaks as a \u201cnon-state hostile intelligence service\u201d and labeled Assange a \u201cfraud,\u201d \u201ccoward,\u201d and \u201cenemy.\u201d Pompeo declared, \u201cTo give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n

But \u201cour great Constitution\u201d never intended for Washington to keep endless secrets from the American people.<\/strong> Former Vice President Mike Pence on Monday denounced the Assange-DOJ settlement: \u201cThere should be no plea deals to avoid prison for anyone that endangers the security of our military or the national security of the United States. Ever.\u201d But what about top government officials who deceive Americans to unjustifiably send U.S. troops into foreign combat?\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2019re still waiting for Pence to atone for his cheerleading for Bush\u2019s Iraq War.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department\u2019s settlement with Assange is an example of how the Biden administration is marginally less odious than the Trump administration\u2014at least on some issues.\u00a0T<\/strong>he Obama administration had considered indicting Assange but recognized that the legal case was both profoundly flawed and profoundly dangerous to free speech.\u00a0Those impediments were no handicap for the Trump Justice Department to indict Assange.\u00a0According to Yahoo News, \u201cSome senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange\u2026. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred \u2018at the highest levels\u2019 of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. \u2018There seemed to be no boundaries.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n