During the 2016 campaign, Julian Assange worked hand-in-glove with Russia to install Putin’s Pet Pervert, Donald Trump, in the White House. The Republican Reich are showing their gratitude by trying to punish Assange. The way they are doing it could not be more devious. They are using the left’s justified anger against Assange to use him as a vehicle to destroy the Fourth Estate.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was charged Thursday with violating the Espionage Act by seeking out classified information, an escalation of the Trump administration’s pursuit of leakers that could have major First Amendment repercussions for news organizations.
An 18-count federal indictment alleges that Assange worked with a former Army intelligence analyst to obtain and disseminate secret documents — actions similar to reporting work at many traditional news organizations. The U.S. government, though, sought to distinguish the anti-secrecy advocate from a reporter.
“Julian Assange is no journalist,” said John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security. He said Assange had engaged in “explicit solicitation of classified information.”
Press freedom advocates said the distinction being drawn by prosecutors offers little protection for journalists. Noted media lawyer Floyd Abrams said that Assange may be a “singularly unattractive defendant in a lot of ways” but added that the indictment “does raise deeply threatening First Amendment issues for journalists who cover national defense, intelligence activities, and alike.”
Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement that the indictment was “a dire threat to journalists.”… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Washington Post>
Both Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow covered this story. Here’s Chris:
Here’s Rachel:
Julian Assange is a total bastard for what he did to this nation. For that, no punishment is severe enough. However, unless we fight to defend his rights now, the Republican Reich will use it against us all by destroying freedom of the press.
RESIST!!
9 Responses to “Punish Assange Right”
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I didn’t know how this worked until I viewed your comments, and reporting from Chris’ and Rachel’s perspective.
A lot going on here between the lines, which sounds very threatening towards the news media and our journalists. Not good, quite scary, actually.
Passing on, Thanks, Tom.
Anybody who had the least hand in getting tRump into the Oval Office is a villain.
What Freya said, but the big picture about journalists being free of scumbags like T-Dump is of bigger importance.
Ditto Pam and Pat’s comments. So much is going on with this situation, that it’s makes you wonder if we have all the information?
It’s not complex at all.
Step away from the blame game between your politicians.
Assange didn’t set out to help trump, he wasn’t against Hillary, he didn’t side with the
Russians, these are all tin-foil-hat fairy tales sold to you by msm, he is a publisher of
Truth, it’s time American’s realise & accept it.
“Rachel Maddow has aired a segment condemning the new indictment against Julian
Assange”
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/the-media-is-finally-realizing-what-the-prosecution-of-assange-means-for-journalism.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ActivistPost+%28Activist+Post%29
Punish Julian & you shoot yourselves in the foot.
Failing to punish Assange after prosecuting and imprisoning Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, and Reality Winner is IMO exactly analogous to Trump pardoning war criminals while spitting on war heroes.
He absolutely is not a journalist.
Incidentally, just the stills, without even looking at the video, of him made me throw up in my mouth a little. Now I need to get something to try to heal my throat. I honestly don’t see how anyone can look at him and mistake him for a human being.
I’m with Animae on this one. It’s sad to see how opinions in the US have changed on Assange after Wikileaks published Hillary’s emails. I’m glad, though, that many see that most of the indictments against him are not about that, but about the first leaks, exposing the war crimes of governments, but in reality an excuse to prevent such information to become known ever again by gagging journalists and destroying freedom of the press.
One of the indictments is based on publishing the names of people involved, which could have “endangered” them. That’s a bit rich coming from an administration who now wants to give Barrf full power to declassify anything that comes from the CIA so Drumpf can find out who his enemies are, i.e. who testified in the Mueller investigation, thereby endangering a CIA source close to Putin and making intelligence gathering through sources virtually impossible.
Thanks and Hugs to all.
Lona and Animae, if Assange had hacked Hillary’s emails and released them, I would not be bitching. However the Russian government hacked them, altered some or all of them, and gave them to their partner, Assange, who released them. I suspect most were real, but we’ll never know for sure. Second, Assange timed the release to coincide with the release of the Access Hollywood Tape. That timing took Trump as serial pussy grabber out of the headlines.
Animae, Activist Post is well known as a propaganda site. At times, it’s articles are good, but when we patronize a source, because it says what you want it to say, you risk being buried in bullshit.
Finally, note that I said these changes against Assange are bogus, and as an honest enemy, I defended him.
i don’t only check activist-post TC, it’s just the one that was handy & i quoted it, to get a proper understanding we must check every available source but how many actually do that!
Julian & Chelsea did a wonderful thing by exposing those war crimes, would we have known about them without their heroic efforts, of course our governments will try to snuff them out, they don’t want their illegal activities exposed!
As you know our governments are NOT transparent, & they are getting worse by the day, are we even democracies anymore?? We have extreme-far-right-evangelicals in government in Australia for the next 3 years, the suffering will be extreme for the poor & middle classes…. whatever the hype, we desperately NEED the whistle-blowers & they MUST have legal protections!!!
But for a start lets not turn against them, they are on our side!