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chelsea manning
Sick of Julian Assange? Fine. Just Don't Miss The Message.
The end of the legal saga for the Wikileaks' founder should not be seen as the end. It should be seen as a warning.
Jun 26, 2024
CD editor's note: The original Swedish language version of this op-ed first appeared in Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper and this English translation is provided by the author.
After fifteen years, it appears that the Julian Assange case has reached a conclusion. But, as with almost everything to do with Assange, that conclusion may end up creating more problems than it solves, and raising more questions than it answers.
This was man who, on the back of material leaked by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, and by leveraging the possibilities presented by rapidly-evolving digital technologies, challenged the might of the U.S. military and the authority of the U.S. government. And, he did so through an innovative collaboration between WikiLeaks and major European and U.S. news outlets that for a brief period suggested the possibility of a new model for whistleblowing, data-gathering, and journalism.
The conclusion to the Assange case sends a clear and chilling message to journalists around the world... that you challenge U.S. power at your own peril.
WikiLeaks released the Collateral Murder video, showing a U.S. attack helicopter killing people in Baghdad, including two Reuters journalists. Some of those killed were blown to pieces as they lay injured on the ground. U.S. politicians and commentators, Democrats and Republicans alike, saw Assange and WikiLeaks as the enemy and as people who should, at best, be tried for espionage or treason or, at worst, assassinated. In 2010, none other than Donald Trump said there should be the “death penalty” for what WikiLeaks had done.
Then, the tide turned. In multiple directions. Because, after all, this was Assange.
The allegations of sexual assault made in Sweden in 2010 marked the start of a period where the support Assange and WikiLeaks had developed among some progressives rapidly began to fade. No charges were ever leveled against Assange for sexual assault or rape, but the fallout from the incident was stark. Assange called Sweden “the Saudi Arabia of feminism,” and his followers smeared his accusers as being lying tools of the U.S. government who had set Assange up. The misogyny was obvious and aggressive.
Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the Ecuadorian embassy years saw WikiLeaks rapidly disintegrate into a farcical side-show, marked by an increasingly close relationship between the Trump administration, a clear opposition to Hillary Clinton, the amplification of right-wing conspiracy theories and potentially dangerous acts such as linking to unredacted emails revealing private information about female voters in Turkey.
Assange, once considered by many to be a symbol of transparency, anti-Americanism and anti-militarism was now seen as doing the bidding of elites on the U.S. political right. He was hailed by right-wing politicians and commentators such as Tucker Carlson. In 2016, Trump, who just six years earlier said Assange and Manning should be put to death, now said, “I love WikiLeaks.”
The WikiLeaks account on Twitter became a steady mix of opinion, hyperbole, half-truths, and disinformation. The lifeblood of organizations that work with whistleblowers is a combination of trust, competence, and solidity. But, just the few short years after the leak of material from Chelsea Manning that shook the U.S. establishment and led to thousands of news articles across the globe, it was impossible to imagine any serious whistleblower deciding to work with WikiLeaks.
So, when Assange faced extradition to the U.S. to stand trial for his role in obtaining and publishing the material from Chelsea Manning, many shrugged their shoulders. The Assange/WikiLeaks image had been permanently tarnished. If he wasn’t guilty of espionage, the reasoning went, then the sexual assault allegations, the suggested support for Trump and the disintegration of WikiLeaks into amplifying right-wing conspiracy theories clearly made him unworthy of sympathy or attention.
And yet.
All of the distaste for Assange the person, and for what WikiLeaks had become in the years after the Manning leaks, overshadowed a fundamental yet powerful truth. The Assange case was, and is, absolutely fundamental to the working of critical investigative journalism in the U.S. and globally. Whatever dislike one may have for Assange or WikiLeaks, the fact remains that his pleading guilty to one felony count of "conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the U.S." might enable Assange to leave prison, but is nevertheless a victory for the United States government and military, and a loss for freedom of information and the critical examination of power.
The conclusion to the Assange case sends a clear and chilling message to journalists around the world—Assange isn’t American, remember—that you challenge U.S. power at your own peril. This, in turn, sends a message to citizens that they are not worthy of knowing what the state does in their name. Which is pretty ironic, given that democracy is supposed to be about the rule of the people.
So, the end of the Assange case has given us one final twist, namely that the end is not the end.
It’s a warning.
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'Julian Assange Is Free': WikiLeaks Founder Strikes Plea Deal With US
"We thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom," said WikiLeaks. "Julian's freedom is our freedom."
Jun 24, 2024
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday reached a deal with the U.S. government, agreeing to plead guilty to one felony related to the disclosure of national security information in exchange for his release from Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom.
A related document was filed in federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. Under the plea agreement, which must still be approved by a judge, the Department of Justice (DOJ) will seek a 62-month sentence, equal to the time that the 52-year-old Australian has served in the U.K. prison while battling his extradition to the United States.
Assange faced the risk of spending the rest of his life in U.S. prison if convicted of Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges for publishing classified material including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Before Belmarsh, he spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London with asylum protections.
"Julian Assange is free," WikiLeaks declared on the social media platform X, confirming that he left Belmarsh Monday "after having spent 1,901 days there," locked in a small cell for 23 hours a day.
"He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stanstead Airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the U.K.," WikiLeaks said. "This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grassroots organizers, press freedom campaigners, legislators, and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations."
"He will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars," the group continued. "WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people's right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian's freedom is our freedom."
The news of Assange's release was celebrated by people around the world, who also blasted the U.S. for continuing to pursue charges against him and the U.K. for going along with it.
"Takeaway from the 12 years of Assange persecution: We need a world where independent journalists work in freedom and top war criminals go to prison—not the other way around," the progressive advocacy group and longtime Assange supporter RootsAction said on social media.
Seth Stern, advocacy director at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that "it's good news that the DOJ is putting an end to this embarrassing saga. But it's alarming that the Biden administration felt the need to extract a guilty plea for the purported crime of obtaining and publishing government secrets."
"That's what investigative journalists do every day," Stern noted. "The plea deal won't have the precedential effect of a court ruling, but it will still hang over the heads of national security reporters for years to come. The deal doesn't add any more prison time or punishment for Assange. It's purely symbolic."
"The administration could've easily just dropped the case but chose to instead legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct and encourage future administrations to follow suit," he added. "And they made that choice knowing that [former U.S. President] Donald Trump would love nothing more than to find a way to throw journalists in jail."
Leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a statement: "I congratulate Julian Assange on his freedom. Assange's eternal imprisonment and torture was an attack on press freedom on a global scale. Denouncing the massacre of civilians in Iraq by the U.S. war machine was his 'crime'; now the massacre is repeated in Gaza I invite Julian and his wife Stella to visit Colombia and let's take action for true freedom."
Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt, who represents Melbourne in Parliament, said on social media that "Julian Assange will finally be free. While great news, this has been over a decade of his life wasted by U.S. overreach."
"Journalism is not a crime," Bandt added. "Pursuing Assange was anti-democratic, anti-press freedom, and the charges should have been dropped."
After more than five years in the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison in the UK, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reached a plea deal with the U.S. government. The deal allows for his release and return to his home country of Australia after a formal sentencing at a US court in the… pic.twitter.com/5S3xdbZnG2
— CODEPINK (@codepink) June 25, 2024
The women-led peace group CodePink said in a statement:
Without Julian Assange's critical journalism, the world would know a lot less about war crimes committed by the United States and its allies. He is the reason so many anti-war organizations like ours have the proof we need to fight the war machine in the belly of the beast. CodePink celebrates Julian's release and commends his brave journalism.
One of the most horrific videos published by WikiLeaks was called "Collateral Murder," footage of the U.S. military opening fire on a group of unarmed civilians—including Reuters journalists—in Baghdad. While Julian has been in captivity for the past 14 years, the war criminals that destroyed Iraq walked free. Many are still in government positions today or living off the profits of weapons contracts.
While Julian pleads guilty to espionage—we uphold him as a giant of journalistic integrity.
Vahid Razavi, founder of Ethics in Tech and host of multiple NSA Comedy Nights focusing on government mass surveillance, told Common Dreams that "they took a hero and turned him into a criminal."
"Meanwhile, all of the war criminals in the files exposed by WikiLeaks via Chelsea Manning are free and never faced any punishment or even their day in court," he added. "You can kill journalists with impunity, just like Israel is doing right now in Gaza."
Former United Nations human rights official Craig Mokhiber, who
resigned from his job last year over the world body's refusal to prevent Israel's slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, said on social media that "political prisoner Julian Assange, persecuted for years for the crime of journalism, simply for telling the truth about U.S. war crimes, is free."
Mokhiber hailed what he called "a moment of light in an age of darkness."
British journalist Afshin Rattansi said, "Let no one think that any of us will ever forget what the British state did to the most famous journalist of his generation."
"They tortured him—according to the United Nations special rapporteur on torture—at the behest of the United States," Rattansi noted.
Andrew Kennis, a professor of journalism and social media at Rutgers University, told Common Dreams that "Julian Assange is nothing less than the Daniel Ellsberg of our time."
"His journalism revealed more war crimes by the U.S. than any other publisher in the world, and far more extensively than what Ellsberg was able to pull off with a photocopy machine," he added. "But as opposed to receiving a deserved pardon... the persecution of Assange has been indicative of the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy these days: Prosecute the whistleblowers exposing war crimes while funding Israeli war criminals in an ongoing attempt at genocide against occupied Palestine."
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DC Belmarsh Tribunal Urges Biden to Drop Assange Charges
"How is it acceptable that perpetrators of the illegal invasion of Iraq are the ones who get to decide if the man who exposed their crimes is a journalist?" asked Abby Martin.
Dec 11, 2023
Seeking to pressure the Biden administration into dropping charges against jailed Australian WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, human rights and press freedom defenders gathered in Washington, D.C. over the weekend for the second U.S. session of the Belmarsh Tribunal.
The tribunal—organized by Progressive International in partnership with the Wau Holland Foundation—was held Saturday at the National Press Club, where Assange first premiered "Collateral Murder," a video showing a U.S. Army helicopter crew killing a group of Iraqi civilians and then laughing about it.
"As long as the Espionage Act is deployed to imprison those who expose war crimes, no publisher and no journalist will be safe. It is time to free the truth."
The Belmarsh Tribunal was first convened in London in 2021. The event is inspired by the Russell Tribunal, a 1966 event organized by philosophers Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre to hold the U.S. accountable for its escalating war crimes in Vietnam.
Saturday's gathering was co-hosted by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and The Intercept D.C. bureau chief Ryan Grim.
"Believe it or not, there are only two persons in the world who have been punished for the war crimes that were revealed by WikiLeaks: Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange," Grim told attendees.
Srećko Horvat, the Croatian author, philosopher, and activist who co-founded the Belmarsh Tribunal,
said that "the pressure is mounting on the Biden administration to free Julian Assange."
"More than one man's life is at stake, but the First Amendment and freedom of the press itself," he added. "As long as the Espionage Act is deployed to imprison those who expose war crimes, no publisher and no journalist will be safe. It is time to free the truth."
Rebecca Vincent, director of campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, warned that "if the U.S. government succeeds to extradite Julian Assange to this country, he will become the first publisher imprisoned under the Espionage Act—but he will not be the last."
According to Progressive International:
U.S. congresspeople from both parties are lobbying U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and President Joe Biden to stop pursuing Assange under the Espionage Act. At the same time, Australian members of Parliament are making a major bipartisan push to demand the U.S. Justice Department end its legal campaign against Australian national Assange.
Assange—who suffers from physical and mental health problems including heart and respiratory issues—published classified materials, many of them provided by Manning, exposing U.S. and allied nations' war crimes, including the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and "Collateral Murder."
Since Assange's apprehension 13 years ago in London, he has been confined for seven years in the Ecuadorean Embassy while he was protected by the administration of former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and jailed in the U.K. capital's maximum-security Belmarsh Prison. He's currently being held on remand in the notorious lockup pending extradition to the United States after the U.K. High Court rejected his final appeal earlier this year.
If fully convicted, Assange—who is 52 years old and is married with two children—could be sentenced to up to 175 years behind bars.
"How is it acceptable that perpetrators of the illegal invasion of Iraq are the ones who get to decide if the man who exposed their crimes is a journalist?" asked American journalist Abby Martin during the event.
Pivoting to Israel's current war on Gaza—which many experts and observers around the world are calling a genocide as over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing and 80% of the strip's population has been forcibly displaced—Martin asserted that "the people of Gaza have risked and lost their lives to expose the war crimes of the U.S. and Israel."
"The people of Iraq did not have that chance," she added. "They had WikiLeaks."
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