Charges against founder of Wikileaks threaten press freedom

Posted on by Benno Hansen

Despite certain blemishes, Wikileaks has contributed with disclosures of incredible value to the public. Some of the charges raised at the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on 11th April 2019 in London constitute an attack on the free press, says experts and NGOs.

The Guardian quotes Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler, Carrie DeCell of Knight First Amendment Institute, The Center for Constitutional Rights and others.
Freedom of the Press Foundation note their agreement with American Civil Liberties Union, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and Center for Constitutional Rights.

The parts of the charges that are under criticism are, particularly, three that address standard journalistic practices:

  • Encouraging his source (Bradley Manning) in attaining documents and recordings
  • Protecting his source (obfuscating Bradley Manning in the material)
  • Communicating with his source via encrypted chat (concealing the exchanges with Jabber, Dropbox and the like)

However, Bradley P. Moss points to a hacking charge he thinks is reasonable:

When Wikileaks published the “Cable Gate”, a 76 page collection of Ecowar related quotes were collected. But only one little quote made it into the book.

Ecowar p. 45

Cablegate COP15 by on Scribd