While I no longer look upon Assange with starry-eyed wonder and accept that he leaked some materiel unnecessarily there are broader issues to be considered.
U.S. prosecutors’ indictment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could trigger a protracted fight over press freedom in the United States, warn First Amendment experts.
The Department of Justice is preparing to extradite Assange, whom British authorities
arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on Thursday, to the U.S. to face a charge of criminal computer hacking conspiracy. In a
seven-page indictment unsealed Thursday, federal prosecutors allege that Assange assisted former Army Pvt.
Chelsea Manning in cracking a password on U.S. Department of Defense computers in order to obtain classified documents WikiLeaks later published.
Although the indictment, filed in a U.S. District Court in Virginia, focuses on Assange and computer hacking, the bigger issue is that his case raises fundamental questions about press freedom. If Assange is convicted based on what is shown in the indictment, it could give the government a dangerous precedent to use against journalists in the future, First Amendment experts say.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/juli...cid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__041219