Why free speech advocates are worried

Now that Julian Assange’s stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London has come to an end, First Amendment advocates are worried about how his prosecution could affect the rights of journalists.

The Wikileaks co-founder is wanted in Sweden for allegations of sexual assault. But it’s not that charge that worries free speech advocates. It’s the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice filed charges against Assange for “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer.” 

That is, the DOJ is formally charging Assange for encouraging Chelsea Manning to acquire classified documents (that Assange would later publish on Wikileaks) by breaking into a government computer system.

Journalists and free speech advocates worry that the “computer intrusion” charge could open the door for the government to go after news publications. As the Columbia Journalism Review put it:

“Going forward, journalists will need to be vigilant. Assange’s case is specific, but the way the Justice Department responds to his arrest could have serious implications for all of us.”

“Journalists will need to be vigilant”

Ben Wizner of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project got more specific:

“Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for Wikileaks’ publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations. Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public’s interest.”

The charges specifically relate to breaking into a government computer network, not the act of publishing. However, as Freedom of the Press Foundation Executive Director Trevor Timm points out, the specifics of the case concern all journalistic activities.

“While the Trump administration has so far not attempted to explicitly declare the act of publishing illegal, a core part of its argument would criminalize many common journalist-source interactions that reporters rely on all the time,” Timms said. “Requesting more documents from a source, using an encrypted chat messenger, or trying to keep a source’s identity anonymous are not crimes; they are vital to the journalistic process.”

Others worried whether the conspiracy charge was pretext for prosecuting the press.

Some, like the New York Times‘ Sheera Frankel, pointed out that Assange crossed a line “no serious journalist” would when he allegedly helped Manning attempt to break into government computers. 

Despite Assange’s tense relationship with journalists and arguable lack of journalistic ethics, some caution that any prosecution of journalistic activities — even of a highly controversial figure like Assange — could still have far-reaching implications for the freedom of the press.

“Whether or not you like Assange, the charge against him are a serious press freedom threat and should be vigorously protested by all those who care about the First Amendment,” Timms said.

Threats to journalists are at an all-time high, and the public’s faith in the media is just now recovering from a 2016 all-time low. So everyone who cares about press freedom in the U.S. should be paying close attention to what happens to Assange next.