The Long Shadow of Julian Assange’s Conviction

from The New York Times I'm Natalie. kroof and this is the. [Music]. daily when the long legal Saga of. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange came to. an end this summer it marked the first. time that the US government had. convicted anyone for publishing. classified. material in the week since my colleague. Charlie Savage has been thinking about. what that conviction means for.

journalism and government accountability. in a world where publishing State. Secrets can now be treated as a. crime it's Thursday August. [Music]. 1st Charlie Julian Assange once a. household name really faded from public. view over the last few years and then he. roared right back into it with a guilty. plea a few weeks ago you've covered him.

this entire time how were you thinking. about him and his legacy when that. guilty plea came down so jul nange is. one of the most interesting people of. our times and his Saga is an. extraordinarily complex and twisting one. who he is or was his status evolved over. time was he the radical internet-based. transparency extremist who facilitated. the publication.

of leaked government us documents. bringing huge amounts of information to. the public about how the world really. worked or is he the guy who published. Democratic emails in 2016 that had been. hacked by Russia as part of a covert. intelligence operation to help Donald. Trump win that election and really from. my point of view as someone who's. interested in journalism and press. freedoms it doesn't really matter who he. was because he became the first person.

in the history of the United States to. be convicted of violating the Espionage. Act or someone who gathered and then. disseminated to the public information. that the government wanted kept secret. and so his case ends with establishing a. precedent that will be very important. for investigative journalism especially. in the National Security sphere going. forward okay I just want to unpack what. you said many people may not view.

Assange as a journalist in the. traditional sense but because he plad. guilty to a crime that involved. disseminating government secrets to the. public that word disseminating is key. it's something journalists do all the. time this case could affect journalists. RIT large is that right that's right and. we're talking about government secrets. in the realm of national security so. we're talking about journalist's ability. to report and and really the Public's. ability to know what are arguably the. government's most consequential.

activities I mean we're talking about. how it wages War where it sends weapons. how many civilians it kills in foreign. countries and what it does at home to. police its own citizens in the name of. National Security absolutely there's. this whole category of extremely high. stakes information that sometimes voters. really do need to know about for. self-government to function and this. step is the latest development in a. longer story that goes back decades in.

how the government has been trying to. use criminal law to protect information. it does not want the public to know. about so tell us that story of how we. got here well it starts with a law. called the Espionage Act and it was. enacted during World War I to go after. spies and it makes it a crime for. someone who does not have authorized. access to government information about. National sec.

security to hold on to that information. or to give it to someone else without. authorization H but the words of the law. go beyond spying for a foreign. government on its face this law could. apply to ordinary people who are. disseminating information not for the. purpose of helping a foreign power but. for educating the public leakers. whistleblowers now for most of the the. 20th.

century the government did not try to. use this law as a way to suppress leaks. but things start to change in the 21st. century starting Midway through the Bush. Administration this is the period after. the 911 attacks there's all kinds of you. know National Security things going on. all kinds of secret things going on that. sometimes reporters find out about uh. the justice department in this era. starts to get tougher on.

leaks they begin charging government. officials with unauthorized disclosures. of information under the Espionage Act. and arresting. them and that new pivot against leakers. continues through the Obama. Administration and so it's not really a. partisan thing it is a justice. department National Security bureaucracy. thing and how are the leakers defending. themselves against these charges the.

thing about the Espionage Act is that it. is a pretty Draconian law written for. spies and so all that matters is did you. without. authorization acquire retain or. disseminate National Security. information that could be used to harm. the United States or Ada foreign. adversary and so each Act that fits into. that category carries its own prison. sentence of up to 10 years whoa and the. way the law is written the defendant is.

not allowed not allowed to say to the. jury you should acquit me because this. disclosure was in the public interest H. it's just not relevant whether you were. trying to Aspire for a foreign power or. educate the public the question is just. did you mean to do it and if you did. you're. guilty and so a pattern emerges because. it's so hard to defend yourself against. this charge and because the penalties. are so steep defend start to plead out.

the government says we'll make this case. go away you go to prison for 18 months. or two years and defendants over and. over plead guilty because they don't. want to take the risk of a very long. sentence and these defendants at this. point are still leakers right I mean. we're not yet talking about the. government targeting people who publish. the information from those leaks like. journalists right there had not been any.

case in which the Government tried to. use the Espionage Act against people who. are actually Gathering and Publishing. information of course the words of that. statute going back Generations on its. face do seem to apply to newspapers and. journalists who might do that sort of. thing but there had been a. constitutional Norm at a minimum a. consensus that applying the Espionage. Act to journalistic acts would be a.

violation of the First Amendment. Congress no law impinging on the freedom. of the press and so no government had. tried to do so and this is the world in. which then Wikileaks arrives on the. scene tell us about that so Julian. Assange founds Wikileaks in 2006 well so. these are as far as we can tell. classical whistleblowers he's a computer. specialist from Australia and we have. number of ways for them to get.

information to us so we use this. state-of-the-art encryption to bounce. stuff around the internet to hide trails. and the notion behind Wikileaks is. they're going to use technology in the. growth of the internet to solicit and. publish secret government documents of. public interest from anywhere in the. world so information that organizations. are spending economic effort into. concealing uh that's a really good. signal that when the information gets. out there's a hope of it doing some good.

they go on to set up servers in places. like Iceland and Sweden and in one point. are calling themselves the the first. intelligence agency of the people but. they remain relatively. obscure outside of the sort of hacker. Community my perhaps until. 2010 when they unveil an extraordinary. and quite graphic video all right from. an American attack.

helicopter. up come. on in which the US helicopter kind of. coldly guns down this large group of. people on the street of Baghdad oh yeah. those dead bastards including it turned. out a Reuters. photographer truck Pi up the request to. engage and then some people pull up to. to help those people who have been shot.

and come on they are also shot and a. colleague of mine writes about it but it. turns out that the group itself and. Assange as its leader have much more to. offer and they start reaching out to. Major news organizations including the. New York Times the guardian D Spiegel. Leon and say we've got other stuff would. you like to look at it and you can write. stories making sense of it synthesizing.

the news you find in it we will publish. the documents and we'll time this. together so they partner with the New. York Times and other news organizations. for what turns out to be this geyser of. information Wikileaks leaks again they. have been posting more and more major. stories that have been breaking news. let's put some video here it's not one. secret coming out it's like all the. secrets coming out right it's the. biggest leak in US military history.

92,000 classified documents published on. huge archives of incident reports from. the Afghanistan war and then the Iraq. War what Assan says is evidence of. possible war crimes by US soldiers and. then later they also turn out to have a. quarter million diplomatic cables sent. to the United States from American. embassies from all around the world the. documents contain candid assessments and. embarrassing anecdotes from us they also. turn out to have stunning New.

Revelations about the detainees at. Guantanamo Bay courtesy of. WikiLeaks intelligence dossier about. what the military believed to be the. case about the hundreds and hundreds of. men that were being held without trial. at Guantanamo the pentagon's pouring. over these leaked documents in an. attempt to assess any potential damage. to security and they're in a desperate. search for the leakers themselves and at. first it's not clear where it's coming. from Julian Assange is the face of this.

and he's just soaking up the notoriety. as the US government is increasingly. freaking out but the Pentagon is. focusing its investigation of the leak. on a 22-year-old army private and David. officials believe the source of the leak. is an US Army analyst who was recently. arrested in Iraq it turns out that one. person was the source of all this stuff. Chelsea Manning had been deployed in. Iraq as an Analyst at a forward.

operating base where she had access to a. classified computer network that she. needed to do her analytical work and she. had copied these vast archives of. documents and then she had turned to. WikiLeaks and started sending what she. had to Julian. [Music]. ass Charlie you were one of the. reporters at the times right back in. 2010 writing about some of these leaked. documents how big of a deal was this for. your own reporting at the time it was a.

huge deal not just for the stories right. away out of the documents but for how. they became a resource going forward so. just to give one example in 2011 I am. writing a story about how the Drug. Enforcement Administration has hired all. these Navy Seals to go into small. Central American countries and assist. local Security Forces as they battle. drug cartels and there have been an. incident in Hond. that had gone wrong where the DEA had.

shot up a boat that turned out to be. probably full of civilians wow I'm. writing about that and that has opened a. window onto the fact that this program. exists at all but that's all I know. about I know about the thing that. happened in hondurus and the Wikileaks. disclosures of a quarter million. diplomatic cables there was just so much. there Suddenly It's like oh no this same. program has been operating throughout. Latin America they've got deployments in.

Panama and in Haiti and in Guatemala and. you could see that we had a pin prick. window onto one thing that Rose to the. headlines but it was actually part of an. operation that was spreading rapidly. through Central America where Special. Forces guys rebranded as drug agents. were increasingly going into jungles. getting into firefights and killing. people and the public didn't know about. it I mean it's just a remarkable set of. facts that you're talking about that.

that may never have come to light. without these cables and what it shows. is that there is a real power here in. this information which I've used in my. reporting too that these leaks help you. establish a pattern of actions on the. part of the government I mean you in. this case knew about one deployment and. then you're immediately able to show. that it wasn't just a one-off that this. had happened over and over again yes. it's a different world of Journalism.

where normally you are struggling and. fighting and clawing with your sources. to learn one particular thing and that. particular thing is newsworthy and you. write a story around it and it was like. here's all the things at once even if a. lot of them are background texture they. dramatically enrich the reader's ability. to understand what's really going on. well beyond the one fact or the one memo. that in the ordinary course of events is. what journalism is built upon.

clearly this is just a gamechanging tool. for journalists but on the flip side you. can see how the government would see. this as a huge threat it's just. completely exposed here I would say any. honest accounting of this has to Grapple. with the fact that there are downsides. for society as well as advantages of. having all this information unfiltered. dumped out onto the internet so in. addition to all the things that we learn.

there's also unredacted names of people. around the world human rights activists. in dangerous authoritarian countries who. have talked to American diplomats we. would never put that person's name in. the newspaper uh but here it is sitting. on the internet for example a rights. activist in an authoritarian Islamic. country who the cable identifies as gay. that kind of information could get that. person killed in that country and also. there are raw documents just because. it's in a government doc doesn't. necessarily mean it's true and so.

there's a big problem with the dossier. on Guantanamo detainees some of it is. some like jailhouse informants who were. lying so they could get cheeseburgers or. whatever about oh yeah I saw that guy in. the lineup at the training camp Etc and. it turns out later on that a lot of that. is unreliable information the government. redo its assessment decides it's not. true but those old assessments are now. sitting out there forever on the. internet and that means when these. low-level guys who the government. decides are safe to let go people are.

going to be able to look up their names. look up their file and see this flawed. assessment of who they are which is. going to make it harder for countries to. take them in going to make people. suspicious of them unfairly because even. the government doesn't believe this. anymore but there it is and so there are. downsides as well as upsides to this. geyser of information right and of. course on top of all that this. information is fundamentally stuff that. the government wanted to keep secret in. the interest of National Security so how. does the government think about.

approaching all of this of course the. cat is out of the bag now for these. documents but what they're really really. worried about is that more could be. coming that Assange is becoming This. Global cult figure other people are. going to be sending him giant archives. of information down the road and this. ability to protect to some extent what. is happening inside the government is. collapsing and so they want to stop. Assange they want want to make an. example of him they want to send a.

deterrent message to stop this sort of. new model of massive bulk leaks of. entire archives of documents appearing. on the internet but the desire to go. after Assange is immediately in conflict. with First Amendment values and Norms in. the United States because it is. exceedingly difficult to draw a line. between his solicitation and publication.

of restricted information and. traditional news outlets mainstream. media Outlets not only does the New York. Times do that every day they were. publishing some of these same documents. simultaneously with his making them. public to the general world so how do. you go after Assange without also going. after traditional news outlets in a. democracy like the New York Times. becomes the Dilemma and so how does the. government engage with that dilemma so.

this is the Obama. Administration and they are full of. meetings about what to do and it is a. problem there are no good answers they. look at various ways to go after Assange. in a way that would limit the target to. Assange himself they play with theories. like was this theft is this copyright. infringement like what is this that they. could get him for but of them really fit. the circumstances and staring him in the.

face is the Espionage Act because what. really happened here is he without. authorization Acquired and then. disseminated restricted information but. it's just a problem to go down that. route because there's no good way really. to distinguish what he did from what. news organizations like the New York. Times do every. day you know people argue about whether. a Assange Merit the label journalist or.

not it doesn't matter it doesn't matter. for this legal purpose because the. Espionage Act criminalizes actions the. act of acquiring and disseminating. restricted information without. authorization whether a journalist is. the one doing it or some other person is. irrelevant it's just was this action. undertaken and the Obama Administration. just does not act as a result but in. 2019 the Trump Administration.

does they use the Espionage Act to go. after. [Music]. Assange we'll be right. back so the Trump Administration takes. this unprecedented step something the. Obama administration had not done after. deliberating for a long time why it's. complicated there's a lot of reasons but. if we just boil them down to a few. Basics one is Assange in the intervening.

years even though he was holed up in the. Ecuadorian Embassy in London had. continued to publish documents that were. damaging to the United States not just. from leakers but also in 2016 from. Russian hackers Russian government. hackers trying to manipulate the. American election and the statute of. limitations was going to run out on. charging him over the 2010 Manning. disclosures so that was another forcing. decision. and by 2019 he's in British custody and.

the United States is trying to extradite. him to face trial in the United States. and the way extradition law works is you. have to tell the country's court system. everything you're going to charge that. person with when they get back to your. country you can't bait and switch and so. that also forces the decision that the. Obama people never had to make are we. going to do this or not we have to speak. now or hold our peace and they decide. let's do it they charge him with the S. being not shcked and ultimately now we.

have Assange pleading guilty to these. charges tell me why he does that well I. haven't talked to him about it but we. can observe that he had been locked up. in the embassy in London since 2012. until he got dragged out of it in 2019. and for more than 5 years following that. during his extradition battle he had. been held in a maximum security British. prison and so he looked like his.

extradition fight was coming to an end. he was probably going to be sent to the. United States and then he would actually. face trial on all this and he might. ultimately Prevail or he might not but. even if he did ultimately Prevail that. meant many more years probably of being. imprisoned while that legal proceeding. played out so by pleading guilty he was. allowed to walk free and is now home in. his country of. Australia Charlie you'd mentioned that. the First Amendment was really the thing. that had kept the government from going.

this far for so long so how should we. think about the first amendment in light. of this conviction isn't the. criminalization of the publication of. leaked information in direct conflict. with the idea that the government cannot. make any laws that infringe on the. freedom of the press so it was certainly. understood by most people most serious. legal Scholars through the 20th century. that it was so. what this does is it lays down a marker.

that that understanding could be wrong. just as we didn't really think that. leakers could be sent to prison and now. we understand very well that they can so. this case because Assange will not. appeal because it was a plea deal will. not be tested at any higher level Court. the Supreme Court will not have an. opportunity to weigh in on it but it's. sitting there as a warning so the. Assange plea deal leaves us in this kind. of gray area because it doesn't tell us.

whether if this case had gone to trial a. First Amendment defense would have. worked we don't actually know whether a. judge would have said the first. amendment protects people from being. prosecuted for this kind of thing it's. ambiguous it is ambiguous but it is one. more step down this slippery slope we've. been on for almost a quarter Century now. toward more and more government control. of information through the use of. criminal law and there is evidence that.

this slope has at times chilled the flow. of information to the public here's an. example back in 2011 the Patriot Act was. up for reauthorization this was a. package of expanded surveillance. authorities Congress passed right after. 911 and a couple Democratic senators. weiden and udol who are on the. intelligence committee went to the. senate floor and they each gave these. weird.

speeches I believe that Congress is. granting powers to the executive branch. that lead to abuse and frankly Shield. the Executive Branch from accountability. where they said something is wrong yes. we need secret operations but secret law. is bad for our democracy it will. undermine the confidence that the. American people have in our intelligence. operations the law is being interpreted. by the government in a way that is not. obvious that people would be outraged.

about if they learned it but it's. classified so we can't talk about it but. if you are going to vote on the Patriot. Act you have a responsibility colleagues. to go learn about this thing I believe. it seriously risks the Constitutional. freedoms of our people we need people. like me who write about National. Security and law were of course. intrigued and tried very hard to figure. out what wiid and Udall were talking. about and I did figure out that it had.

something to do with telecommunications. companies which makes sense since this. is a surveillance law and I talked to. various people that I knew who worked in. the space of telecoms and National. Security Law including a lawyer I. remember going to his office and saying. I'm trying to figure this thing out do. you know what it is and he said yeah and. I asked him what it was and he said I'm. not going to tell you I said why and. he's pointing to his pictures on his. desk of his children and he says if you. do figure it out and the FBI comes and. asks me I want to be able to honestly.

tell them I did not help. you so then 2 years later Edward Snowden. copies huge archives of National. Security Agency documents and other. surveillance related stuff hands them to. sets of journalists in Hong Kong now to. the story that has some Americans. worried we are living in a big brother. Society reports that the NSA is. collecting extensive phone and internet. data from citizens and the first. revelation out of the Snowden archive. published by the guardian is that the.

government is secretly collecting logs. of all Americans phone calls not just. their international calls but even. logging their domestic calls and their. local calls illegal ineffective and. unnecessary that is essentially what the. five member privacy and civil liberties. oversight board said about the National. Security agency's collection of phone. data. [Music]. from okay so it takes two years. basically from. when you hear about this from the.

senators from when you talk to that. lawyer for this information to come out. and that's where you really see the. potential chilling effect right the idea. is if people weren't so scared of being. prosecuted for leaking the public might. have known earlier about this that's. right and journalists not just. sources may find themselves hesitating. when they learn something that they. think is newsworthy from actually.

publishing that information is this. particular fact worth the risk that I. could be charged you and I are fortunate. we work for a very large well-funded. powerful organization the New York Times. that has a lot of lawyers has defense. lawyers but there are all kinds of. reporters out there who are working for. many different Outlets I didn't always. work for this Outlet I may not always. work for it who may come across. something that's interesting and. important but don't have that protection. behind them and so they may be further.

dissuaded right and you've reported. Charlie that Trump's former. counterterrorism adviser a top National. Security official cash Patel has said. that if elected a trump Administration. would prosecute. journalists and so I wonder if those. questions become more potent if Trump. comes to office probably it was the. Trump Administration that crossed the. line on charging Assange under the ESPN. act and we learned early in the Biden.

Administration that the Trump. administration had gone after the phone. records of New York Times Washington. Post and CNN reporters and as you say. there is this threatening environment. out there so it may be the case that. this Assange guilty plea precedent. doesn't mean that many many reporters. would today hesitate to publish the. scoop but a year or two from now. there may be the time for the next step.

down that. slope Charlie we touched on this really. briefly earlier but I'm sure there are. plenty of people who actually think it's. a good thing that the Assange Saga ended. the way it did that it is a positive. that it proved the justice department. could hold people criminally accountable. not just for leaking but also for. publishing government secrets people who. think this may even make me as a US. citizen. safer I think there are two worlds here.

and this is a true dilemma in which. there are tradeoffs and there's no. perfect answer it's about different sets. of risks and who gets to. decide there's a world in which when. someone makes an unauthorized disclosure. to the New York Times the editor of the. New York Times ultimately decides. whether or not to publish that. information the government can say. please don't and here's good reasons why.

and the editor can listen to those but. if the editor and the publisher decide. that this they're going to move. forward that information comes out that. is a world in which there is a free flow. of information reaching voters it serves. the interests of democracy and. self-government but it contains the risk. that a bad leak will get published that. the editor of the New York Times or the. publisher will make a mistake the other. world is a world in which the federal. government uses the power of criminal.

law to step into the editor's shoes. essentially the government makes the. decision with the power of sending. people to prison if people do not obey. and that is a world in which there will. not be bad leaks published but there are. also lots of good leaks that don't get. published the risk is information that. people in power in the government don't. want voters to know sometimes voters do. need to know. so the risk between occasionally having.

a bad leak that gets published versus. occasionally not having good leaks not. come out is the. [Music]. dilemma and if we were designing a new. country we could have I think an. interesting argument but I had always. thought that we don't get to have that. debate because we don't live in a new. country that we're designing from. scratch we live in the United States and.

the founders of this country wrote Into. the first amendment that Congress sh. make no law AB Bridging the freedom of. the press in the 21st century that. sensibility has been. eroding this guilty plea by Assange. winning a conviction for the first time. under the Espionage Act for someone for. the act of gathering and Publishing. information is a further step down that. slope and it is a slope whose ingame. could be the erosion of the Free Press.

as a check and balance on government. power Charlie thank you for coming on. thank. [Music]. you we'll be right back. here's what else you need to know today.

tensions in the Middle East ratcheted up. after two of Israel's biggest enemies. were killed in back-to-back attacks over. the past 48 Hours Israel has claimed. responsibility for one of the attacks. which killed senior Hezbollah Commander. fuad Shaker in Lebanon and Israel was. immediately blamed for the other killing. of Hamas leader Ismael hania in Iran by. both Hamas and Iranian. officials the question now is how both. Hamas and hisbah will respond to the. attacks on their leaders how Iran will.

react to a rare strike within its. borders and whether either reaction. leads to the outbreak of a wider. regional. conflict and during a combative. interview on Wednesday former president. Trump questioned the racial identity of. the presumptive democratic nominee vice. president kamla Harris and falsely claim. that she once identified only as Indian. she was always of Indian Heritage and. she was only promoting Indian Heritage I.

didn't know she was black until a number. of years ago when she happened to turn. black and now she wants to be known as. black so I don't know is she Indian or. is she black she is always identified as. a. black college I respect either one but. she obviously doesn't because she was. Indian all the way later in the day the. American people deserve better Harris. responded to Trump's comments saying. that Trump had put on the quote same old. show of quote divisiveness and. disrespect we deserve a leader who.

understands that our differences do not. divide. us they are an essential source of our. [Music]. strength today's episode was produced by. Rob zipco Carlos prto and Diana win it. was edited by Lisa Chow contains. original music by Rowan misto Marian. Lozano Pat mccusker and Diane Wong and.

was engineered by Chris Wood our theme. music is by Jim brunberg and Ben. lansberg of. wonderly that's it for the daily I'm. Natalie kroof see you tomorrow.