Confidential Sources: Julian Assange

 

Julian Assange

Journalists in jail. Odd right? The people responsible in making sure the public receives their daily news, are thrown in jail alongside robbers, murderers and other criminals (not really, but you get the point). 

WikiLeaks creator and the 2010 "Person of the Year", Julian Assange was indicted in the U.S. for "violating the Espionage Act" on May 23, 2019.

The Espionage Act of 1917 banned the use of any information, being used against the U.S. that could injure the country or give an advantage to a foreign nation.

Assange created WikiLeaks in 2007, and considered himself the Editor-in-Chief. At first, the site ran through Sweden due to their strong laws on keeping people's online identity anonymous. Most of WikiLeak's content featured leaked government information such as the executions in Kenya by their police and Peru's"Petrogate." 

Later that year, Assange posted U.S. military information on the site about the Guatemalan detention center. The next year, he received Sarah Palin's confidential emails from an unknown source in which he leaked on the site. 

But this wasn't all of his legal troubles. In 2010, Assange was under investigation for 2 counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape. Later that year, Assange turned himself in to London police after an arrest warrant was issued. But in November 2011, his case was dismissed however he still was on conditional bail. 

In July of 2016, the year of the Clinton v. Trump presidential race, WikiLeaks exposed over 1,200 private emails from Hillary Clinton's private server and later released even more from the Democratic National Committee. 

WikiLeaks continued to release more and more emails from Clinton's campaign which most government officials believed was the result of Russian hackers. Assange came out to state that he didn't have any intention to sway the election.

Julian Assange was arrested at the London Embassy in April 2019. This came after Ecuador had withdrawn Assange's asylum. The United States charged him with breaking into a government computer at the Pentagon. Since he skipped his bail back in 2012, Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison.

On May 23, Assange was faced with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for the documents he released in 2010. 

The issue is, if Assange is punished, shouldn't the other news sites who posted his WikiLeaks information face the same consequences? Or could ALL investigative journalists face the same punishment? What about the First Amendment?

As a journalist, it's our job to inform the public. As an investigative journalist, you must investigate subjects and reveal the truth. Isn't that what Julian Assange was doing?