News Outlets Urge U.S. to Drop Charges Against Julian Assange

WASHINGTON — The New York Times and four European news organizations called on the United States government on Monday to drop its charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, for obtaining and publishing classified diplomatic and military secrets.

In a joint open letter, The Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País said the prosecution of Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act “sets a dangerous precedent” that threatened to undermine the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.

“Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists,” the letter said. “If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”

Since 1995, Mr. Assange has been fighting for extradition to Britain. his arrest there in 2019He is also accused of being part in a hacking-related conspiracy. The letter notably did not urge the Justice Department to drop that aspect of the case, though it said that “some of us are concerned” about it, too.

Each of the five organizations had collaborated with Mr. Assange during the events that led to the criminal case. WikiLeaks was able to access the leaked archives of classified American diplomatic cables.

A spokeswoman for The Times, Danielle Rhoades Ha, said that the company’s publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, in consultation with the legal department, decided to sign the letter. She said that the newsroom was not involved.

The case against Assange is complex and doesn’t focus on whether he can be considered a journalist. Rather, it focuses on his journalistic-style activities in soliciting and publishing classified info. can or should be treated as a crime.

This letter is in response to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s request to rein inThere are many ways that the Justice Department has made journalists’ jobs more difficult. He was arrested in October. issued new regulations that ban the use of subpoenas, warrants or court orders to seize reporters’ communications records or demand their notes or testimony in an effort to uncover confidential sources in leak investigations.

Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks catapulted to global fame in 2010 when he began publishing classified videos and documents related to the United States’ wars and its foreign relations.

It was eventually discovered that Chelsea Manning had been an Army intelligence analyst. provided the archives to WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 yearsIn prison following a court-martial hearing in 2013. President Barack Obama commuted most of her remaining sentenceJust before the January 2017 departure of the office

Ms. Manning’s disclosures amounted to one of the most extraordinary leaks in American history. They included about 250,000 State Department cables that revealed many secret things around the world, dossiers about Guantánamo Bay detainees being held without trial and logs of significant events in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars that divulged, among other things, that civilian casualties were higher than official estimates.

In the letter, it was noted that five of the same institutions had publicly criticised Mr. Assange in 2011, when unredacted cables were made public. This revealed the names of individuals in dangerous countries who had aided the United States and put their lives in danger. At Ms. Manning’s trial, prosecutors did not say anyone had been killed as a result, but officials have said the government spent significant resources in getting such people out of danger.

While Mr. Assange was disliked by the Obama administration, career law enforcement and national security officers, transparency advocates as well as antiwar activists regarded him as an icon.

His public image has changed dramatically since WikiLeaks published Democratic emailsThis email was hacked as part of a covert operation by Russia to aid Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election. The criminal case against him doesn’t concern the Democratic email.

The open letter notes that the Obama administration had weighed charging Mr. Assange in connection with the Manning leaks but did not do so — in part because there was no clear way to legally distinguish WikiLeaks’ actions from those of traditional news organizations like The Times that write about national security matters.

However, in March 2018, the Trump administration granted the Justice Department the right to obtain a sealed grand jury indictmentAgainst Mr. Assange. The charges were initially vague and did not address issues of press freedom. Instead, he was accused of hacking-related offenses by narrowly accusing Ms. Manning of helping her hide her tracks using a secure computer network.

Later, under Attorney General William P. Barr the department escalated the case and obtained an additional Indictment. It included a second set, that he journalistically violated The Espionage Act. A World War I-era statute that criminalizes the unauthorised retention and dissemination national security secrets.

(Another indictment widened the hacking-related allegations to include a WikiLeaks attempt to encourage hackers obtain secret material and make it available to the group.

There is no precedent in the United States for prosecuting a publisher of information — as opposed to a spy or a government official who leaked secrets — under the Espionage Act. The Trump administration’s decision to bring such charges against Mr. Assange raised novel and profound questions about the meaning of the First Amendment.

These issues are currently not being tested in court, because the case is paused as Mr. Assange fights extradition. The open letter urged the Justice Department not to prosecute Espionage Act.

“Holding governments accountable is part of the core mission of a free press in a democracy,” the letter said.