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World News See other World News Articles Title: 'To the ends of the Earth': What's at stake if Julian Assange is prosecuted 'To the ends of the Earth': What's at stake if Julian Assange is prosecuted Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY 7 hrs ago Julian Assange: 4 things to know about the WikiLeaks founder LONDON – His hosts claim his indoor soccer games destroyed embassy equipment. And that he liked to ride a skateboard in the halls. Nearly a year after British police officers dragged him – heavily bearded, disheveled and resisting – into a waiting van, the cramped quarters where he spent seven years avoiding the long reach of the U.S. Justice Department still retain the odor of cat litter from his trusted feline companion. A court hearing that begins here on Feb. 24 and is due to run, with a break, until June, could determine whether, where and what type of confinement WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published classified U.S. government communications, as well as emails hacked by Russia from Hilary Clinton's failed 2016 presidential campaign, receives next. The hearing will decide if Assange is sent to the U.S. to face trial in a case that could have serious implications for First Amendment protections. Yet the core issues at stake have been obscured by Assange's personal life, by the refuge he sought in Ecuador's London embassy, and by curious claims about his behavior not that well supported. Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning. Since May, the Australian national, 48, has been locked up at Belmarsh Prison, a facility that houses some of Britain's most dangerous lawbreakers. Assange is there because he was found guilty of skipping bail in 2012, after fled to Ecuador's embassy rather than turn himself in to British authorities for possible extradition to Sweden. Investigators in the Scandinavian country wanted to question him over sexual assault allegations connected to two separate women. 'Evidence has weakened': Julian Assange's rape investigation dropped by Sweden Assange hid from British police in Ecuador's poky red-brick embassy building, just yards from the famous luxury Harrods department store, because he feared Sweden would, in turn, extradite him to the U.S. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted him on 18 counts, alleging 17 forms of espionage and 1 instance of computer misuse crimes connected to WikiLeaks' dissemination of caches of secret U.S. military documents provided to him by former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. a close up of a woman: A supporter of Julian Assange waited outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, England. 1/7 SLIDES © Oli Scarff, Getty Images Assange denies all the allegations. The Swedish case has since been dropped. He was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail, a period he has already served. But there's more at stake than one anti-secrecy advocate's freedom. Shocking detail John Kiriakou, a former CIA analyst who blew the whistle on a U.S. government-sanctioned torture program in 2007 that was approved by President George W. Bush , said that Assange's U.S. case could set a precedent that would erode press freedoms for news organizations that publish classified information. "If you are able to prosecute someone who has a strong case to be called a publisher, then who's next?" said Kiriakou, who served jail time after pleading guilty to leaking the name of an officer involved in waterboarding. Assange describes himself as a political refugee. He maintains that as a journalist he should be immune from prosecution and that his work revealed embarrassing and highly damaging facts about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the detainees held at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Assange's detractors say he doesn't write stories or interview anyone or provide explanatory context and that the dissemination of raw, unfiltered documents and data – the publication of stolen classified materials – should not count as journalism. "WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now the U.S. secretary of State, said in April 2017, in his first public speech as head of the spy agency. In fact, U.S. Justice Department officials in President Barack Obama's administration ultimately decided they could not prosecute Assange for revealing national security secrets, described as one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history, because it risked criminalizing subsequent national security journalism. "During the Obama administration it was called 'the New York Times problem,'" after the newspaper's distinguished record of publishing information on national security matters the U.S. government has deemed secret, said Stephen Rohde, a historian and constitutional law expert, and a past chair of the Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. "In other words, how can we indict him for espionage when we're confident he's a journalist, a publisher and enjoys First Amendment rights." Generally speaking, the First Amendment, as it applies to the press, restrains the government from jailing, fining or imposing liability for what the press publishes. It does not shield journalists from criminal liability. The information Assange published contained about 90,000 Afghanistan War-related "significant activity" reports, 400,000 Iraq War-related reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay "detainee assessment" briefs and 250,000 U.S. State Department cables. If nothing else, this material illuminated in shocking detail U.S. military and diplomatic procedure and actions in far-flung places, and the light it shined was not flattering. WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: Journalist or criminal hacker? To his supporters, Assange is a champion of free speech and the public interest whose exceptional computer skills helped him reveal, among other things, video footage allegedly showing U.S. air crew in Apache helicopters killing a dozen civilians in Iraq. The dead included two Iraqis working for the Reuters news agency. "Assange published evidence of war crimes by the U.S. government," said Andrew Wilkie, a left-leaning Australian politician who traveled to Britain in February with fellow Australian lawmaker George Christensen in a show of bipartisan support for Assange. Christensen represents Australia's right-of-center Liberal National Party. "I'm a big fan of the Trump administration but I'm a bigger fan of free speech," said Christensen. "Assange did the right thing," added Wilkie. Still, the U.S. government alleges that Assange is a criminal who conspired with Manning to steal thousands of pages of national defense information that has risked the lives of U.S. forces, allies and collaborators from translators to political dissidents with whom it partners to fight repressive regimes. If Assange is sent to the U.S. to stand trial, he could get a life sentence – 175 years – if a U.S. court finds him guilty on all 18 charges and the maximum penalty is imposed. Manning served seven years in prison, including pre-trial custody, before Obama commuted her 35-year prison sentence. She is now back in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. Manning, who was convicted of theft and espionage, says she acted on principle when she handed over the top-secret information to WikiLeaks. A U.S. Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on whether there is any evidence that the WikiLeaks disclosures have directly led to injuries or deaths. To date, no evidence of deaths or injuries precipitated by WikiLeaks' disclosures has emerged. Self-imposed isolation? Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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