If you care about The First Amendment you should care about Julian Assange

 

If you care about The First Amendment then you should care about Julian Assange. 

The First Amendment is supposed to protect several of our basic human rights including freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to assemble, the right to petition the government, and the freedom of speech. This was not the case for Australian computer programmer and editor of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

Assange is responsible for giving anonymous whistleblowers a platform where they could share any top-secret information and data they’ve obtained. At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering what’s the issue with this.

Well, to some this platform provided much-needed groundbreaking investigative journalism, but to others, it posed as a threat to national security. 

Assange’s website was responsible for leaking a variety of sensitive information and documents that I’m sure the government would’ve preferred stayed out of the media. 

Here is a look at some of the most memorable information to come from WikiLeaks: 

570,000 messages sent on 9/11    

Date: November 2009

Leaked Information: WikiLeaks published almost half a million messages sent within 24 hours before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,00 people. The messages included exchanges from the FBI, New York Police Department, and the Pentagon. 

Podesta emails 

Date: October 2016

Leaked Information: WikiLeaks published emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s chairman during her 2016 presidential campaign. One of the emails included some excerpts from Clinton’s paid Wall Street speeches that she refused to release transcripts for. 

Collateral Murder video

Date: 2010

Leaked Information: WikiLeaks published video footage of a U.S. Apache helicopter senselessly attacking and killing over a dozen people in a suburb of New Baghdad Iraq. This attack also resulted in the death of two Reuters news staff. 

All of this information is important, but the Collateral Murder video still remains iconic. News stations from all over the world picked this footage up, but there were constant questions of where this footage even came from. 

Assange insisted that he received this footage from an anonymous source which resulted in the U.S. Government being even more upset.

I personally think there’s a lot that factors into Julian Assange’s case and I may be a little biased because I’m a journalist as well. But to my understanding, Julian Assange was not charged for breaking the law for what he published through WikiLeaks. He was charged because there is a possibility that he was able to receive information through hacking.

Hacking is not protected by the First Amendment, even if the information obtained can be used to expose the government for its constant wrongdoings. 

On the other hand, Julian Assange isn’t even an American citizen. This immediately raises the question of how he could have even been prosecuted, to begin with as a foreign journalist. 

As stated early, a lot goes into this case, but in my opinion, convicting Assange is the end of the free press.