Two of us, Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, testified for Assange at his extradition hearing last year. In Ellsberg’s words then, the WikiLeaks publications that Assange is being charged for are “amongst the most important truthful revelations of hidden criminal state behavior that have been made public in U.S. history.” The American public “needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.”

  • SCB@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Please enlighten me as to how strategically leaking Hillary Clinton’s email to hurt her election chances is reporting on “criminal activity”

    Assange leaked shit to manipulate opinions in a way he directed, and was fed info and money from Russia to do so. Nearly all of what he leaked was meaningless info meant solely to influence optics.

    That’s rather a significant difference from investigative reporting.

    • uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Thats not what he is being prossecuted for. He is being prosecuted for publishing secrets given to him by someone else, an activity that American journalists have engaged in forever and part of standard journalism.

      Its also concerning because Assange is not a US citizen and was not in the US at the time he published. So he is being prosecuted for sonething which may not be a crime, which was done in a place the US has no jurisdiction, by a foreign citizen.