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espionage act
Named for Daniel Ellsberg, Tlaib Proposal Would Protect Whistleblowers and Journalists
"With whistleblowers, journalists, and civil liberties under significant attack and government decision-making shrouded in increasing secrecy, reining in the abuses of the Espionage Act could not be more urgent.”
Mar 12, 2026
Warning that the Espionage Act has been used to "persecute and criminalize" dissenters, journalists, and whistleblowers numerous times since it was passed into law, US Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Thursday introduced the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act to "rein in" the 109-year-old law.
The proposal is named for the military analyst-turned-activist who disclosed decades of deception by the US government regarding Vietnam when he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971—an act that led the government to charge Ellsberg with espionage, conspiracy, and other crimes before the case was thrown out over the Nixon administration's misconduct.
In the cases of Ellsberg, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and other journalists and whistleblowers, "Espionage Act prosecutions have been used to silence dissent and undermine government transparency and are a clear violation of the First Amendment and the fundamental right to due process," said Tlaib (D-Mich.).
“Alerting the public to government wrongdoing is not a crime,” said the congresswoman. “The Espionage Act has been abused by administrations of both parties to target whistleblowers and journalists for sharing critically important information with the public. With whistleblowers, journalists, and civil liberties under significant attack and government decision-making shrouded in increasing secrecy, reining in the abuses of the Espionage Act could not be more urgent.”
Tlaib noted that in addition to past administrations using the Espionage Act to prosecute media sources and whistleblowers who alerted the public about mass surveillance, torture, drone assassinations, and war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter in January in connection to the prosecution of a government whistleblower.
The proposed legislation would limit the scope of the Espionage Act to foreign agents and government employees who have a legal duty to protect classified information—prohibiting the use of the law to prosecute publishers, journalists, or members of the public.
It would also increase due process standards and safeguards for whistleblowers who disclose government wrongdoing, war crimes, or abuses of power to the public. The legislation would create and affirmative public interest defense and require the government to prove that a whistleblower acted with the specific intent of harming the US or aiding a foreign power.
Under the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel for the ACLU, "the government could no longer abuse [the Espionage Act] to silence those sharing information that is beneficial to the public."
“For too long the Espionage Act has been used to persecute and silence whistleblowers, journalists and publishers,” said Leventoff. “But journalism is not a crime—it is a First Amendment protected activity that protects our democracy by allowing the public to hold our nation’s leaders to account."
The Espionage Act was originally passed to crack down on those who spread information that could interfere with the war effort during World War I, and "from its inception," said Chip Gibbons, policy director at Defending Rights and Dissent, "the law has been used to stifle public debate and has become the go to weapon against whistleblowers and now journalists."
"Public servants who witness egregious crimes like torture, mass surveillance of Americans, or the killing of civilians, and seek to alert the American people about them are whistleblowers," said Gibbons. "Yet, using the Espionage Act the government prosecutes them as though they were spies. And with the government going further and prosecuting a journalist under the Espionage Act, the threat not just to press freedom, but to our very democracy, posed by this antiquated law is growing. Rep. Tlaib’s bill is desperately needed as it is well past time to bring the Espionage Act in line with the First Amendment.”
Tlaib noted that before his death in 2023, Ellsberg expressed public support for the reforms the congresswoman had proposed, when she introduced them as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.
“For half a century, starting with my own prosecution, no whistleblower charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 has had, or could have, a fair trial," said Ellsberg in 2022. "These long-overdue amendments would remedy that injustice, protect the First Amendment freedom of the press, and encourage vitally needed truth-telling.”
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Bar Complaint Filed Against Prosecutor Who Petitioned for Raid of Journalist's Home
"When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences," reads a filing.
Feb 09, 2026
Soon after the FBI raided Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's home in Virginia last month, the Freedom of the Press Foundation said it suspected that the Trump administration was either "ignoring or distorting" federal law when it allowed the search and seizure of Natanson's electronic devices to go forward.
On Monday, the organization said that recently unsealed court documents had proven its suspicions were correct as it filed a formal disciplinary complaint against the federal prosecutor who signed the search warrant application: Assistant US Attorney Gordon Kromberg had failed to disclose to the magistrate judge who approved the warrant the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which strictly limit search warrants for journalists' work products and materials.
That allegation led the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) to file a disciplinary complaint with the Virginia State Bar on Friday.
By not alerting Judge William B. Porter to the law, Kromberg "appears to have violated an ethical rule that requires lawyers to reveal relevant legal authority to the court, even if it undermines their arguments," said FPF.
Seth Stein, the chief of advocacy for FPF, filed the complaint nearly a month after the FBI executed the search warrant at Natanson's home and seized several devices.
The raid was completed as part of an Espionage Act investigation into Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a government contractor who's accused of leaking classified information to Natanson. The journalist has extensively covered the experiences of people in the federal workforce in the past year, as the Trump administration has fired or pushed out more than 350,000 employees.
The Privacy Protection Act prohibits searches of a journalist's materials unless there is probable cause to believe that the reporter themself has committed a crime related to their work materials. The law stipulates that the mere possession of materials by a journalist cannot trigger that exception unless the materials are child sexual abuse imagery or national security secrets.
As the New York Times reported last week, "It is disputed whether it is constitutionally permissible to apply the Espionage Act to ordinary news gathering activities by people without security clearances."
Prosecutors have never charged a traditional reporter with violating the Espionage Act for news gathering activities. The Department of Justice alarmed First Amendment advocates during President Donald Trump's first administration when it charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for publishing classified files; Assange later struck a plea deal so the constitutionality of his charges were not tested in court.
Stein emphasized in the filing that Kromberg's omission of the Privacy Protection Act "could not have been a mere oversight—the warrant in question was, predictably, a subject of national news, given that raids of journalists’ homes during investigations of alleged leaks by government personnel are, according to experts, unprecedented."
"Disciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else."
"Under the Department of Justice’s own policies," reads the filing, "the search should have been discussed with and authorized by the highest levels of the DOJ, including the attorney general."
Several legal experts who specialize in ethics told the Times last week that if Kromberg knew about the Privacy Protection Act and didn't alert Porter that the search could violate the law, he violate an ethical statute called Rule 3.3, “Candor Toward the Tribunal."
New York University professor emeritus Stephen Gillers told the Times that Kromberg was required “to disclose the Privacy Protection Act because it is ‘controlling,’ which means the judge was required to consider it in his ruling on the government’s request, and because the act’s provisions are ‘adverse,’ which means its requirements could have the effect of denying the government’s request.”
Stein said in a statement that Kromberg and the federal government "omitted a federal law that should have prohibited the raid of Hannah Natanson’s home when applying for a search warrant."
Natanson and the Post filed a lawsuit demanding the return of her electronic devices and data, arguing that under the Privacy Protection Act, it is illegal for the government to review her reporting work that is unrelated to the investigation into Perez-Lugones.
In the filing on Friday, Stein warned that in addition to harming Natanson's ability to complete her work, the FBI has jeopardized the confidentiality of her sources, and "journalists and whistleblowers across the country are sure to think twice about drawing the ire of the current administration" in light of the reporter's ordeal.
"Disciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else," said Stein on Monday. "When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences.”
FPF called on the Virginia State Bar to take "appropriate disciplinary action, up to and including disbarment," against Kromberg.
The bar, said the group, should "expedite disciplinary proceedings due to the dire consequences for First Amendment freedoms if illegal newsroom raids and seizures of journalists’ work product are allowed to go unchecked."
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Indictment of Ex-Trump Adviser John Bolton Called a 'Warning Shot to Every American'
The indictment has been condemned as part of the president's crackdown on his "enemies list," but some legal experts are also highlighting how the case differs from those of Letitia James and James Comey.
Oct 17, 2025
While critics of John Bolton have long called for him to be tried at the International Criminal Court, the federal indictment of President Donald Trump's ex-national security adviser on Thursday is generating widespread alarm.
Bolton surrendered at a courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland Friday morning after a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with violating the Espionage Act—specifically 18 counts of unlawfully retaining and transmitting national defense information. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
When former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey was indicted last month, Trump pledged that "there'll be others." Then Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James—who successfully prosecuted the president for financial crimes—was indicted last week. Critics accuse Trump of weaponizing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against his enemies.
Some of the reactions to Bolton's indictment were similar, including from the 76-year-old himself, who served in not only Trump's first term but also the Reagan and both Bush administrations. He said in a lengthy statement that "Donald Trump's retribution" against him began when he resigned from the president's first administration and began publicly criticizing him.
"Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts," Bolton said. "These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive efforts to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct."
"Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America's constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom," added Bolton, a longtime advocate of regime change in other countries. "I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power."
Bolton's lawyer is Abbe Lowell, who is also representing James and Lisa Cook, whom Trump is trying to oust from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. His former clients include the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. Lowell said that "like many public officials throughout history, Ambassador Bolton kept diaries—that is not a crime."
Co-chairs of the Not Above the Law coalition—Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Brett Edkins of Stand Up America—connected Bolton to James and Comey in a Friday statement:
Three indictments in three weeks. Three Trump critics. Three prosecutions designed to intimidate anyone who dares challenge this president. Three people who were on Trump's "enemies list." The pattern is undeniable: Speak out against Trump, become a target of the DOJ.
The message from this administration couldn't be clearer: Loyalty gets rewarded, dissent gets investigated. While Trump's handpicked prosecutors work overtime delivering indictments against his critics, actual threats to American safety go unaddressed.
A Department of Justice that acts in service of presidential revenge rather than public safety threatens democracy itself. This isn't just about Bolton—it's a warning shot to every American that dissent now comes with the threat of prosecution.
Congress has a constitutional duty to intervene, restore DOJ independence, and end this dangerous abuse of law enforcement before more lives are destroyed for political purposes.
However, University of Alabama law professor and former US attorney Joyce Vance argued on Substack Friday that the Bolton indictment "is entirely different" from those against Comey and James in the Eastern District of Virginia, pointing out that "the US attorney in Maryland is a career prosecutor. But she didn't go into the grand jury to obtain the indictment. It's signed off on by two senior prosecutors in her office as well as lawyers from DOJ's National Security Division."
"Instead of the factually deficient indictments we've seen in the other cases, this is the sort of detailed indictment we are used to seeing in a serious matter," she highlighted. "There is undoubtedly truth to the allegation that Donald Trump wanted Bolton prosecuted. But the intervening layer of professional prosecutors here, people who assessed the case and the evidence and decided there was enough to move forward, may make it difficult to win a selective prosecution argument."
"In the Comey and James cases, experienced prosecutors declined to bring the cases, and the US attorney sacrificed his job for principle. The cases were only brought because Trump dropped in a loyalist to replace him," Vance added. "Here, unless Bolton has some evidence that these prosecutors did not proceed professionally, he may not have a winnable legal argument."
CNN's Aaron Blake published a similar analysis early Friday. Blake also noted that in 2020, US District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, "ruled in Bolton's favor in a civil case stemming from a dispute with the Trump administration over the publication of Bolton's book. But Lamberth otherwise excoriated Bolton for his handling of classified information."
Meanwhile, Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, used Bolton's indictment to call for broader reforms on Friday. He began by noting that "John Bolton is an unrepentant war criminal and one of most odious national security hawks in Washington. As part of his antipathy for press freedom, whistleblowers, and anyone who challenges the national security state, he called for both Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden to be executed for exposing abuses of power by our government."
"Similarly, he called for journalist Julian Assange to get 'at least 176 years in jail' for publishing truthful information about US war crimes," Gibbons explained. "Now, Bolton, like Manning, Snowden, and Assange has been indicted under the Espionage Act."
"We at Defending Rights & Dissent were one of the leading voices in Washington in support of Manning, Snowden, and Assange. And we remain the leading voice on reforming the Espionage Act so it can no longer be used to prosecute courageous whistleblowers and journalists," he said. "As part of our reform proposal, we advocated the Espionage Act be amended to require the government to prove a defendant intended to harm the national security of the US."
"Nothing in the indictment of Bolton indicates the government believes Bolton had that level of intent," Gibbons stressed. "As a result, we do not believe Bolton should be indicted under the Espionage Act. This is the same position we took regarding Donald Trump, who himself has been responsible for abusing the Espionage Act to silence journalists and whistleblowers."
"The Espionage Act is an overly broad, archaic law. As a result, it is ripe for selective, politically motivated enforcement. It is for these reasons that Bolton championed it as a tool for political persecutions against whistleblowers and journalists. And it is for this reason the Trump administration has chosen it as a tool for their petty retaliation against a national security hawk who shares much of their views on the use of the Espionage Act," he concluded. "Enough is enough. It is well past time to reform the Espionage Act once and for all."
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'Never Seen a Breach Quite Like This': Journalist Added to Trump Team Group Chat on Bombing Yemen
Reactions included: "Dangerous." "Gross incompetence." "Unfathomable."
Mar 24, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration came under fire Monday after a journalist revealed that he was added to a group on a commercial messaging application in which top officials discussed secret plans for the recent bombing of Yemen.
"I have never seen a breach quite like this," Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, wrote of his experience in the group, which began with a March 11 connection request on the app Signal from "Michael Waltz," the name of Trump's national security adviser. The journalist—who has faced public attacks from the president—figured "someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me."
However, in the days that followed, Goldberg saw messages from accounts with names or initials of top officials—including Vice President JD Vance, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. On March 15, Trump bombed Yemen, citing the Houthis' interference with global shipping over Israel's U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip.
"Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting in The Atlantic calls for a prompt and thorough investigation...There needs to be an oversight hearing and accountability for these actions."
Goldberg published quotes and screenshots from the group but withheld some details due to security risks for U.S. personnel. Noting a March 15 message from the Pentagon chief, he wrote, "What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets."
The journalist also highlighted how—according to lawyers interviewed by his colleague Shane Harris—Waltz "may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act," as well as federal records laws, given that he set some messages to eventually disappear.
After Goldberg formally inquired about the Signal group on Monday, Brian Hughes, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, told him: "This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain... The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security."
Political figures and observers swiftly weighed in and shared the article on social media, with reporters calling it "unfathomable" and "the must-read of the week," and saying that "this story almost seems too wild to be real, but no one involved is disputing it."
CNN's Christiane Amanpour said: "Amateur hour? Is the president, is America, being properly served? Dangerous."
The group VoteVets took aim at the defense secretary—a former Fox News host—saying: "Gross incompetence. The Trump admin accidentally texted a journalist our war plans. This proves what we always knew: Hegseth was never qualified to be SecDef—now his recklessness is putting troops' lives at risk. This is deadly serious."
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—who was former Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate—pointed to the Department of Government Efficiency's attacks on the federal bureaucracy, including the Department of Veterans Affairs: "You know where DOGE should take a closer look? Trump's Cabinet. None of the 83,000 caregivers Trump fired from the VA leaked classified information."
Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said: "If you read one article today, make it this one. Total incompetence, yet again. And putting our national security at great risk."
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) declared that "this administration is playing fast and loose with our nation's most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said: "Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting in The Atlantic calls for a prompt and thorough investigation. If senior advisers to President Trump in fact used nonsecure, nongovernment systems to discuss and convey detailed war plans, it's a shocking breach of the standards for sharing classified information that could have put American servicemembers at risk. There needs to be an oversight hearing and accountability for these actions."
When asked about the reporting on Monday, Trump—a serial liar—said: "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. It's, to me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it."
"You're saying that they had what?" Trump asked the inquiring journalist, who explained that top officials were using Signal to coordinate on sensitive materials related to the U.S. attack targeting the Houthis.
Trump then added: "Well, it couldn't have been very effective, because the attack was very effective, I can tell you that. I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time."
Responding to a clip of Trump's remarks, David Badash, founder and editor of The New Civil Rights Movement, said: "1. 100% incompetence if his comms staff did not brief him on this before he got in front of a camera. 2. This is the commander-in-chief admitting that he is unaware of what his top NatSec officials are doing. This is bad."
As Common Dreams has reported, Trump has also faced criticism for the assault on Yemen—which killed more than 50 people, mostly women and children, according to the Yemeni Health Ministry. Critics, including U.S. lawmakers, have long argued that airstrikes on the Middle Eastern country are illegal because Congress has not declared war.
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How Trump 2.0 Is Like My Recurring Prison Nightmare
Like dreaming of being back in prison, we know what we will be getting: an arrogant, narcissistic head of state who bungles incompetently through a presidency while making people comfortable with their prejudices.
Dec 09, 2024
“A country gets the leadership it deserves.”
That was my sentiment back in 2016 when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton for the presidency of the United States. That rather morose and quite cynical sentiment came as I watched election results from the federal prison in Denver, where I had been since mid-2015 after being unjustly convicted of violating the Espionage Act as a CIA case officer. Prison tends to taint one’s perspective of the outside world. In 2016, I couldn’t help being cynical about an election I could not participate in. With Donald Trump again being president-elect after another contentious election season, I have that sentiment again, but in a more experienced and reasonable perspective.
Back then, I was rather dismayed by the campaigns of both Trump and Clinton. With Trump, I saw a mirror image of the prison where I was watching from, racial divisions stoked by unaccountable authority figures. With Clinton, I saw the status quo and the painful reminder that the criminal justice system that I was subjected to is not the same one for those in political power. It was disheartening to see her freely run for president without being called into account for proven actions similar to what I was falsely accused of (i.e. alleged unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials, etc.). That these were the only two candidates the nation could come up with as choices for its leadership was tragically comical. I almost felt fortunate that I couldn’t vote for either one… almost. The right and duty to vote was something I never took lightly, and being prevented from doing so, particularly under the circumstances that led to it, hurt me dearly.
So, yes, when Trump won, I felt the country deserved him as its president. I wasn’t a part of the country then, so it was easy for me to be ambivalent. Nevertheless, I didn’t feel good about it. In fact, I felt downright depressed and depression in prison is a wholly different and tragic animal. But, then again, I knew it didn’t matter who the president was or would be… I was in prison! No president has done anything to improve prison conditions. I certainly wasn’t expecting Trump, an ostensible “law and order candidate,” to do anything that would be in my or my fellow inmates’ interest.
Trump’s reelection is deserving only in the sense that it wakes us up to the reality that to have the leadership we deserve, we have to continually work for it and never cease expecting accountable and responsive government.
The next day, I couldn’t help but notice that the sun came up once again and I can recall it was a beautiful day, even viewing it from behind bars. Trump was going to be president, but the world did not end. Like every new day, I went into that new one continuing to hold on to the hope that in a few short years, I would rejoin my dear wife and be free. I went to prison knowing I would have to persevere through tough times. But, I knew I would endure because, through support and determination, I could not and would not allow prison to define me. I had work to do to fight against challenging times, and I did so because I deserved better than what American criminal justice offered me.
I was eventually released from prison in 2018. I emerged to freedom amid a Trump presidency that gave me the haunting feeling I had moved from one prison to another. His presidency was marked by the same encouraged racial discord and divisiveness as well as the lack of accountability to power that I experienced for two and a half years in prison. I couldn’t help but feel I was back to the Black-white TV room separation state of affairs that was my reality for so long.
One of the more distressing realities of prison life was the tacit acceptance of a toxic environment and broken system as being “normal.” There was nothing normal about abusive and unaccountable authority, a populace encouraged to embrace and practice its biases, and an environment of hate. I realized that, after a while, a horrible experience tends to skew one’s view of what is “normal.” The prison mindset teaches that the only solution to a terrible situation is to just fall in line and do as you’re told, even if it is wrong. That was a lesson I was slow, if not outright refused, to learn as evidenced by a stint in solitary confinement for refusing to be demeaned by an unruly prison guard. I saw nothing “normal” about being treated as less than human and chose to stand up against it, a constant for me in and out of prison. The first Trump presidency was, for comparison’s sake, that same sort of prison “normal” that we were all forced to just deal with in the best ways we could.
If the first stint in prison didn’t defeat me, I felt I had a good chance against the one I emerged into. However, as much as I did fight against it, the taint of prison is in many ways eternal. One of the most profound nightmares I have suffered through since being released was finding myself back in prison. And, a return to prison was always worse the second time around. Even though in dreams, the prison walls felt closer, the chains were tighter, and the feelings of not being in control of my own life and being in a perpetual state of persecution felt accentuated and much more desperate than what I had experienced before. I always awaken from such dreams in a cold sweat and trembling. For me, much like those recurring nightmares, a second Trump presidency is the embodiment of that oneiric return to prison that still shakes me to this day.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the day after this current election, even though I am not surrounded by razor wire or armed guards, there was a haunting familiarity to what I awoke to back in 2016. The same disgust I felt in 2016 has come to the fore. Instead of seeing Clinton run for president and wondering why the same criminal justice system that put me in prison didn’t treat her the same way, I now see Trump as a president-elect and similarly wonder the same thing. It is painfully ironic that Trump has been accused of similar violations as Clinton, mainly the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials specifically related to Iran, a country I specialized in while at the CIA. Allegations aside, Trump clearly violated the Espionage Act and existentially violated the laws of and endangered this country, yet he won’t see a day behind bars let alone a trial. He had a judge in his pocket to ensure the indictment was dismissed; now he will have the power of the presidency to simply make the matter go away. Such is the law and order hypocrisy of Trump and his supporters.
The weeks ending this year have been a strain for me as it feels eerily similar to those last few days of freedom I had before being forced to report to prison. It will be difficult to view Inauguration Day 2025 as anything other than a return to a familiar nightmare. That I was being pathetically quixotic about prison not being that bad was borne out in hindsight—that experience was every horror I knew it was going to be. Similarly, Trump 2.0 will have no surprises other than the very real possibility of being worse than Trump 1.0. Like dreaming of being back in prison, we know what we will be getting: an arrogant, narcissistic head of state who bungles incompetently through a presidency making people comfortable with their prejudices and continuing to spew divisive, rambling rhetoric as if he’s perpetually campaigning for office. Not having to worry about reelection down the road, there will be nothing to hold Trump back from being himself to the nth degree.
But, will this be what we as a nation deserve? Unlike my mindset in 2016, my answer to myself and us is an emphatic, “No!” This country, my country, deserves better than the prisons we have created. Trump’s reelection is deserving only in the sense that it wakes us up to the reality that to have the leadership we deserve, we have to continually work for it and never cease expecting accountable and responsive government. We deserve better than the Trump “normal” that will be revisited upon us. Even the most troubling of times can present opportunities to better oneself. Without any semblance of my previous cynicism, Trump 2.0 will provide an atmosphere of opportunity to challenge unhinged authority, confront and defeat hatred, as well as find and nurture leaders who truly work in the best interests of us all.
That’s the thing about nightmares, they are over when you wake up. My prison nightmares always end the same way, I awaken to find that I am not in prison. We know what this upcoming nightmare will be like. Whether it’s worse will depend on us and what we feel we deserve.
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Speaking Freely in the Age of Trump
Given what’s heading our way, we need a capacious view and robust defense of the First Amendment from all quarters—as we always have.
Nov 16, 2024
I thought I was done with free speech. For nearly two decades, I reported on it for the international magazine Index on Censorship. I wrote a book, Outspoken: Free Speech Stories, about controversies over it. I even sang “I Like to Be in America” at the top of my lungs at an around-the-clock banned-book event organized by the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression after the musical West Side Story was canceled at a local high school because of its demeaning stereotypes of Puerto Ricans. I was ready to move on. I was done.
As it happened, though, free speech—or, more accurately, attacks on it—wasn’t done with me, or with most Americans, as a matter of fact. On the contrary, efforts to stifle expression of all sorts keep popping up like Whac-A-Mole on steroids. Daily, we hear about another book pulled from a school; another protest closed down on a college campus; another university president bowing to alumni pressure; another journalist suspended over a post on social media; another politically outspoken artistdenied a spot in an exhibition; another young adult novel canceled for cultural insensitivity; another drag-queen story hour attacked at a library; another parent demanding control over how pronouns are used at school; another panic over the dangers lurking in AI; another op-ed fretting that even a passing acquaintance with the wrong word, picture, implication, or idea will puncture the fragile mental health of young people.
The instinct to cover other people’s mouths, eyes, and ears is ancient and persistent and not necessarily restricted to those we disagree with.
The list ranges from the ditzy to the draconian, and it’s very long. Even conduct can get ensnared in censorship battles, as abortion has over what information healthcare providers are allowed to offer or what information crisis pregnancy centers (whose purpose is to dissuade women from seeking abortions) can be required to offer. Looming over it all, we just had an election brimming with repellent utterances financed by gobs of corporate money, which, the Supreme Court ruled in its 2010 Citizens United decision, is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.
I suspect that if you live long enough, everything begins to seem like a rerun (as much of this has for me). The actors may change—new groups of concerned moms replace old groups who called themselves concerned mothers; antiracists police academic speech, when once it was anti-porn feminists who did it; AI becomes the new Wild West, overtaking that lawless territory of yore, the World Wide Web—but the script is still the same.
It’s hard not to respond to the outrage du jour, and I’m finding perspective elusive in the aftermath of the latest disastrous election, but I do know this: The urge to censor will continue in old and new forms, regardless of who controls the White House. I don’t mean to be setting up a false equivalence here. The Trump presidency already looks primed to indulge his authoritarian proclivities and unleash mobs of freelance vigilantes, and that should frighten the hell out of all of us. I do mean to point out that the instinct to cover other people’s mouths, eyes, and ears is ancient and persistent and not necessarily restricted to those we disagree with. But now, of all times, given what’s heading our way, we need a capacious view and robust defense of the First Amendment from all quarters—as we always have.
Make No Law
In a succinct 45 words, the First Amendment protects citizens from governmental restrictions on religious practices, speech, the press, and public airings of grievances in that order. It sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But if a devil is ever in the details, it’s here, and the courts have been trying to sort those out over the last century or more. Working against such protections are the many often insidious ways to stifle expression, disagreement, and protest—in other words, censorship. Long ago, American abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass said, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong that will be imposed upon them.” It was a warning that the ensuing 167 years haven’t proven wrong.
Censorship is used against vulnerable people by those who have the power to do so. The role such power plays became apparent in the last days of the recent election campaign when The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, at the insistence of their owners, declined to endorse anyone for president. Commentary by those who still care what the news media does ranged from a twist of the knife into the Post‘s Orwellian slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to assessments of the purpose or value of endorsements in the first place. These weren’t the only papers not to endorse a presidential candidate, but it’s hard not to read the motivation of their billionaire owners, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, as cowardice and self-interest rather than the principles they claimed they were supporting.
Newspapers, print or digital, have always been gatekeepers of who and what gets covered, even as their influence has declined in the age of social media. Usually, political endorsements are crafted by editorial boards but are ultimately the prerogative of publishers. The obvious conflict of interest in each of those cases, however, speaks volumes about the drawback of news media being in the hands of ultra-rich individuals with competing business concerns.
Journalists already expect to be very vulnerable during Donald Trump’s next term as president. After all, he’s called them an “enemy of the people,” encouraged violence against them, and never made a secret of how he resents them, even as he’s also courted them relentlessly. During his administration, he seized the phone records of reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN; called for revoking the broadcast licenses of national news organizations; and vowed to jail journalists who refuse to identify their confidential sources, later tossing editors and publishers into that threatened mix for good measure.
It can be hard to tell if Trump means what he says or can even say what he means, but you can bet that, with an enemies list that makes President Richard Nixon look like a piker, he intends to try to hobble the press in multiple ways. There are limits to what any president can do in that realm, but while challenges to the First Amendment usually end up in the courts, in the time the cases take to be resolved, Trump can make the lives of journalists and publishers miserable indeed.
Tinker, Tailor, Journalist, Spy
Among the threats keeping free press advocates up at night is abuse of the Espionage Act. That law dates from 1917 during World War I, when it was used to prosecute anti-draft and anti-war activists and is now used to prosecute government employees for revealing confidential information.
Before Trump himself was charged under the Espionage Act for illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after he left office, his Justice Department used it to prosecute six people for disclosing classified information. That included Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on conspiracy charges—the first time the Espionage Act had ever been used against someone for simply publishing such information. The case continued under President Joe Biden until Assange’s plea deal this past summer, when he admitted guilt in conspiring to obtain and disclose confidential U.S. documents, thereby setting an unnerving precedent for our media future.
In his first term, Trump’s was a particularly leaky White House, but fewer leakers (or whistleblowers, depending on your perspective) were indicted under the Espionage Act then than during Barack Obama’s administration, which still holds the record with eight prosecutions, more than all previous presidencies combined. That set the tone for intolerance of leaks, while ensnaring journalists trying to protect their sources. In a notably durable case—it went on from 2008 to 2015—James Risen, then a New York Times reporter, fought the government’s insistence that he testify about a confidential source he used for a book about the CIA. Although Obama’s Justice Department ultimately withdrew its subpoena, Risen’s protracted legal battle clearly had a chilling effect (as it was undoubtedly meant to).
Governments of all political dispositions keep secrets and seldom look kindly on anyone who spills them. It is, however, the job of journalists to inform the public about what the government is doing and that, almost by definition, can involve delving into secrets. Journalists as a breed are not easily scared into silence, and no American journalist has been found guilty under the Espionage Act so far, but that law still remains a powerful tool of suppression, open to abuse by any president. It has historically made self-censorship on the part of reporters, editors, and publishers an appealing accommodation.
Testing the Limits
Years ago, the legal theorist Thomas Emerson pointed to how consistently expression has indeed been restricted during dark times in American history. He could, in fact, have been writing about the response to protests over the war in Gaza on American campuses, where restrictions came, not from a government hostile to unfettered inquiry, but from institutions whose purpose is supposedly to foster and promote it.
After a fractious spring, colleges and universities around the country were determined to restore order. Going into the fall semester, they changed rules, strengthened punishments, and increased the ways they monitored expressive activities. To be fair, many of them also declared their intention to maintain a climate of open discussion and learning. Left unsaid was their need to mollify their funders, including the federal government.
In a message sent to college and university presidents last April, the ACLU recognized the tough spot administrators were in and acknowledged the need for some restrictions, but also warned that “campus leaders must resist the pressures placed on them by politicians seeking to exploit campus tensions to advance their own notoriety or partisan agendas.”
The marginal might be—today or sometime in the future—what we ourselves want to say, support, or advocate.
As if in direct rebuttal, on Halloween, the newly philosemitic House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued its report on campus antisemitism. Harvard (whose previous president Claudine Gay had been forced out, in part, because of her testimony to the committee) played a large role in that report’s claims of rampant on-campus antisemitism and civil rights abuses. It charged that the school’s administration had fumbled its public statements, that its faculty had intervened “to prevent meaningful discipline,” and that Gay had “launched into a personal attack” on Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican committee member and Harvard graduate, at a Board of Overseers meeting. The report included emails and texts revealing school administrators tying themselves in knots over language that tried to appease everyone and ended up pleasing no one. The overarching tone of the report, though, was outrage that Gay and other university presidents didn’t show proper obeisance to the committee or rain sufficient punishment on their students’ heads.
Harvard continues to struggle. In September, a group of students staged a “study-in” at Widener, the school’s main library. Wearing keffiyehs, they worked silently at laptops bearing messages like “Israel bombs, Harvard pays.” The administration responded by barring a dozen protesters from that library (but not from accessing library materials) for two weeks, whereupon 30 professors staged their own “study-in” to protest the punishment and were similarly barred from the library.
The administration backed up its actions by pointing to an official statement from last January clarifying that protests are impermissible in several settings, including libraries, and maintained that the students had been forewarned. Moreover, civil disobedience comes with consequences. No doubt the protesters were testing the administration and, had they gotten no response, probably would have tried another provocation. As Harry Lewis, a former Harvard dean and current professor, told The Boston Globe, “Students will always outsmart you on regulating these things unless they buy into the principles.” Still, administrators had considerable leeway in deciding how to respond and they chose the punitive option.
Getting a buy-in sounds like what Wesleyan University President Michael Roth aimed for in a manifesto of sorts that he wrote last May, as students erected a protest encampment on his campus. Laying out his thinking on the importance of tolerating or even encouraging peaceful student protests over the war in Gaza, he wrote, “Neutrality is complicity,” adding, “I don’t get to choose the protesters’ messages. I do want to pay attention to them… How can I not respect students for paying attention to things that matter so much?” It was heartening to read.
Alas, the tolerance didn’t hold. In this political moment, it probably couldn’t. In September, Roth called in city police when students staged a sit-in at the university’s investment office just before a vote by its board of trustees on divesting from companies that support the Israeli military. Five students were placed on disciplinary probation for a year and, after a pro-divestment rally the next day, eight students received disciplinary charge letters for breaking a slew of rules.
Why Fight It
The right to free expression is the one that other democratic rights we hold dear rely on. Respecting it allows us to find better resolutions to societal tensions and interpersonal dissonance than outlawing words. But the First Amendment comes with inherent contradictions so, bless its confusing little heart, it manages to piss off nearly everyone sooner or later. Self-protection is innate, tolerance an acquired taste.
One of the stumbling blocks is that the First Amendment defends speech we find odious along with speech we like, ideas that frighten us along with ideas we embrace, jack-booted marches along with pink-hatted ones. After all, popular speech doesn’t need protection. It’s the marginal stuff that does. But the marginal might be—today or sometime in the future—what we ourselves want to say, support, or advocate.
And so, I return to those long-ago banned book readings, which culminated with everyone reciting the First Amendment together, a tradition I continued with my journalism students whenever I taught about press freedoms. Speaking words out loud is different from reading them silently. You hear and know them, sometimes for what seems like the first time. Maybe that’s why our communal celebration of the First Amendment seemed to amuse, embarrass, and impress the students in unequal measure. I think they got it, though.
I recognize that this kind of exhortation is many planks short of a strategy, but it’s a place to start, especially in the age of Donald Trump, because, in the end, the best reason to embrace and protect the First Amendment is that we will miss it when it’s gone.
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Even as Julian Assange's Release Celebrated, Deep Worries Remain for Press Freedom
"Make no mistake, the vital work of national security journalists will be more difficult today than it was yesterday."
Jun 25, 2024
Amid celebrations that a plea deal with the United States resulted in the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from a British prison, press freedom advocates on Tuesday continued to raise serious concerns about the damage done by the U.S. government's pursuit of a journalist who helped expose state secrets and evidence of war crimes.
"Julian Assange faced a prosecution that had grave implications for journalists and press freedom worldwide," said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, following news of the deal.
"While we welcome the end of his detention," Ginsberg added, "the U.S.'s pursuit of Assange has set a harmful legal precedent by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers. This should never have been the case."
After spending seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the United Kingdom and then five more in the London's Belmarsh Prison, Assange agreed to plead guilty to one felony to avoid more time behind bars. The 52-year-old Australian was fighting against his extradition to the United States, where he faced 18 charges under the Espionage Act and a federal computer fraud law for publishing classified material and could have been locked up for the rest of his life.
"With today's guilty plea, Julian Assange stands convicted of practicing journalism, and all investigative journalists now face greater legal peril."
"We are hugely relieved that Julian Assange is finally free—a long overdue victory for journalism and press freedom. He never should have spent a single day deprived of his liberty for publishing information in the public interest," said Rebecca Vincent, Reporters Without Borders' director of campaigns, in a statement.
"Nothing can undo the past 13 years, but it is never too late to do the right thing, and we welcome this move by the U.S. government," she added. "We will continue to campaign in support of journalists around the world who find themselves targeted for national security reporting, and for reform of the U.S. Espionage Act, so that it can never again be used to target journalistic activity."
Vincent's group is among several press freedom and human rights organizations that had long called for the U.S. Department of Justice to drop the charges against Assange—and after news of the plea deal broke, several others warned of what is to come.
Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard celebrated what the deal will mean for the WikiLeaks founder and his family—including his wife Stella Assange, who plans to seek a pardon for her husband, and their young children—but said Tuesday that "the yearslong global spectacle of the U.S. authorities hell-bent on violating press freedom and freedom of expression by making an example of Assange for exposing alleged war crimes committed by the USA has undoubtedly done historic damage."
"Amnesty International salutes the work of Julian Assange's family, campaigners, lawyers, press freedom organizations, and many within the media community and beyond who have stood by him and the fundamental principles that should govern society's right and access to information and justice," she added. "We will keep fighting for their full recognition and respect by all."
Not all journalists and media outlets defended Assange, despite the precedent that his conviction could have set, and multiple Monday headlines—including at The Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Washington Post—highlighted his guilty plea. According to the BBC, Assange plans to return to Australia after finalizing the deal in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth.
"A plea deal would avert the worst-case scenario for press freedom, but this deal contemplates that Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day," said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. "It will cast a long shadow over the most important kinds of journalism, not just in this country but around the world."
Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, emphasized that "with today's guilty plea, Julian Assange stands convicted of practicing journalism, and all investigative journalists now face greater legal peril."
"Exposing government secrets and revealing them in the public interest is the core function of national security journalism," Wizner continued. "Today, for the first time, that activity was described in a guilty plea as a criminal conspiracy. And even if the current Department of Justice stays true to its assurances that the Assange case is unique and will not provide a precedent to be wielded against other publishers, we can't be confident that future administrations will honor that commitment."
"The precedent set by this guilty plea would have been far more dangerous had it been ratified by federal courts," he added. "But make no mistake, the vital work of national security journalists will be more difficult today than it was yesterday."
"Just imagine what an attorney general in a second Trump administration will think, knowing they've already got one guilty plea from a publisher under the Espionage Act."
Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), also looked to the future, tying Assange's deal to the November U.S. election in which Democratic President Joe Biden is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump.
The current administration "could have distinguished itself from Donald Trump, Biden's openly anti-press electoral opponent, whose administration first indicted Assange," Stern noted in a piece for the Daily Beast. "It could have dropped the case."
Instead, the Biden administration opted for a plea deal that "does not add any more prison time or punishment for Assange," Stern stressed, echoing his initial statement on the news. "Its only impact will be to legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct and encourage future administrations to follow suit—including a potential second Trump administration."
In a Tuesday opinion piece for The Guardian, FPF executive director Trevor Timm wrote: "Just imagine what an attorney general in a second Trump administration will think, knowing they've already got one guilty plea from a publisher under the Espionage Act. Trump, after all, has been out on the campaign trail repeatedly opining about how he would like to see journalists—who he sees as 'enemies of the people'—in jail. Why the Biden administration would hand him any ammo is beyond belief."
"So if the Biden administration is looking for plaudits for ending this case, they should get exactly none," Timm asserted. "Now we can only hope this case is an aberration and not a harbinger of things to come."
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'Julian Assange Is Free': WikiLeaks Founder Strikes Plea Deal With US
"We thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom," said WikiLeaks. "Julian's freedom is our freedom."
Jun 24, 2024
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday reached a deal with the U.S. government, agreeing to plead guilty to one felony related to the disclosure of national security information in exchange for his release from Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom.
A related document was filed in federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. Under the plea agreement, which must still be approved by a judge, the Department of Justice (DOJ) will seek a 62-month sentence, equal to the time that the 52-year-old Australian has served in the U.K. prison while battling his extradition to the United States.
Assange faced the risk of spending the rest of his life in U.S. prison if convicted of Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act charges for publishing classified material including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Before Belmarsh, he spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London with asylum protections.
"Julian Assange is free," WikiLeaks declared on the social media platform X, confirming that he left Belmarsh Monday "after having spent 1,901 days there," locked in a small cell for 23 hours a day.
"He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stanstead Airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the U.K.," WikiLeaks said. "This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grassroots organizers, press freedom campaigners, legislators, and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations."
"He will soon reunite with his wife Stella Assange, and their children, who have only known their father from behind bars," the group continued. "WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions. As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people's right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom. Julian's freedom is our freedom."
The news of Assange's release was celebrated by people around the world, who also blasted the U.S. for continuing to pursue charges against him and the U.K. for going along with it.
"Takeaway from the 12 years of Assange persecution: We need a world where independent journalists work in freedom and top war criminals go to prison—not the other way around," the progressive advocacy group and longtime Assange supporter RootsAction said on social media.
Seth Stern, advocacy director at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that "it's good news that the DOJ is putting an end to this embarrassing saga. But it's alarming that the Biden administration felt the need to extract a guilty plea for the purported crime of obtaining and publishing government secrets."
"That's what investigative journalists do every day," Stern noted. "The plea deal won't have the precedential effect of a court ruling, but it will still hang over the heads of national security reporters for years to come. The deal doesn't add any more prison time or punishment for Assange. It's purely symbolic."
"The administration could've easily just dropped the case but chose to instead legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct and encourage future administrations to follow suit," he added. "And they made that choice knowing that [former U.S. President] Donald Trump would love nothing more than to find a way to throw journalists in jail."
Leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a statement: "I congratulate Julian Assange on his freedom. Assange's eternal imprisonment and torture was an attack on press freedom on a global scale. Denouncing the massacre of civilians in Iraq by the U.S. war machine was his 'crime'; now the massacre is repeated in Gaza I invite Julian and his wife Stella to visit Colombia and let's take action for true freedom."
Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt, who represents Melbourne in Parliament, said on social media that "Julian Assange will finally be free. While great news, this has been over a decade of his life wasted by U.S. overreach."
"Journalism is not a crime," Bandt added. "Pursuing Assange was anti-democratic, anti-press freedom, and the charges should have been dropped."
After more than five years in the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison in the UK, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reached a plea deal with the U.S. government. The deal allows for his release and return to his home country of Australia after a formal sentencing at a US court in the… pic.twitter.com/5S3xdbZnG2
— CODEPINK (@codepink) June 25, 2024
The women-led peace group CodePink said in a statement:
Without Julian Assange's critical journalism, the world would know a lot less about war crimes committed by the United States and its allies. He is the reason so many anti-war organizations like ours have the proof we need to fight the war machine in the belly of the beast. CodePink celebrates Julian's release and commends his brave journalism.
One of the most horrific videos published by WikiLeaks was called "Collateral Murder," footage of the U.S. military opening fire on a group of unarmed civilians—including Reuters journalists—in Baghdad. While Julian has been in captivity for the past 14 years, the war criminals that destroyed Iraq walked free. Many are still in government positions today or living off the profits of weapons contracts.
While Julian pleads guilty to espionage—we uphold him as a giant of journalistic integrity.
Vahid Razavi, founder of Ethics in Tech and host of multiple NSA Comedy Nights focusing on government mass surveillance, told Common Dreams that "they took a hero and turned him into a criminal."
"Meanwhile, all of the war criminals in the files exposed by WikiLeaks via Chelsea Manning are free and never faced any punishment or even their day in court," he added. "You can kill journalists with impunity, just like Israel is doing right now in Gaza."
Former United Nations human rights official Craig Mokhiber, who
resigned from his job last year over the world body's refusal to prevent Israel's slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, said on social media that "political prisoner Julian Assange, persecuted for years for the crime of journalism, simply for telling the truth about U.S. war crimes, is free."
Mokhiber hailed what he called "a moment of light in an age of darkness."
British journalist Afshin Rattansi said, "Let no one think that any of us will ever forget what the British state did to the most famous journalist of his generation."
"They tortured him—according to the United Nations special rapporteur on torture—at the behest of the United States," Rattansi noted.
Andrew Kennis, a professor of journalism and social media at Rutgers University, told Common Dreams that "Julian Assange is nothing less than the Daniel Ellsberg of our time."
"His journalism revealed more war crimes by the U.S. than any other publisher in the world, and far more extensively than what Ellsberg was able to pull off with a photocopy machine," he added. "But as opposed to receiving a deserved pardon... the persecution of Assange has been indicative of the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy these days: Prosecute the whistleblowers exposing war crimes while funding Israeli war criminals in an ongoing attempt at genocide against occupied Palestine."
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A Whistleblower’s First Post-Prison Trip Abroad Offers Personal and Collective Hope
I may have been imprisoned, but there I was in Italy trumpeting the call for awareness and reformation of the Espionage Act.
May 18, 2024
I had a palpable sense of nerves approaching the day I was to travel to Perugia for the International Journalism Festival. I was invited by Kathleen McClellan and Jesselyn Radack of WHISPeR who were invited to present on the impact of leak prosecutions on the free press. I was certainly honored to be asked, but those emotions of gratitude were quickly becoming overcome by not very slight feelings of dread.
This was to be my first trip abroad in a very long time, certainly the first time since being released from prison. Since January 2018, I had taken several trips domestically, but traveling abroad was a whole different animal for me. No one is ever told they are on a “no fly” list; you find out when it’s too late to do anything about it. Funny how the government is insistent on keeping those whose rights are being taken away ignorant of the fact that their rights have been taken away. Not having tested my viability to leave the country, I had to wonder if my right to travel had been restored like my right to vote. Of course, I had already had such an experience.
After being released in 2018, I immediately started taking whatever steps I could to regain at least some of what I had lost after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and spending time in prison. One thought I had was that having a passport would give a sense of freedom I hadn’t had throughout the long, exhaustive legal ordeal. At least knowing I had the ability to travel like I used to was worth whatever difficulties I had to go through to get to that point. Always skeptical, I did exhaustive “research” (ala Google) and I confirmed with my probation officer about my ability to apply for a passport. I was told that there were no “holds” on my ability to get a passport. Someone forgot to tell the passport office at the Department of State.
I wasn’t on that stage just to scare the audience about how horrible it will be to be charged under the Espionage Act, I was there to tell them that if I could stand up against it, so can the rest of the world.
Having not received my passport after the stated waiting period (and actually giving it an additional week), I reached out to the passport office to inquire about the status of my passport. I was told that there was a “hold.” The subsequent unsigned letter from the State Department was even less helpful. It made an outdated reference to an ancient court order (going at least back to 2011 when I was arrested) requiring me to gain permission to travel. Obviously the State Department opted to remain ignorant of my status and denied my application. But, they did graciously inform me of an appeals process and the fact that the application fee I paid was nonrefundable.
I guess I could have left it alone and resolved myself to not having a passport, not having even a scintilla of the freedom I once had, but I’ve never been one to settle. I once again reached out to my probation officer and let her know that someone somewhere still considered me a threat to national security. It took months of back and forths with various probation officers, a motion filed with the court to release my old passport from its vault and a blessing that I could get a new one, another application (and fee), unknown State Department officials, and inestimable patience, but I finally received my passport in the mail in mid-2019. It took another struggle, but I prevailed.
Back to the present, even with a passport, I never thought I’d be able to take a trip like this ever again; an exhaustive legal ordeal and prison can drain possibility out of your spirit. But, life is funny. Just when I was thinking nothing that I had would be possible again, doors from unexpected directions open. I was going to Italy!
I was absolutely nervous about making the trip to Italy, I didn’t even try to convince myself otherwise. I couldn’t help wondering, despite being able to get a passport, if I was on some sort of “no fly” list or if there remained some sort of “hold” on me that would prevent me from leaving the U.S. The time was fast approaching to see what my status was.
St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) is rarely busy, and I was thankful to have that convenience instead of a long wait before getting bad news. The first time I had to present my passport was when checking my bag. I nervously handed it over trying to gird myself for a quizzical look from her if something were to pop up on her screen. She looked at my document and handed it quickly back to me. “Oh no, here it comes” pounded through my mind, but it was quickly tempered when she noted that I hadn’t signed my passport. What an idiot! I went through so much to get the damned passport, I forgot to sign it!
That self-imposed fiasco was brief, and I felt could be a possible prelude of what was to come because I still had security to go through. Despite my apprehensions, there were no issues with security in STL nor boarding the international flight in Chicago. I never felt so grateful being able to settle my 6’4” frame into a cramped coach seat on a fully packed flight in my life.
The amount of relief I felt when actually sitting on the plane awaiting departure was tremendous. But, just when you feel relief at passing one obstacle, you can’t help but anticipate the next one. The imagination can be a killer. Shortly into the eight-plus hour flight, I was racked with whether I would be allowed into Italy. In addition, even if I was allowed into the country, I was reminded of what happened to fellow Espionage Act brother in arms, Thomas Drake. In 2021 he was slated to speak at a security conference in Australia only to be “disinvited” at the last minute. Whomever made the decision, and for whatever reason, his voice was effectively silenced, at least at that conference. I just had to continually tell myself that nothing like that had occurred at any of my other speaking engagements and it wasn’t going to happen on this trip.
It wasn’t until I checked into my hotel room that I let out one of the biggest exhales of my life. Passport control at Fiumicino airport in Rome was a non-issue, I was herded through just like everyone else and no blaring alarms went off. For the first time in a very long time, I felt not so trapped in a country that didn’t want me to serve. Being outside of the U.S., I felt like I was once again able to experience and be a part of the bigger world out there. With the time I had, I was eager to be in full tourist mode; I wanted to see everything. Perugia is a beautiful city full of stunning architecture and a vibrant culture that was a wonderful experience for me. With every step I took, I had to remind myself that I had spent two and a half years in prison, but that I certainly wasn’t there anymore.
Finally, down to business. I was in Italy to speak at the International Journalism Festival about the impact of leak prosecutions; mainly I would tell the corps of journalists from all over the world about what it means to be targeted and tried under the Espionage Act.
It was clear that the festival, which was in its 24th running, was going through a bit of Assange-fatigue, as not many sessions even touched on that pressing subject. I was told that there had been a focus on Julian Assange in a previous running of the festival and they wanted subsequent runs to center on other areas. Even though the main theme of the festival was artificial intelligence and its implications for freedom of the press, I could sense a pallor of apprehension and uncertainty looming over just about every journalist I interacted with. Speaking with the journalists there, I was reminded of my recent uncertainty about traveling outside the U.S. Though they were hopeful for a non-issue when ultimately confronted with the prospect of being targeted or stopped by the Espionage Act ala Assange, they couldn’t help but fear the worst. Much like if I had been stopped from either leaving the U.S. or entering Italy, once the worst happens, there may not be much that can be done about it. If Assange is ultimately extradited to the U.S. to face the Espionage Act, that will most definitely be the worst thing to happen to not only the journalists at the festival, but journalists and press freedom anywhere in the world. Those journalists at the festival were standing in the security line just like me, wondering if their rights were going to be taken away and not allowed to pass.
Surprisingly, I felt a hint of the same false sense of security that has permeated U.S. mainstream media in regards to Assange. They don’t see Assange as a journalist. They engage in a self-deception that they have nothing to fear from the Espionage Act. Endemic with Espionage Act and whistleblower prosecutions is character assassination that puts the focus squarely on the revealer and away from the government wrongdoings and illegalities revealed.
Prior to the festival, I would have found it hard to believe that the press out in the world wouldn’t see through that smokescreen. What I learned is that it wasn’t so much that the festival attendees in Italy didn’t see Assange as a journalist, they didn’t want to see him as just a journalist. He’s something in a potentially related, but an altogether different category. One of the best ways to deal with a potentially dangerous situation is to imagine that it can’t or won’t happen to you. I of course didn’t want to view myself as one of those who get put on no-fly lists, but the reality was that it didn’t matter how I viewed myself. Persecution is the sole province of the persecutor. The overall determining factor for me was and has been how my government saw me. It viewed me as a threat to national security in bringing an employment discrimination suit against the CIA and portrayed me the same way by falsely accusing me of espionage. Whether the U.S. government considers Assange a journalist or not is not the point. He will be potentially extradited and tried under the Espionage Act because they view him as a threat because of what he exposed. And that was a point I imagined trumpeting at the festival, imploring the festival attendees to “wake up!”
But, that was not my only purpose at the festival. Part of what I wanted to convey is that despite the terrible ordeal I went through and what Assange is currently going through at the hands of a vengeful U.S. government wielding the Espionage Act to quash dissent and silence whistleblowers, there is still hope that something can be done. I wasn’t on that stage just to scare the audience about how horrible it will be to be charged under the Espionage Act, I was there to tell them that if I could stand up against it, so can the rest of the world. I may have been imprisoned, but there I was in Italy trumpeting the call for awareness and reformation of the Espionage Act. No aggressor and no government, regardless of the power wielded, is beyond reproach. With Assange, the U.S. is threatening to assume a global reach in its ability to silence dissent. But, the more all of us, and especially journalists who can provide avenues of awareness and accountability for brave whistleblowers, stand up against unjust laws like the Espionage Act, not only will change be possible, it will be inevitable.
I don’t know if my message had any impact; the shock value alone of my ordeal can, unfortunately, be the real attention-getter. Regardless, my experience was further affirmation that, even though I went through hell, I would not be defeated. At the least, I wanted to be an image of perseverance and resilience that maybe could be a force, however slight, for awareness and change.
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'Weasel Words': Julian Assange's Wife Slams US Assurances to UK
"The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family's extreme distress about his future—his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism."
Apr 16, 2024
The wife of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sharply criticized "assurances" the U.S. government made as the U.K. High Court considers allowing the 52-year-old Australian's extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison.
The U.S. document states that if extradited, "Assange will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States," though it points out that "a decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. courts."
"A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange," the document adds, noting that he has not been charged with any offense for which that is a possible punishment. It comes after the U.K. court ruled last month that the Biden administration had until Tuesday to confirm that he wouldn't face the death penalty and if it did not, he could continue appealing his extradition.
Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
"The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
"Instead, the U.S. has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can 'seek to raise' the First Amendment if extradited," she added. "The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family's extreme distress about his future—his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism. The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
The U.K. court's next hearing is scheduled for May 20. Last week, reporters asked U.S. President Joe Biden about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country's Parliament to drop the extradition effort and charges. He said that "we're considering it."
So far, the Biden administration has ignored significant pressure from Australian and U.S. politicians as well as human rights and press freedom groups, and continued to pursue the extradition of Julian Assange, who was charged under former President Donald Trump—the Republican expected to face the Democratic president in the November election.
Assange was charged under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for publishing classified documents including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Since British authorities dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London—where he lived with political asylum for seven years—he has been jailed in the city's Belmarsh Prison.
The WikiLeaks founder's wife, with whom he has two children, was not alone in condemning the U.S. assurances on Tuesday.
"This 'assurance' should make journalists even more worried about how the Assange prosecution could impact press freedom in the U.S. and globally. The U.K. should grant Assange's appeal and refuse to extradite him," said the Freedom of the Press Foundation. "The U.S. doesn't disclaim the ability to argue that the First Amendment doesn't apply to Assange because of his nationality or other reasons, or for a court to rule against a First Amendment challenge to his prosecution."
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, similarly said that "no one who cares about press freedom should take any comfort at all from the United States' assurance that Assange will be permitted to 'rely upon' the First Amendment."
"If the prosecution goes forward, the U.S. government will be trying to persuade American courts that the First Amendment poses no bar to the prosecution of a publisher under the Espionage Act," Jaffer warned. "And if the government is successful, no journalist will ever again be able to publish U.S. government secrets without risking her liberty."
"So the government's First Amendment assurances aren't responsive at all to the concerns that press freedom advocates have been raising," he concluded. "This case poses essentially the same threat to press freedom today as it did yesterday."
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