Dumping unredacted information is the act of a useful idiot, not a journalist
JULIAN ASSANGE, hauled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London on April 11th after nearly seven years of self-imposed confinement, pale and hirsute, was not a pleasant house-guest. He is alleged to have smeared faeces on the wall of the embassy and neglected his cat, among other uncouth behaviour, according to Ecuador’s exasperated foreign minister. Even so, claim his supporters, his expulsion and arrest was a grave assault on press freedom.
Yet there are several reasons why Mr Assange’s conduct puts him in a different category. The American charges against him point to one notable difference. They accuse Mr Assange not only of publishing leaked information—that is something that journalists do all the time–but also of helping Ms Manning to crack the password to a secret Pentagon network, making him a “co-conspirator” in illegal hacking.
Some of WikiLeaks’ behaviour may have come close to crossing this line . According to an indictment published by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, in 2016 WikiLeaks urged Russian spies—operating under a flimsy pseudonym—to send it emails relating to the then Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. Its aim was to sway the election in favour of her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders.
This points to a second difference between Mr Assange and ordinary reporters. Most responsible journalists would not implore an authoritarian country’s spies to send them secrets for the purpose of disrupting a democratic election; nor would they fail to inform readers about the dubious provenance of the information.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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