{"id":305229,"date":"2017-04-26T01:11:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T00:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prosecution-of-assange-is-persecution-of-free-speech-2\/"},"modified":"2017-04-26T01:11:38","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T00:11:38","slug":"prosecution-of-assange-is-persecution-of-free-speech-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prosecution-of-assange-is-persecution-of-free-speech-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecution of Assange is Persecution of Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>US authorities are reported to <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2017\/04\/20\/politics\/julian-assange-wikileaks-us-charges\/index.html\">have prepared<\/a> charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This overreach of US government toward a publisher, whose principle <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/julian-assange-wikileaks-has-the-same-mission-as-the-post-and-the-times\/2017\/04\/11\/23f03dd8-1d4d-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84_story.html?utm_term=.908a7255228a\">is aligned with<\/a> the U.S. Constitution, is another sign of a crumbling fa\u00e7ade of democracy. The Justice Department in the Obama administration could not prosecute WikiLeaks for publishing documents pertaining to the US government, because they <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2017\/04\/20\/politics\/julian-assange-wikileaks-us-charges\/index.html\">struggled to determine<\/a> whether the First Amendment protection applied in this case. Now, the torch of Obama\u2019s war on whistleblowers seems to have been passed on to Trump, who had shown <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/features\/donald-trumps-dictatorial-approach-to-free-speech-w452918\">disdain toward free speech<\/a> and even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2017\/02\/24\/donald-trump-cpac-media-enemy-of-the-people\/98347970\/\">called<\/a> the U.S. media as \u201cenemies of the people\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, CIA Director Mike Pompeo <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/news-information\/speeches-testimony\/2017-speeches-testimony\/pompeo-delivers-remarks-at-csis.html\">vowed<\/a> to end WikiLeaks, accusing the whistleblowing site as being a \u201cnon-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia\u201d. He also once <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/18\/watch-trumps-reported-pick-to-run-the-ci\">called<\/a> Edward Snowden a traitor and claimed that he should be executed. This declaration of war against WikiLeaks may bring a reminiscence of George W. Bush\u2019s speech in the aftermath of 9-11, where he <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2001\/US\/11\/06\/gen.attack.on.terror\/\">said<\/a>, \u2018either you are with us or against us\u2019, and urged the nation to side with the government in his call to fight global \u2018war on terror\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent interview on DemocracyNow!, journalist at The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald put this persecution of WikiLeaks in the context of a government assault on basic freedom. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2017\/4\/21\/glenn_greenwald_trumps_doj_prosecuting_wikileaks\">spelled out<\/a> their tactics, noting how the government&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2017\/04\/25\/prosecution-of-assange-is-persecution-of-free-speech\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US authorities are reported to have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This overreach of US government toward a publisher, whose principle is aligned with the U.S. Constitution, is another sign of a crumbling fa\u00e7ade of democracy. The Justice Department in the Obama administration could not prosecute WikiLeaks for publishing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-305229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}