Julian Assange's road to freedom

Written by: Samarth Bansal

WikiLeaks, known for publishing classified information, gained notoriety in 2010 by releasing sensitive US military documents, triggering Assange's legal troubles. Since then, he has fought extradition from the UK to face US charges.

Here are the latest updates:

• The hearing is taking place in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Pacific. This location was chosen as a compromise: Assange opposed coming to the continental US, and it's close to Australia, where he's set to return after the plea.
• If the judge approves the deal, Assange won't face additional prison time. He'll receive credit for the five years he's already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting extradition.
• This plea deal effectively ends the US government's long pursuit of Assange, which began after the 2010 WikiLeaks publications.

Leaks that shook the world

To understand the significance of Assange's case, we need to rewind to 2010. That year, WikiLeaks released a series of classified US military and diplomatic files that sent shockwaves around the world.

These documents were leaked by Chelsea Manning, then a US Army intelligence analyst. Manning's leaks to WikiLeaks became one of the largest unauthorised releases of classified information in US history.

The most significant leaks included:

The ‘Collateral Murder’ video: This footage showed a US Army helicopter attack in Baghdad in 2007 that killed 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. The raw footage revealed a disturbing side of the Iraq War, showing soldiers seemingly treating the engagement like a video game.

The Afghanistan War Logs: Over 91,000 documents revealed that coalition forces had killed hundreds of Afghan civilians in unreported incidents. They also exposed the existence of a secret "black" unit of special forces that hunted down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

The Iraq War Logs: 391,832 field reports showed that US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape, and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. The logs revealed that more than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents.

These leaks were unprecedented in their scale and detail. They painted a picture of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that was far grimmer than what the US government had been telling the public.

How the US responded

The US government was furious. They argued that these leaks endangered national security and put lives at risk, particularly those of informants named in the documents. Manning, as the source of the leaks, was arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to 35 years in prison (though her sentence was later commuted by President Obama).

But what about Assange? This is where things get complicated. 

Assange argued that he was just a publisher, no different from newspapers that publish classified information. This defence raised a crucial question: Is WikiLeaks a journalistic organisation deserving of press freedom protections, or something else entirely?

The US government didn't buy Assange's argument. In their view, Assange wasn't just a passive recipient of leaked information. The charges alleged that Assange had actively conspired with Manning to crack a password hash—a scrambled version of a password that's typically stored in computer systems—enabling the theft of classified documents. By attempting to crack this hash, Assange allegedly tried to help Manning access more classified information without detection.

This was a crucial point: the government wasn't just charging Assange for publishing the information (which could be potentially protected under press freedom laws) but for allegedly helping to obtain it illegally.

The tale of two cases

As the US was building its case against Assange, he found himself in hot water in Sweden. Weeks after the leaks in 2010, two women accused him of sexual assault during a visit to Stockholm. Swedish prosecutors opened an investigation and issued an international arrest warrant.

The Swedish allegations were serious and specific:

• One woman, known as Miss A, accused Assange of tampering with a condom during consensual sex, forcing her to have unprotected intercourse.
• Another woman, Miss W, alleged that Assange had sex with her while she was asleep, which is considered rape under Swedish law.

To be clear, we are talking about two entirely separate cases here:

1. The Swedish case was about allegations of personal conduct, unrelated to WikiLeaks.
2. The US case focused on Assange's activities with WikiLeaks, centering on national security issues.

Yet, they became tangled in the public eye, each influencing Assange's legal strategy.

He vehemently denied the Swedish allegations, claiming they were a pretext to extradite him to the United States. However, Swedish and UK authorities consistently denied any connection between the two cases.

Asylum, arrest, and extradition battle

In 2012, Assange lost his appeal against the warrant, and was about to be sent to Sweden for sexual assault charges. He worried this could lead to being sent to the US. 

His solution? Seek protection in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Assange entered the embassy in June 2012, asking for asylum because he feared the US would punish him severely for his work with WikiLeaks. Ecuador agreed to protect him because they were concerned that he might face unfair treatment and harsh punishment in the US. This decision allowed Assange to stay in the embassy for nearly seven years. During this time, British police waited outside to arrest him for skipping bail. He couldn't leave without being caught. Inside, he continued his work with WikiLeaks but was essentially living in self-imposed exile.

The Swedish case that made him seek asylum began to fall apart. Prosecutors couldn’t charge him while he was in the embassy, and as time passed, some of the charges expired. By 2017, they stopped the investigation but said they might reopen it later.

Assange's embassy refuge came to an abrupt end in April 2019. Ecuador, citing Assange's interference in foreign affairs and unacceptable behaviour, revoked his asylum. Within hours, British police entered the embassy and arrested Assange.

The US government had been preparing its case against Assange for years. In 2019, they unsealed an indictment accusing him of helping to hack government computers. They formally requested his extradition from the UK, setting the stage for a long legal battle.

For the next five years, while Assange was in jail, he fought against being extradited, arguing that the charges were politically motivated. As the legal drama unfolded, diplomatic efforts intensified. Australia, Assange's home country, began to advocate more strongly for a resolution. In a significant move in February, the Australian parliament passed a motion calling for Assange's return.

This complex interplay of law, diplomacy, and international relations led to the latest development: Assange's potential guilty plea in a US territory court, which could finally bring this long-running case to a close.

Hero or villain?

Assange's case has sharply divided public opinion. His supporters and critics paint very different pictures of the man and his actions.

Supporters argue that Assange is a whistleblower and journalist who exposed government wrongdoing. They believe he should be protected under free speech laws and that the charges against him are politically motivated retaliation for embarrassing the US government. They warn that his prosecution sets a dangerous precedent for press freedom globally.

Critics, on the other hand, contend that Assange is not a legitimate journalist, but rather a hacker who illegally obtained and published classified information. They argue that his actions endangered national security and put lives at risk. They believe he should face justice for allegedly assisting Chelsea Manning in obtaining classified documents.

For instance, Daniel Ellsberg, famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, viewed Assange's actions as similar to his own whistleblowing. He argued that opposition to such leaks often comes from those who don't want any exposure of secretive foreign policy.

“That’s just a cover for people who don’t want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.”

On the other hand, even some journalists question whether Assange's methods qualify as journalism. Todd Gitlin, a journalism professor, asks: 

"Is a data dump journalism? That's an interesting question. In the case of war crimes footage, I feel comfortable saying that by working with Manning on that, Assange was performing an act of journalism. But when you release terabytes of data indiscriminately, I don't know what to call that."

The controversy deepened in 2016 when WikiLeaks published emails of the Democratic National Committee stolen by hackers tied to Russian intelligence agencies during the US presidential election. This led to accusations that Assange was deliberately trying to influence the election outcome—with Russian backing—further blurring the lines between journalism and political activism.

The bottomline: The Julian Assange case amplifies the tension at the heart of modern democracy: the balance between government secrecy and press freedom.

Here’s the fundamental question: How do we reconcile the government's need for confidentiality in matters of national security with the public's right to know and the media's role in ensuring accountability?

This dilemma is far from simple. Governments argue, often compellingly, that certain information must remain secret to protect national interests and conduct effective diplomacy. Yet, history has shown that unchecked secrecy can lead to overreach and abuse of power. This is where journalism—and by extension, leaks—play a crucial role in democratic societies, exposing wrongdoing and holding those in power accountable.

Who gets to decide what should be secret? Is it solely the purview of government officials, or do journalists have a role to play? How can traditional democratic checks and balances function when the public is unaware of secret programs or actions taken in their name? 

The resolution of Assange's legal troubles doesn't end this debate. 

Reading List

Vox highlights the complicated questions on press freedom that Assange’s arrest threw up. Also in Vox: the sexual assault charges against him in Sweden. Associated Press has all the details on Assange’s plea deal with the US. The Conversation analyses the 2010 leaks and the digital age of “big data” whistleblowing. This excellent New Yorker profile from 2017 has an intimate portrait of the man behind the leaks.