The persecution of Assange matters…your opinion of him does not – The Big Smoke Australia

The unjust persecution of Julian Assange (and the knock-on effects the media will feel) should be the point were discussing not your personal opinion of him.

Whenever you voice concerns aboutthe persecution of Julian Assangeon any public forum, you will be met by those calling Assange a stinky Nazi rapist Putin puppet Trump supporter who deserves to be in prison forever.

Whats striking about these responses, which by now are as familiar to me as the keyboard I type these words on, is how extremely emotional they always are. If you talk about economic policy or foreign policy, for example, you might get a few angry troglodytes who take internet arguments far too seriously, but youll also typically get people calmly explaining why they believe youre wrong and laying out ostensibly fact-based arguments for why this is so.

This is literally never the case with people who want to see Assange imprisoned, in my extensive experience. Theres never, ever any calm, fact-based rationale for why the benefits of prosecuting and imprisoning him for his publications outweigh the risks and costs of doing so. Its always vitriolic, hyperbolic, frequently profanity-riddled arguments from pure emotion, usually something to the effect of He collaborated with Russia/helped Trump win the election, therefore and I want him punished because I hate him. Which is just another way of saying, I want Assange imprisoned because of the way my feelings feel.

The completely baseless claim that Assange is not a journalist is used in an attempt to defuse the argument that his prosecution by the US government could lead to the same fate for any news media outlet which publishes leaks on the US government anywhere in the world. If hes not a journalist, then his prosecution sets no precedent for real journalists.

This argument, if you can call it that, is fallacious for a number of reasons. For starters, asThe Intercepts Glenn Greenwaldexplained, theres not any legal distinction in the US Constitution between news media outlets like theNew York Times and an outlet which solely focuses on publishing leaks. If you set the precedent with any publisher, youre necessarily setting it for all of them. Greenwald writes the following: To begin with, the press freedom guarantee of the First Amendment isnt confined to legitimate news outletswhatever that might mean. The First Amendment isnt available only to a certain class of people licensed as journalists. It protects not a privileged group of people called professional journalists but rather an activity: namely, using the press (which at the time of the First Amendments enactment meant the literal printing press) to inform the public about what the government was doing. Everyone is entitled to that constitutional protection equally: there is no cogent way to justify why the Guardian, ex-DOJ-officials-turned-bloggers, or Marcy Wheeler are free to publish classified information but Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are not.

Now, aside from theestablished factthat the US governments agenda to prosecute Assange has nothing to do with the 2016 election but with the exposure of US war crimes six years earlier, this is also a completely fallacious argument from top to bottom. Claiming that something ought to happen because of how your feelings feel is very obviouslya logical fallacy, but this kind of argument comprises the entirety of support for Assanges imprisonment that Assange defenders encounter on a regular basis.

I believe this happens becausethe smear campaignthat has been used by the western political/media class to manufacture support for Assanges silencing and imprisonment has its foundation not in fact, but in emotion. Smear campaigns are by their nature emotional at their core, because they are intended to elicit public disgust, disdain and hatred for their target. Thats why youll see so many mainstream news media articlesclaiming that Assange smells bad, for example, despite that having nothing whatsoever to do with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of Assanges work. The goal is not to present a factual case for why it would be more helpful than harmful to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder, the goal is to make people feel disgust for him, and, by extension, disgust for his work as well.

Another reason the Assange smears focus on emotion rather than facts is that the facts are very contrary to the interests of the smear merchants. The facts are that prosecuting Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes, as the Trump administration is attempting to do, would strike a devastating blow to press freedoms around the world. This is because there are no legal distinctions in place separating an outlet like WikiLeaks from outlets like theNew York Times, theWashington Post, or theGuardian, meaning that a precedent would be set allowing for the prosecution of those outlets on the same grounds, who also publish anonymous government leaks. Which is why theNew York Times, theWashington PostandtheGuardianhave all warned sternly of this precedent, which has also beenrecognised by the Obama administration.

We all need the ability to hold power to account, and the prosecution of Assange will necessarily cripple our ability to do that. This is a fact. Regardless of how your feelings feel.

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The persecution of Assange matters...your opinion of him does not - The Big Smoke Australia