- Other cases under US's Espionage Act, set to criminalise 'anti-American' journalism, worldwide Archived Message
- Other cases under US's Espionage Act, set to criminalise 'anti-American' journalism, worldwide - margo November 6, 2019, 2:04 pm
- Serendibdibdibdobdobdobitous? - Gerard November 6, 2019, 2:20 pm
Posted by margo
on November 6, 2019, 2:04 pm
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Assange charged under Espionage Act (1917) which looks to criminalise journalism by re-framing it - in vaguely-defined instances - as 'espionage'. If the US gets to set The Assange Precedent, the US will then have extra-territorial, transnational reach to extradite and punish 'transgressors' who publish inconvenient facts about the US, from anywhere in the world. This is why Assange mustn't be extradited. Former CIA employee challenges Espionage Act extract [...][..][...][..] "In September, the defense for Daniel Hale, a former U.S. Air Force language analyst, challenged the Espionage Act charges against him for allegedly disclosing documents to Intercept reporter Jeremy Scahill, which exposed a targeted assassination policy involving armed drones. Hale’s attorneys invoked the legislative history of the Espionage Act and argued he was targeted for engaging in his First Amendment right to criticize his government. They took issue with the fact that government does not have to prove that Hale intended to harm the United States. The government simply has to show Hale knew he was violating the law. Likewise, Schulte’s attorneys similarly argue, “Knowledge that one’s conduct is unlawful—in the case of [section] 793, that one’s speech is prohibited—is not the same thing as having an evil motive or an intent to harm the United States.” Back in November 2018, the government accused Schulte of using contraband phones to leak from prison and charged him with another violation of the Espionage Act. The charge came around a month after Schulte said he was put in solitary confinement and not permitted to contact his attorney or work on his defense. Schulte filed a complaint [PDF] for “violation of civil rights” on March 20, 2019, that contemptuously labeled all the agencies involved in his prosecution and incarceration “Federal Terrorists.” He accused the FBI of stealing his property and fabricating evidence against him, and he claimed he was enduring torture, which is especially illegal because he is a “pretrial inmate.” Incredibly, Schulte maintained he had lost over $50 billion worth of income and was owed this amount in damages from the U.S. government. Despite the questions this filing raised about Schulte’s mental stability, the recent motion from his attorneys puts forward crucial arguments against how the government pursues Espionage Act prosecutions. There are technically no limits on how the Espionage Act may be applied. His attorneys recall how Attorney General Alberto Gonzales considered prosecuting the New York Times for revealing the warrantless wiretapping program and the Washington Post for exposing the CIA’s use of secret prisons for the torture and detention of terrorism detainees. President Trump often calls for investigations into who leaked information to journalists for negative stories about his administration. When Jeff Sessions was the attorney general, he proclaimed, “We are going to step up our efforts and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks,” a threat that represented his zeal for punishing government employees who talked to the press. The Trump administration has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with violating the Espionage Act, which makes him the first journalist to be charged under the law. This fact is conspicuously missing from the motion from Schulte’s attorneys. Schulte’s attorneys may not want to appear to confirm details in Schulte’s case by expressing alarm over the case against Assange. Yet, regardless, the way in which the Espionage Act increasingly is employed to chill media sources and shut down journalism is troubling, and the controlling precedents this case may establish should have media organizations paying attention. LINK https://shadowproof.com/2019/11/05/former-cia-employee-who-allegedly-disclosed-vault-7-files-to-wikileaks-challenges-espionage-act-charges/ |
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