WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has portrayed himself as a champion of a free p...
- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has portrayed himself as a champion of a free press, but the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to charge him with conspiring to hack government computers limits his ability to mount a vigorous free speech defense, some legal experts said.
The indictment, which was made secretly last year and released on Thursday, does not charge Assange for publishing classified material. WikiLeaks released the classified war information on its website in 2010 and 2011. “While the indictment against Julian Assange disclosed today charges a conspiracy to commit computer crimes, the factual allegations against Mr. Assange boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect the identity of that source,” Pollack said.
The charge against Assange of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion minimized concerns that freedom of the press would be undermined and made it more difficult for him to argue that his free speech rights were at stake, some legal experts said. Assange is likely to argue that the conspiracy charge was a pretext and the government really is prosecuting him for the publication of classified documents, lawyers not involved in the case said.
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