Crumbling Case Against Assange Shows Weakness of “Hacking” Charges Related to Whistleblowing

Image: A banner supports Julian Assange in front of the Old Bailey on Sept. 18, 2020, in London. Photo: Alberto Pezzali/NurPhoto via Getty Images. Article by Micah Lee.

The entire computer crime case against Assange is based on a brief discussion, between a publisher and source, about cracking a password — but the cracking never actually happened.

By 2013, the Obama administration had concluded that it could not charge WikiLeaks or Julian Assange with crimes related to publishing classified documents — documents that showed, among other things, evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan — without criminalizing investigative journalism itself. President Barack Obama’s Justice Department called this the “New York Times problem,” because if WikiLeaks and Assange were criminals for publishing classified information, the New York Times would be just as guilty. […]

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