Julian Assange – Perilous Conspirator or Innocuous Truth Seeker?

Abstract

Julian Assange is indicted of the ‘Espionage Act’ and is facing up to 175 years in prison for publishing U.S. classified documents. The fact that it is the first time a journalist is prosecuted for espionage charges makes this case extraordinary. This paper investigates which security threats such a verdict could trigger to the U.S. and is using ‘The Paris School’ as an inception point. Securitization of journalistic work might be a dangerous first step into non-democratic, illiberal decision-making by the U.S. and a major problem for democracy, which makes Julian Assange a martyr of victimization of U.S. wrongdoings.

Introduction

Chelsea Manning was convicted of the ‘Espionage Act’ in July 2013 (ACLU, 2017) by the government of the United States of America. The conviction was related to the disclosure of U.S. classified information to WikiLeaks, an international non-profit organization, publishing news leaks. The U.S. already sentenced conspirators under the ‘Espionage Act’ previously – e.g., Daniel Ellsberg’s conviction to 115 years in prison. Even newly, the U.S. government tried to charge Edward Snowden with the ‘Espionage Act’. However, they all have something in common. Manning, Ellsberg and Snowden all leaked confidential information while working in a role serving the U.S., be that during their military duty or working for the National Security Agency (NSA). Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, on the other hand, is solely the publisher of a news outlet. The Australian national is currently being investigated for violating the ‘Espionage Act’ and his court case is ongoing. The court case covers WikiLeaks’ publication of one of the biggest compromises of classified information in U.S. history (The United States Department of Justice, 2019). If he would be convicted of the ‘Espionage Act’ in January 2021, this case would mark the first time a journalist is being charged for publishing information of public interest. In total, Julian Assange has been accused of 18 charges amongst others spying and computer hacking (Swart, 2020). What makes Julian Assange so dangerous to the United States of America? Is he just an innocuous truth seeker or is he the perilous conspirator the U.S. want him to be?

This paper takes a look at the complex case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Specifically, the interest lies in the potential extradition and consequent conviction of the American ‘Espionage Act’. The main argument of this paper is that the securitization of journalistic work might be a dangerous first step into non-democratic, illiberal decision-making by the U.S. and therefore would make it a major problem for democracy. To show this, the paper sets out to investigate and identify potential security risks triggered by this verdict. To specify the potential security risks, the perspective of ‘The Paris School’ serves as the major theoretical and conceptual framework as it thematizes sociological securitization. The following research question will thereby be investigated in this paper:

Which security risks does a potential conviction and extradition of Julian Assange trigger to the U.S., seen from the perspective of ‘The Paris School’?

Firstly, a comprehensive overview of the case surrounding Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is provided. Following, key terms that shape this case such as ‘The Espionage Act’, ‘U.K.-U.S. Extradition’ and the ‘First Amendment’ are presented. The understanding of these key terms is crucial to the analysis later in this paper. Secondly, the major thoughts, key assumptions and theoretical frameworks attributed to ‘The Paris School’ are defined. Thereby, also key terms important to the following analysis such as ‘The Field of (In)Security Professionals’, ‘Merging of Internal and External Security’ and ‘Exceptionalism in Security’ are presented. And lastly, potential security risks to the U.S., that may be triggered by the conviction of Julian Assange, are introduced.

This paper focuses on the classified information provided by Chelsea Manning published in 2010 and does not take concern in the specific happenings during Julian Assange’s time in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, U.S. espionage in collaboration with a security firm employed by the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and sex crime allegations by the Swedish government, as it would go beyond the scope of this paper. Also, it does not investigate the reason why Australia does not interfere in this case, which could be a compelling inception point for another paper.

The Case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks

Julian Assange, born Julian Paul Hawkins, is an Australian national that is well-known for his engagement in publishing classified information of all sorts. Assange founded the media organization WikiLeaks in 2006 which “specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official material involving war, spying and corruption” (WikiLeaks, 2015). In 2010, Assange published the “Collateral Murder” (WikiLeaks, 2010b) video (April, 5th), the “Afghan War Logs” (WikiLeaks, 2010c) (July, 25th), and the “Iraq War Logs” (WikiLeaks, 2010c) (October, 22nd) on WikiLeaks, following the whistleblowing of, then intelligence analyst to the U.S. Army, Chelsea Manning. Consequently, the U.S. government started an investigation into Julian Assange’s work for “unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense” (The United States Department of Justice, 2019), which marks the first time in history that the U.S. government is prosecuting a journalist after the ‘Espionage Act’ for publishing – by what is known – truthful documents.

The Timeline

In April 2010, WikiLeaks published the video ‘Collateral Murder’. Following that, Chelsea Manning was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 for the disclosure of classified information to WikiLeaks. The classified documents included evidence of civilian deaths, military wrongdoings and other matters of public interest concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (ACLU, 2017). Later that year, in July and October 2010, WikiLeaks published the ‘Afghan War Logs’ and the ‘Iraq War Logs’. The classified information published by WikiLeaks that year was later used in articles in ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Guardian’, ‘Der Spiegel’, ‘El Paìs’ and ‘Le Monde’ amongst others. On September 27 , 2010 a suitcase of Assange’s went missing on a flight of his from Sweden to Germany. It contained three laptops and various hard drives with classified information and was never recovered by the airline. Later, the information saved on these hard drives and laptops surfaced in the trial against Chelsea Manning (Glass, 2020). In 2011, FBI agents employed an 18-year-old Icelandic informant to spy on WikiLeaks, which started the U.S. investigation into Assange and WikiLeaks. Interestingly, in September 2011, Cryptome.org published the “Cablegate” (WikiLeaks, 2010a) documents, a collection of state department communication, a day before WikiLeaks did. However, it never came to an investigation (Glass, 2020). In June 2012, Julian Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy of the United Kingdom in London, and publicly announced that he would not leave the embassy, because he’s afraid to be extradited to the U.S. (Glass, 2020). In July 2013, Chelsea Manning was convicted of 17 charges out of a total 22 and sentenced to 35 years in prison (ACLU, 2017). After that, several years passed in which Assange fought for his rights. A United Nations panel even ruled that Assange has been “arbitrarily detained” (Swart, 2020) by the United Kingdom since 2010. However, in April 2019, Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaching bail conditions and transferred to the high-security prison Belmarsh (BBC, 2019). In early 2020, the court case against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks started. He first appeared in court in February 2020, but the whole court case was later postponed due to Covid-19 circumstances (Swart, 2020). On September 7 , 2020 the Julian Assange trial officially started in the Central Court of London and lasted for four weeks. On January 4 , 2021 a judgement of extradition to the U.S. will be made by the British authorities (Swart, 2020).

The Indictment

The official press release of the first indictment of Julian Assange, released by the U.S. Department of Justice on May 23rd back in 2019, states that “Assange was complicit with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, in unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense” (The United States Department of Justice, 2019). It goes on to say, “Assange and WikiLeaks actively solicited United States classified information, including by publishing a list of ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ that sought, among other things, classified documents” (The United States Department of Justice, 2019). In June 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice issued an additional indictment to the prior 18 accounts against Julian Assange. The Department of Justice states in a press release that the new indictment “broadens the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with which Assange was previously charged” (The United States Department of Justice, 2020). They continue with the claim that “Assange and others at WikiLeaks recruited and agreed with hackers to commit computer intrusions to benefit WikiLeaks” (The United States Department of Justice, 2019).

The Espionage Act of 1917

Julian Assange is amongst others accused of the ‘Espionage Act’ that was enacted just before the U.S. entered the second world war in 1917. The law prohibits individuals from “obtaining information, recording pictures, or copying descriptions of any information relating to the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information may be used for the injury of the United states or the advantage of any foreign nation” (Asp, 2019). The targets of the ‘Espionage Act’ and the ‘Sedition Act’, a reinforcement that followed just a year after the enactment of the ‘Espionage Act’, were mainly socialists, pacifists and anti-war activists during world war one (History, 2009).

U.K.-U.S. Extradition

The Extradition between the United States of America and the United Kingdom is regulated in a law that was elaborated in 2003. Meanwhile, both nations have incorporated it into their domestic laws and the process to transfer a criminal suspect from British to U.S. custody is fairly simple. First, a U.S. prosecutor must attain an arrest warrant that includes approval of the domestic courts. Second, the Crown Prosecution Service takes over on British soil and takes the case to the court. And lastly, the British law enforcement must arrest the criminal suspect before taking the criminal suspect to court. In the court case or the hearing, the British courts decide on whether the criminal suspect will be extradited, or not (BBC, 2012). This is the point where Julian Assange is currently at. Interestingly, the treaty signed in 2003 now simplifies the extradition process of criminal suspects to the U.S., mainly “because the U.S. would no longer need to provide a ‘prima facie’ case to British courts” (BBC, 2012), which consequently means that a criminal suspect could be extradited without getting correct treatment.

U.S. First Amendment

The ‘First Amendment’ of the United States of America says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (U.S. Constitution, 1791)

Critical Security Studies (CSS)

Security is a discipline within IR that concerns itself with the “nature of threats” and the “referent objects” (Huysmans, 2006). Traditionally, the discipline of security researched traditional security issues such as wars and international conflicts. In most recent years, however, other non-traditional issues found their way into the discipline such as migration and environmental issues and transformed security into a contested concept (Bigo & McCluskey, 2018). CSS are responsible for introducing these non-traditional security concerns to the field of security studies. ‘The Paris School’ is one of the approaches to CSS that is concerned with non-traditional security threats and commits to a “proper sociology” (Wæver, 2010) of CSS.

To be able to correctly delineate ‘The Paris School’, however, one has to take a step back and locate it in the context of C.A.S.E – “Critical Approaches to Security in Europe” (C.A.S.E. Collective, 2006). In a workshop back in 2005 a collective of researchers, including amongst others Ole Wæver, Didier Bigo and Jef Huysmans, created a manifesto that discusses critical approaches to security studies such as ‘The Copenhagen School’, ‘The Aberystwyth School’, and ‘The Paris School’. The authors emphasize the fact that the three schools of thought should not be “pinned down geographically” (C.A.S.E. Collective, 2006), because they refer to individuals, their works and the critical discourse between them (Bigo & McCluskey, 2018). Thus, C.A.S.E. has developed over time thanks to the critical debate between first, ‘The Copenhagen School’ and ‘The Aberystwyth School’, and second, between the aforementioned two and ‘The Paris School’. Wæver (2004) accentuates ‘The Paris School’ not being an aggrandizement, but rather an own approach considerably distinctive to other approaches.

The Paris School

Bigo’s and Huysmans’ approach to security is known as a “sociological approach to securitization” (Williams, 2018), which is why Bigo emphasizes that Paris stands for “Political Anthropological Research for International Sociology” (Bigo & McCluskey, 2018) in securitization. Bigo and McCluskey (2018) go on to say that this conceptual definition “permits an understanding of what is at stake in the process of (in)securitization” (Bigo & McCluskey, 2018). Thus, ‘The Paris School’ advocates more of a constructivist stance (Bigo, 2001) and views security as a socially constructed phenomenon (Huysmans, 2006).

The major thinkers of ‘The Paris School’ question the fact that the discipline only focuses on security as a form of survival and “as an answer to threats and insecurity” (Bigo & McCluskey, 2018). Past works on security and securitization lack in perspectives of sociology and psychology and do not include feelings of insecurity (Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008). Therefore, Bigo, Huysmans, and others came up with an approach that offers a more holistic view of security matters, that still investigates traditional security threats, but also gives importance to “everyday practices” (Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008), and thereby unites internal and external security threats – as in a Möbius strip – which “offers distinctive views about field effects” (Bigo, 2011). More on this will be discussed later in the paper.

A well-known piece resulting from C.A.S.E. is the ‘Securitization Theory’, which “defines security as a speech act” (C.A.S.E. Collective, 2006), and is guided by an “overly negative conception of security” (Floyd, 2007). It mainly draws upon J.L. Austin’s ‘Language Theory’ and tries to understand “how issues become security threats” (Williams, 2018). Seen from the perspective of ‘The Paris School’, security cannot be reduced to a core meaning – “speech act” (Williams, 2018) – but should rather be understood as a “political act” (C.A.S.E. Collective, 2006) meaning “technological and technocratic processes” (Huysmans, 2006). Ultimately, this explanation implies that the process of securitization is not the result of an individual actor, but rather of a field effect.

Bigo (2000) draws upon Foucault’s theory of governmentality to explain the dynamics of everyday practices, its constraints and effects. These dynamics can be referred to as struggles of power for security professionals, or the “governmental rationality of security” (C.A.S.E. Collective, 2006). That is exactly why ‘The Paris School’ does not have a state-centric view on security matters but concentrates their importance on security professionals whose impact on the shaping of security, through everyday practices, is considerably high. Huysmans (2002) attributes this focus on security professional and their “bureaucratic decisions of everyday politics” (Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008) to the privilege that comes with their positions, a privileged position that allows them to put security issues on the agenda.

The Field of (In)Security Professionals

The concept of field can be found in the majority of Bigo’s writings and ultimately stems from Pierre Bourdieu’s philosophical works. Bigo (2011) transfers the concept of field to security and its actors. To begin with, a field can be described as a “distinct social space consisting of independent and differentiated positions” (Bigo, 2011), and is only existent if it is a producer of effects. The field of security professionals, however, is of force and domination that sets the tone for fellow – in this case national – interests (Bigo, 2011). Thus, the (in)securitization process is not decided by one actor’s move, e.g., the state, rather it is determined by the collective of moves in the security professionals’ field (Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008). These various actors often share a similar view of the ‘enemy’ as they operate within the boundaries of a shared governmental entity. However, this is not bound, as security professionals act in “field of struggles” (Bigo, 2011). They are constantly engaged in a field of competition. Competition on the authority of “defining whose security is important” (Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008) and on the persuasion “of different audiences liable to accept or not that definition” (Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008).

Diskaya (2013) concludes that “speech acts are not decisive but rather themselves the result of structural competition” between security professionals. Thus, it is hard for a field to coalesce “competing worldviews into a unified picture” (Bigo, 2011), e.g., internal and external security issues, but it is what makes them do the framing work of security (Bigo, 1996).

Merging Internal and External Security – The ‘Möbius Strip’

The aforementioned merging of internal and external security allows “three levels of understanding” (Bigo, 2001). Important to this case is the question of how one can define a secure society. Widespread is the idea of more security equals lesser insecurity. However, as not only Bigo and McCluskey (2018), but also the C.A.S.E. Collective (2006) and Bigo and Tsoukala (2008) argue, the (in)securitization process does not necessarily result in more security but can rather lead to more unease and thus transform into a new security risk – hence a dilemma. It is the “fear to have fear” (Bigo, 2001) that facilitates this creation of new security risks which turns into a “security continuum” (Bigo, 2001), because there is no clear distinction of what security is and is not and no understanding of the beginning of security and the end of insecurity. It becomes endless – a ‘Möbius strip’. Essentially, external and internal security become inseparably dependent (Bigo, 2001).

Another crucial concept to the case researched in this paper is the concept of exceptionalism in the field of (in)security, because it explains the limits of the rule of law and the way states try to circumvent it (Huysmans, 2004).

Exceptionalism in CSS

Exceptionalism in security refers especially to liberal democracies and their strategy to frame political power through the concept of exception. Thereby, tensions emerge, mainly between the rule of law, the political leadership and the people (Huysmans, 2004). Important to this paper are specifically the tensions between the rule of law and political leadership. The reason why, is that it takes concern in “the issue of legality of political power and its limits” (Huysmans, 2004) and therefore also in the arbitrary exercise of power, which is highly illiberal and undemocratic.

Before the analysis of this paper is presented, the following paragraph should give a short insight into critique and limitations of ‘The Paris School’.

Critical Reflection of ‘The Paris School’

The theoretical standpoints in the realm of ‘The Paris School’ are limited. Mostly, one ends up with papers written by either Didier Bigo, and/or Jef Huysmans, which is a result in a lack of theoretical width and depth. Also, the theoretical stances focus intensively on the works of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu without a real critical assessment. Floyd (2006) for example, argues that the works of Foucault do not provide a “generalizable body of thought” and must therefore be, critically reflected in the context of security studies, which up until now has not been the case. Floyd (2006) also states the fact that Bigo uses Foucault’s thoughts without any referencing. Consequently, leading to a “circular logic of the Paris school’s usage of Foucault” (Floyd, 2006), which treats Foucault’s views as generally approved.

A Parisian Analysis of WikiLeaks and the Case of Julian Assange

The main argument this paper is making, is that the securitization of journalistic work might be a dangerous first step into non-democratic, illiberal decision-making by the U.S. government, which serves as a liberal role model internationally. The complex case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is a serious attack on press freedom which beforehand has never been witnessed to this extent in the U.S. To support the main argument, a “sociological approach to securitization” (Williams, 2018) – ‘The Paris School’ – is used, because it includes the important question of “what is at stake in the process of (in)securitization” (Bigo & McCluskey, 2018). Thus, what is at stake in this case, is much more than a shot at press freedom and a possible incarceration of an individual. At stake is the fundamental principle of liberty that is essential to democracy, which, if Julian Assange is charged, would carry a consequent condemnation of the whole press landscape with it. Therefore, there might be no bigger security threat than that, for a state historically calling itself the ‘country of freedom’. In the next paragraphs, these claims will be backed up with arguments and presented why there is no justification of charging Julian Assange for publishing classified information.

First of all, the actors that are referred to in the field of (in)securitization professionals crucial to this case are specified. Julian Assange’s leak of U.S. classified documents back in 2010 was the starting point of a complex case that led to espionage by the U.S. government, law enforcement involvement of the British government, asylum negotiations with the Ecuadorian embassy in London and even an involvement of the Swedish government with Assange, concerning rape allegations. This analysis, however, concerns itself mainly with the U.S. and the British government because they negotiate the possible extradition that would lead to the conviction Assange’s of the ‘Espionage Act’. Nevertheless, to be able to precisely delineate the present security threat, first one has to answer the question of “what threatens whom” (Huysmans, 2006). Obviously, the threat – the what – seen from the perspective of the U.S. government, is Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks, and the threatened – the whom – is the U.S. But what makes Julian Assange a threat? And how much political priority does this security threat deserve? (Huysmans, 2006)

The indictment and possible extradition of Assange is a seemingly politically motivated decision of threat framing by the U.S. government. The investigation into Assange and WikiLeaks started already during the governance of the Obama administration. However, they did not proceed with the case due to the unclear legal situation referring to the difficulty of defining who journalists are and what includes their area of operation (Glass, 2020). Now, during the Trump administration the case resurrected. One may argue that this development can be traced back to Trump’s behavior towards the media. He is known to be hostile, calling the media “the enemy of the people” (Smith, 2019) or just constantly referring to them as ‘fake news’. This “speech act” (Williams, 2018) of calling out the media as the ‘enemy of the state’ and being fake would define security threats according to ‘The Copenhagen School’. The author of this paper, however, disagrees that the solemn act of speech has such an impact, and therefore leans to ‘The Paris School’ which advocates everyday practices driving the security agenda. Consequently, the media had an enormously bad stance during the Trump administration leading to the media becoming a security threat to the U.S. government. Huysmans (2006) calls this political move “security as a technique of government”, which made the field of (in)security professionals in the U.S. frame the media as a threat.

Now, in the case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks these everyday practices have gone so far as to merge two spheres, the internal and the external security. The former is affected, as the case of Assange might turn the law enforcement in the U.S. upside-down – if he gets charged according to the ‘Espionage Act’ – despite the ‘First Amendment’. The latter is relevant, as classified information leaked by WikiLeaks shows U.S. misconduct in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore, what is done with security, and how it is practiced, defines security (Floyd, 2006). Usually, the merging of these different spheres allows different levels of understanding (Bigo, 2001). Nonetheless, states usually follow the principle of more security equals lesser insecurity, which could also happen in the case of Assange. The problem is, in their effort to securitize the issue of journalists, or publishers spreading classified information, they show their willingness to prosecute any news outlet publishing sensitive data. Hence, a straight run into the “security dilemma” (Huysmans, 2006). Furthermore, if one takes the examples of the ‘Collateral Murder’ video, the ‘Afghan War Logs’ and the ‘Iraq War Logs’, which would include big media outlets such as ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Guardian’, ‘Der Spiegel’, ‘El Paìs’ and ‘Le Monde’. The victimization of Assange and WikiLeaks facilitates the stance of “fear to have fear” (Bigo, 2001) and will turn the press landscape into a place of unease and insecurity, which would aggravate the work of journalists. In addition, this merger of internal and external security lets the clear distinction of security and insecurity fade away and leaves a “security continuum” (Bigo, 2001) behind, which gives no indication as to where security starts – e.g., is the case of Julian Assange even a security issue? – and where insecurity ends – e.g., which consequences will a possible conviction of Assange have on free speech and press freedom? Thereby, internal and external security become inseparably dependent, hence a ‘Möbius strip’.

It is not even clear where security ends for the United States of America. What the U.S. did with the indictment of 2019, was to implicate Julian Assange with espionage charges that historically were reserved for individuals seen as the ‘enemy of the state’, such as anarchists, socialists, communists and the rather new phenomenon of whistleblowers. Julian Assange on the other hand is a publisher of the non-profit organization WikiLeaks. Traditionally, he does not fit the typical description of a traitor to the country. Therefore, remaining questions are: can Assange be classified as a journalist? And more importantly; who gets to define the term journalist or media professional? Momentarily, it looks like the U.S. government is operating according to the concept of exceptionalism (Huysmans, 2004). A liberal-democratic state does not get to decide who is a journalist or a media professional and who is not, as these are dynamics that are known from authoritarian governments and dictatorships and are highly illiberal.

The indictment of a media professional and charging him with the ‘Espionage Act’ is an extreme attack on press freedom. The ‘First Amendment’ states explicitly that the U.S. should not prohibit the freedom of the press and the exercise of free speech. Assange provides the public with information about wrongdoings in society received by third parties. If he would hack government servers to get to the information he wants, that would be illegal. However, the confidential information published in 2010 with the ‘Collateral Murder’ video, the ‘Afghan War Logs’ and the ‘Iraq War Logs’ was provided by a whistleblower, Chelsea Manning. Thus, the prosecution of media professionals and journalists, and not only the ‘real traitors’, is a security threat to the modern liberal-democratic society. The principles of liberty which are known as the ‘First Amendment’ are, as already mentioned, seriously being harmed by these developments. Such illiberal security practices conducted by the U.S. government threaten social cohesion. One can even argue that they led to a split in society. A state that investigates and prosecutes people – that should inform the public – for their work, is characterized by illiberal practices, propaganda press and an undemocratic system. (In)security professionals are thereby the actors that introduce such tendencies, but also the ones that can reverse them, which is why Bigo and Walker (2007) even go so far as to say that security professionals are able of “policing the world by remote control”. Finally, ‘The Paris School’ advocates security being a socially constructed concept, which is especially true in this case as argued above. The (in)security professionals constituted by the British officials now have the chance to reverse this tendency of extradition, by not extraditing Assange, as the ‘Extradition Treaty’ between the U.K. and the U.S. clearly state that “extradition should not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense” (Extradition Treaty, 2007).

Conclusion

The case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is critical and should not be neglected by the zeitgeist of Covid-19. Several actors play different roles in this enmeshment of espionage and law enforcement. In case of an extradition to the U.S., Julian Assange faces up to 175 years in prison (Swart, 2020), which makes one wonder why the U.S. is framing Julian Assange as a traditional security threat. This arbitrary use of power once more raises the question mentioned in the introduction of this paper – what makes Julian Assange so dangerous to the U.S.? Julian Assange is dangerous – he is a threat. But he is a threat to the U.S. government and the U.S. administration for exposing them. The constitution and the ‘First Amendment’ should therefore protect him of an indictment, especially of espionage charges.

There have been many debates on the case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. By using, ‘The Paris School’, however, this paper should have shed some light on the implications an extradition and possible conviction of Assange would have to the U.S. The key points made can be summarized as follows. First, the indictment of Julian Assange is an attack on press freedom as it prosecutes a media professional. Second, it is a seemingly politically motivated act as it is executed by a government known to be hostile to the media. Third, the U.S. government unwillingly creates a security dilemma, as the act of prosecuting Assange facilitates unease and insecurity amongst the press landscape. As Floyd (2007) says, “without ‘security’, there would be no insecurity”, which is all the more true in this case. Fourth, the U.S. government is conducting an arbitrary exercise of power as they do not respect the ‘First Amendment’ of the constitution. And lastly, the potential continuation of routinely indicting journalists for publishing classified information will be the biggest security risk of it all: a threat to democracy. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson makes a good point regarding that: “With the indictment, the ‘leader of the free world’ dismisses the First Amendment – hailed as a model of press freedom around the world – and launches a blatant extraterritorial assault outside its borders, attacking basic principles of democracy in Europe and the rest of the world.” (WikiLeaks, 2019)

Is Julian Assange now a perilous conspirator or just an innocuous truth seeker? Barack Obama once said, “democracy does not work with an uninformed citizen”, which is why journalists are important. Often referred to as ‘watching dogs’ of society they inform about proper conduct, but also misconduct. Therefore, Julian Assange might be referred to as an innocuous truth seeker that has been victimized for exposing the U.S. for what it fears the most: being illiberal.

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