Craig Murray writes:
The gloves were off on Tuesday as the US Government explicitly argued that all journalists are liable to prosecution under the Espionage Act (1917) for publishing classified information, citing the Rosen case.
Counsel for the US government also argued that the famous Pentagon Papers supreme court judgement on the New York Times only referred to pre-publication injunction and specifically did not preclude prosecution under the Espionage Act.
The US Government even surmised in court that such an Espionage Act prosecution of the New York Times may have been successful.
It is hard for me to convey to a British audience what an assault this represents by the Trump administration on Americans’ self-image of their own political culture.
The First Amendment is celebrated across the political divide and the New York Times judgement is viewed as a pillar of freedom.
So much so that Hollywood’s main superstars are still making blockbusters about it, in which the heroes are the journalists rather than the actual whistleblower, Dan Ellsberg (whom I am proud to know).
The US government is now saying, completely explicitly, in court, those reporters could and should have gone to jail and that is how we will act in future.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, and all the “great liberal media” of the USA are not in court to hear it and do not report it, because of their active complicity in the “othering” of Julian Assange as something sub-human whose fate can be ignored.
Are they really so stupid as not to understand that they are next?
Err, yes.
Read on.
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