Wikileaks’ Julian Assange will not serve prison time in the U.S. if a federal judge approves a deal allowing him to plead guilty to espionage for publishing secret military records in 2010 and 2011. He will be given a 62-month sentence equal to time already served in London and allowed to proceed to Australia, his home country, if he so chooses. (CNN, June 2, 2024, by Evan Perez and Devan Cole)
Seth Stern in the Daily Beast, June 25, 2024, argues that the settlement in the Assange case does not erase the damage done to the U.S. when Assange was charged with revealing war crimes. “The shameful, years-long saga has left the U.S.’s global credibility on press freedom severely diminished,” writes Stern. “Even worse, it has put national security journalists on notice that the U.S. government stands ready and willing to criminalize their work at its discretion.”