Press Charges

Slate’s Fred Kaplan on why the charges against Julian Assange should make journalists, and all Americans, very worried. You Don’t Have to Like Julian Assange to Be Outraged by the Charges Against Him. “Assange is not a journalist by most people’s understanding of the word. But what he’s indicted for here is legally indistinguishable from what lots of journalists do. In the indictment’s words, he ‘repeatedly sought, obtained, and disseminated information that the United States classified’ as secret. The authors of many front-page news stories and best-selling books are guilty of the same.” (You’re going to feel nostalgic for the days when it was just norms that were being trampled…)