Gordon Campbell: On The Freeing Of Julian Assange

Finally, Julian Assange is free after 12 years of confinement. Yet ultimately, his freedom was conditional on a plea bargain charade whereby he admitted to a charge under the US Espionage Act that he had unlawfully solicited, obtained and distributed classified US national defence information. This outcome still leaves the US free to co-oerce other journalists into similar acts of compliance. In future, any journalist/publisher who thinks of exposing state criminality by publishing “classified” documents will have the fate of Assange as a chilling deterrent.