By Josh Hughes | United States

The federal government has inadvertently named WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a court filing in an unrelated case. The naming of Assange appears to have been by accident, as the charges came up on the file for a man charged with sex crimes. But, this shows that the Justice Department has his name on file and has likely charged him in a secret case. A spokesman for the attorney’s office simply stated that the filing was an error, while the FBI has declined the comment at all. The whole affair seems very secretive and mysterious, and for good reason. Assange has been a Justice Department target for some time now. Assange has been in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since August of 2012. Without a doubt, his extradition and trial in the U.S. are important to many people of both major parties.

WikiLeaks and those associated with it are often accused of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. It is a wordy document, but it basically makes it illegal to leak classified documents or anything else to the detriment of the United States, specifically in wartime. WikiLeaks has been in the news quite a bit over the past decade for releasing many notable pieces. These include documents about CIA spying, war crimes, and U.S. atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, however, they have made international news for the involvement in the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC’s emails in the 2016 presidential election.

Charging Assange: A Dark Move

Would pressing charges against the organization and Assange be a good thing for the U.S. to do? In a time when the current administration is under heavy fire for limiting the press and making the media the enemy, perhaps it would be best to lay off such outlets whose sole intent is to provide transparency. WikiLeaks and Assange did nothing wrong; their sole crimes are the exposure of government crimes.

How could anyone, especially from a party that claims to support government transparency, support the arrest of a man and an organization who does just that? In times like these, perhaps suppression of the media isn’t the way to go. Admittedly, the government would never encourage hackers, leakers, and other whistleblowers. However, it may be more beneficial to drop the charges and continue to let Assange operate out of his base in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. To be fair, WikiLeaks has never been partial or partisan, exposing both left and right wing issues.

With the election of right-leaning Lenin Moreno as president of Ecuador, Assange may be facing an uphill battle. Extradition is a very tough case, one Assange has promised to fight. For the time being, he is safe, but officials in the embassy have begun to be stricter towards him. He has not left the embassy in months. The near future will be interesting to follow with the WikiLeaks foundation. The loss of Assange would be a huge blow to the liberty movement. For now, all one can do is hope for his safety.

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