An angry Julian Assange slammed efforts to officially classify his whistleblowing organization as a "non-state hostile intelligence service", decrying it as an attempt to put the "Pompeo Doctrine" into law. In its annual "intelligence authorization", the Senate Intelligence Committee proposed to effectively declare WikiLeaks a terrorist media organization.

“It is the sense of Congress that WikiLeaks and the senior leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a service by the United States,” the bill states. Published on Friday, the Senate committee passed the bill late last month on a 14-1 vote, with only Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon voting against the measure, citing “legal, constitutional and policy implications” that the WikiLeaks provision may entail.

.@RonWyden announces he voted against Intel Authorization Act due to concerns that language targeting @WikiLeaks could chill journalism pic.twitter.com/Ey3zBSTupt — Dustin Volz (@dnvolz) August 22, 2017

In response, Assange tweeted a statement slamming the “absurd” decision to brand a media organizations in such a way.

“It is equivalent to suggesting that the CIA is a media organization. Publishers publish what they obtain. Intelligence agencies do not.”

My statement responding to the U.S. Senate Intel Committee's attempt to place the "Pompeo doctrine" into law.



More: https://t.co/ZmZenqzh7k pic.twitter.com/Kra0T7jSID — Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) August 23, 2017

Realizing the gravity of the situation of becoming a persona non grata to the US government (and CIA), Assange then siad that “it is an interesting thought experiment to consider where other media outlets lay on this spectrum. It is clear that if the 'Pompeo doctrine' applies to WikiLeaks then it applies equally if not more so to other serious outlets."

Assange became one of the most visible targets of the liberal media and Democrats, following the DNC hacking (which led to Debbis Wasserman Schultz' resgination after it emerged that the DNC had rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders), and the leak of John Podesta's emails, which were then sent to WikiLeaks for publication. According to the subsequent narrative, Assange was nothing but a Russian agent, intent on destroying Hillary's candidacy and making Trump president. Which is ironic because after praising Assange during his campaign, Trump has since abandoned the controversial Australian to his fate.

In April, CIA Director Mike Pompeo branded WikiLeaks a "hostile non-state intelligence agency" which should not be afforded the protections of the First Amendment under the constitution.

CIA Dir Pompeo claims "Assange has no 1st Amendment freedoms" after Washington Post Op Ed https://t.co/bhqFcXTzze https://t.co/1zZWAjJUVY — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 14, 2017

Assange made even more friends at Langley in March, when WikiLeaks began publishing a series of leaks titled ‘Vault 7’ which revealed the spy agency’s arsenal of hacking tools. Putin has yet to be blamed for hacking the CIA.