‘It’s not as bad as Iwo Jima, I suppose’: the Julian Assange extradition verdict

Clearly keeping in mind the deterrent function of such stifling instruments as The Official Secrets Act of 1989, Baraitser remained staunchly establishment in relegating journalism to the lowest pegs of significance. Motivation is irrelevant, the public interest merely a construction best left to the paternally learned. Those with secrets had to be prevented from disclosing them; the role of whether information should be made available for public consumption had to be left to "trusted people in a position to make an objective assessment of the public interest".

The credulous acceptance of most of the evidence by Assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Gordon Kromberg, boggles. Kromberg made a good go of convincing Baraitser that the case against Assange was far from "unprecedented" and would not attract the free speech protections of the US First Amendment. Criminalising the intentional disclosure of names of intelligence agents and sources, by way of example, was still consistent with First Amendment rights. Weakly, the judge claimed that, "Cases which raise novel issues of law are not so uncommon."

Untroubled by any potential desecration of press freedoms, Baraitser resorted to vague hypotheticals. Whether the prosecution would raise the issue of excluding Assange from the protections of the First Amendment for publishing national defence information or otherwise did not raise "a real risk that a court would find that Mr Assange will not be protected by the US Constitution in general or by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment in particular." Convoluted understatement chokes the dangerous implication.

The "harm" thesis - that Assange's publishing activities supposedly put people at risk - was seen as credible. Little stock is put in his redaction efforts, many of which were extensively documented at the trial. Instead, an opportunistic, careless figure emerges, one who endangered "well over one hundred people" and caused "quantifiable" harm - loss of employment, the freezing of assets. Even if Assange had been "acting within the parameters of responsible journalism" he had no vested "right to make the decision to sacrifice the safety of these few individuals, knowing of their circumstances or the dangers they faced, in the name of free speech."

The reasoning of the judge on the US-UK Treaty would have also caused shudders across the fourth estate. Extradition treaties, she affirmed, confirmed no enforceable rights. And Parliament, in its wisdom, had taken "the decision to remove the political offences bar which had previously been available to those facing extradition." She accepted, in whole, the US submission that the regime upon which extradition would be dealt with obligated the court to follow a set of "imperative steps" which did not "include a consideration of the political character of the offence".

For human rights organisations and those defending press freedom, the judgment remains rewarding in terms of outcome, unsatisfactory in terms of reasoning. It leaves the appalling treatment of Assange, at the hands of UK authorities guided by US instruction, unaccounted for. As Amnesty International described it, the verdict "does not absolve the UK from having engaged in this politically-motivated process at the behest of the USA and putting media freedom and freedom of expression on trial." WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson was characteristically blunt in his assessment. "It is a win for Julian Assange - but it is not a win for journalism."

The US Department of Justice, keen to prolong Assange's suffering, promises to appeal, though the grounds on mental health will prove hard to impeach. A bail application is due to be submitted by the defence in a few days.