In an in-depth interview with Revolver News, published today, Stella Moris-Smith Robertson, fiancée of Julian Assange, developed in greater detail several themes she has discussed in previous interviews, starting with the fact that Assange has committed no crime, and that this is “an unconstitutional, political case that has bent the law to suit its political objective. It turns necessary journalistic practices — communicating with a source and having and publishing true information — into crimes.”
Moris-Smith’s description of the U.S.’s First Amendment is eloquent: “The strength of the First Amendment is that it is simple, clear, absolute. It is truly exceptional when you compare it to equivalent rights in Europe, and that comes from the fact that it isn’t what people think it is. It doesn’t grant people rights that can be taken away. It bans lawmakers and the executive from interfering with speech and publishing. So what is unlawful is passing laws attempting to criminalize speech and the press.” She charged that some of the “most sinister” elements of the U.S. government “are abusing the broad wording of an existing piece of legislation, the 1917 Espionage Act, to re-purpose it so that it will do what the First Amendment forbids: interfere with freedom of speech and the press. The political case against Julian has created a noose around the First Amendment rights of everyone.”
Moreover, she continued, under Barack Obama, the Justice Department “normalized re-purposing the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers. But expanding it to apply to journalists and publishers is explicitly against what is in the spirit and the wording of the Constitution. Congress’s stated intent when it passed the Espionage Act was that it would not apply to the press. Julian’s case is the first time it has ever been used against a publisher.” (Emphasis added.)
