Assange deserves the same rights as anyone else

Putting his self-obsession and narcissism to the side, Julian Assange should not be hounded for aiding the publication of something a government wanted kept secret as a matter of course, writes Dennis Atkins.

Julian Assange looked a bit like Saddam Hussein when he was hauled out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London late this week.

Sporting an unkempt beard, gaunt and clearly unhappy, the self-styled Australian whistleblower knew a terrible fate might await him.

When, in December 2003, the former Iraqi dictator was found in a hole near Tikrit, north of Baghdad, he also had a ghastly beard, looked terrified and was unmistakably out of sorts.

Hussein went on to die at the hand of a hangman (he’d requested death by firing squad but wasn’t even granted this wish) while Assange could serve long jail time in a federal prison in Virginia near the US capital if convicted.

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Assange, a Queenslander by birth, computer programmer by training and a journalist by presumption, parlayed himself into the news through a series of boy’s own adventures as the head of Wikileaks, a “data dump service” which would literally publish and be damned.

He cared nought for consequences, revealing names of intelligence officials working for western democracies and secret communications of governments.

After years living within the Ecuadorean embassy, Julian Assange has been removed. Picture: David Levenson/Getty

Opinion was divided on his actions. A squad of naysayers said he was a threat to life and the security of some of the most closely guarded secrets of sovereign states.

Other, starry-eyed “freedom fighters” championed his carefree releases of information.

In his boldest move, Assange worked with American military dissident — and genuine whistleblower — Chelsea Manning and let loose a trove of material from a US intelligence consultancy, Strategic Forecasting.

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This was arguably the greatest security leak in US history, eclipsing the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and CIA turncoat Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency dump in 2013.

Assange was placed on a “most wanted” list by US authorities, who moved on him after he was charged with sexual assault of two women in Sweden in 2010. These charges were later discontinued but he still faced a charge of breaching bail.

This brush with the law fed Assange’s paranoia and narcissism. He imagined himself to be the most dangerous man in the world, fearing he’d be rounded up and face deadly justice.

It was true the US had empanelled a Grand Jury but there was never any suggestion the Americans were chasing a death penalty for a young man most memorable to many because of poor personal hygiene.

Fearing arrest and eyeing global martyrdom, Assange found refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London in 2012 thanks to the state’s foreign minister at the time, Rafael Correa.

Assange became a cause célèbre for left wing groups and celebrities, occasionally venturing onto the balcony of the embassy and making Papal-like pronouncements.

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His supporters were many and varied including people like Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, conspiracy theorist filmmaker Oliver Stone and American polemicist Noam Chomsky. Another fawning visitor was one-time populist Brazilian president “Lula” da Silva, now in jail for corruption and money-laundering.

Assange might have divided global opinion but he was showered with awards — the Sydney Peace Prize, the UK’s Amnesty International Media Award and a leading US journalism award named in honour of war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.

A major controversy arose in 2011 when Australia’s premier journalism trust, the Walkley Foundation, gave Assange an award for an outstanding contribution to journalism.

Assange is a polarising figure, but he deserves the same privileges as other people. Picture: Stefan Wermuth/Pool

Many journalists questioned whether Assange qualified as a member of their trade, arguing he was simply the source of news material — much of which was just dumped, not edited, curated and published.

Now Assange faces an extradition hearing at which the US Government will ask he be sent to America and face a charge of conspiracy to hack into a computer system — the deed actually undertaken by the whistleblower Manning.

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Putting Assange’s self-obsession and narcissism to one side, he should not simply be hounded for aiding the publication of something a government wanted kept secret as a matter of course.

When Daniel Ellsberg stole documents from his employer in 1971 and gave them to The New York Times and The Washington Post, his action was protected by the US First Amendment, covering freedom of speech.

Assange might be a nasty piece of work. He was even accused of siding with Russia in 2016 to disrupt and skew the US presidential election. But he shouldn’t be prosecuted for just exposing US secrets. He faces no charges on the Russian meddling matters.

There is a murky, grey area between journalistic expose and dirty deeds in cyberspace but we shouldn’t give any government — whether it’s the current Republican administration or a future Democratic one — the right to prosecute people because they don’t like what they do.

Dennis Atkins is The Courier-Mail’s national affairs editor.

@dwabriz