Julian Assange: Journalism Is Not a Crime

The following is an edited transcript of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s address Oct. 1, 2024, to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE ) in Strasbourg, France. Included are his responses during the Q&A. Subheads have been added. The video is available on Rumble. 

We present this both as news, as this is first major remarks by this remarkable man since his release two months ago from years of political incarceration at the hands of the Global NATO establishment, and as a contribution to our ongoing campaign and fight against censorship and for freedom of speech.

Mr. Chairman, esteemed members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The transition from years of confinement in a maximum security prison to being here before the representatives of 46 nations and 700 million people is a profound and a surreal shift. The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey. It strips away one sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence.

I’m yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured—the relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally. Nor can I speak yet about the deaths by hanging, murder, and medical neglect of my fellow prisoners.

I apologize in advance if my words falter, or if my presentation lacks the polish you might expect from such a distinguished forum. Isolation has taken its toll, which I am trying to unwind. And expressing myself in this setting is a challenge. However, the gravity of this occasion and the weight of the issues at hand compel me to set aside my reservations and speak to you directly.

I have traveled a long way, literally and figuratively, to be before you today. Before our discussion or answering any questions you might have, I wish to thank PACE for its 2020 Resolution, which stated that my imprisonment set a dangerous precedent for journalists, and noted that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture called for my release. I’m also grateful for PACE’s 2021 statement, expressing concern over credible reports that U.S. officials discussed my assassination, again calling for my prompt release. And I commend the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee for commissioning a renowned rapporteur.

Soon I will start to investigate the circumstance surrounding my detention and conviction, and the consequent implications for human rights. However, like so many of the efforts made in my case, whether they were from parliamentarians, presidents, prime ministers, the Pope, U.N. officials and diplomats, unions, legal and medical professionals, academics, activists or citizens, none of them should have been necessary.

None of the statements, resolutions, reports, films, articles, events, fundraisers, protests, and letters over the last 14 years should have been necessary. But all of them were necessary because without them, I never would have seen the light of day. This unprecedented global effort was needed because of the legal protections that did exist, many existed only on paper and were not effective in any remotely reasonable time.

The Plea Deal

I eventually chose freedom over a realizable justice. After being detained for years and facing a 175-year sentence with no effective remedy, justice for me is now precluded, as the U.S. government insisted in writing into its plea agreement that I cannot file a case at the European Court of Human Rights or even a Freedom of Information Act request over what it did to me, as a result of its extradition request.

I want to be totally clear: I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to Journalism. I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was. I did not plead guilty to anything else.

I hope my testimony today can serve to highlight the weaknesses of the existing safeguards and to help those whose cases are less visible but who are equally vulnerable. As I emerge from the dungeon of [HM Prison] Belmarsh, the truth now seems less discernible, and I regret how much ground has been lost during that time period, how expressing the truth has been undermined, attacked, weakened, and diminished.

I see more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth, and more self-censorship. It is hard not to draw a line from the U.S. government’s prosecution of me. It’s crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism to the chill climate for freedom of expression that exists now.

WikiLeaks

When I founded WikiLeaks, I was driven by a simple dream: to educate people about how the world works, so that through understanding, we might bring about something better. Having a map of where we are lets us understand where we might go. Knowledge empowers us to hold power to account and to demand justice where there is none. We obtained and published truth about tens of thousands of hidden casualties of war and other unseen horrors—about programs of assassination, rendition, torture, and mass surveillance.

We revealed not just when and where these things happened, but frequently the policies, the agreements, and the structures behind them. When we published [in 2010] Collateral Murder, the infamous gotten camera [classified military] footage of a U.S. Apache helicopter crew eagerly blowing to pieces Iraqi journalists and their rescuers, the visual reality of modern warfare shocked the world. We also used interest in this video to direct people to the classified policies for when the U.S. military could deploy lethal force in Iraq.

How many civilians could be killed before gaining higher approval? In fact, 40 years of my potential 175 year sentence was for obtaining and releasing those policies.

The practical political vision I was left with after being immersed in the world’s dirty wars and secret operations, is simple: Let us stop gagging, torturing, and killing each other, for a change! Get these fundamentals right and other political, economic, and scientific processes will have space to take care of the rest.

WikiLeaks’ work was deeply rooted in the principles that this Assembly stands for. Our journalism elevated freedom of information and the public’s right to know. It found its natural operational home in Europe. I lived in Paris, and we had formal corporate registrations in France and in Iceland. A journalistic and technical staff was spread throughout Europe. We published to the world from servers based in France, in Germany, and in Norway.

Manning

But 14 years ago, the United States military arrested one of our lead whistleblowers, Private First Class [Bradley/Chelsea] Manning, a U.S. intelligence analyst based in Iraq. The U.S. government concurrently launched an investigation against me and my colleagues. The U.S. government illicitly sent planes of agents to Iceland, paid bribes to an informant to steal our legal and journalistic work product, and without formal process, pressured banks and financial services to block our subscriptions and to freeze our accounts.

The UK government took part in some of this retribution. It admitted at the European Court of Human Rights that it had unlawfully spied on my UK lawyers during this time.

Ultimately, this harassment was legally groundless. President [Barack] Obama’s Justice Department chose not to indict me, recognizing that no crime had been committed. The United States had never before prosecuted a publisher for publishing or obtaining government information. To do so would require a radical and ominous reinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution. In January 2017, Obama also commuted the sentence of Manning, who had been convicted of being one of my sources.

CIA Retribution

However, in February 2017, the landscape changed dramatically. President [Donald] Trump had been elected. He appointed two wolves in MAGA hats: Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman and former arms industry executive, as CIA Director; and William Barr, a former CIA officer, as Attorney General.

By March 2017, WikiLeaks had exposed the CIA’s infiltration of fringe political parties, its spying on French and German leaders, its spying on the European Central Bank, European economics ministries, and its standing orders to spy on French industry as a whole. We revealed the CIA’s vast production of malware and viruses, its subversion of supply chains, its subversion of antivirus software, cars, smart TVs, and iPhones.

CIA Director Pompeo launched a campaign of retribution. It is now a matter of public record that under Pompeo’s explicit direction, the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks, and the planting of false information. My wife and my infant son were also targeted.

A CIA asset was permanently assigned to track my wife, and instructions were given to obtain DNA from my six-month-old son’s nappy. This is the testimony of more than 30 current and former U.S. intelligence officials speaking to the U.S. press, which has been additionally corroborated by records seized in the prosecution brought against some of the CIA agents involved.

The CIA’s targeting of myself, my family, and my associates through aggressive, extrajudicial and extraterritorial means, provides a rare insight into how powerful intelligence organizations engage in transnational repression. Such repressions are not unique. What is unique is that we know so much about this one, due to numerous whistleblowers and to judicial investigations in Spain.

This Assembly is no stranger to extraterritorial abuses by the CIA PACE’s groundbreaking report on CIA renditions in Europe exposed how the CIA operated secret detention centers and conducted unlawful renditions on European soil, violating human rights and international law. In February this year, the alleged source of some of our CIA revelations, former CIA officer Joshua Schulte, was sentenced to 40 years in prison under conditions of extreme isolation. His windows are blacked out and a white noise machine plays 24 hours a day over his door so that he cannot even shout through it. These conditions are more severe than those found in Guantanamo Bay.

But transnational repression is also conducted by abusing legal processes. The lack of effective safeguards against this means that Europe is vulnerable to having its mutual legal assistance and extradition treaties hijacked by foreign powers to go after dissenting voices in Europe. In Michael Pompeo’s memoirs, which I read in my prison cell, the former CIA Director bragged about how he pressured the U.S. Attorney General to bring an extradition case against me in response to our publications about the CIA

Indeed, acceding to Pompeo’s requests, the U.S. Attorney General reopened the investigation against me that Obama had closed and re-arrested Manning, this time as a witness. Manning was held in a prison for over a year, fined $1,000 a day, in a formal attempt to coerce her into providing secret testimony against me. She ended up attempting to take her own life. We usually think of attempts to force journalists to testify against their sources. But Manning was now a source being forced to testify against the journalist.

By December 2017, CIA Director Pompeo had got his way, and the U.S. government issued a warrant to the UK for my extradition. The UK government kept the warrant secret from the public for two more years, while it, the U.S. government, and the new President of Ecuador [Lenin Moreno] moved to shape the political, the legal, and the diplomatic grounds for my arrest.

When powerful nations feel entitled to target individuals beyond their borders, those individuals do not stand a chance unless there are strong safeguards in place and a state willing to enforce them. Without this, no individual has a hope of defending themselves against the vast resources that a state aggressor can deploy.

If the situation were not already bad enough in my case, the U.S. government asserted a dangerous new global legal position: only U.S. citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights. But the U.S. claims its Espionage Act [of 1917] still applies to them, regardless of where they are. So Europeans in Europe must obey the U.S. secrecy law with no defenses at all, as far as the U.S. government is concerned. An American in Paris can talk about what the U.S. government is up to, perhaps. But for a Frenchman in Paris, to do so is a crime with no defense, and he may be extradited, just like me.

Criminalizing Journalism

Now that one foreign government has formally asserted that Europeans have no free speech rights, a dangerous precedent has been set. Other powerful states will inevitably follow suit. The war in Ukraine has already seen the criminalization of journalists in Russia. But based on the precedent set in my extradition, there is nothing to stop Russia or indeed any other state from targeting European journalists, publishers, or even social media users by claiming that their domestic secrecy laws have been violated.

The rights of journalists and publishers within the European space are seriously threatened. Transnational repression cannot become the norm here. As one of the world’s two great norms setting institutions, PACE must act.

The criminalization of news-gathering activities is a threat to investigative journalism everywhere. I was formally convicted by a foreign power for asking for, for receiving, and publishing truthful information about that power, while I was in Europe.

The fundamental issue is simple: journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime. It is a pillar of a free and informed society. [applause]

Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates,

If Europe is to have a future where the freedom to speak and the freedom to publish the truth are not privileges enjoyed by a few, but rights guaranteed to all, then it must act, so what has happened in my case never happens to anyone else.

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to this Assembly, to the conservatives, Social Democrats, liberals, leftists, Greens, and independents who have supported me throughout this ordeal and to the countless individuals who have advocated tirelessly for my release. Is heartening to know that in a world often divided by ideology and interests, there remains a shared commitment to the protection of essential human liberties.

Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroad. I fear that unless institutions like PACE wake up to the gravity of the situation, it will be too late. Let us all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never dims,  that the pursuit of truth will live on, and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of the few. [applause]

Q&A Session

Petra Bayr (Austria): How does it feel for you that neither the UK courts, nor the Court of Human Rights got any final decision in your case.

Second, I would like to know whether you have any suggestions—systematic, legally—how cases like yours could really be settled in a legal system that works correctly and properly.

Assange: After 14 years detained in the UK, including over five years in a maximum security prison, and facing a 175 year sentence, with the prospect of years more in prison before being able to have a shot at the European Court of Human Rights, I accepted a plea offer from the United States that would release me from prison immediately. The United States insisted that I not be allowed to take a case in relation to what had happened to me, in relation to its extradition proceedings. Nor that I could even file a Freedom of Information Act request on the U.S. government, to see what was done.

There will never be a hearing into what has happened. And that’s why it’s so important that PACE acts. The uncertainty within Europe as to the defenses that can be used by journalists here to protect themselves from transnational repression and extradition, if left in its current state, will inevitably be abused by other states. I’m saying that norm-setting institutions like PACE must move to make the situation clear that what happened to me cannot happen again.

PACE Must Act

Wanda Nowicka (Poland): Do you believe that our proceedings here in the Council of Europe. Hopefully, the report prepared by [name unclear] is going to be adopted at the plenary session, will reverse the negative impact that your case had on the position of whistleblowers and the right of expression globally, that really you hope for, in case the report is going to be accepted, and your visit here to Parliament will, in a way, have this positive aspect and will improve the situation with regard to the rights of journalists, and so on.

Also, I would like to know how you visualize your life, now, after your case. I am not asking very much about your private plans, but internal, what you think, what you are planning to do, basically. Thank you.

Assange: I am here because I believe it is an essential first step for PACE to act, to get the ball rolling, to address the problems of transnational repression and also to make it clear that national security journalism is possible within European borders. As for my re-adaptation to the big wide world, outside of house arrest, an embassy siege and maximum security prison, it sure takes some adjustment.

It’s not simply the spooky sound of electric cars that are very spooky. It’s also the change in the society. Where we once released important war crimes videos that stirred public debate, now, every day there are live-streamed horrors from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Hundreds of journalists have been killed in Gaza and Ukraine combined. The impunity seems to mount, and it is still uncertain what we can do about it.

My re-adaptation to the world, of course, includes some positive but still tricky things: becoming a father again to children who have grown up without me; becoming a husband again; even dealing with a mother-in-law. These are trying family issues. No, she’s a very lovely woman. I like her. I like her very much. [laughter, applause]

Political Asylum

Norbert Kleinwächter (Germany): Back to a sadder issue. How well, in your experience, does political asylum really work in today’s world?

Assange: Political asylum is an absolutely essential relief valve for human rights abuses within states. That people can leave a state that is persecuting them not only saves individual lives; it provides a mechanism where journalists can continue to report on their societies after they have been hounded out. Ultimately, the threat of people leaving a state is what in the final analysis controls its behavior.

We have seen examples in history of states that made it difficult or impossible for people to leave. And we can see how the situation for people living there collapsed. There must be a competition between states to be good places for people to live and to work.

The assault on asylum through means of transnational repression, is another matter. In my case, it was difficult to find a state that would give asylum, that I was able to get to. There is a big gap in the asylum system for people who are not fleeing their own state, but are fleeing an ally of that state, or any third state. That was my case. Asylum law does not easily cover the case where, say, an Australian is fleeing persecution by the United States.

Or we could imagine a Kazakhstani fleeing persecution by Russia or China. I was not able to apply for asylum within the UK Of course, the UK has its own particular political angle. It might have been difficult to convince the courts to give me, or in fact anyone, asylum in the UK in relation to the United States. But there wasn’t even a chance because citizens from third states, under the 1951 [Refugee] Convention, as it’s implemented in most European states, cannot apply for asylum.

Nationality Discrimination in Extradition Cases

Andrej Hunko (Germany): A question on the extra-juridical repression. This is one of the most shocking for me: that there is a law in the U.S. on freedom of speech, but it’s not for other citizens; but there are laws [in the U.S.] that can be applied to other citizens. What could we do, as Parliamentary Assembly, or as Council of Europe, of European states, to counter this?

Assange: In the final UK High Court [of Justice] case, which I won, and the U.S. appealed against, I won on the basis of nationality discrimination. That is, in the UK Extradition Act [of 2003], you’re not meant [allowed] to discriminate at trial or during a penalty phase, against someone on the basis of their nationality.

The U.S. tried different tricks to get around that in the UK system, and it was uncertain whether I or the United States would ultimately prevail. However, there is nothing in the European [Union’s] Charter [of Fundamental Rights] that prevents nationality discrimination in relation to extradition. So this is a small protection. It was hard to use within the UK Extradition Act. It’s not clear that it exists in most European states.

The Espionage Act

Anna-Kristiina Mikkonen (Finland): Basic work on transnational repression where states go after someone in another state. In your case there are very troubling allegations about CIA monitoring, even considering assassination. Can you comment more on those?

And, how do you see your status, your value, as political prisoner?

Assange: The first part of your question is about the CIA, the second part was about, do I see myself as a political prisoner? Answering the first one first: Yes. I was a political prisoner. The political basis for the U.S. government’s retributive acts against me was in relation to publishing the truth about what the U.S. government had done, in a formal legal sense. Once the U.S. proceeded with its legal retribution, it used the Espionage Act—a classic, political offense, in relation to the CIA’s campaign of transnational repression against WikiLeaks.

We felt that something was going on at the time. There were many small signs that came together. Having an ominous feeling and some subtle input tips from a whistleblower in one of the security contractors that the CIA had contracted, didn’t give me the full and disturbing picture, which later emerged.

Here is an interesting example where an intelligence organization has targeted and investigated another organization, WikiLeaks. As a result of our investigations, a criminal case in Spain, and in particular work done by U.S. journalists, which under the precedent that has been established in my case, [those investigators] might well now be themselves criminal.

Detailed information about actions taken by the CIA came out. Those details involved the testimony of more than 30 current or former U.S. intelligence officials. There were two resulting processes: a criminal case in Spain with a number of victims, including my wife, my son, people who came to visit me at the embassy, lawyers, journalists; and a civil suit against the CIA in the United States.

In the United States, in response to that civil suit, the CIA has formally declared, through the CIA Director and the Attorney General, declared state secrets privilege to knock out the case. The claim is that the CIA may have a defense, but that defense is classified, and so the civil case cannot go forward. So it’s complete impunity, within the U.S. system.

Mistakes

Ivan Račan (Croatia): Mr. Assange, if you could go back in time, would you do everything the same? And if not, what would you do differently? I’m not asking just in terms of the personal cost that you suffered, but also in terms of the effectiveness or impact of what you tried to do.

Assange: This is a very deep question about free will. Why do people do things when they do them? Looking back, we were often constrained by our resources, the number of staff, by secrecy that was necessary to protect our sources. If I could go back and have a lot of extra resources, of course, political approaches, media approaches could have maximized even further the impact, the revelations that we made. But I suppose your question is trying to say, were there any knobs that could be turned in hindsight. Of course. Thousands of small things.

I was not from the United Kingdom. I had a good friend in the United Kingdom, Gavin McFadzean, who’s an American journalist. A very good man. Once I was trapped in the United Kingdom, it took me time to understand what UK society was about, who you could trust, who you couldn’t trust. Different types of maneuvers that are made in that society. And there are different media partners that perhaps we could have chosen differently. [applause]

Sir Christopher Chope (Portugal): You were the subject of a European Arrest Warrant issued by Sweden. To what extent do you think the European Arrest Warrants are being used as tools of repression? And, to what extent do you think the rules could be changed so that they can no longer be used for that purpose?

Assange: The European Arrest Warrant system was introduced post-September 11, [2001] with the political rationale that it would be used for the fast transfer of Muslim terrorists between European states. The first European Arrest Warrant was issued by Sweden for a drunk driver. We must understand that when we pick a disfavored group—Muslims, at that time—and say, “well, this repressive legislation, it’s only going to be for them,” inevitably, bureaucrats, elements of the security state will seize upon those measures and apply them more broadly.

Injustice to one person spreads soon enough to most people.

I don’t know the statistics on how often European Arrest Warrants were abused. There was an attempt to extradite me, without any charge, from the United Kingdom, by Sweden. The UK government subsequently changed the law to prevent extradition without charge. But in its amendment to the existing legislation, it included a rider to make sure that it didn’t apply to me.

First Amendment & Article 10

Yves Cruchten (Luxembourg): Thank you Mr. Assange for your answers to many of our questions. I am, like many of my colleagues, happy to see you here, knowing you are out of prison. You were imprisoned for doing your job—a job that we all here expect you to do, namely, being a journalist, you investigate and then publish your findings. It is shocking to me and to many of us to see how long the arm of U.S. Justice is that can get a grip on you, even here in Europe.

Of course this raises questions that we will address tomorrow, in Mrs.  Eberstatious's excellent report.

Can I ask you a personal question? Were you aware, before all this, of how little your basic rights, as a citizen but also as a journalist, were protected in Europe? And, what do you think will be the effect on journalism as a whole, from you case?

Assange: We performed a legal analysis to understand what the abilities and limitations were within Europe for publishing documents from a number of different countries, including United States.

We understood that, in theory, Article 10 [Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion] [of the European Convention on Human Rights], should protect journalists in Europe. Similarly, looking at the U.S. First Amendment to its Constitution, no publisher had ever been prosecuted for publishing classified information from the United States, either domestically or internationally.

I expected some kind of harassment legal process. I was prepared to fight that. I believed the value of these publications was such, it was okay to have that fight and that we would prevail because we had understood what was legally possible. My naivete was believing in the law.

When push comes to shove, laws are just pieces of paper, and they can be reinterpreted for political expediency. They are the rules made by the ruling class, more broadly. And if those rules don’t suit what it wants to do, it reinterprets them or, hopefully, changes them, which is clearer. In the case of the United States, we angered one of the constituent powers of the United States: the intelligence sector—the security state, the secrecy state.

It was powerful enough to push for a reinterpretation: The U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment to that Constitution seems pretty black and white to me. It’s very short. It says, “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” However, the U.S. Constitution has precedents relating to it. They were just reinterpreted away.

Yes, perhaps, ultimately if I had gotten to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I was still alive in that system, I might have won, depending on the makeup of the Court. But in the meantime, I had lost 14 years, in the house arrest, the embassy siege, and the maximum security prison.

This is an important lesson: when a major power faction wants to reinterpret the law, it can push to have the element of the state—in this case, the U.S. Department of Justice—do that. And it doesn’t care too much about what is legal. That’s something for a much later day. In the meantime, the deterrent effect that it seeks, the retributive actions that it seeks, have had their effect.

Edward Leigh (UK): Obviously, there’s a very considerable sympathy for your plight in this room. I’d like to ask you about the position of the UK government about the allegation that you were effectively a political prisoner. Presumably, your first difficulty with the European Arrest Warrant was not on political grounds with Sweden. I’d like to get your comment on quality of treatment under the extradition treaties in the UK and the U.S., whether the UK is bound by them, and whether we have the usual freedom of maneuver.

I’d like to ask about your treatment at Belmarsh prison. There is an allegation of torture, which is very serious. Nobody denies that Belmarsh is an extremely unpleasant place, but I’d like to know a little bit more about the evidence behind that.

Assange: The U.S.-UK Extradition Treaty [of 2003] is one sided. Nine times more people are extradited to the United States from the UK than the other way around. The protections for U.S. citizens being extradited to the UK are stronger.

There is no need to show a prima facie case or reasonable suspicion, even. When the United States seeks to extradite from the UK, it’s an allegation extradition system. The allegation is alleged. You do not even have a chance to argue that is not true. All the arguments are based simply upon: Is it the right person? Does it breach human rights? That’s it!

That said, I do not think in any way that UK judges are compelled to extradite most people, particularly journalists, to the United States. Some judges in the UK found in my favor at different stages in that process. Other judges did not.

But all judges, whether they were finding in my favor or not in the United Kingdom, showed extraordinary deference to the United States, engaged in astonishing intellectual backflips, to allow the United States to have its way on my extradition, and in relation to setting precedents that occurred in my case, more broadly.

To my mind, that’s a function of the selection of UK judges—the narrow section of British society from which they come, their deep engagement with the UK Establishment, and the UK Establishment’s deep engagement with the United States—whether that’s in the intelligence sector, BAE, which is now the largest, largest manufacturer in the United Kingdom—a weapons company; BP, Shell; and some of the major banks.

The United Kingdom’s Establishment is made up out of people who have benefited from that system for a long period of time. And almost all judges are from it. They don’t need to be told explicitly what to do; they understand what is good for that cohort, and what is good for that cohort is keeping a good relationship with the United States government.

Lawfare

Constantinos Efstathiou (Cyprus)): I feel that one of the major lessons learned from your experience and treatment you have received, is that the misuse or manipulation of a legal process,  the arbitrary application of a legislation, may function as an arbiter of repression, as  solicitation to silence. May I have your comments on this?

Assange: Lawfare is the use of the law to achieve ends that would normally be achieved in some other form of conflict. We’re not talking about simply litigating to protect your rights, but rather, picking laws to get your man or to get the organization you want to get—not justice seeking its resolution in law. We’ve seen a lot of cases like that and obviously experienced this ourselves in many different domains.

I’m not sure, precisely, what can be done about it. There is an anti-SLAPP movement in Europe, which I commend. SLAPP is Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. There is good legislation in California to deal with SLAPP suits, to reverse liabilities at an early stage, and to make abusive lawsuits more expensive to conduct.

But I think we should understand a bigger picture, which is that whenever we make a law, we create a tool that self-interested bureaucrats, companies, and the worst elements of the security state will use and will expand the interpretation, in order to achieve control over others. And that’s why law reforms are constantly needed, because laws are abused and expanded. And so it needs constant vigilance, but also great care in making laws in the first place, because they will be seized upon and abused.

Support Received

Mladen Bosić (Bosnia & Herzegovina): Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: Your appearance here is very important for the case you are symbolizing, but it is also very important for the Council of Europe, to show itself as the independent institution—an institution that promotes human rights and rules and those it represents.

How do you assess support got from the newspapers, journals, general associations? What’s the message about freedom of press, in your case?

Assange: The support from other publications, journalists, unions, freedom of expression organizations, was different at different stages. Those who saw the threats to everyone else and understood the case first, were the lawyers involved in major publications like lawyers for The New York Times. Freedom of expression NGOs were the next to see the threat. Of the larger media organizations, unfortunately, many of them went with their political or geopolitical alignment.

So it was easy to gain support from media organizations in neutral states, and obviously states hostile to the United States. Allies of the United States took longer. Media organizations within the United States, the journalists there, not the lawyers, but the journalists, took longer still.

It is a concern. I can see a similar phenomenon happening with the journalists being killed in Gaza and in Ukraine. The political and geopolitical alignment of media organizations causes them to not cover those victims, or cover only certain victims. This is a breach of journalistic solidarity. We all need to stick together to hold the line. A journalist censored anywhere spreads censorship which can then affect us all. Similarly, journalists being killed or targeted by intelligence agencies need our firm commitment in writing or in broadcast. Sometimes there’s a debate about whether someone is a journalist or an activist. I understand that debate. I’ve tried in my work to be rigorously accurate. I believe accuracy is everything. Primary sources are everything.

But there is one area where I am an activist, and all journalists must be activists. Journalists must be activists for the truth. [applause] Journalists must be activists for the ability to convey the truth. And that means standing up for each other and making no apologies about it.

Technology

Andi-Lucian Cristea (Romania): How do you see the new technologies connected to what you have presented so far?

Assange: I’m very interested in technology. I was a computer scientist from a young age and studied mathematics and physics, cryptography. It’s with that cryptography that we set about protecting our system, to protect sources and to protect our own organization.

I am enthused about some of the developments that are happening with cryptography. Some of those developments provide alternatives to what we see as huge media power and concentration in the hands of a few billionaires. They are still embryonic. Other technologies emerged out of the campaign against mass surveillance. The “Big Bang” was the [Edward] Snowden revelations that radicalized engineers and programmers in many places, who saw themselves as agents of history, including algorithms to protect people’s privacy, including the communications between journalists and their sources.

On the other hand, as I emerge from prison, I see that artificial intelligence is being used to create mass assassinations. Where before there was a difference between assassination and warfare, now the two are conjoined, where many, perhaps the majority of targets in Gaza, are bombed as a result of artificial intelligence targeting. The connection between artificial intelligence and surveillance is important. Artificial intelligence needs information to come up with targets or ideas or propaganda. And when we’re talking about the use of artificial intelligence to conduct mass assassinations, surveillance data from telephones and the internet is key to training those algorithms.

A lot has changed; some things have remained the same. There’s a lot of opportunity, and a lot of risk. I’m still trying to understand where we are, but hopefully we’ll have something more useful to say in due course.

I’m sorry, I’m getting a bit tired. Kristinn, can you take the question about advising journalists on dealing with this current situation, and the role of parliamentarians.

Kristinn Hrafnsson (Iceland): What can be done, when we have horrible stories about targeted killings, where we now have evidence of the reality of that in the current wars. Reporting on wars is more severe than ever before. It was bad in Iraq. Now it is even worse. It is a horror story. It is hard to give out advice for these journalists—how they can deal with that situation. The only thing we can call out, at least, is for an outcry and condemnation that this should be going on because we need information, we need this information.

There are no tools to secure individuals in Gaza that are being followed by drones and are being targeted in mass bombing. There is little defense from that. But the outcry and the condemnation should be there. We should not be silent when this happens.

Final Remarks

Assange: Just a few final words. In 2010, I was living in Paris, and I went to the United Kingdom and never came back, until now. It’s good to be back, and it’s good to be amongst people who, as we say in Australia, give a damn. It’s good to be amongst friends.

I would just like to thank all the people who have fought for my liberation, and who have understood, importantly, that my liberation was coupled to their own liberation. The basic fundamental liberties which sustain us all have to be fought for. When one of us falls through the cracks, soon enough those cracks will widen and take the rest of us down.

So thank you for your thought, your courage in this and other settings. Keep up the fight! [standing applause]