Is Assange’s Arrest a Threat to the Free Press?

He deserves his fate, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

Last November, federal prosecutors accidentally revealed, in an unrelated court document, that a sealed indictment had been filed against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Many people concerned with civil liberties, including some who despise Assange, were alarmed by the idea that he could be punished for his role in exposing American government secrets. “If Assange can be prosecuted merely for publishing leaked classified documents, every single media outlet is at risk of prosecution for doing the exact same thing,” the lawyer Bradley P. Moss wrote in The Atlantic.

At the time, the public didn’t know what the actual charges were. Now that Assange has been dragged from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he’s lived for almost seven years, and is facing extradition to the United States, we do. He’s been indicted for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, a result of his alleged attempts nearly a decade ago to help former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning crack a password to a government computer.

These charges do not pose quite the threat to a free press that some feared, because hacking is not standard journalistic practice. “The indictment does not charge Assange for the act of publishing, which would have been a serious Rubicon crossed,” Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s project on speech, privacy and technology, told me. But, as Wizner emphasizes, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be worried about what Donald Trump’s Justice Department is up to. Elements of the Assange indictment could still set a dangerous precedent.

More From The New York Times (subscription required):