There are lots of reasons to be concerned–very concerned–about the impact of the U.S. government’s latest charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Here are a few analyses of the situation. Feel free to add links to others that you have found useful.

Lawfare Blog, “The U.S. Media Is in the Crosshairs of the New Assange Indictment,” by Jack Goldsmith.

The first sentence of the indictment reads:

To obtain information to release on the WikiLeaks website, ASSANGE encouraged sources to (i) circumvent legal safeguards on information; (ii) provide that protected information to WikiLeaks for public dissemination; and (iii) continue the pattern of illegally procuring and providing protected information to WikiLeaks for distribution to the public.

This is exactly what national security reporters and their news publications often ask government officials or contractors to do. Anytime a reporter asks to receive information knowing it is classified, that person encourages sources to circumvent legal safeguards on information. The news organizations’ encouragement is underscored by the mechanisms they provide for sources to convey information securely and anonymously. (The New York Times’s menu includes SecureDrop, an “encrypted submission system set up by The Times [that] uses the Tor anonymity software to protect [the] identity, location and the information” of the person who sends it.) Like WikiLeaks, these reporters and organizations encourage the sources to provide the “protected information” for public dissemination. And also like WikiLeaks, they often encourage the sources to engage in a “pattern of illegally procuring and providing protected information.”

Reason.com, “Theory of Revised Julian Assange Indictment Could Apply to Ordinary Reporters,” by Eugene Volokh.

…reporters do routinely publish information that they know was illegally leaked by someone. In Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001), the Court made clear that third parties are generally free to publish material that they know was illegally gathered (there, by an illegal interception of a cell phone call), at least so long as the publishers weren’t themselves involved in the illegal gathering (and so long as the speech is on matters of public concern). That would presumably apply to other kinds of improperly gathered or leaked information as well.

But the government’s theory appears to be that this doesn’t apply to illegal leaks of national defense information.

Columbia Journalism Review, “Espionage charges against Assange are a ‘terrifying’ threat to press freedom,” by Jon Allsop.

The government should not get to decide who is and isn’t a journalist. And drawing a distinction is beside the point. “The question isn’t whether Assange is a journalist, but whether the government’s legal theory threatens freedom of the press,” Carrie DeCell, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, wrote on Twitter. “It does. The government argues that Assange violated the Espionage Act by soliciting, obtaining, and then publishing classified information. That’s exactly what good national security and investigative journalists do every day.” The solicitation charges are based on open calls for information that WikiLeaks posted on its website, a practice common to many news organizations. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said that the charges pose “a dire threat”; the Freedom of the Press Foundation called them “terrifying.” Ted Boutros, a prominent media lawyer, said that the US government wants to use Assange’s bad name to cover for a dangerous precedent. “There’s a real element of picking the weakest of the herd, or the most unpopular figure, to try to blunt the outcry,” Boutros told The New York Times.

BBC.com, “Viewpoint: What Assange charges could mean for press freedom,” by Jonathan Turley.

If successful, the justice department would have not only the ability to prosecute but to investigate a wide array of journalists. This danger is made all the more acute in an administration headed by a president who routinely calls the press “the enemy of the people”.

However, the danger did not begin with President Trump. The Obama administration used this law to conduct surveillance on mainstream journalists, including a well-regarded Fox News reporter.

The Obama administration reportedly rejected the option of a criminal charge against Assange under the Espionage Act, in recognition of the danger to press freedom. Mr Trump and Attorney General William Barr have now crossed that Rubicon.

The Hill, “Julian Assange indictment endangers press freedom,” by Alan Dershowitz.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other mainstream media have published stolen classified information without having been indicted. Wikileaks is not mainstream — but the First Amendment draws no distinction between the nature of the medium, when it comes to publishing. If Assange were to be successfully prosecuted and his conviction affirmed on appeal, that precedent would lie around like a loaded gun ready to be aimed at any newspaper or TV station that published stolen classified material. In an age when political leaders of both parties are weaponizing the criminal laws for partisan advantage, this would be an especially dangerous precedent, allowing selective prosecution of media enemies.