Julian Assange Source: Herald Sun
Assange, in an interview with the MSNBC TV network, said there had been a "quite deliberate attempt to split off our organisation from the First Amendment protections that are afforded to all publishers".
The Australian-born WikiLeaks founder said he considered himself a journalist and "we all have to stick together to resist this sort of reinterpretation of the First Amendment", which guarantees the right to free speech.
"We have seen these statements, that The New York Times is, you know, also being looked at in terms of whether they have engaged in what they call 'conspiracy to commit espionage'," he said.
"If they want to push the line that when a newspaperman talks to someone in the government about looking for things relating to potential abuses, that that is a conspiracy to commit espionage, then that's going to take out all the good government journalism that occurs in the United States."
Assange added that if the "Washington authorities target us and destroy us", other journalists should be worried because "they're going to be next."
Assange rejected US Vice President Joe Biden's description of him as a "high-tech terrorist" and condemned calls for his assassination.
"The definition of terrorism is a group that uses violence or the threat of violence for political ends," he said.
"Now, no one in our four-year publishing history, covering over 120 countries, has ever been physically harmed as a result of what we have done.
"Whoever the terrorists are here, it's not us," Assange said.
"But we see constant threats from people ... calling for my assassination, calling for the illegal kidnapping of my staff.
"What sort of message does that send about the rule of law in the United States?
"I mean, if we are to have a civil society, you cannot have senior people making calls on national TV to go around the judiciary and illegally murder people -- that is incitement to commit murder."
Assange also described Bradley Manning, the US army soldier suspected of providing WikiLeaks with secret US military and diplomatic documents, as a "political prisoner".
"He has been a political prisoner without trial in the United States for some six or seven months," Assange said, adding that he did not know if the material he received was from Manning since it was submitted anonymously.
"We recently heard calls to try and set up a plea deal with Bradley Manning to testify against me, personally, to say that we engaged in some kind of conspiracy to commit espionage," he said, dismissing the charge as "absolute nonsense".
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas Julian Assange.
On Christmas day, you will receive a boarding pass, a complimentary free ticket
and handcuffs for your flight to Sweden where you will be charged and most
probably, on your own admissions, convicted and jailed to be deported in shame
back to the Gold Coast.
Enjoy the snow and ice and your high society friends who will soon desert en
masse when they discover your true character of forcing women to have
unprotected sex while you have at least some nasty STD's not to mention a high
risk of being a carrier of HIV.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com