Post 5

 Julian Assange is an Australian journalist, activist, and founder of the WikiLeaks news source which has come under fire for the publishing of classified documents which show the misuse and abuse of government power as well as a clear disregard for both domestic and international law. http://bitly.ws/9QAh 

WikiLeaks became the subject of international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan war logs, and Cablegate. 

  Later in 2018, Assange is implicated by Robert Mueller for allegedly assisting Russian operatives with hacking into the Democratic Party computer systems and disseminated classified information. The United States government unsealed an indictment against Assange, related to the leaks provided by Chelsea Manning. On 23 May 2019, the United States government further charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which was originally intended to prevent insubordination in the military as well as support for US enemies in times of wars. The UN's special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzner, has called for the release of Assange from prison as Assange is showing symptoms of psychological torture. Over sixty medical doctors have written to the UK Home Security Secretary corroborating these findings and calling for an end to the medical neglect of Julian Assange. There has also been substantial evidence that Assange has not been treated impartially as is REQUIRED through early legal proceedings. The Australian government has made no publicized action to stop this mistreatment of their citizens as well.

    The consequences of this are quite dire. If Julian Assange would be extradited to the US and charged this would mark the first time in our modern era that a publisher has been punished for their actions in the case of a whistleblowing incident. This would also set precedent that the US can charge any publication available in the US, whether based in the US or not, under US law if they were to be involved in a whistleblowing incident. This is a disgusting infringement on the level of United States law let alone the failures of the international community to stop this utter lunacy from continuing further.