Five years in a British prison and Julian Assange is finally a free man. 

Pity he had to plead guilty to espionage in an American court to win his freedom, though. The only crime he committed was doing actual journalism. 

You know, the kind of work newspapers once did.

Did the founder of WikiLeaks compromise national security with the documents he released that dealt mainly with American activities in the Middle East and Afghanistan in 2010? I don’t believe so. If he did, the real problem was the leaker not the publisher. The leaker was Bradley - now Chelsea - Manning, an Army intelligence officer who stole about 750,000 classified documents. 

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison and spent seven in Leavenworth before his sentence was commuted by President Obama in his final days in office.

Meanwhile, Assange was a fugitive. Staying in the Ecuadorian embassey in London for seven years until he was finally jailed by the Brits.

WikiLeaks was a treasure trove of information. That news organization got its hands on 20,000 DNC emails that revealed collusion at the top levels of the Democrat Party to derail Bernie Sanders’ bid for the presidency. Made for some very interesting reading.

In reaction to that leak the FBI fell back on its favorite trope, that this was the result of Russian hacking. Assange denied that WikiLeaks was helped by Russia, insisting instead that the DNC’s computer security was full of holes.

In court yesterday Assange said this: “I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all the circumstances.”

The harsh treatment of Assange for doing what news outlets are supposed to do - tell the truth and hold the powerful accountable - is alarming and a threat to the freedom of the press. The legacy media only tiptoes into this arena when doing so supports the status quo or when a leak will damage a conservative.

Remember when the press had its hair on fire over a leak from the Supreme Court about the coming decision on Roe v Wade? How about the time the legacy media gleefully published parts of Donald Trump’s income taxes, without his permission? Were those leakers hunted down and shamed?

In a piece in The Federalist headlined “If Julian Assange Is A Criminal, So Is The Entire Corporate Press,” John Daniel Davidson makes a similar point:

Put simply, what Assange did is no different than what The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and many other corporate media outlets do every day: they publish and report on classified material that was stolen or obtained illegally by sources.

The main difference between Assange and these outlets is that Assange did what he did in order to hold power to account, whereas the corporate press does it in service of power — at least when a Democratic administration is in the White House.

Addressing the media outside the court, Assange’s lawyer said this:

“Mr Assange, I have no doubt, will be a continuing force for freedom of speech and transparency in government. He is a voice that cannot be silenced.”

Good.