TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Dianne Feinstein thinks Assange should be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act:

The law Mr. Assange continues to violate is the Espionage Act of 1917. That law makes it a felony for an unauthorized person to possess or transmit “information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”

The Espionage Act also makes it a felony to fail to return such materials to the U.S. government. Importantly, the courts have held that “information relating to the national defense” applies to both classified and unclassified material. Each violation is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

That’s a terribly dangerous road to go down. Feinstein characterizes Assange as an agitator whose intent is to damage the government, rather than a journalist, but his actions are not substantively much different than a whistleblower’s would be (or someone who publishes what a whistleblower leaks). If Assange is successfully prosecuted for his actions, why wouldn’t someone leaking documents showing, say, that the government is censoring some group, or doing something else equally noxious? For that matter, why wouldn’t the New York Times be prosecuted for publishing the documents Assange provided them?

Feinstein’s description of Assange is apt, but prosecuting him for espionage creates much larger problems for our democracy than what he’s done.