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Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

There's very little mention of this in the news. This is the most important fight for Press Freedom in our time. If we allow this precedent to be set, then nobody will be able to report on the security state at all. We cannot allow the so-called "espionage laws" erode democracy.

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> This is the most important fight for Press Freedom in our time.

I beg to differ. Journalists are assassinated regularly for their work. More often than not this happens as the result of investigations into corruption. I wouldn't put Assange's work over what those people are doing.

Assassination is already illegal, there is no legal precedent to fight on that front. On the other hand, letting Julian Assange be judged as guilty here sets further legal precedent that it is illegal to published leaked classified information.

> There's very little mention of this in the news.

Associated Press, NPR, CBS, Yahoo News, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Independent, Reuters UK, France24, Sydney Morning Herald and SKY News all covered this.

For all of 15 seconds?

When you can even find an article about Assange from these mainstream rags, buried under pages of coivd/climate/race-baiting "news", it is invariably in support of his continued incarceration and punishment.

Please provide links and direct quotes for evidence that the news organizations I linked to published news with a bias "in support of his continued incarceration and punishment."

The guy you replied to seems to be correct.

It was pretty easy for me to go to most of those websites that the user linked to, and find the Assange headline with very little scrolling, often only the fifth or sixth article down - not "buried under pages", but still a part of equally important news from around the world. Where I couldn't find it a couple of times on the front pages, it was at or towards the top of the "Tech" section, and then only superceded by FB's Meta announcement.

I just checked CBS News, Yahoo News, Washington Post and the Guardian.

None of them have this mentioned on their front pages. So, maybe they had a 20-second bit about it at some point, to claim that they covered it, but - they're suppressing this story.

What do you even mean with "if we allow this precedent to be set"? The precedent has long been set. This man's life is completely ruined, and so is his health. They hunted and imprisoned him for a decade, based on complete bogus claims and fabrications. The rape case that is now dropped. The espionage case with a crooked lying key witness. The ship has already sailed, the evil won this time, no matter what the court decides. They will make up bogus charges until he shuffles off this mortal coil.

I assume the reason for this is that many journalists out there don't consider Assange as a journalist and therefore the whole thing no fight for "Press Freedom".

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