As we await a British high court ruling on the fate of Julian Assange — still being degraded by existence in London’s Belmarsh Prison — I can’t help but reflect on my personal experience of the Espionage Act (EA). The EA is an absurd statute, supposedly designed to prosecute seditious acts against the good ol’ U.S. empire. In reality, it’s a truncheon held over and threatening to smash the heads of anyone whose opinion about the U.S. government’s or a politician’s activities disagrees with the status quo.
For the first four years I was employed by U.S. National Labs, I naively toiled as a science writer, trying to elucidate complex research — from molecular biology to nanotechnology — for the science-dullard D.C. bureaucrats in the Department of Energy and elsewhere. (Meritocracy, my tuchis!) Afterward, I was compelled to edit classified documents within the confines of a “vault-type room.” Imagine a fluorescent-illuminated cold, spartan room containing 5 or 6 well-separated digital workstations, computer terminals without hard drives, upon which one could access and edit classified docs directly from the so-called red network.. The only other “furniture” in the room was a bank of giant filing cabinets, each of whose drawers sported its own combination lock, with each classified editor assigned their own drawer. Inside, printed versions of classified docs.
Now imagine entering this cold, cheerless space for the first time and being greeted by a diversity of carefully printed posters on the walls exhibiting photos and brief histories of U.S. Citizens prosecuted and jailed for violations of the Espionage Act. Like my own initial reaction, I anticipate that yours might be a sudden spike of anxiety, a fear reflecting exactly the reason for the existence of these posters: if I screw up, they might prosecute me under the terms of this insane act. Just like these poor fools in jail.
And now, within the persecution of Julian Assange, this fear-provocation bullshit has been carried to its logical extreme. The EA exists to strike fear in the hearts of anyone faced with the reality of secret information. Had I walked out of that vault with a secret doc, I was toast. The message is clear: just shut TF up — regardless of any other factors. But unlike me who had security-clearance access to these docs and could’ve done so, Assange had no such access, and there is no demonstrable evidence of his having hacked a red network. Instead it was Chelsea Manning who had that access, and it was she who funneled docs to Assange. And Chelsea paid with 7 yrs. of her life. Yet Assange, an Australian , not a U.S. citizen, has been persecuted for acts of publishing that one can easily perceive are not violations of the EA, particularly by a non-citizen who didn’t publish in the U.S. Doesn’t matter, obviously, because the EA’s message is clear: no matter what, just STFU.
Rule of Law? Afraid not. Rule of Fear. Rule of repression. Suppress any bit of information that reflects badly on the power- and greed-hungry oligarchs who run U.S. society. In Assange’s case, his offenses were revelations about a corrupt H. Clinton and a corrupt Democratic Party. And the message, as always, is “just STFU, else we’ll ruin your life.” The U.S. espionage Act: one of the greatest bullshit stories ever told.