John J Mearsheimer On behalf of Julian Assange

1)
I am John Mimer, and I teach at the University of Chicago. My area of expertise is international relations. I want to say a few words today about the case of Julian Assange.

The British High Court will soon decide whether to extradite Assange to the United States, where the American government has indicted him and will stand trial. I am asking the court not to extradite him but to release him. I believe this is a straightforward case. Let me explain, first of all, what the issue is about.

2)
The case involves a large number of classified documents that Chelsea Manning, who was a government employee, leaked to Julian Assange, a journalist who ran Wikileaks. This famous website publishes classified and private papers that should not see the light of day.

Manning was caught and punished because she was a government employee, and she broke the law by leaking material that was classified to Assange, but Assange is a journalist; he did not break the law because it is common for journalists to publish.

3)
Classified information given to them by government insiders. If journalists in the United States were sent to jail for publishing classified material, the prisons would be filled with many of America's most famous reporters from newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

But of course, that hardly ever happens if newspapers publish classified material and hardly ever go to jail. Why is that the case? What is the reason for this situation?

4)
Governments of all kinds, including liberal democracies like the United States and the United Kingdom, sometimes go to great lengths to hide their actions or policies from public view, making it almost impossible for the public to evaluate and criticise their behaviour given those governments.

Sometimes, they act foolishly, even recklessly. This is not a good situation, so over time, in the United States, there has developed a rich tradition of insiders leaking information about secret policies to journalists, who then publish the data so that the public can evaluate it and push back.

5)
The most famous case that illustrates this phenomenon is the famous Pentagon Papers, which were a multi-volume study of the American decision to go to war in Vietnam in 1964-65 and then escalate in the following years. Daniel Ellsberg, an insider with access to classified material, leaked the papers in 1971 to the New York Times, which then published them.

6)
In telling the American people about US policy in Vietnam, by most accounts at the time and indeed since, both Ellsberg and the New York Times performed an essential public service, exposing a bankrupt policy underpinning a war the US could not win.

Ellsberg did not go to jail despite leaking classified information, although it seemed that he might go to jail; nobody at the New York Times went to prison because journalists don't go to jail for publishing classified information.

7)
In the United States, it is essential to remember that Julian Assange is not the equivalent of Ellsberg because he was not an insider who leaked the information. Chelsea Man Anning was the insider. Assange was the equivalent of the New York Times, so he should not be deported to be tried in the United States.

Unsurprisingly, government leaders do not like leaks unless they are the leaker, which they often are, so they are inclined to punish those who leak and even try to do so.

8)
It's fair game for governments to go after leakers, but it's not acceptable for governments to go after journalists; indeed, to do so would directly undermine the freedom of the press, which is essential for monitoring governments and holding them to account when they pursue misguided policies.

One of the main reasons that the US government is so determined to put Assange behind bars is because he has exposed US policy abuses.

9)
I think that's all for the excellent and essential to making a liberal democracy like the United States work as efficiently and as wisely as possible. Two final points: first, it's important to emphasise that no one has been harmed because of the documents that Assange has published, no one's life has been put in danger because of what he's put on Wikileaks, and indeed, no one has been killed.

Indeed, the misguided actions of many US policymakers have been exposed because of what Assange has done, but that's all for the good, in my opinion.

10)
Assange has already paid an enormous price for his actions. He has effectively been in prison for years, and sending him to the United States, where he is likely to be convicted and sentenced to a lengthy jail term, would be a case of cruel and unusual punishment.

For all these reasons, I respectfully ask the British High Court not to extradite Assange to the United States. In my opinion, that would be the right decision. Thank you.

John J Mearsheimer On behalf of Julian Assange

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN_Shacd2Iw

Julian Assange: WikiLeaks Founder Faces Final U.K. Appeal to Avoid U.S. Extradition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzhWkxE9kcs