If war is started by lies, peace is started by truth. He has exposed many inconvenient truths that have been covered up by governments and corporations.WikiLeaksJulian Assange, founder of thetermIt is. Mr. Assange is currently being held in a maximum security prison in the U.K., where many violent criminals are held, and preparations are steadily underway for his extradition by the U.S. A British judge will approve his extradition on April 20, 2022.judgmentand the decision to implement it was left to the Minister of the Interior.

Mr. Assange has been indicted on espionage charges in the United States, if convicted,175 yearsmay be imprisoned for the rest of his life. In addition, the U.S. government has also so far been accused of kidnapping and assassinating Mr. Assange.studyThe company has been doing so. However, the charge being leveled against Mr. Assange is that he disseminated information he received from a whistleblower. In other words, he is being charged with an act worthy of journalism. The law applies only to the publication of information.first time in American historyThe first is.

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are threatened in many parts of the world. Severe restrictions on speech in countries such as China and North Korea often attract attention and are the subject of criticism from the United States and other nations that emphasize democratic values. Other countries, such as Eritrea and Turkmenistan, have received much less attention, but the repression is extremely severepluralityThe United States is a country where freedom of the press and speech is seen to be guaranteed to a certain extent. However, it is precisely in countries where freedom of the press and speech is seen to be guaranteed to some extent that such freedom is threatened, which is a serious problem that deserves attention not only because of its impact on other countries. The cases of WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange illustrate this very problem, and the danger is that it could lead not only to a weakening of free speech, but also to a weakening of the rule of law.

Normally, when freedom of the press is at stake, it is journalists who should be the first to stand up. However, this is not the case in Europe, the U.S., or even in Japan. In order to explore the problems rooted in the Japanese press, we will focus on the reality of WikiLeaks and the U.S. media coverage of it, as well as consider the issue of journalism.

Protest in front of Belmarsh Prison, where Assange is being held (Photo:Alisdare Hickson / Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0])

WikiLeaks from inception to trial

Since its launch in 2006, WikiLeaks has been receiving and publishing confidential information (leaks) provided by whistleblowers from governments, companies, and other sources. While WikiLeaks shares many points in common with conventional journalism that engages in similar activities, there are also some distinctive features. One is the way it receives the information: it is received online from the whistleblower, but in a unique encryptedreceiving systemto be used. This makes it impossible for WikiLeaks itself to identify the sender and lowers the risk of providing information for whistleblowers. In addition, WikiLeaks tends to emphasize the publication of the documents themselves, and is unique in that it provides less commentary on their contents than news organizations.

WikiLeaks received a great deal of attention in 2010. It released a video showing a U.S. helicopter firing on civilians in Iraq, including a Reuters journalist, killing 12 people. Then again, in 2010, the U.S. military on the Afghan war (75,000 items) and the Iraq war (400,000 items).confidential materialwas made public. Elements of what appear to be war crimes were revealed, including torture by the U.S. military and numerous civilian killings. These leaks came from Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst.offerThe "K" is said to be a "K" in the name of the "K".

In the same year, an arrest warrant was issued against Mr. Assange for alleged sexual assault in Sweden while in the United Kingdom, but Mr. Assange was released on bail during the investigation. Swedish prosecutors requested Mr. Assange's extradition from the United Kingdom. Mr. Assange responded by asking for assurances that he would not comply with the extradition request from Sweden to the U.S., but Swedish prosecutorsI didn't comply.Therefore, Assange sought political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK in 2012.

Julian Assange before his exile (Photo:Espen Moe / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

Since then, WikiLeaks has been contacted by many countries and organizations with numerousconfidential documentreceived and made public. Among them, from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States.confidential document(2017) and then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.mail (usu. in phrases like "e-mail", "text message", etc.)(2017) leak received particular attention in the United States. Eventually, the U.S. administration of Donald Trump indicted him in 2018, and the subsequent administration of Joe Biden actively sought to extraditeSeeking.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

Assange had been granted citizenship by Ecuador, but in 2019 the Ecuadorian government revoked it, allowing him to be arrested by British authorities. By then, Sweden had dropped its investigation into the sexual assault, and the only remaining "crime" was a 50-week failure to appear in a British court while on bail.guilty verdictand held in a maximum security prison in England. Despite the fact that that period of time has already passed, he continues to be held in detention as of writing while his extradition to the United States is under consideration. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the issue of torture, the conditions in which Mr. Assange is currently held in prison are,torturefalls under the following categories.

Problems with Assange-related news coverage

As noted above, WikiLeaks has released many confidential documents from many countries, companies, and other sources. As far as the U.S. is concerned, at least, it is unlikely that this act itself violates the law. The U.S. Supreme Court has held in previous freedom of the press cases that, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, disclosure of illegally obtained information is lawful if the party merely discloses the information and does not engage in any interception or other activity related to obtaining the information.judgment(2001). Furthermore, in the case of WikiLeaks, the fact that it is not selling the obtained information to other governments, but is releasing to the public information that is in the public interest, i.e., content related to war crimes and wrongdoing by the U.S. government, makes the application of anti-spying laws also inherentlyhard to imagineIt is considered to be a

Under Barack Obama's administration, anti-spying laws have been unusually applied not against spies, but against whistleblowers who blow the whistle to expose government wrongdoing, and the government has been very strict about this.criticismhave been directed against him. In addition, attempts have been made to apply anti-spying laws not to those who leak classified documents, but to those who receive them; a grand jury investigation was conducted against Mr. Assange for almost two years beginning in 2011, but the government was unable to indict him.Conclusion.The case has reached a point where it is now in the hands of the New York Times and other news organizations. This is because the actions taken by Mr. Assange are indistinguishable from those taken by the general press, such as the New York Times, and if Mr. Assange is indicted, these news organizations will have to be indicted as well. This is a "New York Times Issue.The case was named "The United States of America. Then, despite the lack of new evidence against Assange, five years later, in 2018, the U.S. government decided to file a secret indictment.

A major newspaper published a leak related to the war in Afghanistan (Photo:Adam Beckett / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

The details of this indictment were revealed with Assange's arrest in 2019, but Japanese media reports on the sequence of events leading up to and following the indictmentOnly a few reportsThe validity of the case has rarely been questioned. Few articles have taken up Assange's case, and most of them have been limited to a bare description of the facts provided by the U.S., British, and other governments. Of the articles in the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri Shimbuns that do address the issue of prosecution, only the Asahi Shimbun's1 editorialand the Daily Newspaper.explanatory articleThe only statement included in the "The prosecution of this case is a growing concern that it may violate the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, which provides for freedom of the press.

It can also be seen as the news media's complicity in spreading falsehoods about WikiLeaks' actions. For example, the rumor that Mr. Assange helped to illegally obtain classified U.S. government documents. Assange's actions were not limited to releasing the classified documents he obtained, but also involved hacking along with whistleblowing. However, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced(written) indictmentNo such content is found in the The evidence submitted by the U.S. government includes chats between Mr. Assange and an alleged Mr. Manning, in which Mr. Assange says he is prepared to help crack the password. However, it is not clear whether the chats are sufficient to identify Assange and Manning as the individuals who exchanged them, and it is not clear whether Assange is the person who said he was willing to help Manning crack the password.No evidence.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

Even if Mr. Assange helped decipher the password, it would only allow Mr. Manning to log in to the U.S. military network under a different username than his own, not to obtain classified documents, and to conceal his access to the network.actionThis is considered to be the case. In other words, it is cooperation to prevent the whistleblower's identity from being discovered, which falls under the category of source protection. It is a responsible journalistic practice to protect one's sources, even if they are whistleblowers trying to obtain information in violation of the law.a matter of courseIt is considered to be a

WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief holds a press conference about Assange's extradition (Photo:Alisdare Hickson / Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0])

Nevertheless, the Japanese press, like many Western news organizations, published the falsehood that Assange illegally helped them obtain the information. The Mainichi Shimbun's "Question Naruhodori: What did the suspect, Assange, do?" titledexplanatory articleexplained that the U.S. Department of Justice had "indicted Assange for helping Manning illegally obtain information. The Yomiuri Shimbun article (*1) also stated, "According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange allegedly conspired with a former U.S. Army soldier to illegally attempt to break into a U.S. government computer that handled classified information. Such a statement, although the U.S. government's say-so is the source of the information, is clearly different from the facts, and it means that only the U.S. say-so is being taken into account without checking other facts.

Also, the Asahi Shimbun's response to international political analyst Izuru Sugawarainterview (i.e. television, newspaper, etc.)describes Mr. Assange's "method" of obtaining information: "It seems that the suspect taught hacking techniques to Private Manning and had him decipher secret passwords and other information. It may be a side effect of the lack of schooling, but it is also true that there was a great deal of criticism for the lack of a conformist attitude," Sugawara said. Despite the analyst's statement, the Asahi Shimbun did not consider the possibility that the content of the interview could be misinterpreted, and published the interview in its entirety, including the attack on Assange personally, without mentioning other interpretations or viewpoints.

Problems can also be seen in the way information is disclosed. For example, the U.S. government's claim that human lives were endangered.prosecutionThe following is a brief overview. The U.S. government's diplomatic cable lists its government collaborators on the battlefield and elsewhere, but if their real names were made public, they could be targeted by hostile forces.pointing outThe first time this has been done, it has been done. Certainly, WikiLeaks began to release unedited documents with real names intact. However, this was not the case in the beginning. Through collaboration with news organizations, it released information while removing problematic real names.

However, in a book about WikiLeaks published by the British newspaper The Guardian, the password to the database where the diplomatic cable files were stored was posted, and the database of the cable files was leaked to the Internet, so they had no choice but to release the full text of the files with their real names posted. WikiLeaks, for its part, said in a statementclaimThe Guardian, on the other hand, took the company to task. The Guardian, on the other hand, claimed that its own company was to blame for the lack of the database on the Internet at the time of the book's publication.denialThe United States is not the only country that is doing this. In any event, Mr. Assange has been working to help the U.S. government deal with the dangers posed by the release of information by calling then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at theWarning.attempted to do so, but they were not taken seriously. In fact, not a single victim of the publicity caused by the release of these official telegrams wasreportNot done.

Logo on WikiLeaks' website (Photo:Almudena Fernández / Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0])

However, the major Japanese media did not report WikiLeaks' side of the story on this issue. For example, when the official telegrams were released unedited to WikiLeaks in 2011, the Yomiuri Shimbun, in an article titled "Mega-Leaks Run Amok" (*2), only reported that WikiLeaks "abruptly releases 250,000 diplomatic telegrams unedited. The Mainichi Shimbun article (*3) also published the U.S. government's side of the story, but did not publish WikiLeaks' claims. Even though the complexity of the issue itself makes it difficult to communicate information, the fact that the newspapers' reports did not reflect the claims of the WikiLeaks side at all is in itself a lack of fairness, and the reporting of biased content must be considered a serious problem.

media without questioning the power of authority

Behind the aforementioned repeated biased reporting is the fact that the Japanese media is cozying up to the U.S. government and other powers.trendThere will be In the first place, journalism cannot exist as long as it fails to check facts. And even more so, "thewatchdog roleThere are many elements that should be questioned by any news organization that seeks to carry the "Mere Old Man" and the suspicions and charges leveled against WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange.

First, the U.S. and the U.K. are the countries that launched the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they have an incentive to cover up facts related to these wars and fabricate charges against those who expose the inconvenient truth. The U.S. government would like to prevent, at all costs, any revelations that could shake the U.S. position, and to deter any possible future revelations as well. In fact, it appears that actions far beyond legal action were also being considered by the US government. During the Obama administration, then-Secretary of State Clinton asked Assange at a State Department meeting in 2010, "Can't we 'kill' him with a drone?"proposalIt is believed that he did so. In the following year, 2017, during the Trump administration, specific plans for abductions and assassinations were also being consideredreportThe company has been

Second, there is a history of these governments actually fabricating numerous falsehoods about the kind of content that WikiLeaks has been exposing. to wage war against Iraq.U.S. Governmentand ... andBritish GovernmentThe numerous false statements used by the U.S. government in Iraq have been proven. Furthermore, since the start of the Iraq War, the U.S. government has repeatedly covered up and misrepresented the facts about the torture and killing of civilians carried out by the military. For example, the U.S. government claimed that it did not maintain data on Iraqis killed since 2003, when the Iraq war began, but a 2010 WikileaksexposureIt was revealed that the data was retained in the

Rally for Assange's release (Photo:Pamela Drew / Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0])

Third, there are a number of questionable legal actions taken against Mr. Assange in various countries. Assange has been accused of sexual assault in Sweden, and the arrest warrant and subsequent process for this has not been followed up.Suspicious pointwas much criticized. Ultimately, despite years of legal processes, Mr. Assange was never charged with sexual assault. There are also many suspicious aspects of the extradition process to the United States in the United Kingdom, where Mr. Assange is being held, and the British government's attempts to force the extradition of political prisoners by ignoring the law prohibiting extradition.pointing outThe United States has also been criticized for its unusual application of anti-spying laws to the disclosure of information. And, as noted above, there has been a flurry of criticism in the U.S. as well for the unusual application of anti-spying laws in the disclosure of information.

There are many other suspicious elements to this legal action. The key witness who testified that Mr. Assange instructed him to commit the hacking act, and that he was giving false testimony in exchange for his own indictment in the U.S.Admitted.One such case is that of the "Trojan War. In addition, at the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom, where Mr. Assange was staying while in exile, the security company assigned to guard him conspired with the CIA to wiretap the embassy.surveillanceThe government is said to have been monitoring the conversations between Mr. Assange and his lawyers. If even the conversations between Mr. Assange and his lawyers were monitored and tapped, it raises further questions about the legitimacy of the legal process.

However, the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri Shimbuns did not cover specific details that questioned the intentions of the US or the UK. Nor did they question the assassination issue being considered in the U.S., or the many suspicious points in the legal process. The newspapers only covered what the countries concerned seemed to be saying.

Furthermore, since Assange's arrest in 2019, articles pointing out the impact of his case on free speech in Japan have been published in the above-mentioned Asahi Shimbun1 editorialIt was not reported in any of the newspapers, except for the Curiously, the Asahi Shimbun's article on Izuru Sugawarainterview (i.e. television, newspaper, etc.)in "We have proven that any insider can expose the terrible things that the U.S. military was doing in the Iraq War. However, that is why we are now regulating information even more tightly than before in Russia and China," but there is no mention of Japan here. WikiLeaks has also directly affected Japanese law. The Cabinet Secretariat's announcement regarding the Special Secrets Protection BillMain Issueslists WikiLeaks as a "threat" of information leaks as supporting the need for secrecy legislation.

U.S. military helicopter, Iraq (Photo:The US Army / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

When does the guard dog bark?

The issue of Assange's extradition to the United States is "the most important fight for press freedom in modern times," said former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges.Stated.... When countries that appear to value the "rule of law," "human rights," and "freedom of speech" ignore the rule of law, violate human rights, and suppress freedom of speech, why does the press, which plays the role of government watchdog, not speak up?

Journalists who try to stand up to powerful governments face a variety of "costs," including being bashed by those around them and being ostracized by the mainstream media, Hedges said.pointing out(*4). Other issues include the American press's avoidance of criticism of the Biden administration and industry envy toward WikiLeaks, which has achieved "journalism" that transcends the role of the press, which tends to cozy up to power.pointing outThere are also These points are criticisms directed mainly at the silence of the U.S. media, but the Japanese media can be seen as following the coverage of the U.S. media.

However, it is precisely the important role of journalism to reveal the reality of governments in which power and wealth are concentrated. As the persecution of WikiLeaks and Assange shows, journalism is under threat, but journalism should also be able to prevent it. Will the day ever come when the press will stand up to this problem?

*1 The Yomiuri Shimbun, "Swedish Prosecution Investigation Reopens or Assange Suspect," published April 12, 2019.

2 The Yomiuri Shimbun, "[Cyber Wars] (5) Mega-Leaks Runaway (serial)," September 25, 2011.

3 Mainichi Shimbun, "WikiLeaks: Concerns about 'harm to informants,' criticism by news organizations," September 3, 2011.

4 Mr. Hedges himself resigned after being stopped by the New York Times for speaking out against the war in Iraq.

Writer: Virgil Hawkins

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