Biden Needs To Finally Let Julian Assange off the Hook

The U.S. is apparently considering dropping its demand to extradite the Wikileaks founder — finally. The country has made a dangerous example of him for a long time.

“We’re considering it,” U.S. President Joe Biden said softly on Wednesday in response to a reporter’s question about Australia’s request to drop the country’s prosecution against Julian Assange. This quiet, almost inaudible sentence is the first real glimmer of hope for the Australian who is currently imprisoned in London.

Until now, the U.S. has pursued the whistleblower with full force.

Wednesday marked the five-year anniversary of Assange’s stay in a high-security prison from which he is using all legal means to defend himself against extradition. The cat-and-mouse game with the U.S. justice system (think: exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy) has gone on for even longer.

In the U.S., Assange faces nothing less than prosecution for espionage. The Espionage Act, which has existed since World War I to prosecute saboteurs, since 9/11has been used more and more against whistleblowers. In Assange’s case, it is the first time that an editor (Wikileaks) who published massive quantities of unredacted classified documents is being prosecuted for spying.

As reasonable as it is that the U.S. wants to put a stop to the game of such a recalcitrant muckraker (who revealed, among other things, possible war crimes, as well as information about weapons and diplomats) and is using the full force of the justice system to do so, its unmerciful approach has done significant damage not only to its own reputation but also to freedom of the press.

Regardless of one’s opinion of Assange’s controversial methods, he is, and remains, a publicist, not a spy. The U.S. needs to finally accept that. It has, in any case, already made an example of him.