Kevin Gosztola, journalist and editor of Shadowproof, discusses his latest book, Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange (2023) detailing the profound injustice of the case against Julian Assange. Historicising the political background to the case against Assange, Gosztola covers the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the Espionage Act (1918) which works against free speech principles and freedom of the press while this act also protects entrenched corruption. Gosztola elaborates the abuses the US government has enacted upon journalists and whistleblowers who have told the truth while public officials have gotten away, unpunished, for their criminal acts and policies such that Assange has been held accountable as a publisher of war crimes while those who have enacted these war crimes have not faced justice. Gosztola analyses how both Democratic and Republican administrations, mainstream news outlets, the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department, and other powerful forces have all conspired to condemn Assange in retaliation for exposing the extent of US torture, rendition, and war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan while evidencing how Assange was intentially made to “look like a bum” by major media as Assange was marched in front of the cameras in a dishevelled state in order to posture him as looking like he belongs in prison.

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