 February saw the beginning of the extradition hearing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Now we still haven't got a ruling from that hearing because it was frequently adjourned in part due to COVID-19 but we are expecting a ruling in January 2021. Now the case has peered in the news throughout the year but not as prominently as one might have expected. That's because this has enormous implications for the press and also in this country in particular. There are many newspapers who have benefited enormously from the exposés of Julian Assange who haven't really advocated in his favor but there are many people who have been advocating strongly for Julian Assange, either his supporters, people who have great respect for his work or just people who think that the precedent that would be set here, someone being extradited for espionage when the activities they have taken part in are publishing our journalism would be incredibly severe. With that in mind let's take a look back to how we discussed the start of this case on Tiski Sauer in February. Today was day one of the extradition hearing of Julian Assange. Assange is facing extradition to the US for espionage in, I know it's an astonishing charge, in relation to classified material published by WikiLeaks in 2010. This all relates principally to leaks about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Iraq and Afghanistan war leaks which included field reports from the US military. Lots of documents reporting what was actually going on the ground, not what the military were telling their embedded journalists. This was the largest of their kind in history. This was all 10 years ago now so viewers are most likely to remember the collateral murder video. This showed a 2007 US army attack in which 12 people including two Reuters journalists were killed. So the video is all filmed from a helicopter, its army footage and it showed US forces firing on a van that stopped to pick up bodies. I mean it's pretty outrageous stuff. The Iraq war logs also revealed claims US government had ignored reports of torture by the Iraqi authorities. It was a massive story at the time, really, really big, really big deal. I mean obviously really pissed off the Americans. However 10 years down the line, like many on the left, I kind of clocked out a little bit from this story. That's partly because it had been going on for so long. But it was also because of other issues and allegations made up against Assange which weren't related to these leaks, which were related to sexual assault in Sweden, which meant it just was a big quagmire, incredibly confusing story to keep abreast of. That's really all changed now and I think people need to get a bit of a grip and realize that this is now, the Sweden charge has been dropped. That doesn't mean he was innocent of them remotely. But what's the issue here is someone being extradited for espionage. The Sweden case, the sexual abuse case has nothing to do with this particular trial. This is someone who has done incredibly important journalistic exposés who is going to be, well, if the US get their way, extradited for espionage. For a summary of the legal situation we're going to go to a clip with Jen Robinson, who's Julian Assange's lawyer in this case. We interviewed her yesterday. Well, first we have to recognize the danger of this precedent. The US is for the first time ever using the espionage app against a publisher. This is the first time in history that a statute designed to prosecute treason is being used against a journalist and a publisher. The US is seeking to exercise that jurisdiction on journalists and publishers outside of the country. So all of this activity took place outside of the US. They're claiming that they can seek his extradition to the United States to face trial for activities undertaken outside the US. This is possible because of the UK-US extradition treaty, which requires the UK to provide cooperation to the United States. But in a case of this nature, typically being prosecuted for something which is a straightforward political offence, espionage is a political offence, would be barred and is barred by the terms of the UK-US treaty. So it is, this case is an abuse on so many fronts. It's setting a precedent that any journalist or publisher could be indicted in the United States, sought for extradition, and prosecuted for publishing truthful information about the United States. What message does that send to Saudi Arabia, to Russia, to China? Will a British journalist or publisher now be extradited to face prosecution in Saudi Arabia for having published truthful information about Saudi Arabia? That is the precedent that's being set with this case and why it is so dangerous, not just for Julian Assange, but for journalists everywhere. It is disappointing that the Home Secretary certified this extradition request in the first place, involving as it does such significant issues of free speech, not just for Julian Assange, but for British journalists and publishers who are publishing truthful information about the United States. As we've already seen in Parliament last week, Jeremy Corbyn has raised this issue directly with Boris Johnson, speaking about his concern that anyone ought to be extradited to the US to face prosecution for having revealed war crimes and human rights abuse. And he's right and many people in this country are very concerned about it. So it remains to be seen what the British government can and will do in the future about this case. But the precedent being set is one that is very dangerous and we're looking at a Trump administration that calls the media the enemy of the people. If Julian Assange can be extradited to face prosecution for this, then so too could the editor of the Guardian, so too could the editor of the Telegraph. And that's what people ought to be concerned about. That's powerful final words there from Jen Robinson, who's Julian Assange's lawyer. She said if Julian Assange can be extradited for this, then so can the editor of the Guardian. And I mean, it doesn't, that point doesn't seem to be that controversial. It's not something that's only coming from the radical left. So I was reading articles in the New York Times and they're saying if Julian Assange is extradited for this, they're already based in the United States, but they're saying everything he's charged of doing, we've also done. So this seems like a fairly clear cut case, but it still seems to be the case that given extradition treaties are as they are, he is going to get sent over to be incarcerated by the Trump administration. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a new sort of gesture to this earlier. It's a real problem actually that this became a referendum on Assange's character. When really, firstly, his lawyers have always said that he would go and stand trial in Sweden for those charges, as long as Sweden promised to not extradite him to the US, where he would face an unjust system, as we could see from the treatment of Chelsea Manning. And Jen Robinson is completely right there because when you actually look at what the US is using here, what they're kind of designating as being illegal under the Espionage Act are very typical journalistic practices, collaborating with other states in order to release information that is considered classified by the US government, collaborating with sources, using encrypted messaging services in order to ensure those sources are anonymized and protected. This is not only things like anonymizing sources, that's not only journalistic precedent, that's duties, that's the duty of a journalist. And Obama did actually also try and get Assange extradited, but Obama couldn't figure out a way to distinguish what Julian Assange did that was different to what any other journalist does. What the Trump administration has done is basically try and say that Julian Assange is not a journalist. Now, obviously that would set a precedent for this idea that it is the state that decides who is and is not a journalist, which creates its own sort of like see like endless issues. And I just think it's very interesting that with all the conversations around freedom of speech and the First Amendment, this is exactly the kind of situation in which the First Amendment was developed for. The First Amendment was developed in light of the development of a printing press when more and more people, other than sort of official people designated by the state would have the ability to write and spread information. And the First Amendment was a way of saying that all of us, not just the sort of select few of the professional class, have a right for freedom of speech without fear of retribution from the state. Whereas freedom of speech now has become something that is, you know, we just use to kind of bully trans people when really it's about that kind of relationship between journalists, but also bloggers and people who are and sort of all of us and their relationship to the state. So this is a massive violation of journalistic ethics. It's a massive violation of freedom of speech. And I think it is very sad and distressing that the fact that Julian Assange himself is not a personable character and likely to be also guilty of other crimes, possibly I don't really know, has managed to kind of like conceal on that fact. Because the point is, is that whenever we try, whenever the state tries to sort of like create these precedents that will then be rolled out further down the line, they always pick an individual or a group or a figure that they can very easily, that is unlikeable because it's much easier because in sort of our minds, we think, oh, it's just for that person because they're specifically awful. Whereas obviously, once this becomes legal precedent, it can be used in all manner of ways.