 So, we have some absolutely chilling news regarding freedom of the press, and I'm sure that most of you watching already know that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested today. And his arrest came after Ecuador revoked his asylum status, which then allowed UK authorities to come in and arrest him at the behest of the US government who issued a warrant for his extradition. So this is a really important story, and I hope that everyone is concerned about this and is as concerned about this as I am, because regardless of how you feel about Julian Assange, the implications of this with regard to freedom of the press are broad. So to give you just the basic facts of the case, CNN reports the US Department of Justice confirmed Assange had been indicted on a single charge of conspiring to steal military secrets with Chelsea Manning. The former army intelligence analyst who supplied thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. The Department of Justice said that the indictment signed on March 6th last year and unsealed Thursday alleges Assange conspired to assist Manning in cracking a password on classified Department of Defense computer systems. Now there are two additional things that I think we need to make clear here. First of all, this has nothing to do with the 2016 election, nothing. This is about the 2010 Manning leaks where Chelsea Manning gave Julian Assange information that exposed war crimes that our government was doing. This was information that was obviously in the public's interest because our tax dollars were funding these crimes. So I think that we have to know about this. So that's important. So if you're still bitter about the 2016 election, you have to put your feelings aside here because this is more important than that. Second of all, it's not illegal for a journalist to publish information that was leaked or stolen. However, if they assist the whistleblower with that process, then that's really the only caveat where the government can get them. And they are claiming that Julian Assange did in fact assist Chelsea Manning. However, if you look at the details, that charge is actually very dubious because first of all, as Aaron Matei points out, the attempt to get the password to these computers wasn't even successful. And this is evident based on the language that they use, claiming that in the event she quote would have been able to obtain these passwords, then it would have been the case that Julian Assange had assisted her successfully. Now second of all, before he even allegedly attempted to assist her with this process, she had already provided him with information before he supposedly tried to help her crack the password. So those are two really key details here, which makes this charge completely dubious. Now third, the Department of Justice claims that he actively encouraged Manning to provide him with more information after she had already given him stolen documents. But as Glenn Greenwald points out here, this is a standard procedure for a journalist. It's literally them trying to criminalize journalism because if you are a journalist, then obviously you're going to want more information because you're building a story. You're building a case. So the fact that he was encouraging her to get him more information, that's a nonissue. That's just him being a good journalist. So these charges against him are absolutely dubious and it really doesn't seem like they have a case against him. But nonetheless, if they want to convict him, they're going to find some way to do it, which is troubling because think about the implications of this. In the event, a US journalist, for example, publishes leaked information about the Saudi government and Saudi Arabia then encourages the US government to extradite that American journalist to Saudi Arabia. Isn't that problematic? Isn't that troubling? Because if we're setting up this new precedent where governments are complying with foreign extradition requests of their own citizens, then the implications that this has for journalism globally, it's horrifying. Because if you're a journalist and you fear that you will be prosecuted for whatever dubious reason for publishing leaked or classified documents, which is protected under the Constitution, but if you're worried that they're going to get you because they're going to claim that you assisted in that process, then what does this do? It's going to dissuade journalists from seeking out this information that they need to publish. It's going to dissuade them from wanting to release this information that is in the public's interest, which means that they're not going to be an effective check on government tyranny and government abuse. So the implications from this are absolutely vast. And I'm honestly shocked that so many liberals even are celebrating this. I mean what we're witnessing here is an overt attack on freedom of the press. And we're watching democracy die before our very eyes. We're slipping into authoritarianism and I'm not being hyperbolic. Democracy in America has been dying now for years, but I mean it hasn't happened rapidly. There's no sudden change, no revolutionary change, and it's happening really gradually. So what allows people to adjust to it? It's as if you were to throw a frog in a boiling pot of hot water. It would immediately jump out because it would notice how hot that a boiling pot of hot water is. But if you just stick a frog in a pot of water and then you gradually turn up the heat, well it's going to be able to adjust to the gradual temperature increase and not really know that what's being done to it is harmful. And that's really what we're seeing here when it comes to American democracy. And if you can't have freedom of the press, then democracy cannot thrive. Now another thing that I want to touch on here is that when Julian Assange initially published the Manning leaks, Obama's Department of Defense chose to not prosecute WikiLeaks itself because they were worried that obviously that would pose a threat to freedom of the press. Now they aggressively went after Chelsea Manning, but they chose not to go after WikiLeaks because they didn't want to set this precedent that allowed for journalist outlets to be prosecuted for the publication of classified documents because obviously that is protected under the First Amendment. However, when Trump came to power, it was evident that there were people in his circle hell-bent on taking down WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. And after previously saying how much he loves WikiLeaks, Trump is now playing dumb saying that he doesn't know anything about WikiLeaks. And ask yourself this, after it's widely believed that WikiLeaks was releasing the Clinton emails at the behest of Donald Trump and creating this imbalance of information where we knew what the DNC was saying, but not what the RNC was saying after it was widely believed that WikiLeaks was doing this to assist Donald Trump, well, why would Trump officials then turn around and want to prosecute WikiLeaks knowing that they were assisted? Well, it's because WikiLeaks exposes information about the US government. And if you're part of the US government and you're doing some really shady war criminal activities abroad, then obviously you want to try to silence anyone who could potentially be a threat to your power and hegemony. And that's what we're seeing. That's why Trump's administration wanted to go after WikiLeaks. And the reason why Donald Trump is playing dumb now is because he already has authoritarian tendencies. This was evident since before he got elected when he was running as a candidate. We knew that he was warning that he wanted to bring back libel laws. And he often refers to the press as the enemy of the people. So, of course, if he thinks this will set a new precedent where he can then prosecute journalists who publish harmful information about him, then he's going along with it and playing dumb when it comes to this issue. So, it's odd to me to see this unholy alliance between the Democratic Party loyalists, the resistors, if you will, and Trump's administration because this is harmful. And they don't care that this is about the 2010 leaks where Manning exposed US war crimes. They're just glad that Julian Assange is being brought down. That's all that they're happy about. They're just glad it's happening after screaming about wanting to protect freedom of the press. I mean, this is literally only empowering Donald Trump to more aggressively crack down on the press. So, I mean, this is absolutely troubling. And I want to read to you the ACLU statement because I think they do a good job at putting this all into perspective. Ben Wisner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's speech, privacy, and technology project issued the following comment in response. Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for WikiLeaks publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations. Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating US secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for US journalists who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest. Wisner added, criminally prosecuting a publisher for the publication of truthful information would be a first in American history and unconstitutional. The government did not cross that Rubicon with today's indictment, but the worst case scenario cannot yet be ruled out. We have no assurance that these are the only charges the government plans to bring against Mr. Assange. Further, while there is no First Amendment right to crack a government password, this indictment characterizes as part of a criminal conspiracy the routine and protected activities journalists often engage in as part of their daily jobs such as encouraging a source to provide more information. Given President Trump and his administration's well-documented attacks on freedom of the press, such characterizations are especially worrisome. Now on top of that, I do want to share some reactions from people in the political world because I think they provide us with some really valuable insights. So Edward Snowden tweeted out images of Ecuador's ambassador inviting the UK's secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of, like it or not, award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books. Assange's critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom. Tulsi Gabbard tweeted out, The arrest of Julian Assange is meant to send a message to all Americans and journalists. Be quiet, behave, toe the line, or you will pay the price. Kal Kalinsky tweeted out, If you hyperventilated over Trump screaming fake news and calling media hacks mean names, then you should be at DEF CON 1 over the literal arrest of a man who exposed your government committing war crimes with your money and in your name. This is the real threat to press freedom. And that's absolutely it. Anyone who purports that they are free speech warriors, the Dave Rubens and Ben Shapiro's of the world, they should be screaming the loudest right now. But let me just say this, I am incredibly, incredibly proud of progressives because they've been the most vocal here about this. So this is something that is incredibly important that we have to fight and speak out again. So I'm going to link you to the WikiLeaks Defense Fund. And that'll be in the description box if you want to donate. Additionally, if you live in DC, if you live in the UK, there will be planned protests. So at the time I'm recording this, I don't have specific information. But if you're able to attend those, that would be absolutely phenomenal. What we have to do now, all we can do really is make as much noise about this as possible, share this information and share to people the consequences that this will have. And most importantly, educate them because people don't know that this really could be incredibly problematic going forward when it comes to freedom of the press. We really shouldn't have to spell this out for people. But in a really polarized environment where everything is left versus right, we've got to step back and understand that this is about democracy. This is about freedom of the press and everyone should be outraged and shaken to the core over the arrest of Julian Assange.