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#you can like julian: just engage critically with him as a character who is. literal scum
heartslobbf · 4 years
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do you honestly think people like julian bc they agree with his actions
julian is a character that we as an audience are meant to laugh at. you’re not meant to sympathise with him, he is purposefully constructed to ridicule tories and everything they stand for. i’ve seen people say they like julian because he’s ‘good bisexual rep’ or ‘he’s such a father figure’ or ‘he and x character would be so cute together’ and that makes me uncomfortable. he’s not a good or nice person, and when i see people making out like he is all i can think is oh wow you’re a tory sympathiser. like?? why are you defending a man who is openly misogynistic, proud to be a war criminal, etc. additionally, as a queer person i really don’t like it when people say he is queer because he is literally a tory, and he likes margaret thatcher, and those two things really really don’t coincide with the kind of queer representation i want to see, or the kind of queer representation the idiots would give us. it’s actively harmful, if anything, and if you’re not bi and saying he’s bisexual for the sole reason that he shagged around a lot, maybe reflect on why you think that. it plays into biphobic stereotypes.
#like do i think julian stans would admit they agree with his actions?? no#but do i think that julian stans downplay the nature of his actions and who he is as a character?? yes#you can like julian: just engage critically with him as a character who is. literal scum#my dni does say tories so like u know. watch out#like why are you idolising and making catbot edits of a fictional tory war criminal#why are you pairing him up with other characters literally traumatised by the values he and his party upholds#why are you acting like the christmas episode redeemed him#i don’t think everyone who likes julian is secretly a tory. i think some people just don’t recognise how what they’re doing is kinda weird#because like it’s simon you know!! love simon he’s a leftie and a legend#but you can like simon and respect him without extending that to a comedic character he plays. meant to ridicule tories#because then you’re just. idk it’s weird like??#like you’re idolising this character because he’s played by someone you admire and like and respect. but this character is not meant +#to be idolised and admired and respected#anyways rant over i think#anon idk what your stance is on all this but like. you are allowed to like julian#he’s my brother’s favourite character but he’s my brother’s favourite character BECAUSE he represents tory scum in a comedic way#if he’s your favourite character because he’s your fuckin. white mlm character of the month and uwu actually he’s so sensitive. please .#he’s a tory war criminal your honour#rant over have fun reading all this anon :)#cannot wait to be sent anon hate for this#me a 16 year old trans kid: hey tories are bad#supposed left wing adults coming in my inbox like Um Actually im entitled to liking this tory because fjdjfjdjdjdjdj#stfu i hate tories they’re all scum#if you’re like oh well you can be friends with tories!! they’re not that bad!!! i don’t agree with them but we need to be tolerant :)#bitch ill kill you. ill kill all tories too#rant over smile :)#anon#answered
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porcileorg · 5 years
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Discussing 3 performances @ ‘Friendly Confrontations - Festival of Global Art and Criticism of Institutions,’ hosted by Münchner Kammerspiele (2020-01-16[-19])
Discussed performances: ‘Operation Sunken Sea’ by Heba Y. Amin; ‘Metabit:Metapixel:Metadimension’ by Onyx Ashanti; ‘Birding the Anthropocene’ by Nadir Sourigi Festival curated by: Julia Grosse and Julian Warner
Conversants: The Bensplainer and Victor Sternweiler
... sitting @ Kammerspiele’s Canteen.
The Bensplainer: We just saw the first two performances.
Victor: The first performance was by Heba Y. Amin, ‘Operation Sunken Sea,’ @ Kammer 3. She’s an Egyptian artist and lecturer living in Berlin. I once attended a performance of hers, which I found very interesting, so I was eager to be here today. The Kammer 3 was designed as follows. There was a rather large projection canvas in the centre functioning as a backcloth, and also two hanging banners from the ceiling, with a cheap logo printed on them, derived from the Mediterranean’s Sea cartography by the 10th century Persian geographer Al-Istakhri. In the foreground there was a simple speaker’s podium with a huge bouquet of flowers. On its side, two flags on poles, recalling the banners in the background. Apart from the bouquet, the scene gave an impression of a black monochrome. Between the audience’s seats, two cameras also stood there.
The Bensplainer: Isn’t it typical, I mean, for recording?
Victor: No, normally cameras are placed behind the audience at Kammerspiele.
The Bensplainer: So they were part of the set. Amin’s performance was divided into two main moments. During the first one, she was not present, instead some historical footage was projected onto the blank canvas in the background. It was a collection of different forms of speeches by 20th century political leaders, dealing with the Mediterranean Sea as a place for social, economical and war related issues.
Victor: The projection consisted of six audiovisual documents in a row, all in b/w, showing speeches by Italian Benito Mussolini, an Egyptian political activist whom I did not identify…
The Bensplainer: Me neither.
Victor: … Egypt’s Gamal Nasser, UK’s Robert Eden, US’s Dwight Eisenhower, and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan. Mussolini’s speech during a rally was about Italian Imperialism in the Mediterranean Sea. Nasser, Eden and Eisenhower’s speeches referred to the contemporary Suez Canal crisis. Specifically, Nasser addressed the theme of independence from US money. Eden addressed Nasser’s unreliability and stressed the economical relevance of the Suez Canal for Western interests.
The Bensplainer: I was quite impressed by Eden’s speech, as he seemed to threaten Egypt with war for a simple reason: oil. The Suez Canal was actually the way through which oil barrels could have been delivered to Western Europe. It made me think how today the threat of war is based on fictive ideology (defense of democracy or whatever), when it is actually a question of resources. That guy Eden was quite clear and paradoxically honest: we do war for economical reasons. On the contrary, a more ideological speech on the crisis was delivered by Eisenhower, I think at the UN in New York.
Victor: And finally, the Erdogan’s speech, more recent of course, but still in b/w, was about the construction of a new canal between the Black and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Bensplainer: This first moment, the projection ended, and the artist entered the stage, she went behind the speaker’s podium. Thus, HER performance began. All the set up—the stage design and the footage—suggested she was going to play the character of a political leader, dressed up in accordance with an official assembly’s speech. Then she started reading from her paper.
Victor: She adopted the character of a political leader from a North African country (it was not specified which one, again due to the fictive logos on banners and flags). Her speech was a collage of the previous speeches—using the exact propagandistic phrases and chunks as a vocabulary to formulated another speech—intertwined with pseudo-utopian statements by the German architect, Herman Sörgel, who in the 1920s developed Atlantropa, a colossal engineering project aimed at draining the Mediterranean Sea—that later info I got from the press release as he was not mentioned during the performance itself. Thus, uniting the European and African continents, for the sake of European survival. So, the character played by Amin shifts the perspective, proposes to drain the sea and to move it to Sahara.
The Bensplainer: At the very beginning of her speech I was very excited, because I was expecting a parodic function in her delivering speech. You know? You set the premises—the stage design and the actual words by political leaders—in order to play with them and somehow to try to estrange them too. But as a whole it somehow failed: in order to bring the issues, the material, to the point of absurdity, it would have been more insightful if she also parodied the charisma, the styles, the gestures, of the political leaders shown before.
Victor: Yes, the absurdity is very evident, but Amin didn’t act more or less then she usually would ‘act’ in her other (lecture) performances. She wasn’t really acting, thus transcending emotions, like those other leaders did. I think that stage in a house like that really demanded a better actor and I would have loved to see somebody from the Kammerspiele assembly doing her part. There one could see the inherent institution critique: you ‘have’ to literally perform your very own work yourself, or it is easier to make work which you can perform by yourself, because there are very few institutions which are able to inivite work that requires the invitation of several people. I think Kammerspiele initiatives have a bigger budget than at least half of the art institutions that invite her. At the end, it was a bit unconvincing as she was probably performing that piece for the 30th time.
The Bensplainer: On the other hand, Amin wanted to embody this character as a political stance and from the perspective of a non European artist. Just using her body as a statement. But ideas didn’t help the acting after all.
The Bensplainer: The second performance we attended was Onyx Ashanti, ‘Metabit:Metapixel:Metadimension,’ @ Workshop Kammerspiele. It was staged—if you could say it was staged—in the unconventional setting of one of Kammerspiele’s workshops. Onyx Ashanti took a portion of the space and made it very comfy, with seats, pillows, carpets, all around his station and working gears, computers, screens, beamers, a 3D printer. He wore his personal set of gadgets, sensors designed and produced by himself, able to fit onto his body. These were connected to an A.I., programmed also by him to produce music based on his body’s vibration.
Victor:I actually know his work from YouTube. So, he was sitting on the floor and around him, some small tables and created a place where he could work. People who just came in could sit on the pillows around the U-form table set. There was no start or an ending, you simply approached him, while he was working or interacting with his guests, answering questions and so on. A very comfortable situation, which made it more like a studio visit rather than a performance. And he had somebody bring him a beer.
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The Bensplainer: Of course, there was a vast range of questions you could ask, especially about his ongoing practice with A.I.,the body and music. This was somehow the device that activated his ‘studio visit’ performance. On one hand, it dealt with personal issues and his DIY attitude of the moment. On the other hand, the way he did wasn’t really direct, and I loved it. For instance, his answers to our questions were often metaphorical. It was inspiring, because I felt active, even if only listening to him. Also his body language was intense, because the way he moved, the way he talked, was very energetic and insightful. So, in a way, it was a performance, but, as you said, he managed to make us feel we were participating in a studio visit.
Victor: It was a studio visit because he arranged the space so that he could have continued working, even if nobody would have interacted with him. I loved how he subverted the system of the hired artist, coming for a gig, being paid and then leaving. He was using Kammerspiele practically and the time slot for his gig as a working space and an opportunity to work.
The Bensplainer: Very efficient! Working on his stuff, interacting with visitors, and performing for the theater, all at once! And everybody was engaged. Apart from that, he showed us a video addressing the relationship between his A.I./bodily generated music and ‘natural’ music. As he's living in Detroit and owning a little garden, he decided to let it grow by itself. Thus it became a favorite spot for animals and insects. In this video, taken during the night, he and the crickets’ music intertwined their harmonies, with surprising effects. He stated that after some nights playing together, the crickets started to respond to his music, but I wasn’t really able to catch it properly from the video.
Victor: What’s charming is that he made music with the crickets for the sake of just doing it, only at a later point of time did he eventually documented it in the way you document a personal memory with your phone. How he described what happened, made me feel that it wasn’t important at the end, if it was believable or not: the storytelling was inspiring.
The Bensplainer: I know I’m always annoying bensplaining to all of you about Russian modernism. But still… the poet Velimir Khlebnikov’s father was a trained ornithologist and he was an expert too. In his last supersaga Zangezi (1922), Khlebnikov put in verse actual transliteration of birds’ songs. I don’t know if it makes sense to cite it here, but it came to mind simply by association.
The next day, The Bensplainer and Victor Sternweiler @ Brenner, having an espresso.
The Bensplainer: On a snowy Sunday morning, we went birdwatching. Spooky Khlebnikov!
Victor: It was Nadir Sourigi, ‘Birding the Anthropocene,’ @ Praterinsel. Literally birdwatching, with a ‘but.’ The New York based artist and an ornithology pedagogue Sourigi picked up the group at the Kammerspiele and then we all went together to the Isar, to the Praterinsel. The idea somehow theatricalized birdwatching tours.
The Bensplainer: I think that it is what Sourigi does, being an artist and an ornithologist, and prefers to do birdwatching with non-white communities in Harlem, those who are underpriviledged. His practice joins birdwatching to related historical and critical issues, the current state of environmental studies too. Of course, this tour was very active and people could freely interact with Sourigi.
Victor: At first he explained to us how urbanization had and has a strong impact on the bird population.
The Bensplainer: And while we were still on a bridge leading to Praterinsel, looking for birds, he also mentioned the catastrophic statistics that, alone in Germany, 75% of flying insects have disappeared in the last years.
Victor: All of a sudden, after introducing the attendees to some birdwatching techniques, Sourigi started to express his institutional critique: birdwatchers are basically white, and so are members of Life Preservation institutes. And then there were some people who really came for the birdwatching and had their binoculars. The educational system in itself poses barriers for non-white people to access this field of culture. At the same time, he initiated this birdwatching program with kids in Harlem, in order to make them aware of what’s happening near to their neighborhood: Central Park, even if near to Harlem, doesn’t belong to these kids’ spatial perspective.
The Bensplainer: Like as if it has invisible burdens—I think he used these words—at least some spots of the park.
Victor: But think about it: the Kammerspiele offers a birdwatching tour, so all participants are as white as in the US, as we learned. Instead of really doing birdwatching, he starts a conversation about racism, class, global capitalism and selective education. Issues hit you in the face. This estrangement rendered the tour artistic, if you want, not the facts in themselves. I also find interesting how he manages to increase non-white participation in ornithological tours, both in a social sense (as in Harlem) and in an artistic sense (as here at the Kammerspiele). Audiences and motivations are very diverse, but he somehow tries to get all together.
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freedomtofandom · 7 years
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LORD OF SHADOWS by CASSANDRA CLARE **Review**
Alright peeps, I’m back. If you’re wondering why my blog has been so dead this summer it is because I was in a technological dead zone for the majority, only being able to connect to wifi once a week if I was luck, I do like to live on the edge ;). But I did have time to read this gem, and even though I’m late on the train per usual, I will still voice my thoughts!
To start things off, I would give Lord of Shadows an 8.5 out of 10. I was very pleased with this book and the ending left me screaming (with both rage and sadness). To be completely honest, I still haven’t stopped thinking about this book and wondering HOW IS EVERYTHING GOING TO GET RESOLVED WITH ONLY ONE BOOK LEFT IN THE SERIES!! THERE ARE SO MANY LOOSE ENDS! I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE HOW LONG THE NEXT INSTALLMENT IS GOING TO HAVE TO BE!!!
I can be calm, I swear! This book had a delightful dark undertone, with thought provoking themes and situations that boggle the mind. The plot is a series of unexpected twists and the determination of a family to stay together no matter the cost. The book brings into play the question of, “how far would you be willing to go for the ones you love?” And, “how far is too far?” And, “does it even make a difference?”
The characters were extremely well fleshed out, well plotted and three dimensional. The world of Shadowhunters was brought even more starkly to life and the situations these characters were thrust into was both heartbreaking and frustrating to the point of actual critical thought. 
Ok, spoiler time. If you haven’t read the book, turn back now! DO NOT READ THIS PART IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK!!! I’M WARNING YOU! YOU ARE MISSING OUT ON A GREAT BOOK IF YOU ONLY GLEAN YOUR INFORMATION FROM HERE!! The Blackthorns are back in the middle of a terrible situation, Julian and Emma especially as they struggle to at first put aside their feelings for each other and then, when that doesn’t work, hide their feelings from each other. Lets just say, Shadow hunters are notoriously bad at communication. Anyways, Emma knows that parabati who love each other grow to be too powerful, leading to the death and destruction of those around them whom they love. That is real dumb, I hate it, I keep hoping there is a way around it, but each option seems worse than the one before. So then, all these centurions show up at the L.A. Institute and since they are special and elite, they think they just own the place! Christina finds out that perfect Diego is actually engaged to Zara, another centurion who is the legit worst! We find out later that she is part of a rising group within the shadow hunter ranks called the cohort, who want to register downworlders and limit their general lives. Thats right, the cohort are shadow hunter Nazi’s, which lovely little Kit points quite frequently. I really appreciated Kit’s presence in this book, because he gave us an outsider view of shadow hunters, always baffled by their refusal to use “mundane” medicine and anything else that could be actually pretty useful. Anyways, he buddies up with the twins, Ty and Livvy, who take him under their wing in a sense. About mid way through, after attacks by squid demons, we find out that Malcolm is in fact, not dead (big surprise) and he still needs Blackthorn blood. The kids end up escaping to London. Meanwhile, Mark was tasked with the job of rescuing Kieran and Julian, Emma, and Christina followed him into Farie. They end up accomplishing this task and then meeting the seelie queen who promises aide to the shadow hunters in a war against the unseelie king in exchange for the black book, and she also tells Julian of a way she knows to break the Parabati bond. They all end up back in London, the unseelie king sends the riders of Manon after them all, Emma kills one. Annabelle shows up when Emma and Julian go to hunt her, Magnus Bane gathers everyone back together. Annabelle shows up again, agrees to testify to the Clave. Magnus passes out right before the meeting, Annabelle goes crazy with the mortal sword in the middle of testifying, Robert Lightwood dies and LIVVY! LIVVY IS STABBED WITH THE MORTAL SWORD!!!!!!! (RIP MY HEART!)
So, that’s the basic overview of what exactly is going down in this book and I actually skipped a few things because I want to get down to the analyzation of what exactly I think is going on here. 
“He forced the thought back. He could hear Emma’s voice, a whisper in the back of his mind. A warning. But Emma was good in her heart: honest, straightforward, a terrible liar. She didn’t understand the brutality of need. The absoluteness of whet he would do for his family. There was no end to it’s depth and breadth. It was total” (Clare, 654).
This is one of many quotes that delves into Julian’s mental justification of his actions throughout the book, whether good or bad. Anytime Julian lies, plots, manipulates, and terrorizes in the name of his family he always comes back to the question of, “how far will I go?”. And every time, he comes back to the conclusion that there is literally nothing he will not do to protect and defend his family, there is no low he will not sink to. The problem is that this blurs when it comes to things that he wants/desires as well, namely, Emma. Protecting your family is a good and honorable cause, yet destroying every parabati bond ever made simply because you made the mistake of being parabati with the person you are in love with is really overboard. The parabati rely on each others power in battle and even for life saving healing. To take that away would be devastating and tragic, and yet Julian considers it. Emma seems to be his only voice of reason at the moment, his only impulse control, that why I was actually expecting her to die in this book. Take away Emma and Julian becomes a villain, Malcolm 2.0. His motives are constantly marred, he is often referred to as “ruthless” and even admits that Emma is the only one who is truly holding him back from the edge.
I predicted in Lady Midnight that Julian would become a villain, and I am still sticking to that. His and Emma’s only hope of getting their curse problem fixed was through Robert Lightwood, he seemed understanding and willing to work with them. He’s dead now and I’m assuming the next counsel is going to be terrible. Therefore, Julian and Emma are going to continue to try to fix things on their own, until things really get out of control.
Also, something is up with Cortana, I think Emma is getting power from more than just the wacked up parabati bond and the fact that Cortana broke the mortal sword means there is going to be trouble in the next book for her. We’ll see what happens.
Predictions? Livvy’s not dead (PLEASE!!), Emma dies, Julian turns evil. I will go into more detailed predictions later, probably closer to the release of the third book after more research, but this is what I am sticking with now. I will also go into some further analyzation when I have my brains more together, the ending of this book really worked a number on me!!
If you can’t tell, I really liked this book!! It was great! Chat with me if you have any comments, I definitely did not cover everything and love talking about books! :D 
Stay curious my friends! Never stop reading!!
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neptunecreek · 5 years
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The Government’s Indictment of Julian Assange Poses a Clear and Present Danger to Journalism, the Freedom of the Press, and Freedom of Speech
The century-old tradition that the Espionage Act not be used against journalistic activities has now been broken. Seventeen new charges were filed yesterday against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. These new charges make clear that he is being prosecuted for basic journalistic tasks, including being openly available to receive leaked information, expressing interest in publishing information regarding certain otherwise secret operations of government, and then disseminating newsworthy information to the public. The government has now dropped the charade that this prosecution is only about hacking or helping in hacking. Regardless of whether Assange himself is labeled a “journalist,” the indictment targets routine journalistic practices. But the indictment is also a challenge to fundamental principles of freedom of speech. As the Supreme Court has explained, every person has the right to disseminate truthful information pertaining to matters of public interest, even if that information was obtained by someone else illegally. The indictment purports to evade this protection by repeatedly alleging that Assange simply “encouraged” his sources to provide information to him. This places a fundamental free speech right on uncertain and ambiguous footing. A Threat To The Free Press Make no mistake, this not just about Assange or Wikileaks—this is a threat to all journalism, and the public interest. The press stands in place of the public in holding the government accountable, and the Assange charges threaten that critical role. The charges threaten reporters who communicate with and knowingly obtain information of public interest from sources and whistleblowers, or publish that information, by sending a clear signal that they can be charged with spying simply for doing their jobs. And they threaten everyone seeking to educate the public about the operation of government and expose government wrongdoing, whether or not they are professional journalists. Assistant Attorney General John Demers, head of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, told reporters after the indictment that the department “takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy and we thank you for it,” and that it’s not the government’s policy to target them for reporting. But it’s difficult to separate the Assange indictment from President Trump’s repeated attacks on the press, including his declarations on Twitter, at White House briefings, and in interviews that the press is “the enemy of the people,” “dishonest,” “out of control,” and “fake news.” Demers statement was very narrow—disavowing the “targeting” of journalists, but not the prosecution of them as part of targeting their sources. And contrary to the DOJ’s public statements, the actual text of the Assange Indictment sets a dangerous precedent; by the same reasoning it asserts here, the administration could turn its fervent anti-press sentiments into charges against any other media organization it disfavors for engaging in routine journalistic practices. Most dangerously, the indictment contends that anyone who “counsels, commands, induces” (under 18 USC §2, for aiding and abetting) a source to obtain or attempt to obtain classified information violates the Espionage Act, 18 USC § 793(b). Under the language of the statute, this includes literally “anything connected with the national defense,” so long as there is an  “intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” The indictment relies heavily and repeatedly on allegations that Assange “encouraged” his sources to leak documents to Wikileaks, even though he knew that the documents contained national security information. But encouraging sources and knowingly receiving documents containing classified information are standard journalistic practices, especially among national security reporters. Neither law nor custom has ever required a journalist to be a purely passive, unexpected, or unknowing recipient of a leaked document. And the U.S. government has regularly maintained, in EFF’s own cases and elsewhere, that virtually any release of classified information injures the United States and advantages foreign nations. The DOJ indictment thus raises questions about what specific acts of “encouragement” the department believes cross the bright line between First Amendment protected newsgathering and crime. If a journalist, like then-candidate Trump, had said: "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the [classified] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," would that be a chargeable crime? The DOJ Does Not Decide What Is And Isn’t Journalism Demers said Assange was “no journalist,” perhaps to justify the DOJ’s decision to charge Assange and show that it is not targeting the press. But it is not the DOJ’s role to determine who is or is not a “journalist,’ and courts have consistently found that what makes something journalism is the function of the work, not the character of the person. As the Second Circuit once wrote in a case about the reporters’ privilege, the question is whether they intended to “use material—sought, gathered or received—to disseminate information to the public.”  No government label or approval is necessary, nor is any job title or formal affiliation. Rather than justifying the indictment, Demers’ non-sequitur appears aimed at distracting from the reality of it. Moreover, Demers’ statement is as dangerous as it is irrelevant. None of the elements of the 18 statutory charges (Assange is also facing a charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) require a determination that Assange is not a journalist. Instead, the charges broadly describe journalism–seeking, gathering and receiving information for dissemination to the public, and then publishing that information–as unlawful espionage when it involves classified information. Of course news organizations routinely publish classified information. This is not considered unusual, nor (previously) illegal. When the government went to the Supreme Court to stop the publication of the classified Pentagon Papers, the Supreme Court refused (though it did not reach the question of whether the Espionage Act could constitutionally be charged against the publishers). Justice Hugo Black, concurring in the judgment, explained why: In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.
Despite this precedent and American tradition, three of the DOJ charges against Assange specifically focus solely on the purported crime of publication. These three charges are for Wikileaks’ publication of the State Department cables and the Significant Activity Reports (war logs) for Iraq and Afghanistan, documents which were also published in Der Spiegel, The Guardian, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and Le Monde, and republished by many other news media.
For these charges, the government included allegations that Assange failed to properly redact, and thereby endangered sources. This may be another attempt to make a distinction between Wikileaks and other publishers, and perhaps to tarnish Assange along the way. Yet this is not a distinction that makes a difference, as sometimes the media may need to provide unredacted data. For example, last year the New York Times published the name of a CIA official who was behind the CIA program to use drones to kill high-ranking militants, explaining “that the American public has a right to know who is making life-or-death decisions in its name.” While one can certainly criticize the press’ publication of sensitive data, including identities of sources or covert officials, especially if that leads to harm, this does not mean the government must have the power to decide what can be published, or to criminalize publication that does not first get the approval of a government censor. The Supreme Court has justly held the government to a very high standard for abridging the ability of the press to publish, limited to exceptional circumstances like “publication of the sailing dates of transports or the number and location of troops” during wartime. A Threat to Free Speech In a broader context, the indictment challenges a fundamental principle of free speech: that a person has a strong First Amendment right to disseminate truthful information pertaining to matters of public interest, including in situations in which the person’s source obtained the information illegally. In Bartnicki v. Vopper, the Supreme Court affirmed this, explaining: “it would be quite remarkable to hold that speech by a law-abiding possessor of information can be suppressed in order to deter conduct by a non-law-abiding third party. ... [A] stranger's illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield from speech about a matter of public concern.” While Bartnicki involved an unknown source who anonymously left an illegal recording with Bartnicki, later courts have acknowledged that the rule applies, and perhaps even more strongly, to recipients who knowingly and willfully received material from sources, even when they know the source obtained it illegally. In one such case, the court rejected a claim that the willing acceptance of such material could sustain a charge of conspiracy between the publisher and her source. Regardless of what one thinks of Assange’s personal behavior, the indictment itself will inevitably have a chilling effect on critical national security journalism, and the dissemination in the public interest of available information that the government would prefer to hide. There can be no doubt now that the Assange indictment is an attack on the freedoms of speech and the press, and it must not stand.
Related Cases: 
Bank Julius Baer & Co v. Wikileaks
from Deeplinks http://bit.ly/2Ql47Xi
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