Two of us, Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, testified for Assange at his extradition hearing last year. In Ellsberg's words then, the WikiLeaks publications that Assange is being charged for are "amongst the most important truthful revelations of hidden criminal state behavior that have been made public in U.S. history." The American public "needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure."
[–]SCB@lemmy.world4 points3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)
(1 child)
Please enlighten me as to how strategically leaking Hillary Clinton's email to hurt her election chances is reporting on "criminal activity"
Assange leaked shit to manipulate opinions in a way he directed, and was fed info and money from Russia to do so. Nearly all of what he leaked was meaningless info meant solely to influence optics.
That's rather a significant difference from investigative reporting.