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We’re about to be dragged through a bunch of tedious popular media debates over whether Julian Assange “is a journalist.” Let me save you some time: No, and the question is irrelevant.
There’s no special set of extra First Amendment rights enjoyed by Government Recognized Journalists. The point of the First Amendment is, in significant part, to avoid making particularized governmental determinations about who is a “real journalist."
Fun fact: “The Press” wasn’t widely used as a synonym for newspapers until early 19th century; the contemporary usage to mean “journalists” dates from the 20th century. In other words: that's not what it means in the First Amendment. etymonline.com/word/press
A lot of people apparently think the offer to help Manning crack a password, from the original indictment, is critically important here. It’s not. Indeed, it has exactly zero relevance to any of these new charges.
AFTER Wikileaks received and published the classified documents that are the subject of these charges, Assange offered to help Manning crack a password in hopes of muddying her tracks, though apparently he failed to do so. That was charged under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act.
These are charges under the Espionage Act. Whether Assange later violated the CFAA has no bearing on these charges.
The question isn’t whether you can draw a distinction between Julian Assange & Charlie Savage. I can draw many. The question is whether you can draw a distinction *relevant to the text of the Espionage Act* between the specific conduct charged here & what Charlie does regularly.
