An icon of whistleblower journalism tastes freedom.
The smell of fresh Australian air in Julian Assange’s nostrils is a liberty neither he nor most of the rest of the world thought would ever be afforded a man who so tenaciously defied the planet’s strongest superpower. Credited with having exposed US military actions through the publication of documents leaked by whistleblower Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, Assange has endured a long ordeal. So has the First Amendment.
The Assange Odyssey
For 14 years, various governments have pursued the harried Assange as retribution for whistleblower journalism alleged by the United States to have been a conspiracy to disclose classified national defense documents. Both Manning and Assange have claimed that the former’s identity was unknown to the WikiLeaks founder at the time of the…