Dan Ellsberg talking:
I’d like to focus, Amy, on the larger implications of this case, since we only have a minute or two. Really, the American press has remained in kind of a state of denial for 40 years, really, since my case, that the Espionage Act has wording in it that could be aimed directly at them, at the journalists and publishers, although, until this case, it hasn’t done so. So, now the American press is staring right down the barrel at the use of the Espionage Act against American journalists and publishers for doing journalism, for doing what they do best, at their best, every day, of getting information that the government doesn’t want known to the public because of their wrongdoing, their lies, their crimes, whatever — there’s a lot of those. And that’s what is mainly the secrecy system is intended to protect, indefinitely.
Now, it’s not only American journalists here, although the American First Amendment, the core of our form of government, I would say, is at stake at this right now and is being attacked. Actually, if Julian is extradited, as I say, as you said, it will lead to prosecution here, and probably conviction, and he wil
— source democracynow.org | Sep 17, 2020