> If an American journalist in UK is publishing Chinese military secrets, he will not be extradited to China.

That's absolutely correct as the UK doesn't have an extradition treaty with China.

Many would argue that Assange isn't a journalist.

And so that also is a factor.

I'll venture that the question of whether he is or is not a journalist is moot. The question is, "Is the offence for which extradition is sought political?"

It's relevant in that his crimes e.g. publishing classified material are permissible if it's done so by a journalist for public interest reasons i.e. Pentagon Papers case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

And all extraditions have a degree of politicisation about them so it wouldn't be at all abnormal here.

WL partnered with journalists from all the world. Questioning if he himself is a journalist is rather dishonest considering he thinks himself one and he is responsible for millions of informative, ground-breaking articles written worldwide.

The Australian Journalist should not be concerned about precedent set in a US court against a US citizen.

Don't kill the messenger.

Publishing classified material isn't a crime for someone who doesn't hold a security clearance. However it is illegal to actively encourage or assist others in stealing classified information.

In the U.S. there's no such thing as being a licensed journalist. Anyone can be a journalist.

"Anyone can be a journalist." Yes. That is what one should expect of any country with a minimum of press freedom.

What is the test for being a journalist? Serious question.

Whether you like Assange or what he stands for. If no, he's not a journalist.

What is he if not a journalist? He is not accused of leaking documents himself, but of facilitating their dissemination. Sounds more or less like the textbook definition of journalism to me.

So the issue with Assange was that he never showed any "limitation of harm" when he chose not to redact any of the content. It's a pretty core tenant of journalism ethics.

Those sort of subtleties are important when you're going to be arguing in front of a judge.

But the sort of pond scum that work for the British tabloids also never show any restraint, and yet no-one questions that they are journalists.

No, it's the "just a blogger" thing - if you only publish on the internet and not in print then your journalistic credentials will always be slightly suspect.

(source: I ran a newspaper, and while 90% of our readers read our stories on our website or FB page, according to our market research the fact that we printed actual paper gave us way more credibility with our audience than competitors who just published on the internet)

Tabloids toe the line more so than other publications.

They would never publish classified material without clearing it first with the UK government. And at minimum carefully redacting information that would put people in harm's way.

There seems to be a hypothesis nestled in there that the tabloids are run by responsible, clear thinking individuals who are pretending to be uncivilised boors but will drop the facade when confronted with an important issue.

What odds might be put on them actual being uncivilised boors who'll publish anything that gets eyeballs?

More likely they wouldn't publish raw classified information because it is dry and boring.

No, that is not the issue. That's just a Gish gallop-like defense coughed up now.

It's not true that you have to limit harm to the government's taste in order to be considered a journalist, and it's not true that Assange did not try to limit harm either.

> Those sort of subtleties are important when you're going to be arguing in front of a judge.

Not in front of this judge. If there's one thing the case against Assange hasn't been, it's subtle!

But he did do that? Wikileaks partnered with media houses from all over the world, part of that process included the joint dissemination and "limitation of harm" by censoring names in the field.

He never released anything that was damaging to a specific individual and actually resulted in harm to that person. His filtering is done by the amount of material he gets and what he chooses to release.

That's entirely moot from the standpoint of determining guilt or innocence in US criminal court.

It sounds like the textbook definition of a publisher.

Agreed, he has accomplished more than a journalist could ever hope to achieve.

I don’t think it should be a factor at this stage. Assange will get the time to argue he’s a journalist in the US.

However, I’m sure the judge will be influenced by her estimate of how likely Assange’s defense is to win their case.

Consider the alternative: the Espionage Act is almost never used, partly because there is a very strong chance it’s unconstitutional. Do we expect a UK judge to determine whether a US law violates the US Constitution as part of an extradition hearing? Or does it make more sense to extradite and have the US court system rule on the law’s constitutionality?

The UK at least is a common law country with historical connections to the US and a common language. I would expect a UK judge to do a better job of applying US law than a judge from a civil law country.

Yes, the inconvenience of being extradited and spending time in jail should mean something, but in practice the courts don’t give that a lot of weight. They just say they’ve balanced the relevant factors and made a decision.