He is seen not only as having acted disrespectfully to the U.S. government, but also stirring up popular opposition. In other words, he has committed an act of sedition. Because that crime is no longer on the books, it has to be described in a different way.
There is really only one technical infraction of the law that Assange is being accused of: unauthorized possession and dissemination. The rest of the indictment is about behavior that is not illegal, but what can be called seditious.
The Espionage Act indictment is so weak that it can only resort to an accusation that Assange endangered U.S. "national security" and aiding the enemy with no evidence to prove that that had ever happened.
Instead U.S. officials have been incensed with Assange for the embarrassment of uncovering their crimes and corruption. Since sedition is no longer on the books, they are only left with Section 793, paragraph (e) of the Espionage Act: the unauthorized possession and dissemination charge.
Innumerable journalists over the decades have possessed and disseminated classified information and continue to do so. Every citizen who has retweeted a WikiLeaks document has possessed and disseminated classified information. As the first journalist charged with this, a constitutional conflict is set up with the First Amendment, which will likely be challenged in court if Assange is extradited to the U.S. (A U.S. senator and a representative last month introduced a bill that would exempt journalists from paragraph (e)).
Left with no serious charge against him, the indictment is in line with the condemnation of Assange by U.S. officials, such as former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who called him a "high-tech terrorist" and a British judge who called him a "narcissist."
In other words, Assange has insulted the powerful in the manner of an Elizabethan subject. He's being accused of sedition, including stirring up dissent and unrest, such as in Tunisia, which sparked the Arab uprisings of 2010-2011.
Assange revealed what corporate media covers up: part of the long post-war U.S. history of overthrowing governments and using violence to spread its influence over the globe. He showed the U.S. motive is not spreading democracy but expanding its economic and geo-strategic interests. It is plainly seditious to do so contrary to a power-worshipping corporate media suppressing these historical facts.
Sedition is evidently a crime whose time has covertly come again.
Part Two in this series will be on The History of the Espionage Act and How it Ensnared Julian Assange.
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