, Columnist
Assange: Santa Claus or Dickensian Villain?
For the courts, how he got information may matter more than what he published. But the slope is slippery.
He has his fans too.
Photographer: Nicolo Filippo Rosso/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Is Julian Assange good or bad? “Yes” may be an acceptable answer.
British police this morning removed the WikiLeaks founder, bearded and horizontal, from the Ecuadorian embassy that had been his home for the past seven years. The U.S. government accused him of conspiring with Chelsea Manning to hack Defense Department computers to access classified files. The U.S. wants to extradite Assange, but Leonid Bershidsky suggests an American trial on charges of publishing classified material would be a bad idea, saying it would be better for European authorities to judge whether Assange is a journalist or a spy.