Joe Biden is rolling over to the Deep State again.
And they’re taking full advantage of it.
Now a former Deep State spy is calling on Biden to cancel the First Amendment.
Political observers were shocked when George Croner, a former litigation counsel at the National Security Agency, wrote an article in the UPenn newspaper calling for the government to end freedom of the press forever.
Croner angrily writes that “For too long, some national security journalists have trolled the corridors of government agencies soliciting the indignantly underpaid, the ideologue, or the malcontent to pilfer secrets they are sworn to protect.”
Croner then goes on to hail the prosecution of Julian Assange as a warning sign that those independent journalists may also end up in jail soon.
Of course, what the Deep State fears most is independent journalists who tell the truth about what they do under the cloak of darkness. The Deep State loves outlets like CNN that they can control and manipulate.
Without the First Amendment and freedom of the press, the American people would have no idea that the intelligence community listens to their phone calls, reads their emails, tracks their location, and records their purchases on a daily basis.
Additionally, it’s because of the First Amendment that Americans learned about the atrocities of the War in Iraq, and the total failure of the war effort under the Bush and Obama administrations.
What spies like George Croner want is an unrestrained government that can do whatever it wants to its citizens, and to people around the world, without the truth ever seeing the light of day. They want secrecy to the point of tyranny, and they want American democracy reduced to a vapid popularity contest with no real semblance of self-governance.
That’s why they are ecstatic that a true journalist like Julian Assange is behind bars for the crime of telling the truth. And it’s why they desperately want other journalists, like Glenn Greenwald – famous for breaking the Edward Snowden story – in jail alongside him.
There are signs that the Biden administration may give George Croner exactly what he wants. In February, the Biden administration signaled that they will continue the prosecution of Julian Assange, and the attempt to extradite him to the U.S. under Espionage Act charges.
According to an Axios article from February 13th, “Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if he is sent to the U.S. and found guilty of all 18 counts in the indictment filed against him.”
Assange, of course, did not engage in any espionage against the United States, nor did he actually steal any classified information. He published redacted information that he received from sources, which revealed criminal acts that the United States government has engaged in.
And that’s exactly why the government has come after him so hard.
It remains to be seen if the arguments applied to Assange’s prosecution will soon be used against other journalists, but the signs are not looking hopeful.
And George Croner will be sitting on the sidelines rooting for more secrecy and more tyranny.