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Police said the man called 911 and reported that he had tried to kill his wife.

Aerial view of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Carol M. Highsmith Archive collection at the Library of Congress.

What do you view as a more serious crime: divulging government secrets or possessing child pornography? If you chose the latter, the U.S. government begs to differ.

Joshua Schulte leaked a tranche of CIA secrets to WikiLeaks, known as the Vault 7 leaks, in 2017. Agents investigating the leak also found 15,000 images of child pornography and erotica on his computers. Yesterday he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman to 40 years in prison: six years and eight months — a below average sentence — for child pornography, and the remaining 33 years and 4 months for the Vault 7 leaks.

And the imbalance in Schulte’s sentence can’t be blamed on Furman alone: it’s consistent with the Department of Justice’s sentencing memo, which disproportionately focused on the leaks to justify throwing the book at Schulte. It sought a life sentence for the disclosures, citing punishments imposed on actual spies, not leakers. In contrast, a pre-sentencing report recommended only 60 months — the mandatory minimum — for child pornography.

This follows the draconian five-year sentence imposed last week on Charles Littlejohn, who leaked Donald Trump’s tax returns to The New York Times and tax returns of ultra-wealthy Americans to ProPublica, enabling important investigative reports by both publications.

We’re not comparing Schulte to Littlejohn or other whistleblowers, from Daniel Ellsberg to Chelsea Manning, who acted because their conscience compelled them to risk prison to expose wrongdoing. Schulte's motive was apparently revenge against his former colleagues at the CIA. And of course, his child pornography collection is abhorrent, and he absolutely should serve a lengthy prison sentence following his conviction for those disgusting crimes.

But bad facts make bad law. And when government officials found a defendant as unsympathetic (to say the least) as Schulte they jumped at the opportunity to escalate their war on leakers in ways they could later use to punish real whistleblowers, including by successfully seeking a “terrorism enhancement” on Schulte’s sentence because his leaks were “clearly calculated to retaliate against the United States as a whole."

Here’s how Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights & Dissent, put it: “Using an isolated and unpopular defendant, the government has dramatically expanded its arsenal against media sources. We cannot expect the terrorism enhancement or analogizing online news sites to hostile foreign governments to end in this case.”

Furman did note in his remarks that Schulte wasn’t motivated by altruism. And officials have characterized Schulte’s leak as causing a “digital Pearl Harbor,” although that seems hyperbolic: The fallout they cite involves operational difficulties, not deaths. But nonetheless, it’s easy to imagine the government using exceedingly vague legal definitions of terrorism to obtain heightened sentences against whistleblowers and dissidents who have little in common with Schulte.

In fact, there’s no need to imagine. Julian Assange is not a former government employee with a grudge, but prosecutors nonetheless reportedly planned, and may still plan, to seek a terrorism enhancement in his prosecution.

Assange isn’t accused of leaking documents himself but of obtaining documents from a whistleblower (Manning) and then publishing them on WikiLeaks. Award-winning investigative journalists obtain and publish leaked documents every day. Whether you love or hate Assange, the prospect that the government would not only prosecute this kind of constitutionally protected activity, but could characterize it as “terrorism,” is highly alarming.

Schulte absolutely should spend the foreseeable future behind bars for his hoarding of child pornography. He’s a despicable person and we have no sympathy for him.

But it speaks volumes about the priorities of our government that his punishment overwhelmingly arises from his disclosure of government secrets. The government appears to view his child pornography offenses as a mere excuse to test how far it can go in punishing those who expose its abuses. The next Ellsberg might well think twice before blowing the whistle with this sentence as a precedent.

A painting created by all four members of The Beatles has sold at auction for a little over $1.7 million.  The untitled piece of art, which has become known as Images of a Woman,…

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NEW YORK (AP) — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76. Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family [...]

ALTON - A 19-year-old man from Alton has recently been charged with two felonies including vehicular invasion and robbery, according to recently filed Madison County Court documents. Ashton M. Britt-Dwyer, 19, of Alton, was charged with vehicular invasion and robbery on Jan. 27, 2024. According to court documents, Britt-Dwyer allegedly entered into the interior of a Ford Fusion “by force” while the vehicle was occupied, “with the intent to commit a theft or felony.” He was additionally charged with robbery after taking a wallet and work bag from the same victim by use of force. A petition to deny his pretrial release describes a physical altercation between Britt-Dwyer and the victim, who he allegedly attempted to pull out of their car before stealing their property and later admitting the crime to his mother. “Defendant was identified as the suspect who approached the victim in her motor vehicle and reached through the window, attempting to grab

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As our Error 402 series continues, I swear that eventually we’re going to get to some of the more promising models and stuff that actually has been working in some cases shortly, but we’re still covering some of the stuff that hasn’t fully panned out (or, has only panned out in limited setups). For this […]

Each year, an estimated 60,000 acres of wetlands are lost in the United States. They are the most threatened ecosystem in the country. Shaw Nature Reserve's restoration and land stewardship manager Mike Saxton talks about current threats to wetlands and makes the case for why we should preserve and build upon the few, but critically important, wetlands that remain.

GRANITE CITY - A man from Granite City was recently charged with committing armed robbery at the Lam's Garden restaurant in Granite City, as well as illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, according to recently filed Madison County court documents. Cordarell D. Rogers, 32, of Granite City, was charged with one count of armed robbery and one count of unlawful possession of weapons by a felon. Court documents state that on Jan. 27, 2024, Rogers allegedly stole an undisclosed amount of U.S. currency from a victim “by threatening the imminent use of force, while he carried on or about his person or was otherwise armed with a firearm.” A petition to deny Rogers’ pretrial release describes the armed robbery as follows: “Defendant was identified as the suspect who entered the Lam's Garden restaurant and robbed the clerk of U.S. currency at gunpoint. The defendant was identified by surveillance video of him fleeing in a nearby vehicle. He was arrested

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Dead & Company recently announced they’ll be doing a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and now drummer Bill Kreutzmann has shared his thoughts on the shows in a new Instagram post. “Historically,…

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