Julian Assange had a big hearing in London today. A bunch of his supporters showed up,

but he did not. He's currently being held at Belmarsch Prison in London and a

WikiLeaks spokesperson said that while he's been there, his health has deteriorated and he's

lost a dramatic amount of weight. Today, his lawyer said he was too ill to appear in court. This

is like bad news on top of bad news on top of bad news for Assange, but the worst news came

about a week ago and Andrew Prokop has been covering the story for Vox.

Last week, the Justice Department announced a new superseding indictment, 17 new charges against

Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. US officials charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with

violating the espionage act for obtaining and publishing classified information with former Army

Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning. These are in connection to the leaks of military documents

and and State Department cables back in 2010, given to him by then private Chelsea Manning.

Some of the documents leaked exposed abuse by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Including information that documented the names of confidential human sources and that the

release of that information put the individuals in exceptionally grave danger.

Of any document writing, it lists several types of pieces of information relating to the

national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury

of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation is criminal.

Two federal prosecutors argued against using the espionage act against Assange,

they're reportedly worried about the threat that these charges could pose to the first amendment.

So it's a very broad law that has scared people for a long time and now it's being used by

the Justice Department to say that Assange's publication of the leaked classified and military

information that Chelsea Manning gave him is criminal.

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