JULIAN ASSANGE & WIKILEAKS

Our First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or the press". Yet we find ourselves currently mentioning Julian Assange, publisher and director of Wikileaks, in the same breath as concepts like “enemy of the state”, “cyber warfare”, “treason”, and “espionage” (SOURCE). Obama has called upon the Justice Department to investigate the possibility of prosecuting Assange for the number of “leaks” he has published on his website regarding US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the most recent leaks revealing tens of thousands of secret Diplomatic cables to the public...

It has been mentioned that we ought to consider prosecuting Assange under the US Espionage Act for having obtained and published confidential material, which, according to characters like our president and secretary of defense, Robert Gates, were harmful to US military strategy and to the US’ reputation around the world, specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan (SOURCE) .... Yet, it has not been sufficiently questioned, HOW we might ever consider bringing an Australian citizen under trial in the USA, in order to try him for espionage and treason against the US government. As far as I’m aware, the Espionage Act is a US law, used only in application to US citizens, and furthermore, I think it would be hard to convict one of treason against a country where one is NOT a citizen...

Furthermore, and a little more disturbing in my mind, many of our own Congresspeople have made out Assange and the Wikileaks organization to be an enemy of our state. Representative King of NY urged the President to "use every offensive capability of the U.S. government to prevent further damaging releases." (SOURCE) In our news sources and in Congress, we, the American people, have been hearing more rhetoric about “security threats” and fear of “damaging materials” than we’ve heard about an outrage with a government clearly lying to its people, and doing a bad job at hiding it.

As far as I’m concerned, censorship and avoidance of government transparency has me more bothered than an international news organization that publishes documents harming our reputation in a way warranted by our own actions. As far as I’m concerned, Assange has broken no US law or committed no act of war against us that warrant such attacks. Wikileaks has already been blacklisted by the US government and the Australian government, causing the destruction of the relationship they had with their financial sponsor. What more does our government want to do to them?

Many people once thought the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to be an illegal act, punishable under the Espionage Act. But the Supreme Court did not find The New York Times guilty of treason, and furthermore, the papers released shed light on the lies surrounding our initial attack to begin the Vietnam War (SOURCE). The whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, and The New York Times are viewed as heroic for revealing the lies that led us to that dark place in our history.

I think a reevaluation of how we view wikileaks is much needed. I fear the embarrassment of our government is a greater contributor to its brash reaction than a true assessment of any harm that has actually been done. Representative Ron Paul, called the US Congress to begin asking the right kinds of questions regarding this current situation. And I think we, the American people, ought to be asking these questions too. Just to name a few...

“*Do the America People deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
*Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?
* Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations?
* If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
*Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?”
(SOURCE)

...Let us not fear the dissenting voice, and rather brave the storm of standing up to what accepted knowledge we find in our current age.... If our government is wrong for such deep and permanent involvements in so many places abroad, let us just say so.

-E.C. Mignanelli