Thursday, December 30, 2010

WikiLeaks Leads to Calls for New Infringements on Speech, Press


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SOURCE:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/constitution/5700-wikileaks-leads-to-calls-for-new-infringements-on-speech-press




Written by Alex Newman

Thursday, 30 December 2010 11:40


American proponents of government secrecy are calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be assassinated or imprisoned, even if it means creating a new law to do it. And that is exactly what anti-WikiLeaks activists in the federal government are working on right now. People calling for the prosecution of Assange and WikiLeaks — mostly Western officials, government apologists, and media talking heads — have generally advocated indictments for conspiracy and even espionage. A few, who may not have realized Assange was an Australian national, actually called for charges of treason. Former House Speaker and establishment Republican Newt Gingrich wants him classified as an “enemy combatant.” Others called for outright extrajudicial murder.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been intentionally vague about what is going on within the Justice Department in terms of charging WikiLeaks. But he did say "there's a predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here and we are in the process of investigating those crimes." Holder acknowledged several weeks ago that an investigation was ongoing and that he had "authorized significant steps" in the leak probe, but he did not offer any details.

Analysts are unsure of what U.S. charges would or even could be aimed at Assange. The most likely candidate right now would appear to be “conspiracy,” especially if accused whistle-blower Pfc. Bradley Manning can be prodded into fingering Assange as a co-conspirator.


Manning is currently being held in solitary confinement, as the United Nations and human rights groups around the world continue to express concern over the conditions of his detention. And experts suspect the allegedly harsh treatment could be leading to a mental breakdown, making it easier to coerce him into helping bring charges against Assange.


Another option for the prosecution that has received a lot of publicity recently is the Espionage Act of 1917. Under that statute, individuals can be prosecuted for publishing or even “willfully” keeping information related to national defense or anything that could be "used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation."


Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein is one legislator who was calling loudly for an espionage prosecution. She took to the pages of the
Wall Street Journal, calling Assange an “agitator intent on damaging our government” and saying that, because Assange “intentionally harmed the U.S. government,” he should be “vigorously prosecuted for espionage.” She also wrote that she thought such a prosecution would be successful.

But there are a few problems with that. First of all, the Espionage Act is normally applied to spies working for foreign governments or leakers within the U.S regime — not journalists
exposing secret wars, climate espionage and bribery, and war crimes, such as the use of illegal cluster bombs by U.S. forces in Yemen. And that is one reason legal experts have consistently dismissed calls for charges of espionage, even during recent congressional hearings on the matter.

But legislators are already moving to modify the 1917 statute to make it easier to prosecute Assange and others like him. Earlier this month, neoconservative Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), John Ensign (R-Nev.), and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced a bill to amend the Espionage Act. The proposal would purport to criminalize the disclosure of any information “concerning the human intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government.”

Naturally, all of the Senators responsible for the bill thought it was a great idea. “Julian Assange and his cronies, in their effort to hinder our war efforts, are creating a hit list for our enemies,” fumed Senator Ensign in a
statement. “Let me be very clear, WikiLeaks is not a whistleblower website and Assange is not a journalist.”

Senator Scott Brown, who despite small-government campaign rhetoric has largely disappointed conservatives around the country with his agenda, said in the same
statement: “The reckless behavior of WikiLeaks has compromised our national security and threatened the safety of our troops overseas, and this bipartisan legislation gives the Department of Justice a tool to prevent something like this from happening again.” Apparently sending the troops around the world to “nation build” in undeclared wars is not what jeopardized the troops; it was WikiLeaks.

The statement also cited Attorney General Holder, who said: “To the extent there are gaps in the laws, we will move to close those gaps.” A similar measure was introduced in the House, too. Closing the "gaps" indeed, prohibitions on ex post facto decrees not withstanding. (The Constitution forbids ex post facto laws — laws that have a retroactive effect.)


Government spokespeople have also made clear that the regime in D.C. does not consider Assange a journalist. And judging by their statements, they seem to think that the First Amendment protects only people whom the government considers journalists.


"Mr. Assange obviously has a particular political objective behind his activities, and I think that, among other things, disqualifies him as being considered a journalist,"
said State Department PR boss Philip Crowley.

But experts are already warning against prosecuting WikiLeaks or Assange under the Espionage Act. One analyst, Brookings Institution senior fellow Benjamin Wittes,
noted that in addition to being old and vague, the wording of the statute could lead to very serious problems if it was applied against the whistle-blowing organization.

"By its terms, [the Espionage Act] criminalizes not merely the disclosure of national defense information by organizations such as Wikileaks, but also the reporting on that information by countless news organizations," Wittes wrote in a blog post. "It also criminalizes all casual discussions of such disclosures by persons not authorized to receive them to other persons not authorized to receive them — in other words, all tweets sending around those countless news stories, all blogging on them, and all dinner party conversations about their contents." Finally, and perhaps most importantly: "Taken at its word, the Espionage Act makes felons of us all," Wittes pointed out.


Some legislators have in fact praised WikiLeaks for the revelations, including, most notably, constitutionalist Republican Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) who
stood up before the House of Representatives and offered a speech applauding transparency and the truth. “Despite what is claimed, the information that has been so far released, though classified, has caused no known harm to any individual, but it has caused plenty of embarrassment to our government,” he said. “Losing our grip on our empire is not welcomed by the neoconservatives in charge.”

He also warned of the slippery slope in prosecuting Assange. “If WikiLeaks is to be prosecuted for publishing classified documents, why shouldn't the
Washington Post, the New York Times, and others who also published these documents be prosecuted? Actually, some in Congress are threatening this as well,” he said, noting that a previous case of publishing classified information had revealed the lies surrounding the war in Vietnam — and that disclosure was found to be legal by the Supreme Court.

Democrat Rep. John Conyers, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also
warned against trying to prosecute WikiLeaks or its founder. "As an initial matter, there is no doubt that WikiLeaks is very unpopular right now. Many feel that the WikiLeaks publication was offensive," he said. "But being unpopular is not a crime, and publishing offensive information is not either. And the repeated calls from politicians, journalists, and other so-called experts crying out for criminal prosecutions or other extreme measures make me very uncomfortable," Conyers added.

"And so whatever you think about this controversy, it is clear that prosecuting Wikileaks would raise the most fundamental questions about freedom of speech, about who is a journalist, and about what the public can know about the actions of its own government," said Conyers, who held a hearing into the WikiLeaks affair recently. "But let us not be hasty, and let us not legislate in a climate of fear or prejudice," Conyers concluded, referring to proposals to invent new laws to prosecute Assange and others like him. “For, in such an atmosphere, it is our constitutional freedoms and our cherished civil rights that are the first to be sacrificed in the false service of our national security."


But new statutes to prosecute WikiLeaks is exactly what some experts fear might be coming. In a piece for the
Atlanta Journal Constitution, former GOP Congressman and, more recently, libertarian party candidate for President Bob Barr warned of precisely that. “If the congressional critics of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have their way, a new and revised version of the Sedition Act may be in the offing,” Barr wrote, referring to the infamous statute that purported to criminalize dissent in the early American Republic. “Yet such ridiculously broad expansion of federal law, simply to pillory a person who clearly delights in embarrassing the government, would seem to be what some in Washington … just might have in mind. And, unfortunately, there are many in the executive branch who appear to be moving in just such direction; actively constructing what may becomes a conspiracy case against Assange.”

While legislators, talking heads and “justice” officials conspire to prosecute WikiLeaks in a “court of law,” the Central Intelligence Agency, meanwhile, has created a new
WikiLeaks Task Force (WTF). What exactly WTF will do is hard to know, since it was only discovered by anonymous CIA officials talking to the Washington Post. But as noted by countless analysts and observers, the U.S. regime does not take kindly to having its embarrassing secrets exposed. And therefore, whether it creates a new law, or, as Assange fears, makes an attempt at assassination, the regime is certainly not through with WikiLeaks just yet.



Photo of Dianne Feinstein: AP Images

Julian Assange: Crikey’s Readers’ Choice Person of the Year

Julian Assange: Crikey’s Readers’ Choice Person of the Year

personoftheyear

Relatively unknown 12 months ago, a household name today. It’s no surprise that Julian Assange took out Crikey’s Person of the Year with such a whopping margin (he polled 38.6% more than the second-placed Bob Brown, whose Greens party also had a big 2010).

Even before he started drip feeding confidential US government cables last month, the Townsville-born whistleblower gained notoriety for leaking information powerful people wanted kept secret. From the release of the infamous “collateral murder” video in April (viewed more than 10 million times) to the massive dump of confidential Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, Assange has had a pretty big 12 months, it’s fair to say.

The enigmatic, elusive WikiLeaks founder is now fighting extradition to Sweden on s-xual assault allegations, while the US government is looking for ways to prosecute him plus stop him leaking more sensitive government documents. Whatever the outcome of the claims leveled against him, Assange has vowed to continue his pursuit of freedom of information.

An enemy of the state and a champion of democracy, some say he has changed the media landscape forever. One thing is for sure, we’ll be hearing more from Julian Assange in 2011.

awards_personoftheyear



Click here to find out more!

Assange promises info on Mabhouh, Lebanon War



Photo: AP
Assange: More to come Photo: AP




Assange promises info on Mabhouh, Lebanon War




WikiLeaks has barely begun to scratch surface of information it has on Israel, says founder


Roee Nahmias

Published: 12.23.10, 09:27 / IsraelNews

The founder of the whistle-blowing WikiLeaks site, Julian Assange, says his website had not yet begun to publish the majority of the information it has on Israel.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Assange said that what has been published on the state till now constitutes just "1-2%" of the information, which includes intelligence on the Mabhouh assassination and the Second Lebanon War.

Assange, who is in Britain after having been released from custody, added that of the 3,700 documents on Israel in his possession, some 2,700 came from within the state.

He also promised to reveal high-level communications on "the assassination of a Syrian official by a sniper", apparently referring to Muhammad Suleiman, who was a top aide to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The process of revealing all this paperwork is scheduled to take around six months, the website founder said.

But Assange categorically denied rumors that have surfaced recently, regarding a possible deal between WikiLeaks and Israel.


"We have had no direct or indirect contact with the Israelis," he said, adding, however, that the Mossad and other intelligence agencies were closely monitoring the website.

In addition, Assange said, publications of various documents depended on the various newspapers and their interest in different subjects. However no deal had been struck with Israel not to publish detrimental findings on the state, he said.

WikiLeaks cable: Dubai asked for US help in Mabhouh probe

Source:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4005440,00.html



Cables

Photo: AFP
Alleged members of Mossad hit squad Photo: AFP

Photo: AFP
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (archives) Photo: AFP




WikiLeaks cable: Dubai asked for US help in Mabhouh probe




Diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks show Dubai police asked US to check transactions made with three credit cards allegedly used by Mossad operatives who killed senior Hamas figure; information relayed to FBI



Ronen Medzini


Published: 12.28.10, 07:59 / Israel News

American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks overnight Tuesday reveal the credit card numbers which, according to the Dubai police department, were used by Mossad operatives who allegedly assassinated senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in January.

A month after Mabhouh was killed, the United Arab Emirates' foreign minister asked the American ambassador for assistance in the murder investigation. According to one of the cables, the Americans were asked to provide details on three credit cards with the numbers 5115260016006190, 5115260016005317, 5301380032017106.
More to Come

Assange promises info on Mabhouh, Lebanon War / Roee Nahmias

WikiLeaks has barely begun to scratch surface of information it has on Israel, says founder
Full Story

A letter addressed to the American envoy included details on evidence gathered by the investigation team in Dubai. The letter claimed that the credit cards used by the assassins were issued in a bank in Iowa. In the cable exposed by WikiLeaks, the American diplomat wrote that the details were transferred to the FBI.

In the letter, Dubai authorities also asked the US to instruct the central bank to gather information on "laundered" money and suspicious transactions made with the credit cards, which they claim were used by Mabhouh's killers.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said more documents related to the Mabhouh assassination would be revealed soon.

WikiLeaks global defense of sources and press freedoms, circa now— 27 December, 2010


... could become as important a journalistic tool
as the Freedom of Information Act.

— Time Magazine
WikiLeaks


global defense of sources and press freedoms, circa now—
27 December, 2010


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At midday on Friday 5 February, 2016 Julian Assange, John Jones QC, Melinda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzon will be speaking at a press conference at the Frontline Club on the decision made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the Assange case.