Using a high-security online drop box and a well-insulated website, WikiLeaks has published 76,000 classified U.S. documents about the war in Afghanistan,[1] nearly 400,000 classified U.S. documents about the war in Iraq,[2] and more than 2,000 U.S. diplomatic cables.[3] In doing so, it has collaborated with some of the most powerful newspapers in the world,[4] and it has rankled some of the most powerful people in the world.[5] President Barack Obama said in July 2010, right after the release of the Afghanistan documents, that he was “concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield.”[6] His concern spread quickly through the echelons of power, as WikiLeaks continued in the fall of 2010 to release caches of classified U.S. documents.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the slow drip of diplomatic cables, saying it was “not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests, it [was] an attack on the international community.”[7] Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in an e-mail to intelligence agencies that the “actions taken by WikiLeaks are not only deplorable, irresponsible, and reprehensible—they could have major impacts on our national security.”[8] Members of Congress scrambled to respond to the website and its founder, Julian Assange, calling variously for a criminal prosecution,[9] for an overhaul of the Espionage Act of 1917,[10] and for a law that would make it illegal to publish the names of military and intelligence informants.[11]
For his part, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in late November that the Justice Department and the Pentagon were investigating the circumstances surrounding the leaks to determine if criminal charges would be filed.[12] Holder declined to say whether WikiLeaks or Assange were targets of the investigation. He said that anybody, regardless of citizenship or place of residence, could be a target, adding, “Let me be very clear . . . to the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law . . . they will be held responsible.”[13] Holder also said it would be a “misimpression” to think he was studying only the Espionage Act.[14] Then, in early January 2011, the Justice Department subpoenaed records from Twitter about the account activity of several people connected to WikiLeaks.[15] A federal grand jury reportedly has been meeting in Virginia to weigh the government’s evidence against WikiLeaks and Assange,[16] in connection with the military’s case against Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks.
via hlpronline.com
And ... "The First Amendment does not belong to the press, ... It protects the expressive rights of all speakers, sometimes on the basis of the Speech Clause and sometimes on the basis of the Press Clause. To argue that the First Amendment would protect Assange and WikiLeaks only if they are part of the press is to assume (1) that the Speech Clause would not protect them, and (2) that there is a major difference between the Speech and Press Clauses."
[via TECHDIRT]
