Obama administration seeks to criminalize WikiLeaks

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Obama administration seeks to criminalize WikiLeaks
By Patrick Martin
1 December 2010

Top officials of the Obama administration have threatened criminal prosecution
of WikiLeaks for its latest release of secret US diplomatic documents. Attorney
General Eric Holder, at a press conference Monday, declared, “There’s a
predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here and we are in
the process of investigating those crimes.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs flatly declared WikiLeaks guilty
without any investigation, saying, “Wikileaks and people that disseminate
information to people like this are criminals.”

Press reports suggested that the focus of the Justice Department investigation
was possible charges under the Espionage Act. The Washington Post reported, “the
FBI is examining everyone who came into possession of the documents, including
those who gave the materials to WikiLeaks and also the organization itself.”

No one except government employees has been successfully prosecuted under the
Espionage Act for receiving and passing on secret documents. The law was adopted
in 1917, during World War I, and has rarely been applied. WikiLeaks leaders like
Julian Assange cannot be charged with treason since they are not US citizens.
Assange is Australian, and many of his associates are from western Europe,
including Iceland, Germany and Sweden.

Holder suggested that new legislation might be required to deal with WikiLeaks.
“To the extent there are gaps in our laws,” he said, “we will move to close
those gaps, which is not to say…that anybody at this point, because of their
citizenship or their residence, is not a target or a subject of an investigation
that’s ongoing.”

An attempt under the Bush administration to apply the Espionage Act to two
employees of the pro-Zionist lobby AIPAC, who obtained the material from a US
intelligence analyst, Larry Franklin, and then passed it on to Israel, ended in
failure, as courts acquitted the two employees, despite the evidence provided by
the analyst, Larry Franklin, who was the source of the leak.

The US Attorney’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, which conducted the AIPAC
prosecution, is reportedly involved in the Justice Department review of possible
charges against WikiLeaks.

The Post reported that the Pentagon is leading the prosecution, and “it remains
unclear whether any additional charges would be brought in the military or
civilian justice systems.” This refers not only to the ongoing investigation of
Private First Class Bradley Manning, described as the source of at least some of
the material published by WikiLeaks, but to possible trial of Assange and others
before military tribunals, like the alleged terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay.

At least one congressman, Republican Peter King of New York, has called on the
State Department to declare WikiLeaks a terrorist organization, a legal step
that would trigger US economic, diplomatic and even military action against any
country that “harbored” the Internet-based group.

Under the powers claimed by the Obama administration for the
“commander-in-chief,” designation of WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization would
provide the legal basis for Obama ordering the kidnapping or even assassination
of Assange and others linked to the organization.

Right-wing media spokesmen have already endorsed such measures. The Wall Street
Journal, in its editorial Tuesday, declared Assange an “enemy of the United
States” and claimed, “If he were exposing Chinese or Russian secrets, he would
already have died at the hands of some unknown assailant.”

The US government should be no less ruthless, the editorial argued: “As a
foreigner (Australian citizen) engaged in hostile acts against the U.S., Mr.
Assange is certainly not protected from U.S. reprisal under the laws of war.”

Given that Assange’s “hostile acts” consist of nothing more than Internet
postings, this is a sweeping doctrine indeed. Apparently, the Journal is
prepared to sanction the extermination of political opponents of US imperialism
throughout the world.

In addition to countenancing the assassination of Assange, the Journal also
backs the execution of Private Manning, declaring, “At a minimum, the
Administration should throw the book at those who do the leaking, including the
option of the death penalty. That would probably give second thoughts to the
casual spy or to leakers who fancy themselves as idealists.”

According to press accounts, WikiLeaks offered the latest documents to the
Journal, in part because of dissatisfaction with the handling of previous
releases by the New York Times, including a vicious smear article attacking
Assange. The Journal refused to take the documents, and was joined in its
cover-up by the cable television network CNN.

After the WikiLeaks postings this summer of US documents relating to atrocities
committed by American military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama
administration set in motion a politically motivated persecution of Assange in
Sweden, where prosecutors were induced to file sexual assault charges against
him. Last month, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Assange based on the
Swedish charges.

The exact whereabouts of Assange are uncertain, as he has had to be constantly
on the move because of threats against his life, as well as the trumped-up
criminal charge. At least one country, Ecuador, has offered him residency. The
nationalist government of President Rafael Correa forced the closure of the US
air base at Manta and the withdrawal of US planes that were engaged in
surveillance flights over neighboring Colombia, in support of the military
operations against the FARC guerrillas there.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas said Monday that Assange would be welcome
in Ecuador. “We are open to giving him residency in Ecuador, without any problem
and without any conditions,” he said.

“We are going to try and invite him to Ecuador to freely present, not only via
the Internet, but also through different public forums, the information and
documentation that he has,” he said.

Lucas added that Ecuador was concerned about the espionage activities conducted
by US embassies in many countries, including Ecuador itself. WikiLeaks has not
yet made public the more than 1,600 cables in its possession that originated
from the US embassy in Quito.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/wiki-d01.shtml

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