I really don’t think anyone had you in mind when they call for execute all involved or whatever phrase they used. You were clear that you would probably call the MPs. This is a tricky situation, but the first amendment does not protect all speech and I don’t believe that reporters should receive extra protection under it. If a person is printing stuff on the US intelligence then two things should happen if the person is American- trial for treason then shot in the head, or if like Assange a foreigner - trial for being a spy then shot the head. I read one article where they may be able to try him as an accomplice. Furthermore as an Australian our first amendment right does not apply to him so send him to gitmo and try his butt in a military court then shoot him in the head.
I appreciate the clarification that you don't want to shoot me.
This Wikileaks issue is difficult and nasty, for multiple reasons.
First off, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Pentagon Papers case, has made quite clear that media cannot be prosecuted for espionage. Under that precedent, if the
New York Times had done this, they would be free and clear, and nobody could do anything about it. That's been settled law for nearly four decades. We don't have to like it -- I happen to hate the Supreme Court decision on abortion from about the same time period, which unlike the Pentagon Papers case, has extremely thin constitutional precedent -- but there is no realistic way to overturn either court decision with our current composition of the Supreme Court and Congress.
Second, the problem with trying to curtail abuse of rights is that the enumerated rights in the Constitution really **ARE** as close as you can get to absolute. Just as the NRA pushes the limit -- correctly, in my view -- and refuses any compromise even when people are doing really stupid and idiotic things with guns out of concern that giving an inch will result in the gun-grabbers taking a mile, the various press freedom organizations in the United States will do the same with this case. If it's possible to prosecute media for using leaked documents that imperil national security, the slippery slope is very steep toward prosecuting media for other types of leaks.
Note something here that is **VERY** important. The media do **NOT** have the right to steal documents or to leak them. There is a court case involving an undercover television investigation in which producers lied on their resumes, got hired by a grocery store chain, and documented with hidden cameras that store personnel were re-labeling meat with new dates that was no longer safe to sell. My recollection of the details is a little fuzzy and since it's a side point I don't feel like looking them up right now, but the key point is that what the TV staff diid crossed a very important line -- the media could have used hidden camera footage taken by store employees or otherwise obtained, but they didn't have the right to do it themselves.
Let's go back to the key issue. The Pentagon Papers case had to do with whether the government, in time of war, had the right to restrict freedom of the press. There were precedents for that under Abraham Lincoln, who shut down newspapers that opposed him and did other extreme acts that virtually nobody would consider acceptable today, at least apart from civil war on our own soil.
However, the Supreme Court decided four decades ago that even in the extreme case of leaked information that could harm the war effort, the government does not have the right to prosecute media for espionage. Abraham Lincoln and FDR also used military tribunals (JB King has written a book noting that miltiary tribunals were used right here in Pulaski County during the Civil War, with Lincoln personally reviewing the verdicts), but the court system is also making it very difficult to use that precedent, and I don't think the current Supreme Court has any inclination to allow a return to pre-Vietnam military precedents of what we can do with either military tribunals or restrictions on media that the President believe imperil the national interest.
Whether we like the court actions or not, to go after WikiLeaks for espionage without changing the Supreme Court decision -- which realistically is not going to happen -- I can think of only two ways to do that.
One would be to declare that Julian the Ass-in-Chief is not subject to the protections of the United States Constitution because he is a foreigner, and then prosecute him as a foreign spy. Personally, I could live with that; there are reasons why Rupert Murdoch had to become a U.S. citizen before owning the number of broadcast media that he now owns. Print media and cable/satellite media have virtually no restrictions under the First Amendment; broadcast media, because they use the limited and therefore regulated resource of the airwaves, have some restrictions and used to have more. Remember the "Fairness Doctrine?" I personally would not have a problem with saying that owning or working for a news organizion in the United States is a privilege for non-citizens rather than a right, and that those who abuse the privilege can be prosecuted. (When I worked for a prior newspaper that periodically sent me to other countries for news coverage, I sometimes had to declare my intent to work as a reporter and I don't have a problem with that.)
The problem is that the Supreme Court has for many years extended most constitutional protections to foreigners, and in the case of Julian the Ass, that route wouldn't help much because he isn't in the United States and the offenses didn't take place on American soil. The most that could be done is that a warrant might be issued for his arrest if he ever showed up here, but a number of European countries would refuse to honor such an extradition request.
The second way to prosecute Julian the Ass and Wikileaks is to declare that the internet is not subject to the same constitutional protections as print media. That is a realistic possibiliity, but it is an extremely dangerous one.
Remember the "Net Neutrality" efforts not that long ago? Remember the claims of the FCC to have certain rights to regulate the Internet?
Believe me, there are many things that I would just **LOVE** to see banned from the Internet. But once the United States government gets in the business of deciding what is and what is not legitimate media -- especially as the printing press with its near-absolute protections under the First Amendment rapidly moves toward obsolescence -- we run into real constitutional problems.
I see no realistic way to prosecute Julian the Ass under current United States law. I am, however, very concerned that "great cases make bad law," and that a frustrated and angry coalition of conservative Republicans in Congress and Hillary Clinton's State Department will end up producing something that makes the Patriot Act look like a very minor step.
If the goal is to penalize Wikileaks for the damage it's already done, much of this is irrelevant because under current law, WikiLeaks has done nothing wrong, and ex post facto laws are not allowed by the Constitution. All we can do is pass a new law and prosecute WikiLeaks for future violations, not past acts.
Again, if the goal is to penalize Wikileaks for the damage it's already done, keep doing what's being done now, namely, making it difficult for anyone but the most dedicated supporters to give them money. Not only PayPal but also the major credit card companies are pulling the plug. Use diplomatic pressure to get WikiLeak's charitable contribution status revoked in those of our allies which have granted that to WikiLeaks; that is a privilege, not a constitutional right, and it can be revoked much more easily. Then at the same time, prosecute the idiot PFC to the fullest extent of the law, up to and including the death penalty if we can prove that his actions killed American soldiers or our allies, and consider televising the court-martial to make clear to every other soldier that you can't do this stuff and get away with it. Finally, tighten security so something like this can never happen again. It shouldn't have happened the first time, but when I read that this PFC was using erased DVDs with Lady Gaga labels to download hundreds of thousands of classified documents and nobody suspected a thing, I am shocked that it hasn't happened a hundred more times with our soldiers leaking stuff to other countries -- or maybe it has on a much smaller scale and we just don't know about it because the recipients of the leaks didn't want us to find out.
Between those three steps, a repetition of the WikiLeaks debacle can probably be prevented. The damage that's done cannot be undone, however, and people are quite likely going to die as a result.
My concern is that there will be an extreme reaction, Congress will pass some really bad laws to regulate the internet, and the news media will spend the next half-decade fighting in court to make sure the First Amendment still applies to the internet. Eventually the Supreme Court will strike down most if not all of what Congress might pass out of political frustration, but nobody needs to spend years fighting that battle.
I have another deeper concern, however.
I have no doubt that the goal of conservatives is to penalize Wikileaks for the damage it's already done and prevent future damage to national security. That's a good goal and there are existing ways to do that.
I have considerably more serious concerns about the motives of the Hillary Clinton State Department. This is the woman who, according to the leaked documents, directed our agencies to spy on the General Secretary of the United Nations who happens to be a South Korean citizen who was put in that job because he is an American ally. Even if it's legal and in accord with established procedures, is that really what we want our Secretary of State telling taxpayer-paid federal employees to do? She has at least a two-decades-long history of spying on people, beginning with her husband's affairs, and now apparently is using the federal government to do so.
The last thing we need is Hillary Clinton crafting legislation for her own reasons and getting angry Republicans to go along with her. I'm pretty confident that the Supreme Court will eventually rule the right way in conformity with longstanding precedents, but the political damage could be considerably greater than the judicial damage.
