The Assange saga reads more like the pages of a Tom Clancy book. After dumping classified U.S. documents all over the Internet, the WikiLeaks founder remains on the run from the law in the U.K. and is now threatening to drop a so-called “poison pill” of damaging secrets. What’s next — a wild chase hopping from rooftops, Harrison Ford-style?
Okay, maybe a bit dramatic. But, the noose finally appears to be tightening around Julian Assange and his controversial organization WikiLeaks from all corners of the world. NBC News reports the renegade founder plans to meet with British police today. And the infamously friends-with-everyone Swiss just froze his local bank account, which he had been using to help fund the site’s operation. Back in the States, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today the Obama administration is checking out all laws other than the U.S. Espionage Act to potentially prosecute WikiLeaks.
Talk about a case of the Mondays. How should the U.S. and the international community handle this case?
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Mr. Assange upset a bunch of somebodies...not through direct attacks, but through direct actions.
I applaud direct actions.
Bob Novak was never treated like this when he released the name of Valerie Plame. I think it's a travesty what is being done to Julian Assange. Granted, this batch of diplomatic cables seemed pretty pointless, but other than that I generally support his organization's work. If a government is doing something that would be embarrassing for them if exposed to the public, maybe they shouldn't be doing it at all.
What is especially bizarre is that, as I understand it, no actual state secrets were revealed -- nothing that one couldn't already find on the Internet, with a little hunting. It appears that Assange's greatest crime was that of embarrassing certain govt officials, showing that the emperors are, indeed, naked as jaybirds. Since the 1980s, I think Americans are the only people on Earth who imagine that the US govt is a shining example of "truth, justice and the American way."
Funny though how everybody responded rather blasé to the whole thing until Assange mentioned that the next set of leaks would be from banks...
Assange has done us all the inevitable favor of showing the world what one crazy genius v. the world's bureaucratic elite looks like. The rape allegation is likely made up, I say likely because... I mean he's still a crazy bastard so I wouldn't say it's impossible that he raped someone. I just mean I find it a little suspect that directly after pissing off the most powerful people in the world exclusively, all of a sudden he's accused of raping someone in the one country that wasn't going to arrest him for doing what was pissing all them off. Even if Assange was some sexual preditor/ambiguously intentioned pioneer for having access to diplomatic gossip-blog posts (that didn't need to be classified but definitely had no business being seen by the entire world), wouldn't he at least have raped someone in one of the many other countries that were going to want to arrest him anyway that he traveled to all the time, or the one that he was going to have to rely on for political refuge? This tactic of threatening to have these documents released clearly show that, whatever your opinions of the man, he plans ahead. I believe I remember reading an article on msnbc.com that mentioned the "insurance" file way back during one of the "war dumps". I think he would have accounted for not raping anyone in his future place of refuge, BUT that's just a hunch, he does seem to be a rather impulsive man.
But the notion that we can even arrest him for what he's doing is ridiculous. I don't know how the actual law works, but I was under the impression that the only person who can be prosecuted for these leaks is the one who physically stole them. Once again, he is a hacker so maybe he is guilty of that. But to me it only seems logical that as long as he's the one who received this information from the person who obtained it, he can't be touched legally. Where would it stop at that point? If Assange is prosecuted wouldn't that warrant the prosecution of every media outlet that reported on it? If you can prosecute the receiver, why can't you prosecute those who continue to propagate public interest in what's being revealed? To me it makes sense that you can either have a society where in instances such as this, every media outlet in existence is prone to political censorship, and its reporters and editors to political execution, or one in which Bradley Manning is the only one held legally responsible. But there can't be an in between, where Assange is prosecuted for receiving information that he had no legal responsibility to conceal or return to the United States Government. I think he's getting what's coming to him, but I hate the possible legal implications this may have for freedom of speech and of the press. It's clear to me though that Assange is accomplishing nothing by this nonsense but adding further strain to the joints of our aging style of politics by bringing to life such an insane hypothetical legal questions such as this. Which isn't really terrorist action, but certainly isn't peaceful action either.