BAD CITIZENSHIP MAY BE A CRIME
By RANDELL A. MONACO, Esq.
December 8, 2010
Does restricting access to the Internet infringe upon freedoms of speech? Certainly not in the eyes of United States Senator Joe Lieberman, chair of the Homeland Security Committee, who has now taken credit for getting Amazon.com to kick Wikileaks off its servers. Amazon continues to deny that their decision had anything to do with Lieberman despite that he has warned other tech firms not to host the site either.
Joe Lieberman suggested on Fox News today that the four media outlets that have publicized the Wikileaks cables should be investigated. "To me, the New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship," Lieberman said. "Whether they've committed a crime, I think that bears very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department.”
Has access to the internet become a basic human right? Certainly not in the United States where access seemingly belongs to PayPal, eBay and Amazon to plunder the nickels and pennies that still trickle down to the shrinking middle class. Does anyone think that Lieberman might now be indebted to these companies for their cooperation?
Does restricting access to the Internet infringe upon our fundamental constitutional rights to freedoms of speech and press? The legal analysis of this question requires a “strict scrutiny” test which simply stated requires a judicial determination of whether there is any other possible less restrictive way to avoid the harm threatened. Off the top of my head, it seems obvious that competent security of State Department Cables would be a much less restrictive manner presuming that diplomatic inconvenience is actually a threatened “harm” which outweighs the rights guaranteed Americans. This analysis seems to close the circle bringing us back to the issue of competence.
Apparently Joe Lieberman a former state attorney general, has little regard for our freedom of the press stating to Fox News that, “I think that bears a very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department” referring to whether the New York Times had committed a crime by publishing the diplomatic cables. How is the “publishing” by Wikileaks or the republishing by the New York Times different? The fact is that neither of them stole or conspired to steal the diplomatic cables that were downloaded by U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning while serving abroad who then brought them home to Boston and, while on leave, sent them off to WikiLeaks.
Despite the absence of discussion, you might be interested to know that PFC Manning has not been formally charged, but is in custody. This raises the issue of why? If there is a genuine threat of “harm” and not mere diplomatic embarrassment or inconvenience then why hasn’t he been charged with treason? My guess is that the facts may still be cooking and that PFC Manning might be needed to testify should the Justice Department come up with a recipe to charge Julian Assange.
Julian Assange, I believe has, the same fundamental right that supposedly we each have which is to publish statements others make if they are true and accurate. He has a right to speak and the question that factually continues to elude discussion is, how does an Australian citizen publishing diplomatic cables from a foreign country commit an act of treason or some other crime? Without a discussion of jurisdiction, a “crime” of any sort requires the unity of a mental state and, as in this case, an act, presumably publishing.
I personally find these suggestions coming from a U.S. Senator UN-AMERICAN! After all these are the fundamental freedoms that our ancestors left their homes, fought and shed their blood to win for us. America, it appears Joe Lieberman and other senior government officials have deemed inconvenience, embarrassment and concealing truth more important.
Again, to my way of thinking, there is something seriously wrong when in this “digital age of enlightenment” one person like Joe Lieberman can cut our people off from global consciousness? The term for this, had Lieberman properly sought a Judicial Order to enlist the cooperation of PayPal, Amazon and eBay, is prior restraint. Knowingly, Joe Lieberman has violated the rights of every American with his admitted end run on our judicial processes by either, intimidating, bullying or bartering with PayPal, Amazon and eBay and intimidating other American tech companies not to host WikiLeaks.
In the end these unjust restrictive efforts and attempts to censor internet content, I expect, will strengthen the resolve of those who seek to and have a voice and disobey Joe Lieberman?
Last week, The New York Times and four other news organizations began carrying articles based on an archive of a quarter-million confidential State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks making them available to their readers. Does America think that is a crime? I’m betting no!
In this holiday season, I urge American’s to show eBay, PayPal and Amazon that there is no place for their services here in the United States.
PayPal Responds to WikiLeaks Controversy
ReplyDeleteThe acceptable use policy group had to address Julian Assange and WikiLeaks when the U.S. State Department issued a letter on November 27 stating that the activity of the WikiLeaks organization was deemed illegal in the U.S. “It was straightforward,” Bedier said, once the State Department made that declaration
PayPal VP’s response was that hackers have always targeted the company, since it is one of the most successful payments companies in the world, and that this was no different.
ReplyDeletePayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits using a PayPal account to promote or facilitate illegal activity.
ReplyDeleteWikiLeaks organization was deemed illegal in the U.S. “It was straightforward,” Bedier said, once the State Department made that declaration.
Wikipedia the "Pentagon Paper". NYT did exactly that during the 70's exposing secrets of Vietnam War, and Supreme Court rules it as legal based on freedom of press.
ReplyDelete"Conveying" government secrets is a crime; "publishing" them is not. It is protected by the First Amendment, and for the government to intervene to prevent that from happening is unconstitutional."
The Australian government Wednesday blamed the United States, not the WikiLeaks founder, for the unauthorized release of about 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables and said those who originally leaked the documents were legally liable.
ReplyDeleteWikiLeaks founder Assange defended his Internet publishing site Wednesday, saying it was crucial to spreading democracy and likening himself to global media baron Rupert Murdoch in the quest to publish the truth.
ReplyDelete"I think there are real questions to be asked about the adequacy of their (U.S.) security systems and the level of access that people have had to that material over a long period of time," said Rudd.
ReplyDelete"The core responsibility, and therefore legal liability, goes to those individuals responsible for that initial unauthorized release," he said.
He said WikiLeaks was set up as a way of using new technology to report the truth and said not one person had been harmed by any information published over the past four years.
ReplyDelete"Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption," he wrote.
Assange questioned why only WikiLeaks was under attack, when other media outlets like Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times and Germany's Der Spiegel had also published U.S. cables.
ReplyDelete"There is a separate and secondary legal question...which is the legal liabilities of those responsible for the dissemination of that information, whether it's WikiLeaks, whether it's Reuters, or whether it is anybody else," said Rudd.
Assange's UK lawyer, Mark Stephens, has said a renewed bail application would be made and that his client is "fine." He said many people felt the prosecution was politically motivated.
ReplyDeleteBut a Swedish prosecutor was cited in newspaper Aftonbladet as saying the case was not connected with Assange's WikiLeaks work.
WikiLeaks has posted to its website only 960 of the 251,297 diplomatic cables it has. Almost every one of these cables was first published by one of its newspaper partners which are disclosing them (The Guardian, theNYT, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Speigel, etc.). Moreover, the cables posted by WikiLeaks were not only first published by these newspapers, but contain the redactions applied by those papers to protect innocent people and otherwise minimize harm.
ReplyDeleteStill, the blowback has been fierce.