WikiLeaks Ban or Global Secrecy Act?
Souza
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WikiLeaks Ban or Global Secrecy Act?
By D.H. Kerby
November 11, 2010
Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, has proposed amending the Espionage Act specifically to target WikiLeaks and other media organizations that “publish the name” of anyone “helping in our efforts against terrorism.”
In so doing, Ensign gives legislative expression to a firestorm of criticism against WikiLeaks emanating from the U.S. defense and intelligence establishments and also from many in the American mainstream press.
However, given that WikiLeaks is an international news organization, Ensign’s proposal also raises the specter of some kind of global secrecy act that would criminalize any media outlet that discloses the name of anyone who has collaborated with U.S. intelligence agencies or the U.S. military anywhere in the world, regardless of the context.
Ensign’s idea is particularly breathtaking because during the long Cold War and today’s “war on terror,” many collaborators with the CIA and other U.S. agencies have been linked to drug trafficking, human rights abuses, military coups and even terrorism. Presumably, under Ensign’s plan, journalists around the world would face prosecution for making those connections.
Under his proposal, journalistic intent would not be considered. After all, the chief purpose of recent WikiLeaks’ disclosures of secret U.S. military reports was to put a spotlight on the torture, murder and unnecessary killing of people in Afghanistan and Iraq during the U.S. military occupations of those countries.
WikiLeaks also made efforts to delete the names of some informants and withheld some documents where the risks to individuals were judged to outweigh the value of other information contained in those reports.
In addition, an initial Defense Department review of the leaked records failed to identify any sources or methods that were compromised by WikiLeaks. That review contradicted earlier claims by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who suggested that WikiLeaks had put sensitive sources and methods at risk.
However, after studying the actual disclosures, the Defense Department concluded that there apparently was no such harm.
Indeed, what the Wikileaks disclosures on the Iraq War do, primarily, is document large numbers of civilian deaths as well as the torture of detainees and sometimes their murders. Some of these revelations have caused the U.S. government PR damage but only because people around the world got a real-life glimpse into the day-to-day operations of the war.
Protecting War Criminals
Ensign and other legislators joining his efforts to criminalize WikiLeaks would stand in the way of justice for countless innocent victims of these wars. After all, a war crime cannot be prosecuted if it is kept secret.
If the code of silence among U. S. military and intelligence personnel is so strictly enforced that war crimes and crimes against humanity are successfully hidden, the perpetuation of such crimes becomes even more likely.
And, if there is no organization like WikiLeaks to amplify the voices of those brave enough to disclose violations of human rights by the U.S. military and its allies, those voices will be marginalized, discredited and sometimes silenced.
Consider what happened to Joe Darby, the military policeman who handed the Abu Ghraib photographs (showing U.S. military guards abusing and humiliating Iraqi detainees) to an Army investigator. Since that disclosure, Darby has at times gone into hiding from vengeful members of his own country’s military.
So, criminalizing WikiLeaks may well deny victims of war crimes international legal attention by helping to keep the crimes secret and thus may protect the perpetrators. That is the larger issue.
More narrowly, there is the question of how Ensign’s plan to amend the Espionage Act would be applied to a news organization like WikiLeaks, which is not based in the United States but rather operates through Web sites in Scandinavia and elsewhere.
Ensign is proposing something like a global secrecy rule that would criminalize the disclosure of the name of anyone who collaborates with U.S. intelligence and military agencies anywhere in the world, even if the disclosure comes from a foreign news organization.
The underlying assumption seems to be that the entire world should see U.S. interventions abroad as so clearly in the planet’s interests that all collaborators with these operations deserve anonymity even if they are guilty of human rights abuses or other crimes.
Ensign also makes clear that another purpose of his legislation is to punish news outlets, like WikiLeaks, for undercutting U.S. military goals.
"With this newest document dump, WikiLeaks has knowingly endangered the lives of thousands and further threatened our military efforts,” declared Ensign in a press release. “My legislation will extend the legal protections for government informants, such as the Iraqis named in this latest document dump, and will prevent an organization such as WikiLeaks from hiding like a coward behind a computer mainframe while putting lives in jeopardy."
Ensign said his bill would accomplish this by amending the Espionage Act to make it illegal to publish the name of any human intelligence informant to the U.S. military and intelligence community.
Behind the Bluster
What is really going on here?
Ensign’s proposal seems to be a mix of legislative grandstanding and a desire to punish people who dare pull back the veil concealing the ugly face of the wars that the United States has been fighting, wars in which prisoners have been tortured and murdered and in which the slaughter of civilians has been covered up.
The Pentagon spends a vast amount of money every year on public relations, portraying contemporary warfare as heroic, noble and virtuous. WikiLeaks committed an affront to this image-making by revealing the grimy and grisly reality behind the sanitized version that normally reaches the U.S. public.
For exposing that truth, WikiLeaks is now a target for revenge.
But imagine yourself one of the Iraqis or Afghans subjected to torture and other abuses. Or the widow or orphan of one of those murdered. Then, imagine that a foreign occupier was claiming the right to keep these dirty secrets from the world.
What you would want is truth and justice, not perception management.
Organizations such as WikiLeaks provide at the very least the hope of that – and that is a hope frightening to the likes of Sen. Ensign.
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"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Comments
WOW!! You know that may make sense. <!-- s:| -->:|<!-- s:| -->
Let's see what happens.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
12 hours ago they had their servers mirrored on 133 locations. Now it is 507 locations.
That's called global support.
http://wikileaks.ch/mirrors.html
It was being mirrored almost immediatly when the controversy started,so as to have a back up. Alot of government officials are real nervous <!-- s:? -->:?<!-- s:? -->
For the links to read further details, check the source directly.:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/information-antidote-fear-wikileaks-law-and-you
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_weakest_link_what_wikileaks_has_taught_us_abou.php
Names were actually given, Sarahli. I read some of the documents posted on the Wikileaks site, before it got hacked/attacked. There was real substance there...
What kind of names was it?
The opinions of various American officials on foreign leaders and their countries AND the opinions of foreign leaders on the U.S. I read a few "articles" in a rush, but it was enough to form an impression that this was a BIG DEAL for the States. One item from Jordan said something about King Abdullah (and his views) and another high official, whose name I know but don't want to put here. Another memo (I forget from which country - Pakistan?) was to Secretary Clinton, debriefing her in preparation for her visit to that country... Iran was also discussed in various documents.
Given that both the Wikileaks site and the founder (Assange) got into trouble, my feeling is that the leak was genuine.
I am still very skeptical about the purpose behind. I tend more to think that the dark side too fight each other... and apparently these leaks are beneficial for Israel who supposedly made a deal with Assange so that sensitive documents are not leaked.... these leaks harm the USA credibility.
Wikileaks Announces begins to filter documents on American banks. This will cause the collapse of the financial system. Collapse all but the most pudientes… Hedges and banking
Go to blame leaks from the Internet, which will serve to justify a "martial law" on the Internet. What does that mean? It means filtering and censorship of BLOGS, forums and all sensitive information to be published.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who was the second WikiLeaks, onboard says Syria Truth Assange received money from Israeli intelligence to protect against leaks of the Cablegate change.
Publication: 10/12/10 06: 26 PM
Julian Assange is new Che Guevara, the computer revolution supposedly designed to free the masses from the political elite - yoke of transparency - media image ("Free Julian", exclaims how hip world left)... and, however, things are rarely as media paint them. We would like to believe that Assange is a hacker desinterasado without any agenda rather than the freedom of information, but at the level of manipulation in which we live is difficult to sustain as optimistic vision. And although Asange might have noble interests, it is difficult that not be co-opted and used by the same system that seeks to destroy in principle (the CIA is an expert in infiltrating the revolutionary movements to be used to their benefit).
Syria Truth site quotes Daniel Domscheit-Berg - former member of that apparently resigned his own site leaks--who allegedly said in an interview with Leah Abramowitz, differences with Julian Assange for craer WikiLeaks correspondent in Berlin of Israeli origin, Assange met with Israeli intelligence agents prior to cablegate to negotiate the emergence of State Israel filtered documents and received money from them, thus ensuring that Isarel weren't represented negatively and not issued documents incriminating, as the "the July war".
This re related statements by the first Minister Netanyahu, who said that filtered cables "were good for Israel" because it shows that there was consensus at the danger that represents Iran and tested Israel transparency.
In this interview from time, Assange describes Netanyahu, as an example of how you can be transparent without being naive in today's world.
We had previously reported as John Young, currently director site cryptome.org, renounced WikiLeaks claiming it as a covert CIA operation
Allegations presented by the Syria Truth site are very serious and deserve to be investigated as it up to the moment cannot be considered reliable enough (Syria Truth is remarkably anti Isarel) to assert Assange is part of a network zionista or as some sites Mossad agent argue. Fact is that if the Cablegate scans as same Umberto Eco noted, is a vacuum secret that only actually reveals that attentive to local information anyone could have discovered (or hits only Putin and Berlusconi or Al - Jazeera, certainly before beaten by mainstream). Although reveals United States runs a network of international espionage, WikiLeaks shows that his espionage is to protect his country and the world of a 'real' threat (and even their media objectionable so justifies). Instead WikiLeaks cables confirm the existence of Al - Qaeda and the global nuclear threat of Iran and favor stricter legislation on the internet to protect national security: a digital Patriot Act.
At the same time: a much more serious information has gone unnoticed: the Federal Reserve of United States rescued different empreasas worldwide by an amount of 9 billion dollars (trillion in English), at the time that has been said that there is no money in United States for unemployment benefits and other public benefits. This enormous quantity was a series of banks, many of them European investment funds obtained huge profits speculating with that money, and companies like McDonald's and even media such as NBC, generating serious conflicts of interest, delivering the largest worldwide in the shade in history's largest fraud cake: the financial crisis of 2008. But who is talking about something else than WikiLeaks?
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We are being lied all the time.
Governments don´t care about us at all. What is a government really? a team of people who during 4 years have one goal; to make as much money as they can to future their retirement pension plan once they are kicked out.
Many situations (hanger, war, crime..) happen in the world because governments need it to happen in order to gain something back.
Puppets we are and still need to live as good as we can but it does not mean we can´t voice up.
I am happy Wiki leaks was out there.
Let´s see how all developes.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
You really have that perception?, On the contrary I see it all very confusing and now I think all this Wikileaks can be a smokescreen to cover other events.
I am not saying Wikileaks isn't a smokescreen, because I am still searching for the news we are missing and apparently not allowed to see. I am talking in general, I get the feeling people are waking up (at least around me) and I just have a feeling it will turn out for the good, but only if we all work on it.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
I agree. As I stated I listened on the radio about them now making issues about Internet and Satellite Radio like BlogTalk, Youtube, these alternative media. I am telling you this is not cool at all and People need to wake up. I am going to find out for sure and If I have to write a letter. I believe it was the commission of FCC but whoever he is I am going to take the time to write and think many people need to do the same whether you believe or think it won't work do it anyway let them know that FOLK isn't going to accept their Bull Crap! <!-- s:twisted: -->:twisted:<!-- s:twisted: --> <!-- s:twisted: -->:twisted:<!-- s:twisted: --> <!-- s:twisted: -->:twisted:<!-- s:twisted: -->
They want to control what we listen to and that is the bottom line.
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will not have hold of it. Very difficult times ahead