The world's "most wanted" journalist

by M. Stewart
The WikiLeaks Crisis, as it is being called, is a strange case indeed. In the U.S., it pits the need for government military and diplomatic secrecy against freedom of speech.

There are legal issues here that make the situation more complex than merely finding WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, although that seems to be the primary focus. If or when Assange is captured, what will he be charged with, and under what jurisdiction will he be charged?

Assange isn't a U.S. citizen, so if he ends up in American hands, the National Espionage Act of 1917 may not work. Because he is Australian, he can't be charged with treason in the United States. The Fox Tea Party channel's Bill O'Reilly has called for Assange's execution, and he doesn't appear to be the only one. Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary professor and adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told the the CBC that ". . . Assange should be assassinated. Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something."

For his part, Assange has called for the resignation of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He told Time magazine the Clinton should resign "if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations." Pretty cheeky for a guy who has become the enemy of governments around the world.

The key point is that people within our own government are giving Assange the information, and it is they who should be tracked down and charged with treason. Does anyone know what happened to U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning after he was caught releasing thousands of pages of classified military documents to WikiLeaks last summer? Once he was identified, the story died. As for this new round of leaks, clearly someone within the State Department is working as a WikiLeaks spy. With all the attention this story is getting, it should only be a matter of time before the rat is identified, right?

Assange himself is acting as an investigative journalist. That government officials are embarrassed and compromised by what he has made public is hardly enough to warrant his assassination. Major news organizations throughout the world have spread the WikiLeaks material far more than Assange ever could. Does that make them an accessory to a crime?

Right wingers tend to like only the part of the First Amendment that protects the exercise of religion, and typically only as it applies to Christianity, but they often are the first to deny the constitutional rights of "the press" when it comes to situations like this. From a legal standpoint, however, we should remember that the Constitution protects the rights of American citizens, not foreigners. So the question of what to do about Julian Assange remains unclear.

Any way you cut it, Assange is the world's "most wanted" journalist. Up next for WikiLeaks is the release of thousands of internal documents from "a major U.S. bank." That should be interesting, dontcha think?