| We live in interesting times. According to the Wall Street Journal, there is reason to believe Mr. Assange will be permitted to discover for himself exactly how interesting. |
Still, the U.S. can move beyond its current paralysis without criminalizing routine leaks by focusing on Mr. Assange, the self-declared anarchist who created WikiLeaks. His stated goal is to deprive the U.S. government of a smooth flow of information by disclosing its internal communications. "An authoritarian conspiracy that cannot think efficiently," Mr. Assange wrote in an essay in 2006, "cannot act to preserve itself." We'll see.
His former top aide, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, recently wrote a book, "Inside WikiLeaks," describing Mr. Assange's focus on the U.S. as the "only enemy." Mr. Domscheit-Berg writes that when he tried to make WikiLeaks politically neutral instead of anti-American, Mr. Assange accused him in a text message of "disloyalty, insubordination and destabilization in times of crisis." This striking language comes from the Espionage Act of 1917, which makes it a crime for anyone who has "unauthorized possession to information relating to the national defense" and has reason to believe the information "could be used to the injury of the U.S." to "willfully" release it. There may be very good reason this precise language was on Mr. Assange's mind.
The Espionage Act requires willfully endangering the U.S. It may seem unusual to consider intent in the context of how information flows, but without focusing on intent, the law would raise serious First Amendment issues. Many academics and media commentators—and perhaps overly cautious prosecutors—have missed the point that WikiLeaks is different from the New York Times. It's the political motivation of Mr. Assange that qualifies him to be prosecuted. The publisher is not liable for its reporting. |