Reports that the US is about to bring charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appear to be just the tip of the iceberg, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying he wants to put people in jail for publishing classified leaks any time a “case can be made.”
Where a case can be made is the tricky part, as despite years of demonizing publishers of embarrassing leaks, constitutional assurances of freedom of the press likely preclude any move against journalists for publishing newsworthy information, and as Assange lawyer Barry Pollack pointed out, there is no basis for treating WikiLeaks any different from any other publisher.
That’s a big part of why years of looking into leaks by the Obama Administration never led to any actual charges for publishers, and then-Attorney General Eric Holder conceded that it was unlikely they’d ever charge anyone with violation of the Espionage Act for journalism.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo may have given some insight into the path the Trump Administration is going, saying that Julian Assange has no First Amendment rights because he’s “not American.” This might open up charges for foreign publishers, though it’s also unclear if the courts will buy this argument.
Should be interesting.
Constitutional rights generally have been interpreted to apply to all persons in the U.S. but not outside the U.S.. The importance of Guantanamo prison was that it wasn’t on American soil.
It would then be up to other nations to protect the rights of their news people, but the U.S. did sign the U.N. Charter on rights and freedoms, even if there are few if any statutes as to how to interpret that in practice of U.S. law.
How hypocritical can we get? I thought we wanted the rest of the world to live under a Constitution just like ours?
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the First Amendment. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship or punishment.[1]
President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession. The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of the New York Times to print the materials.
Clearly Assange is not protected by the First Amendment. It should be obvious that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to a foreign national living in a foreign country. Likewise, it should be obvious that American laws don’t apply to foreign nationals living in foreign countries. The United States has no jurisdiction over Assange to prosecute him in the first place.
Mr. Assange isn’t an American citizen. Mr. Assange doesn’t live in the United States, and Mr. Assange never promised that he would keep the American government’s secrets. He has absolutely no obligation whatsoever to keep or to safeguard the American government’s secrets.
By pursuing this, the Justice Dept. gives new meaning to “TRUMPed-up charges”.
“It should be obvious that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to a foreign national living in a foreign country.”
The First Amendment doesn’t apply to American nationals living in America, either.
It applies to the US government. “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”
Not speech by Americans. Speech. Not the American press. The press.
The American justice system is broken. It is a third world trait to use the courts to persecute those who disagree with administration policy.