Will Julian Assange be indicted on espionage charges? His lawyers think so, with one of them telling Al-Jazeera’s David Frost on Sunday that a federal grand jury in Alexandria, VA is now considering espionage counts against the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has already authorized an investigation of WikiLeaks, with the Washington Post reporting that Assange could be tried under the Espionage Act of 1917. Several U.S. political leaders—such as Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)—have argued for just such a proceeding. And this Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “the Espionage Act and the legal and constitutional issues raised by WikiLeaks.” It looks like there’s finally bipartisan consensus in Washington, with everyone from the Obama White House to Republican congressional leaders condemning the Australian hacker who serves as the public face of WikiLeaks.
But one member of Congress isn’t bashing WikiLeaks and doesn’t think invoking the Espionage Act makes sense. Texas GOP Rep. Ron Paul told The Cutline that he doesn’t “want people messing with the Internet” and doesn’t agree with government measures that would infringe on “people’s rights to speak out.”
It’s not the first time Paul’s been on his own politically. Paul said he’s not surprised that Republicans, in the wake of the WikiLeaks cable dump, have come out against Assange. However, Paul said he’s “very disappointed with the progressives who are for free speech.” He suggested that formerly vocal progressives have now “been neutralized by this administration.”
Paul said he doesn’t understand how Assange “could commit espionage when he didn’t steal anything.” Indeed, the government believes army private Bradley Manning leaked the hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks. “If he can be charged, maybe the Washington Post and the New York Times and others can be charged,” Paul added.
Paul isn’t the only one who’s raised the specter of an Espionage Act prosecution affording a slippery-slope argument that could justify espionage charges against news organizations reporting on the WikiLeaks documents. Several legal experts pointed out to ABC News on Monday that the U.S. Justice Department could have a tough time actually enforcing the World War I-era law, which—as written—could also implicate severl such news organizations that published cables, such as the New York Times and the U.K. Guardian–or even anyone who’s read the cables or passed them along to friends over Twitter or Facebook.
American University law professor Stephen Vladeck told ABC News that “one of the flaws of the Espionage Act is that it draws no distinction between the leaker or the spy and the recipient of the information, no matter how far downstream the recipient is.”
So far, WikiLeaks has published 1,344 of the quarter-million State Dept. cables now in the group’s possession; the Times has published some selective cables from the large cache. Countless journalists and non-journalists alike have written, blogged, tweeted, shared and discussed information in the classified cables–including, of course, Yahoo News writers.
Therefore, the Espionage Act could affect them, too. Benjamin Wittes, a legal analyst at the Brookings Institution, said that the act would cover any “news stories, all blogging on them, and all dinner party conversations about their contents.” He added that “taken at its word, the Espionage Act makes felons of us all.”
Still, Lieberman argues that Assange should be indicted for spying and has left open the possibility that news organizations could also be tried. Lieberman, through a spokeswoman, praised companies such as Amazon, PayPal and Visa for severing ties with WikiLeaks, saying they “have done the right thing and have acted as good corporate citizens.” But Lieberman clearly doesn’t feel the same way about some in the press.
“The news organizations that have reprinted the State Department cables have not been good citizens, but whether to prosecute news organizations is a difficult question that should be taken up and decided by Justice Department officials,” Lieberman said in a statement. “For the future, members of Congress should engage in a discussion about whether to change the law, within the limits of the First Amendment, to more precisely address media disclosure of secret documents.”
Feinstein, in a statement, harshly criticized WikiLeaks as she did in her Wall Street Journal op-ed last week. However, Feinstein made a distinction between Assange’s group and the Times.
“WikiLeaks operates like a proliferator and an enabler of illegal activity,” Feinstein said. “The New York Times considers its responsibility as journalists, including consulting with government and redacting information; their mission is to inform our democracy without recklessly and arbitrarily putting our national security at risk. Julian Assange is on-record as harboring intent to harm the U.S. government, with disregard for the consequences—both to the government and to innocent people. The New York Times does not have this bad intent.”
Meanwhile New York GOP Rep. Peter King says he doesn’t see a big difference between WikiLeaks and Times. He said Friday on Fox News that the Gray Lady should also be targeted. “Well, in my mind we should go after both,” King said. “Let’s go after Assange first, but I called four years ago for prosecution of The New York Times when they disclosed the SWIFT program, which was absolutely essential to America’s anti-terrorist efforts.”
If journalists are prosecuted for espionage, Lichtblau said, “there’s an awful lot of public information that’s going to be off limits.”
The Washington Post’s Dana Priest—who won a Pulitzer for her investigation of the CIA’s “black” sites—has also felt the wrath of politicians over her investigative reporting. She said that “one of the reasons they criticize publicly is they don’t want other people to get the idea that they should be doing this.” Similarly, Priest said the result could be a “chilling effect on sources.”
Priest says she doesn’t consider Assange a journalist—in her judgment, he’s more of an intermediary, who channels leaked documents for a source to news organizations. But she says she’s concerned any time someone who’s not a government official is charged with dissemination of classified documents because “it does get closer to what we do as journalists.”
Priest said that some now invoking the Espionage Act “have gone overboard,” especially given the actual revelations in the State Dept. cables. “As [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates said, these documents did not damage national security,” Priest said. “What they told us are interesting, important things about how the world works.”
(Photo from pro-Assange in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Dec. 11, 2010: Photo/ Evert Elzinga. Photo of British news stand on Nov. 29, 2010: AP Photo/Sang Tan)
Former Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive, diplomat and Government adviser Charles Finny has been named by WikiLeaks as the United States’ top Kiwi contact.
But Mr Finny denied being a spy and said the “key contact” mentions were flattering. He is quoted often in the US diplomatic cables controversially made public by website WikiLeaks, and in a cable from May 19, 2006, was singled out as a “close [US] embassy contact”.
“I am regularly talking to embassies, high commissions and journalists in New Zealand and around the world, in areas where I have expertise,” Mr Finny said.
“I don’t want to be big-headed about it but I do know quite a lot about what goes on in some parts of the world and also about international organisations and how they operate. I am regularly consulted all over the world.”
Mr Finny is employed by public relations company Saunders Unsworth and works with domestic and international clients on tertiary education policy, international trade, aviation policy, infrastructure policy and government procurement.
He has spent much of his life studying and working overseas, living in the US, Britain, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Taiwan.
Before joining Saunders Unsworth in July, he spent five years as Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive. He previously had 22 years’ experience in international trade, economics and diplomacy, serving in the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry, the Trade and Industry Department and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
He is also a member of the Victoria University Council and was an unsuccessful candidate for the Greater Wellington regional council in this year’s elections.
Mr Finny said he often saw important embassy contacts at functions in Wellington.
“You see them at cocktail parties, you have lunches occasionally and sometimes they formally call on you … once every four or five months. But you would probably see them once a week at cocktail parties.
“I would say I speak most often to the Australians and the Americans and I also do work for the New Zealand Government from time to time.”
The US embassy was less keen to discuss Mr Finny. “We do not comment on materials, including classified documents, which may have been leaked,” spokeswoman Janine Burns said.
“Any unauthorised disclosure of classified information by WikiLeaks has harmful implications for the lives of identified individuals that are jeopardised in other countries, but also for global engagement among and between nations.
“While we cannot speak to the authenticity of any documents provided to the press, we can speak to the diplomatic community’s practice of cable writing. Cables reflect the internal day-to-day analysis and candid assessments that feed the governments’ foreign relations deliberations.
“These cables are often preliminary and incomplete expressions of foreign policy, and they should not be seen as having standing on their own or as representing US policy.”
Mr Finny’s main area of expertise is international trade negotiations in Asia. “We just talk about what’s going on and what’s happening in various places around the world,” he said.
He “absolutely” was not a spy. “I talk to lots of people across the business community, the diplomatic community, international organisations and media.”
Do you want safety for you and your family? How about we build a fence too keep all the dangerous people outside, and we will put barbed wire on it to keep people climbing over, and electrified cables to keep people digging under it, and guard towers to see anyone approaching it, with machine guns to scare the dangerous people off and make sure they cannot get in. and the the fence will ring your house to keep the dangerous people out and the safe people safely inside, and we cannot risk your safety by ever letting you out.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s lawyer has said she expects US prosecutors to charge him with espionage soon.
Jennifer Robinson was quoted as saying a US indictment was imminent but offered no more details.
The US Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, including violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, that could be filed after the whistle-blowing website released hundreds of confidential US diplomatic cables.
Cyber activists attacking organizations seen as foes of WikiLeaks briefly blocked a Dutch prosecution website Friday after a 16-year-old suspected of involvement in the campaign was arrested in the Netherlands.
The activists also tried to block the website of online payment firm Moneybookers, but denied their attacks were intended to create business turmoil or badly disrupt online Christmas shopping.
US authorities said they had not pressured companies to stop working with WikiLeaks.
Attorney General Eric Holder said: “We have not pressured anybody to do anything.”
Online retail and web-hosting powerhouse Amazon stopped hosting WikiLeaks’ website last week, and Thursday it briefly became the pro-WikiLeaks campaigners’ main target – before they admitted it was too big for them, for the moment.
The statement by the activists, who collectively call themselves “Anonymous,” added that a lack of firepower was not the only reason the attack on Amazon had not succeeded. They felt “attacking a major online retailer when people are buying presents for their loved ones, would be in bad taste.”
Listen up, kids. Big Brother can’t tap your phones, but mom and dad can.
So said the state Court of Appeals in a legally groundbreaking opinion that uses a Knox County custody battle as the backdrop.
“The parties agree that this is an issue of first impression in Tennessee,” Appellate Judge Charles D. Susano Jr., wrote in a recently released opinion.
Since 1994, it has been a crime in the state of Tennessee to secretly record or eavesdrop on a phone call between two unsuspecting speakers.
That made tapping a cheating spouse’s phone, for instance, to garner proof of a liaison a legal no-no, punishable by both jail time and civil damages.
But what if mom secretly records a chat between dad and daughter and then uses it in a custody fight? Do children have a right to telephonic privacy?
Until now, the issue had never been tested. Enter Knox County parents Chris Lawrence and Leigh Ann Lawrence and their toddler daughter, then 30-months-old.
While father and daughter chatted on the phone in the spring of 2007, Leigh Ann Lawrence held up a tape recorder to a phone in another room and recorded the conversation. She later insisted she wasn’t trying to hide the taping from her daughter – just the recorder itself because the toddler “would have wanted to sing into the tape recorder or play with it,” the opinion noted.
Leigh Ann Lawrence then gave a copy of the tape to a psychologist who was conducting a custody evaluation as part of the Lawrences’ divorce case in Knox County Circuit Court, according to the opinion.
When Chris Lawrence found out about the tape, he sued under Tennessee’s wiretapping law.
His attorney, Andrew Fox, argued Leigh Ann Lawrence clearly violated the law because neither her daughter nor her estranged husband “consented” to the recording. Her lawyer, Deno Cole, countered that a parent doesn’t need a child’s permission to monitor or record the calls of his or her offspring.
The law itself is silent on the issue, so Circuit Judge Dale Workman plowed new legal ground when he ruled that the wiretapping law did not apply to children secretly recorded by parents. Chris Lawrence appealed.
Had Workman plowed too deep? Not according to the appellate court.
“A parent has a right to childrearing autonomy unless and until a showing is made of a substantial danger of harm to the child,” Susano wrote. “It is readily apparent to us that childrearing autonomy encompasses control of a 2 1/2-year-old child’s access to the telephone.
“The pertinent question in this case is whether the Legislature intended to subject a parent to criminal penalties and money damages for eavesdropping, from another telephone, on a 2 1/2-year-old child’s telephone conversation without the child’s knowledge,” he continued. “We do not believe the Legislature intended to invade the parent-child relationship (with the wiretapping law).”
Teenagers, take heart, however.
The court opined that a case involving a toddler was a bit of a no-brainer when deciding the level of a parent’s control over the phone. It left open the possibility of further legal debate should the wiretapping involve an older child.
“We are not, by this opinion, painting a bright line as to age,” Susano noted. “Since 2 1/2 is obviously an age at which a child is too young to give consent, we see no need to determine a bright line rule in this case.”
Jamie Satterfield may be reached at 865-342-6308. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/jamiescoop.
The inquiry had been prompted by an article in The New York Times Magazine in September that cited former News of the World journalists saying that Mr. Coulson, during his time as editor, had encouraged reporters to eavesdrop on messages belonging to public personalities.
Mr. Coulson, who carries broad powers as a member of Mr. Cameron’s inner policy circle, has denied the charges, and prosecutors said Friday that the witnesses they had interviewed “either refused to cooperate with the police investigation, provided short statements which did not advance matters or denied any knowledge of wrongdoing.”
The police said Friday that four of the witnesses had been interviewed “under caution,” meaning that any statement they made could be used against them in a possible prosecution, lawyers say. Other witnesses had been interviewed, the police said, without clarifying how many. Mr. Coulson was question by investigators last month.
Giving evidence in an unrelated case on Friday, Mr. Coulson reiterated his innocence, saying, “I had absolutely no knowledge of it. I certainly didn’t instruct anyone to do anything at the time or anything else which was untoward.”
Mr. Coulson was testifying as a witness in a separate case against Tommy Sheridan, a politician from Scotland, who faces perjury charges related to a libel case against The News of the World, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire.
In the trial, it was alleged that during Mr. Coulson’s tenure as editor he had encouraged numerous reporters to make use of a private investigator to secure private phone material and that he asked Clive Goodman, a reporter, “to take the blame for the sake of the paper.”
After a police investigation, Mr. Goodman, The News of the World’s royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator, were jailed in 2007. They pleaded guilty to illegally intercepting the telephone voice mail messages of Prince William and Prince Harry and their aides.
At the time, Mr. Coulson, who was appointed editor of The News of the World in 2003, said that he had no knowledge of the hacking and that it was an isolated case, but resigned from the paper in January 2007 after the two men were jailed.
Since then, The Guardian printed an article saying that hundreds of people might have been singled out by The News of the World and provided details about some of them, including Gordon Taylor, former chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, who reached a settlement of £700,000, or about $1.1 million, with The News of the World over the hacking of his cellphone.
This year, a leading public relations executive, Max Clifford, who had brought a separate lawsuit, reached his own agreement with The News of the World. Several other civil cases were also initiated, through which more details of phone-hacking allegations might still emerge.
The Times Magazine article led British prosecutors to investigate again whether Mr. Coulson had encouraged such activities at The News of the World and whether the practice was widespread, not just carried out by Mr. Goodman.
In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service said that the police had investigated the allegations of Sean Hoare, one of the journalists who figured prominently in the magazine story, interviewing him and others, but that they had either refused to cooperate or gave perfunctory statements.
“Against that background, there is no admissible evidence upon which” the Crown Prosecution Service “could properly advise the police to bring criminal charges,” the statement said.
The crown prosecution said that if additional information came to the fore, it would be taken into account. In that instance, prosecutors said, a joint panel would be convened of officials from the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service that would judge any further developments in the case.
Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions for the Crown Prosecution Service, said that “a criminal prosecution can only take place if those making allegations of wrongdoing are prepared to cooperate with a criminal investigation and to provide admissible evidence of the wrongdoing they allege.”
For Mr. Cameron, whose coalition government is already under siege because of its move to increase fees for university students, the decision represented a small measure of relief — easing the pressure on one of his more trusted advisers.
Paul Farrelly, an opposition member of Parliament, said, “There are still ongoing parliamentary investigations into this affair.”
Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.
So far, WikiLeaks has published 1,344 of the quarter-million State Dept. cables now in the group’s possession; the Times has published some selective cables from the large cache. Countless journalists and non-journalists alike have written, blogged, tweeted, shared and discussed information in the classified cables–including, of course, Yahoo News writers.