Déjà vu of the Pentagon Paper Trial

Post revelations of the US embassy cables, the United States government has tried and failed to define Wikileaks as a terrorist organisation.

Far - right commentators have called for his assassination, whilst the governments legal team has been pursuing aspects of the Espionage Act to convict Wikileaks founder whom is currently in solitary confinement with limited access to the internet as part of the "access to justice program" where he restricted to specifically working on his case.    The Espionage Act, whilst an old piece of legislation has been used before as a means to override laws in United States protecting freedom of speech.  

In a case where a man sent out a leaflet against United States enlistment laws, the judge decided that he was guilty of Espionage.  This case was nearly a hundred years ago, yet we see in present times that the attitudes of the United States government has not changed.  What makes it difficult is the later infamous case known as, "The Pentagon Papers".  The United States government failed to successfully convict Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times for releasing classified documents that gave the world an insight into the Vietnam war.   They failed to restrain the publication and proved ultimately that the Espionage Act is an ineffective tool for censoring media outlets.  Recent reports however confirm that the US government is aware of this and thus, attempting to change laws in order to prosecute Wikileaks.

 How successful they will be is based on how corrupt the judicial process is in this case and considering some of the bizarre case conclusions in recent times, it would not be unusual for such a case to support United States governments requests.  The major flaw is that Julian Assange is not a citizen of united states government and if they attempt to uphold any existing or future law, this affects every publisher, every writer and even blogger whom writes or submits documents against the reputation of United States government.

The government thus has the problem of ambiguity, beyond its capacity as powerful as it has been at maintaining its control over the west.  Recent revelations have sparked outrage from many countries, leaders, experts and people from all walks of life.  The US government can not realistically withstand the consequences of the impact if it proceeds any further with frivolous action.

US vs WIkileaks: The Words They used

Words to describe Wikileaks releases are:

1.  "Illegal"
Leaks from both the Iraq, Afghanistan war diaries demonstrated how United States repeatedly broke the treaty on convention against torture.  UN chief investigator Manfred Nowak, called upon the United States government to investigate war crimes after the Iraq release.

Iraq war logs: UN calls on Obama to investigate human rights abuses.  Read more here.

The latest embassy cables show that United States were spying on the UN which is currently being investigated.


2.  "..puts peoples lives in danger"
The United States government has either directly threatened or taken no legal action against its citizens on murdering Julian Assange and his family.  In the afghan documents, Amnesty pointed out that the United States had no consideration of the civilians lives in Afghanistan:

3. "...threatens US national security"
As pointed out by the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights President Stephen Keim, the threat posed to Wikileaks and its members is a threat to the freedom of speech.

To really understand not only is Wikileaks not a threat, but a protection to every nations security, one has to really delve into understanding what "National Security" means.

Interests of a country is naturally democracy and within the concepts of a democracy, every country must have freedom of expression without intimidation. Thus, United States government action against Wikileaks and all other media outlets is a threat to every nations security.  These are after all why citizens agreed to supporting the establishment of such in the first place as it was never mean to be securing government interests, but of their people.

4. "..to solve shared problems"
Recent leaks on the Copenhagen Accord reveal how United States government monopolized global action on climate change by paying off developing countries to accept agreements that were obviously not in the interests of the planet.  The fact remains, despite slight inaccuracies that global warming is occurring, that its getting worse and that we only have a few years to solve the problem before it gets to a stage beyond the capacity of human beings.  The prediction of a runaway greenhouse effect remains consistent, despite the efforts of polluting companies to hire "experts" to state otherwise.  Some experts have stated that if action is not taken, this will effect our children.  It is no wonder that United States is the only developed country in the world that has not signed the convention on the rights of the child.




5. "An attack on the international community"
In one of the cable leaks, United States recommended nuclear weapons for Pakistan to defeat India, despite security scholoars raising concerns over the years of state sponsored terrorism.  In July last year, the president of Pakistan publicly admitted to supporting and nurturing terrorist groups.  The same terrorist groups that United States government have publicly stated their dedication on eradicating.