Shame on Australia: Australia Should be Behind Wikileaks Founder

In the wake of signing sleazy deals with Stephen Conroy on "Filtering Threats", Robert McClelland announced that they were looking into seizing Wikileaks founders passport.  To be able to seize Mr Assanges passport, they would have to establish that he is aiding terrorism.  The problem is that if they reinterpret defining terrorism to include media outlets, then they risk losing all support for national security altogether.  A week after the release of the Iraq war logs, Hilary Cinton announced on her visit to Australia her intentions to establish a stronger military alliance with Australia including, "cybersecurity".  She strongly condemned Wikileaks prior to her visit:


The fact remains that under many definitions, Wikileaks is not a terrorist organisation.  Commentators have made some good arguments against this.  The pressure from world governments after the release of classified diplomatic cable data to undermine the work of Wikileaks is great.  They have received heavy DDOS attacks, denied a paypal account and a domain name since its release.  There is an international arrest warrant out for Julian Assange for a crime that has never been substantiated.  Legal analysis, has confirmed that it is possible to transfer Julian Assange upon agreement with Sweden to United States where he can be charged for laws they introduced specifically to stop Wikileaks from publishing its releases.

Instead of defending Julian Assange as an Australian citizen and a human rights defender of free speech, the Australian government placed a considerable amount of resources into investigating whether there are any Australian laws that could put Julian Assange in custody.  To date, there has been no announcement of such.
Ego- front or no ego, no human being deserves to be treated so poorly.  Along with being denied access to justice, indication that he will be detained if he were to arrive in Australia would also be detained by Australian authorities.  Clearly, his rights are violated here.  Julian Assange should be able to go to Australia to visit his family without harassment.

Terrorism and Wikileaks: Know The Difference

Upon the release of 251, 287 United States Embassy cables, congressman Peter King has requested Wikileaks to be place upon the terrorist list.  He stated that the organisation, "manifests Mr Assange's purposeful intent to damage not only our national interests in fighting the war on terror, but also undermines the very safety of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan".

The problem is that he has not defined in legal or even layman's terms exactly how leaking diplomatic cables is a terrorist act.  Whilst terrorism is not officially defined by United Nations, in "Measures to eliminate terrorism", terrorism is defined as:

"criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them"

First, dependent upon which jurisdiction defines leaking United States diplomatic cables as a criminal act is the beginning of the problem.  A little over a month after 9/11, United States introduced the Patriot Act to as a measure to deter acts of terrorism in America and around the world.  United States have pumped billions of dollars into intelligence that the Washington Post reports as, "out of control".  Whilst the patriot act combined with a heavy intelligence community, might be successful within United States at defining Assange as a criminal, much is still yet to be questioned about the agents that broke their own laws to obtain monopolize the UN.  Sadly, the suggestion that Julian Assange is a terrorist or Wikileaks is a terrorist organisation is simply a diversion from the real crimes committed.

Second,  provoking a state of terror must be towards the general public, not the United States government.  If   revealing corruption by governments causes wide spread panic, it is more likely to stem from the governments responses or tightening up of laws surrounding freedom of speech.  Its as relevant as someone shooting their parents and then gaining sympathy for being an orphan.

Third, Wikileaks has published such a vast range of documents that have revealed many aspects that have supported both ends of the political spectrum.  Whilst there is a great deal of information exposing United States, all information is presented in a raw format even devoid of personal opinion to accompany the release.
It is certainly a stretch to suggest there is political motivation in raw releases.

If United States did decide to consider Wikileaks a terrorist organisation, they risk diluting the meaning for concern when there are real and far more dangerous threats to the population.  Other media organisations may avoid publishing even the slightest criticism against governments, creating another chilling effect.  Without that, governments cannot properly evolve from their mistakes which in most cases leads to the eventual fraying of foundation.   Any government that begins to see general civilians as threats, create them and thus losing the wide support that they once had, lose the very power that they were trying to protect.  If United States is to take any action surrounding the leaks, it is to identify the mistakes and learn from them.  Its more about not acting badly in the first place than trying to cover it up.