Ben describes as "puzzling" my claim that his recent post on WikiLeaks reflects American exceptionalism. I find his puzzlement equally puzzling. Recall the quote on which I focused: This, in turn, leads ineluctibly to Tom’s reciprocity point: If Congress can make such a demand on Assange, the U.S. would be in a bad position to object if the Congress of People’s Deputies...
Steve testified yesterday about WikiLeaks in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Here is a snippet of his testimony, which discussed five major flaws in the Espionage Act: Second, the Espionage Act does not focus solely on the initial party who wrongfully discloses national defense information, but applies, in its terms, to anyone who knowingly disseminates, distributes, or even retains national...
Having received a number of emails complaining about how I counted the size of various faculties, I have decided to remove both posts. As I made clear in the original post, my count was not designed to be scientific and excluded -- rightly or wrongly -- a number of categories of scholars that some might believe should have been included. ...
Courtesy of Ben Wittes at Lawfare, responding to a question about whether he believes that, if America should be permitted to prosecute a non-American like Assange for disclosing American secrets, countries like France, China, or Iran should be able to prosecute Americans for disclosing their secrets (my emphasis): This, in turn, leads ineluctibly to Tom’s reciprocity point: If Congress can make...
A coalition of 26 of Australia's most prominent journalists -- essentially, the editors of every major newspaper (with the exception of the right-wing The Australian) and the news directors of all the major networks -- have written a remarkable open letter to Julia Gillard criticizing the U.S. (and Australian) government's attacks on WikiLeaks and threats to prosecute Assange. Here is...
Jack Goldsmith and I don't agree with each other very often, so it's worth noting that we have essentially the same reaction to WikiLeaks. From Lawfare today: I find myself agreeing with those who think Assange is being unduly vilified. I certainly do not support or like his disclosure of secrets that harm U.S. national security or foreign...
I hope to have more to say in the next few days about Judge Bates' completely predictable decision to dismiss the ACLU/CCR lawsuit. I just want to flag here what is the most obvious problem with it. Judge Bates claims -- clearly trying to insulate himself from criticism -- that Contrary to plaintiff’s assertion, in holding that the political question...
He may be a horrible senator, but at least Joe Lieberman is (relatively) consistent: Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who has become one of the most vocal critics of Wikileaks, said today that while Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is definitely guilty of crimes, the New York Times may also have broken the law by posting some of those diplomatic cables. "To...
As numerous other websites happily conspire with the US government to shut down WikiLeaks, despite the fact that neither Assange nor anyone else associated with the website has ever been charged, much less convicted, of a disclosure-related crime, it is good to see that the world's foremost social networking site is willing to stick to its principles: Classified document publishing website...
According to a press release today, the OTP is conducting a preliminary examination into whether two recent North Korean attacks on South Korea qualify as war crimes: The shelling of Yeonpyeong Island on the 23 November 2010 which resulted in the killing of South Korean marines and civilians and the injury of many others; and The sinking of a South...
According to Oxford University Press, my book checks in at a healthy 452 pages. I still can't quite believe that I wrote something so long -- approximately 165,000 words, 130,000 more than anything else I've ever written. Writing the book was extremely fun, but the hard work before the writing, the researching and the outlining, was often anything but. It's...
Baruch Weiss, a former federal prosecutor and a partner at Arnold & Porter who was involved in the AIPAC defense, explains why in an editorial today in The Washington Post. I was particularly interested in his discussion of why he believes it would be difficult to prove that Assange knew the disclosures would harm national security: Here, Assange can make the...
