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...
John Perry Barlow has made a call to arms (via Twitter): "The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops." That's a little grandiose to my taste. But among the many interesting things going on here is the prominent role of nonstate actors. The battleground players include: Domain name services: On the first day,...
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...
It's easy to laugh at the USG for its directives to employees re the handling of Wikileaks cables (as the NYT put it this morning, a case of "shutting the barn door after the horse has left"). The idea that a State Department employee talking about the cables in a Starbucks, much less with her spouse at home, would constitute...
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...
The following is a guest post by Anna Dolidze, a JSD candidate at Cornell Law School. In 2007-08, Dolidze was an Albert Podell Global Scholar at Risk at New York University Law School and a Visiting Fellow at Columbia University's Harriman Institute. She has worked for a number of international organizations, including for Save the Children, Russian...
The Library of Congress is preventing its employees or visitors using its wireless network from accessing WikiLeaks. It released the following explanation: The Library decided to block Wikileaks because applicable law obligates federal agencies to protect classified information. Unauthorized disclosures of classified documents do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification...
As one of WikiLeaks' defenders, I feel obligated to respond to Roger's post. I have two major disagreements with it. First, I think it significantly overstates the harm caused by WikiLeaks, although it would be equally erroneous to claim that WikiLeaks has caused no harm whatsoever. Second -- and perhaps more important -- it completely ignores the the benefits of...
And why not? Assuming that the feds don't catch up with this operation at this rate (by my calculation) we have more than four years of daily document dumps ahead of us. From Foreign Policy, let's welcome Wikileaked to the blogosphere. Today's highlights include more accounts of inebriated and otherwise less-than-sparkling eastern European and central Asian leaders. (Material from these realms...
The following is a guest-post by Steve Vladeck, Professor of Law at American University. Our thanks to him for contributing it. The Espionage Act, the Documents/Information Distinction, and the Press I’ve been following (with great interest) the exchange between Roger, Kevin, and those who have commented on their posts concerning Julian Assange, the Espionage Act, and the broader question of...
That's the excellent question asked by Ian, one of the commenters on Roger's recent post. The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Le Monde, and El Pais -- all are just as guilty of violating the Espionage Act as WikiLeaks. There is no "we redacted some of the documents" defense in the Act, and prosecuting a news organization after...
