Presswires are reporting that Judge John Bates has dismissed the much-noticed case in which the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights sought to bring suit on behalf of Anwar Al-Aulaqi's father, contesting the ability of the President to target his son, an American citizen hiding abroad in Yemen who the government says is a targetable participant in a terrorist...
The Swiss domain name registrar Switch announced today that it will not shut down Wikileaks.ch as a result of Wikileaks' criminal activity. It does so at its peril. The pharmaceutical industry has long faced the question of registrar liability for hosting illegal pharmaceutical drug websites. Legitscript.com, a pharmaceutical watchdog, has summarized the obligations of domain name registrars...
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...
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...
One of the underlying issues in the Wikileaks controversy is whether Julian Assange is truly that harmful. His defenders, and even some of his critics, maintain that Assange is not that dangerous. I disagree. Diplomacy. Diplomacy will be immeasurably more difficult if what government officials say in secret to one another can never be trusted to remain secret. ...
So Business Week reports, noting that Nigeria intends to file a request for a Red Notice with Interpol: Nigeria will file charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies including Halliburton Co. over a $180 million bribery scandal, a prosecutor at the anti-graft agency said. Indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court...
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...
I had a colleague ask an interesting question, "If Julian Assange is indicted and detained in London, would the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty authorize extradition to the United States?" There's not an easy answer. The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty requires "double-criminality"--the offense must be punishable in both States. Not surprisingly, the United Kingdom imposes criminal penalties for disclosing state...
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...
