Flashback to the '70s.
Disclaimer: This post is not intended to either defend or persecute WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.
There's just two words I'd like to make here, with all the blathering about Assange's, WikiLeaks', and/or Mass Media's supposed guilt or innocence:
-- Pentagon Papers
What's that? Never heard of 'em? Well, to hear the way our politicians, news anchors, and other pundits go on about things, neither have they.
So I'll provide a quick recap, for the uninitiated:
A long time ago (1969), in a political climate pretty similar to today, a dude by the name of Daniel Ellsberg copied a 4,100 page document (small by WikiLeaks' standards, but I digress) called
-- "United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense"
while working at the RAND Corporation, a non-profit think-tank with high-level FedGov connections.
After sitting on the study for a while, Ellsberg contacted Neil Sheehan, a reporter at the New York Times, and handed over the kit in February 1971. The NYT tossed the issue around internally for a spell, debating the legal ramifications of publishing the info, then started printing excerpts on June 13, 1971.
President Nixon was rather nonplussed, since the incidents described in the study occurred during the terms of his predecessors, but his Advisors and Cabinet weren't so laissez-faire. After Kissinger convinced Nixon to change his stance, Attorney General Mitchell used the Espionage Act of 1917 to obtain an injunction against the publication of further excerpts by the New York Times. The NYT appealed, and the case quickly climbed the judicial ladder and landed itself in front of the US Supreme Court:
-- New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713)
The Supreme Court ruled in the New York Times' favour, saying that material provided in the Public Interest to a news organisation cannot be censored by Prior Restraint.
A quick comparison of the legal ramifications of Cablegate (Now) and the Pentagon Papers affair (Then) provides the upshot to all this: In the United States, at least, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, and the news organisations working with them are legally in the clear. By legal precedent of the United States' highest Court, the barriers against pre-publication censorship are very tall indeed, and the Government needs the mother of all ladders to climb over them.
It was a landmark case, and was a foundation of the United States' Freedom of the Press.
So what's the problem, you ask? Simple:
*** In all of the news coverage being bandied about by the talking heads on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, BBC News, C-SPAN, and other 24-hour news outlets, about the whole WikiLeaks thing, I haven't heard a SINGLE anchor or politician mention the Pentagon Papers and its subsequent legal precedent. ***
Amazing.
Some people say, "Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." I disagree. The saying really should be, "Those who do study history are doomed to ignore it."
Love to stay and talk more, but I gotta grab my coat, and head out to teach a History class...