Throw the Book at WikiLeaks
Civil libertarians will be outraged that the White House is asking other nations to consider prosecuting WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. But, in truth, the U.S. has no other choice.
Word comes from The Daily Beast that the Obama administration is attempting to make the West uncongenial to WikiLeaks principal Julian Assange. Mr. Assange has used information illegally obtained from a disgruntled homosexual soldier, to publish classified material about the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Assange appears to be a loathsome individual of a now familiar-type that determines for himself what military secrets the free countries of the world can protect. Mr. Assange, according to Wiki, a former hacker and a member of a group called “International Subversives”, has spread information that allows the Taliban to track down those helping the legitimate Afghan government and kill them. Of course, Mr. Assange is the one who feels persecuted.
The Obama administration is asking other Western nations such as Britain, Germany and Australia, all of whom have soldiers at risk in Afghanistan, to prosecute Mr. Assange. Civil libertarians will no doubt be outraged. The real question is what choice do we have? In the internet age using easily digitized information and a disgruntled insider, ideologically motivated moral preeners like Mr. Assange can do tangible and critical damage to United States, and by extension, world security.
If countries like Britain can prosecute him and make travel and money exchange difficult, all the better. The alternative is to do nothing. The message of the United States to those like Mr. Assange must be that when you hurt us and those allied with us it will not be costless. You will not endanger American lives with illegally obtained material and then fly around the world soaking up plaudits from the usual suspects.
Are we at war or are we not? If someone opposed to the liberation of Europe leaked the names of everyone in the French Resistance while away in Brazil would anyone argue FDR should not have had him prosecuted to the full extent of the law in any allied nation? Are we serious about the war or not? If we are, those who damage its prosecution by law breaking have to be met with serious consequences and not some winking admiration for being a “rebel.”
Mr. Assange has set out to hurt us and is careless of the lives of our men. He may seek to operate from Iceland, as the article notes, but hopefully the long dark winter there won’t be long enough to hide him forever.