Wikileaks - Collateral Murder, How Did Journalism Get Here and How is Julian Assange Innocent?

     

    An Australian journalist named Julian Assange is currently being held in British prison with a possible life sentence or death sentence for outing the United States' involvement in the murders of 2 Bagdad journalists and two wounded children. The United States claims what he did was illegal and a threat to the national security of the United States. However, United States law actually states how what he did is legal. Journalists for many years have felt the wrath of the government and have faced imprisonment due to the changing laws in an attempt to silence the journalists. What Julian Assange did was no different than any other journalist does which was to give the information to the people.

Spanish-American War

    In 1898, the Spanish-American war began. This war was a pivotal moment in history for journalism and the role that journalism had in the United States government. Yellow journalism or sensationalized journalism became bigger in the country. Meaning, that journalists were hungry for stories and exaggerated the truth for a story. Journalists saw the war as an opportunity for a story and began beating the war drums. Up until journalists got involved, the United States was not involved in the war and it was just a war between Cuba and Spain. 

World War I

    Later in 1914-18, the role of journalist almost flipped. Before the United States' involvement, the war was called the European War. However, the public wanted to be involved in the war, but the journalists at this time were more interested in human rights and against war. In 1917, the espionage act was passed. The Espionage act stated that it was a crime to undermine the efforts of the U.S. military or assist the enemies of the war. This meant that journalists who were against the war could not express their views which should be protected by the 1st amendment because them not supporting the war then helps the enemies. The Sedition Act clarified that stating that you cannot print or write information that the government may see as a threat or has malicious intent against the United States government. This made it impossible for journalists to speak out about their anti-war views and the government pretty much silenced all anti-war journalists with these acts. 

NYT v Sullivan (1964)

    In the 1960’s the Times newspaper wrote about donations for Martin Luther King jr. and had some small errors in the text. The city Public Safety Commissioner, L.B. Sullivan, feared that because the information was false, this looks bad on his part and on the others involved. He asked Times to take that information back and then sued Times for libel action.

This case ended with Times winning the case and the supreme court clarified what is libel and not. The court clarified that if the information was just false but had no malicious intent then it is not libel. This clarified for journalists that false information can be printed as long as there is no “malice intent.” This also helped journalists because now journalists cannot just be charged with defamation unless there is malice intent proven. 

Bartnicki v Vopper (2001)

A call was intercepted and recorded by an unknown person of a phone call between a chief union negotiator and a union president. After the call was recorded, the recording was sent to a radio station and played over the radio. The negotiator and the president claimed that this went against wiretapping laws. 

The supreme court concluded that the party who released the information is not liable. This means that journalists can release information even classified information that is given to them because they were not the ones who illegally obtained that information. 

United States Law and Julian Assange

    It is really interesting taking a journalism class and a class about intelligence with a former CIA agent. The two sides of who is wrong in their eyes are so interesting. However, what it comes down to are past precedent and the law. My CIA professor explained in his eyes that Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are not whistleblowers but it was leaks of information that can harm the United States' national security. The difference between leaks and whistleblowers is that leaks are illegal because leaking classified information is illegal, but a whistleblower is not illegal and outing information. While that may be true that they did harm the United States' national security, looking at history and laws we can see that what Assange did was not illegal. Julian Assange was just the publisher of information which by Bartnicki v Vopper that is legal for him to do. He was not the one that obtained the information illegally but rather he was the one who released it to the public. Under NYT v Sullivan, it backed Assange up as well because he released the information and there is no proof of malice intent. 

Julian Assange is not a journalist who did anything abnormal. Journalists for years have been publishing information about the United States government and have been beating the war drum or trying to maintain the peace in the country. In all, the journalists for years have been doing their duty of providing the information given to them to the public. However, the journalist, in this case, is the one being held accountable instead of the United States. In the chaos of WikiLeaks, the people have forgotten the key issue at hand and that is the illegal activity and the lies that the government has done.

Leigh, David, et al. Wikileaks : Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy. 1st ed., 1st ed., Public Affairs, 2011. INSERT-MISSING-DATABASE-NAME, INSERT-MISSING-URL. Accessed 29 Apr. 2022.