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Lawmaker Reintroduces WikiLeaks Prosecution Bill
angry tapir writes "New legislation in the US Congress targets WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for espionage prosecution. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, introduced the Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination, or SHIELD, Act (read the bill here [PDF]). The bill would clarify US law by saying it is an act of espionage to publish the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the US military or intelligence community."
So, does this apply to Libby / Chaney leaking name of active CIA operative? Oh wait, got a pardon from Bush....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Libby
Neither this law, nor the original version of it, would have retroactive applicability; in other words, you can't make something illegal today, and then prosecute the guy that did it yesterday. It's more like the early laws around computer crime, which came about not to prosecute people who had already been hacking, but instead came about because existing law didn't properly address something that should already have been criminalized, in the eyes of the legislature.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed, and no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate.
I don't see how the courts would uphold this outside of wartime (in wartime courts routinely let Congress and the Executive Branch run all over the Constitution), assuming the publisher didn't have "dirty hands" in obtaining the information in the first place.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
http://vlex.com/vid/sec-disclosure-classified-information-19190926
if he didn't pull the information down from the site after it gets passed, he'd be in violation of the first paragraph - namely "or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person" .
At that point he could be prosecuted.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
That is one of the things the Constitution has a specific thing to say about. Article I Section 9 Paragraph 3 says "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
So if the law were passed it would make such an act illegal in the future, but would not apply to what has already been done.
Now what this would do it make it illegal for Wikileaks to release more information along the lines specified in the bill. Just because they had it before the law was passed wouldn't mean they could freely release them after the law was passed, if the law made it illegal to release information of that nature.
Bills should be introduced in the USA, UK, Australia and lots more places saying things like
It is a crime to hide things from the electorate. (This should not be mixed up with "Freedom of Information acts" that rarely work.)
It is a crime to govern by misdirection of public attention.
It is a crime to protect the powerful to the detriment of the weak or less powerful.
It is a crime to take away civil rights, whatever the state of the nation
It is a crime to introduce 'knee jerk' legislation.
It is a crime to retrospectively criminalise something. It can only be criminalised from the introduction of the law
It is a crime to give or accept identifiable corporate campaign donations
That last one would be the one that would upset many politicians and large companies.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
in a way this could be good.
now there's no doubt about what needs to be redacted, and wikileaks can get on with their job without that extra accusation being thrown at them. just redact protected names and be done with it.
Seems like a bigger deal than it is-- had Assange done what everyone told him to do & take the extra 5 minutes to censor all the names, it would still be law-abiding! Well...names of the human-rights-violators should still be left intact...
I think the "facto" phrase you're thinking of is "Ex post facto. As in "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." (Section 9 of Article I of the United States Constitution).
So no, it won't be made retroactive, because no amount of OMG WAR ON TERROR fearmongering will make the US Supreme Court sustain an overtly unconstitutional law.
Well, almost none. But at least recently, the Supremes have resisted the siren call of undeclared war and "no express grant of rights".
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
But will they be able to get Nick Fury to run S.H.I.E.L.D?
I don't remember anything particular happening on Sunday, december 9th, 2001.
I'd ask you who "Nick Furry" is, but I'm afraid of what the answer might be.
Gee, I wonder if anyone could use the SHIELD Act to prosecute Karl Rove or someone for leaking Valerie Plames CIA cover.
Oh that's right. It's not a crime when Republicans do it.
So King claims jurisdiction outside of USA. Audacious, if stupid. Would he be OK with Ruritania legislating against morons being elected to US Congress on the basis that this constitutes a clear and present danger to the world? Would the USA comply with demands to extradite King and others of his ilk to be incarcerated until such time they are deemed fully functional and literate?
Anonymous seems to have stumbled upon a much bigger problem. Read Glen Greenwald's piece on the collaboration between DoJ, BoA and rogue 'security' companies. Greenwald was to be personally targeted, and now he's taking names:
It's his most powerful piece to date.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
How about a bit of legislation prohibiting the titling of bills in a manner that constitutes blatant propaganda? It's perhaps not as bad as the PATRIOT act, which is the most crotch-punchingly offensive example I've come across, but it's the same fucking ballpark. I'm not sure who should be most insulted: people who don't back the legislation, or the general public whose intelligence is held in such dim regard (and all snark aside, I don't think that most people are really all that stupid).
If simply using sequential numbers is too boring, I propose that the opposing team be allowed free rein to add words to the title of the bill, with no right of appeal or amendment granted to the originator. In this case, for instance, the 'no' camp could insist that the title be amended to Another Nugget of Awful Legislation Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination.
"The bill would clarify U.S. law by saying that it is an act of espionage to publish the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the U.S. military or intelligence community."
Anyone who would want to create a classification of people who are immune from public scrutiny is definitely an enemy of United States. That's you Rep. King.
Didn't WikiLeaks ask at least one federal department for help redacting names and other identifying info from the documents, and those departments declined to do so?
I bet the people who drafted this Bill for him (and I don't mean his staff) didn't know that, or conveniently forgot about it.
Today, Curveball admitted he lied to start the Iraq War.
Millions dead - mostly civilians and drafted Iraqi soldiers.
Bankrupt nation - both Iraq and America.
After the war crimes trials for all three ... then they can come for Assange.
And NOT a MOMENT before.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They should throw the book and the bench at Pfc. Bradley Manning and not touch Jullian Assange. Manning was the one who STOLE the information in the first damn place.
This amounts to trying to "kill the messenger" if the messenger was telling everyone about something he heard from from someone who stole the information. It has a bad "chilling effect" and is not good for free speech.
It is like trying to shut down a newspaper that published stolen state secrets, instead of going after the person who stole them in the first place.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
So... It would be unlawful for a foreign citizen, to publish information in a foreign country, using foreign resources. Basically a US crime, but not committed on US territory. Good luck with that.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
That still does not address the issue that Assange is an Austrialian currently residing in England. Does that mean rendition teams from US will apply US laws to any foreign citizen? Then the reverse is true and rendition teams from other foreign countries can do the same to US citizen. Like prosecute Cheney or Bush for war crimes with rendition teams in the US.
Like a list of suspected russian spies on US soil. I realize that Russia doesn't have such a law in place, so it's a bit of a moot point, but it does throw perspective on the idea that this law is effectively attempting to outlaw the counter espionage acts of other sovereign nations. If my government catches a US spy, then they are committing espionage, and when they are tried for espionage their names enter public record, making the judge (?) or the master of court records (?) or just the entire government criminals... But that's because the US should be allowed to spy on everyone on as they see fit, cause they're special...
Lets make sure it's retroactive so Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney can go to jail for espionage as well! After all they did compromise the identity of a secret agent of the CIA.
He was 'lying' in that his account of a certain set of dates recalled from memory differed slightly from someone else's recall of a certain set of dates, also from memory. Moreover, the judge threw out the expert witness that Libby wanted to use who would point out that memory is quite fallible.
I am an American, but I do not see the US government being any longer a genuine American government consistent with its founding documents. But only drifting further and further away, becoming a rouge government. And now its becoming quite obvious the US government is disconnected from the people it is supposed to represent, but instead leads the people with deception.
What began in north Africa is spreading and it will come around to the US too.
The math is to simple. there will be 7 billion people on this planet this year and its only some fraction of 1% of the population that is causing all the trouble and waring wasteful expense of the mind games of these few rather than correcting real world problems for the rest of us, RE: http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_a/mod02/www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/index.shtml which would be much more effective at reducing the motives of others to attack us, as well.
This is the best indicator of a government that can be rightfully diagnosed as being psychologically unfit to command anyone.
Making up the rules as they go along does not work in this country as its supposed to be a democracy but where is our opportunity to vote on this?
Sept 10, 2001, Rumsfield publicly stated that they cannot account for 2.3 trillion dollars of Pentagon spending.... Thats about $8,000 per man, woman and child in the US..... Its also taxation without representation... striking at the very heart of the birth of the US.... the Boston Tea Party... And they continue to spend massive amounts for defense.... 47% of the total world defense spending. Add in the Allies spending and we are over 60% of world spending where teh remaining 40% is divided amount many many poor countries. We don't need to spend anywhere near that much on defense... unless we are going to be attacked by Aliens... Yeah right....
What began in north Africa is spreading and it will come around to the US too, for teh US government continues to show evidence of their failure to understand the founding documents of this country and even teh Declaration of Independence states its not only our right but duty to put of such corrupt government and make the corrections ourselves.