It's difficult
to know exactly what to say about the Wikileaks saga and it's well
outside my typical topic space. But its importance is hard to overstate
and I feel like I must commit my thoughts to my virtual soapbox.
I am not in agreement with Julian Assange's expressed
goals and I don't think that I have a right to know every syllable
of every email, cable, and phone conversation of anyone who receives a
check from a Government agency of any type. Diplomats must have the
ability to speak in confidence and those in the military must be able
to operate in secrecy. There truly are bad people out there who want to
kill them and to kill us and our allies. That said, I do think that the
reaction
of the U.S. Department of Justice, of various
members
of
the
legislature, and a number
of commercial
enterprises is contemptible. And, of course, the those venal and
cynical morons who
are continually seeking to cause
me
to
disavow
conservatism wasted no time in accusing
the Obama administration of not acting harshly enough.
We criticize the Chinese when they censor the internet or crack
down bluntly on free speech of any kind, and yet
our government is attempting to block (by, among other things,
coercion of the sites hosting Wikileaks) any access to the site of an
organization
that has not been indicted, let alone convicted of any violation of
law. The indivdual who founded the AA group in which I got sober says
"if you'd be embarrassed if someone found out about what you're doing,
you should stop doing it."
Through Michael Tobis' Only
In
It
For
The Gold Post I followed a link
that, I believe, captures my position fairly accurately. The post is
well worth reading in its entirety and is not very long but a key quote
is:
The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia,
can now rightly say to us “You went after Wikileaks’ domain name, their
hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register
protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting
overseas entities, simply because you decided you don’t like the site.
If that’s the way governments get to behave, we can live with that.
There are many things that have been done in my name that lead me to
believe that Bin Laden, et al, have achieved a huge victory. The USA Patriot Act
allows prosecution without the right to confront witnesses,
criminalizes telling anyone that one is under investigation under its
provisions, criminalizes contributing money even for peaceful purposes
to arbitrarily (e.g. Wikileaks) designated "terrorist organizations,"
and facilitates surveillance of U.S. citizens (not to mention anyone
outside the U.S.) that is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.
Have I added anything to the debate here? No, but I do feel better having gotten it published.
