Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
Friday, December 10, 2010
Free Press = Illegal Spying?
Lawyers for free-press free-speech anti-corruption anti-secrecy activist Julian Assange have been lead to expect espionage charges from the United States.
As it happens, I was a guest at a dinner-and-a-movie party on Friday, and we watched the documentary "The Most Dangerous Man in America", about Daniel Ellsberg http://www.pbs.org/pov/mostdangerousman/ (which is available via Netflix streaming).
It's clear that if Nixon had had his way, Ellsberg would have been strung up by the balls. It's also not at all clear that if Nixon hadn't muddied the waters by having the Watergate "plumbers" break into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, that Ellsberg would **not** have been convicted under the 1917 espionage act, and gone to prison for a long time (I think I recall hearing in the movie that his indictments carried sentences totalling up to 115 years).
Assange is in a worse position, I think, than Ellsbergs was then, in that he's a foreigner (for one thing), and the U.S. public has been in a viciously conservative mood since at least (let's face it) 9/11.
I wonder if he'll be extradited to the U.S. on the espionage charge, either from the U.K. or Sweden, now that he's in custody on another pretext, or whether he'll end up being kidnapped (or assassinated) by spooks, or end up having to go into hiding like Osama bin Laden. One of the three, presumably.
But will the **organization** continue to operate, I wonder.
As it happens, I was a guest at a dinner-and-a-movie party
ReplyDeleteon Friday, and we watched the documentary "The Most Dangerous
Man in America", about Daniel Ellsberg
http://www.pbs.org/pov/mostdangerousman/
(which is available via Netflix streaming).
It's clear that if Nixon had had his way, Ellsberg
would have been strung up by the balls. It's also
not at all clear that if Nixon hadn't muddied the
waters by having the Watergate "plumbers" break
into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, that Ellsberg
would **not** have been convicted under the 1917
espionage act, and gone to prison for a long time
(I think I recall hearing in the movie that his
indictments carried sentences totalling
up to 115 years).
Assange is in a worse position, I think, than
Ellsbergs was then, in that he's a foreigner (for
one thing), and the U.S. public has been in a
viciously conservative mood since at least
(let's face it) 9/11.
I wonder if he'll be extradited to the U.S. on
the espionage charge, either from the U.K. or
Sweden, now that he's in custody on another pretext,
or whether he'll end up being kidnapped
(or assassinated) by spooks, or end up having
to go into hiding like Osama bin Laden.
One of the three, presumably.
But will the **organization** continue to operate,
I wonder.