As many of you might’ve read, Wikileaks, a whistle-blowing organization, is currently fighting to continue posting over 200,000 diplomatic cables and United States government information. These cables were reportedly obtained from a low-level Army Intelligence analyst. The content of these cables aren’t exactly volatile (the released documents are rather low-secrecy), however, this revelation has created dire diplomatic consequences for the United States. The release of these secret documents essentially allowed foreign government analysis into the workings of the United States diplomatic corps. Many prominent newspapers have published articles regarding these cables, namely the New York Times, the Guardian and De Spiegel.
The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been marked for deportation back to Sweden for questioning regarding accusations of sexual harassment by two unnamed women. Generally, extradition should not be requested for questioning, as it could be done through indirect contact. if extradited from Britain, Assange could be open to extradition hearings from other nations, including the United States. Assange has denied these charges, while remaining in requested protective custody. Eventually, under pressure from the public, Julian Assange has been released on bail and Sweden has contested this ruling. But extradition is the least of his worries…
Quoting from the Daily Telegraph:
“Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, has called for him to be hunted down like the al-Qaeda leadership while other members of her party have directly called for a capital sentence against Wikileaks personnel.”
Bob Beckel of Fox News also has called for the assasination of a foreign national. Under international law, the United States cannot prosecute a foreign national for the crimes of treason, which many prominent American bloggers have suggested.
So essentially, many “radical” American media personalities and public figures have openly stated the intention of assasinating a foreign citizen who is not residing in the United States without a fair and open trial.
Hypocritical? I believe so. After decades of promoting its own country as democratic and just, it shocks me to hear how easily some prominent Americans believe that they can interfere in the proper government of other nations. I’m not anti-American, however, I find it quite entertaining to watch the right-wing media tear into Wikileaks everyday. Instead of persecuting the person that allegedly “stole” these documents, they are running a full crusade against Wikileaks. In their Twitter feed, the Wikileaks team has called out MasterCard, Visa, Paypal and Amazon for refusing service to the organization. Also, the main Wikileaks site has been under pressure from a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). However, thousands of “mirror” sites have sprung up throughout the last month.
Overall, this may be one of the more interesting stories of the year. At what lengths will America go to protect some low secrecy documents? Will the right-wingers in American society shift public opinion? Will Assange be deported?
I guess we’ll all have to keep reading the news.