Naomi Wolf on WikiLeaks and the Espionage Act

She has an excellent article that is well-worth reading in full but I will give you a few paragraphs to whet your appetite.

The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 — because President Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens — educators, journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists — who were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted ‘crime’ of their exercising their First Amendment Rights.

I predicted in 2006 that the forces that wish to strip American citizens of their freedoms, so as to benefit from a profitable and endless state of war — forces that are still powerful in the Obama years, and even more powerful now that the Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate contributions to our leaders has taken effect — would pressure Congress and the White House to try to breathe new life yet again into the terrifying Espionage Act in order to silence dissent.

Let me explain clearly why activating — rather than abolishing — the Espionage Act is an act of profound aggression against the American people.

As I noted in The End of America, if you prosecute journalists — and Assange, let us remember, is the New York Times in the parallel case of the Pentagon Papers, not Daniel Ellsberg; he is the publisher, not the one who revealed the classified information — then any outlet, any citizen, who discusses or addresses ‘classified’ information can be arrested on ‘national security’ grounds. If Assange can be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, then so can the New York Times; and the producers of Parker Spitzer, who discussed the WikiLeaks material two nights ago; and the people who posted a mirror WikiLeaks site on my Facebook ‘fan’ page; and Fox News producers, who addressed the leak and summarized the content of the classified information; and every one of you who may have downloaded information about it; and so on. That is why prosecution via the Espionage Act is so dangerous — not for Assange alone, but for every one of us, regardless of our political views.

She calls on people to demand the repeal of the Espionage Act.

al Qaeda: Extremely clever or incredibly stupid?

The recent spate of news over airport security has brought to the forefront of my mind a question that has been puzzling me for some time. Why are terrorist acts seemingly focused on attacking airplanes?

While the attacks on 9/11 were highly sophisticated, involving careful planning and almost military-level coordination of a large number of well-trained people, the more recent attempts such as the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber have been amateurish.

Furthermore, following 9/11, two features have been adopted that have really increased airplane security that make them much harder targets. The first is that the cockpit doors are securely locked and the pilots have weapons. The second is that passengers no longer are passive when someone starts behaving weirdly or threateningly or just acts up. Instead, they now fight back. As a result, it would be impossible now for a few hijackers with boxcutters or knives or even axes and samurai swords to take control of a plane. The crew and other passengers would be able to quickly subdue them with no risk to the plane. So all this effort and expense directed towards confiscating nail clippers, screwdrivers, pocket knives, etc. seems pointless and wasted.
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Power corrupts

Pratap Chatterjee in The Guardian has an interesting article on how advocates of civil liberties and human rights quickly succumb to becoming advocates of the imperial presidency when they join the government. He gives as examples people like Harold Koh, dean of the Yale Law School, and John Yoo, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Both had secure jobs in which tenure is given to empower people to challenge authority, tradition, and conventional wisdom without fear of repercussions. But as soon as they were given government positions, they became advocates for some of the most repressive policies against human rights.

If even tenured professors can be so easily subverted, this shows why we need structures outside of the establishment to maintain transparency and uphold true democratic values. Institutions like WikiLeaks challenge the power structure and we should support them.

Daniel Ellsberg talks to Stephen Colbert about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange

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It never ceases to shock me that so-called ‘respectable’ media commentators can so casually and even gleefully publicly call for the murder of people. Have we reached such a level of barbarity that such talk does not arouse widespread condemnation? Have we, at last, no shame?