Witnesses Tell House Judiciary Committee: “Don’t Overreact to Wikileaks”

[struggle4progress]

by Matthew L. Schafer ...

On Thursday, the House Committee on the Judiciary met to discuss both Wikileaks and the Espionage Act of 1917 ... Representative John Conyers opened the meeting, saying, "Prosecuting WikiLeaks would raise the most fundamental questions about free speech, about who is a journalist and what citizens can know about their government. The problem today is not too little secrecy but too much secrecy." ...

"The government always overreacts to leaks, and history shows we end up with more damage from the overreaction than from the original leak," Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive said.

Blanton was also joined by six other witnesses: Ralph Nader, legal advocate and author; Stephen Vladeck, Professor of Law at American University; Gabriel Schoenfeld, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute; Geoffrey Stone, Professor of Law at University of Chicago; Kenneth Wainstein, Partner at O'Melveny & Myers LLP; and Abbe Lowell Partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP.

Almost all witness cited flaws within the Espionage Act, while the consensus on whether WikiLeaks is protected by the First Amendment did not enjoy a similar consensus. With all witnesses having testified, four argued that Wikileaks is protected by the Constitution, two argued that it should be prosecuted, and witness Stephen Vladeck abstained from making a determination on WikiLeaks ...

http://www.groundreport.com/Business/Witnesses-Tell-House-Judiciary-Committee-Don-t-Ove/2932156

[Poll_Blind]

1. One of my biggest concerns, especially given that Obama has used Bush's wiretapping powers as a...

...springboard, is that he will work with the Republicans to fundamentally change the atmosphere of Freedom of Speech in America.

Here you have a Democratic president, seduced instead of repulsed by intrusiveness of Bush-era wiretapping practices, a Republican 112th Congress eager to show how viril their legislation can be, about 2/3 of the current Democratic representatives trying to show how much tougher they can be than the Republicans, and so on and so on...

It sets up something I've been offhandedly describing internally as a "Perfect Storm" which could act as a second heavy hammer-blow to the quality of Democracy and Freedom in America. With the Supreme Court hearing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vs. AT&T in January, I am also of the mind that in the very near future corporations may have more privacy rights than individuals.

PB

[glinda]

2. That is far more than a valid concern. It is also obvious during this whole time that we lack quite

a bit of freedom of information and also freedom of speech as is. It is also apparent that we have a run away Government whose policies speed rapidly towards something that is the direct opposite of our Constitution.