Reporters Without Borders Condemn Attacks On Wikileaks

[sabrina 1]

Reacting to the vicious attacks on Wikileaks, Reporters Without Borders issued a statement condemning them:



Wikileaks Hounded

Reporters Without Borders condemns the blocking, cyber-attacks and political pressure being directed at cablegate.wikileaks.org, the website dedicated to the US diplomatic cables. The organization is also concerned by some of the extreme comments made by American authorities concerning WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

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This is the first time we have seen an attempt at the international community level to censor a website dedicated to the principle of transparency. We are shocked to find countries such as France and the United States suddenly bringing their policies on freedom of expression into line with those of China. We point out that in France and the United States, it is up to the courts, not politicians, to decide whether or not a website should be closed.

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Reporters Without Borders can only condemn this determination to hound Assange and reiterates its conviction that WikiLeaks has a right under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment to publish these documents and is even playing a useful role by making them available to journalists and the greater public.

We stress that any restriction on the freedom to disseminate this body of documents will affect the entire press, which has given detailed coverage to the information made available by WikiLeaks, with five leading international newspapers actively cooperating in preparing it for publication.

They point out also that Reporters Without Borders has always defended 'the principle of "Net Neutrality", which means that ISPs and hosting companies 'should play no role in choosing the content that is placed online'.

With Joe Lieberman calling for an investigation of the NYT, America's News Media needs to decide whether to take a stand against this outrageous censorship of the press, or, risk losing all rights to freedom of the press.

Lieberman and others calling for the arrest of the editor and publisher of a news organization might want to read the decision in the Pentagon Papers, and while he's at it, the 1st Amendment before assuming that matters concerning 1st Amendment issues are settled by individual legislators. These matters are settled in the courts.



William O. Douglas

Justice William O. Douglas, concurring in New York Times v. United States (1971)

These disclosures may have a serious impact. But that is no basis for sanctioning a previous restraint on the press. . . . The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of governmental suppression of embarrassing information. A debate of large proportions goes on in the Nation over our posture in Vietnam. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our national health.

So far, I have not been able to find any statements from the U.S. media condemning the assault on the award-winning news organization, Wikileaks, by Sen. Lieberman and others.

The silence of the Press on major issues like this threatens the very foundations of this democracy.

And this is how democracies die.

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny” ~ Thomas Jefferson