"Three things you can not hide for long: the Moon, the Sun and the Truth." - Siddhartha
It’s still possible that judges could rule that the First Amendment protects WikiLeaks’ actions. Freedom of speech is a basic US constitutional right. What Julian Assange and WikiLeaks may have done, however, is set up a lawyer's dream of a case which would allow the Supreme Court to resolve a conflict between two basic rights – the right to speak, and the right of the US to hold close its secrets.
When Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006, he wrote two essays setting out the philosophy behind it: "To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not." In his blog he wrote, "the more secretive or unjust an organisation is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. ... Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."
Pursued by the USA, and with some even calling for his assassination, Julian Assange must be feeling very lonely and afraid right now. Is he perhaps wondering if he should've stayed in Townsville and enjoyed his weekends of six-packs and barbecues on Magnetic Island?
Welcome to Oceania ("1984") where the people have no right to free speech and where those who have the power or thoughts to rebel are too afraid (Winston Smith) and the vast majority (proles) are kept ignorant!
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." - George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5
P.S. Latest ABC News on WikiLeaks [Dec 4, 2010]:
"WikiLeaks back online, Assange close to arrest*
The WikiLeaks website is back online with a new Swiss address, after its previous domain name was killed. The whistleblower website's original domain host, EveryDNS.net, says it terminated its services because WikiLeaks had been coming under "massive" cyber attacks.
The new address - wikileaks.ch - was put online six hours after the original site wikileaks.org was killed.
An internet trace of the new domain name suggests that the site itself is still hosted in Sweden and in France. Web users accessing the wikileaks.ch address are directed to a page under the URL http://213.251.145.96/ which gives them access to the former site, including a massive trove of leaked US diplomatic traffic.
The WikiLeaks website released more than 250,000 secret US diplomatic cables this week, which has left governments around the world scrambling to deal with the fallout.
Meanwhile, British media reports Scotland Yard could arrest the site's founder Julian Assange within days. Prosecutors in Sweden want to question Mr Assange over alleged sex crimes involving two women during a visit to Stockholm in August.
Mr Assange, who was born in Australia, has not been charged and he denies the allegations. He reportedly avoided arrest this week because Swedish authorities had filled out an Interpol red notice incorrectly.
Britain's Independent newspaper reports that police know Mr Assange's whereabouts in England and are expected to arrest him in the coming days. Mr Assange's Stockholm-based lawyer Bjoern Hurtig says he will fight his client's extradition to Sweden in the event of his arrest. "Together with my British colleague Mark Stephens and international experts, we will fight the extradition warrants," he said.
A WikiLeaks spokesman says Mr Assange has to remain out of the public eye because he is facing assassination threats following the whistleblowing website's publication of the secret cables.
Several US senators have also called for him to be charged with espionage. Senator Dianne Feinstein says the leak is a serious breach of national security and action must be taken. "We have reviewed the espionage statutes and we believe it qualifies," she said. "That this, allowed to be carried out, incapacitates this nation to carry out business."
