[Peace-discuss] NYT: Michael Moore and Oliver Stone: WikiLeaks and Free Speech

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/wikileaks-and-the-global-future-of-free-speech.html<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/wikileaks-and-the-global-future-of-free-speech.html?_r=2>

 [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

------------------------------
August 20, 2012
WikiLeaks and Free Speech By MICHAEL MOORE and OLIVER STONE

WE have spent our careers as filmmakers making the case that the news media
in the United States often fail to inform Americans about the uglier
actions of our own government. We therefore have been deeply grateful for
the accomplishments of
WikiLeaks<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/wikileaks/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
and applaud Ecuador’s decision to grant diplomatic asylum to its
founder, Julian
Assange<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/julian_p_assange/index.html?inline=nyt-per>,
who is now living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Ecuador has acted in accordance with important principles of international
human rights. Indeed, nothing could demonstrate the appropriateness of
Ecuador’s action more than the British government’s threat to violate a
sacrosanct principle of diplomatic relations and invade the embassy to
arrest Mr. Assange.

Since WikiLeaks’ founding, it has revealed the “Collateral Murder” footage
that shows the seemingly indiscriminate killing of Baghdad civilians by a
United States Apache attack helicopter; further fine-grained detail about
the true face of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; United States collusion
with Yemen’s dictatorship to conceal our responsibility for bombing strikes
there; the Obama administration’s pressure on other nations not to
prosecute Bush-era officials for torture; and much more.

Predictably, the response from those who would prefer that Americans remain
in the dark has been ferocious. Top elected leaders from both parties have
called Mr. Assange a “high-tech terrorist.” And Senator Dianne Feinstein,
the California Democrat who leads the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, has demanded that he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.
Most Americans, Britons and Swedes are unaware that Sweden has not formally
charged Mr. Assange with any crime. Rather, it has issued a warrant for his
arrest to question him about allegations of sexual assault in 2010.

All such allegations must be thoroughly investigated before Mr. Assange
moves to a country that might put him beyond the reach of the Swedish
justice system. But it is the British and Swedish governments that stand in
the way of an investigation, not Mr. Assange.

Swedish authorities have traveled to other countries to conduct
interrogations<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/cia_interrogations/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
when
needed, and the WikiLeaks founder has made clear his willingness to be
questioned in London. Moreover, the Ecuadorean government made a direct
offer to Sweden to allow Mr. Assange to be interviewed within Ecuador’s
embassy. In both instances, Sweden refused.

Mr. Assange has also committed to traveling to Sweden immediately if the
Swedish government pledges that it will not extradite him to the United
States. Swedish officials have shown no interest in exploring this
proposal, and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt recently told a legal adviser to
Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks unequivocally that Sweden would not make such a
pledge. The British government would also have the right under the relevant
treaty to prevent Mr. Assange’s extradition to the United States from
Sweden, and has also refused to pledge that it would use this power.
Ecuador’s attempts to facilitate that arrangement with both governments
were rejected.

Taken together, the British and Swedish governments’ actions suggest to us
that their real agenda is to get Mr. Assange to Sweden. Because of treaty
and other considerations, he probably could be more easily extradited from
there to the United States to face charges. Mr. Assange has every reason to
fear such an outcome.The Justice Department recently confirmed that it was
continuing to investigate WikiLeaks, and just-disclosed Australian
government documents from this past February state that “the U.S.
investigation into possible criminal conduct by Mr. Assange has been
ongoing for more than a year.” WikiLeaks itself has published e-mails from
Stratfor, a private intelligence corporation, which state that a grand jury
has already returned a sealed indictment of Mr.
Assange<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/wikileaks-stratfor-emails-a-secret-indictment-against-assange-20120228>.
And history indicates Sweden would buckle to any pressure from the United
States to hand over Mr. Assange. In 2001 the Swedish government delivered
two Egyptians seeking asylum to the C.I.A., which rendered them to the
Mubarak regime, which tortured them.

If Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will
reverberate for years around the world. Mr. Assange is not an American
citizen, and none of his actions have taken place on American soil. If the
United States can prosecute a journalist in these circumstances, the
governments of Russia or China could, by the same logic, demand that
foreign reporters anywhere on earth be extradited for violating their laws.
The setting of such a precedent should deeply concern everyone, admirers of
WikiLeaks or not.

We urge the people of Britain and Sweden to demand that their governments
answer some basic questions: Why do the Swedish authorities refuse to
question Mr. Assange in London? And why can neither government promise that
Mr. Assange will not be extradited to the United States? The citizens of
Britain and Sweden have a rare opportunity to make a stand for free speech
on behalf of the entire globe.

Michael Moore and Oliver Stone are Academy Award-winning filmmakers.
-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20120820/6ef3d4eb/attachment-0001.html>