The true test of freedom
In the matter of Julian Assange and Wikileaks, the United States has shown that when it feels threatened by an individual and that individual’s potential to shake things up, it behaves no better than totalitarian China.
For all the high-flown words about freedom of speech and liberty, the true test of anyone’s ideals comes when they themselves are pushed to the ultimate limit.
The debacle surrounding Assange shows that the difference between China and the United States is, when it comes down to the crunch, a matter of degree. China begins to persecute and hunt down individuals at point A, while the United States does so at point Z.
Assange’s persecution has been met with shock and dismay by those of us who liked to believe that the days of witch-hunts are over in freedom-loving America and even-more-liberal Europe. For yes, Europe is far more liberal in its approach to individual rights and privacy than the United States, with its stresses on conformity and its slightly fascistic conflation of state and nation, is.
Some American politicians have called for Assange to be hunted down and killed. They seem oblivious to the fact that in this they share sentiments with the extremist Muslim clerics they abhor and despise.
Sadly, under the glare of the international media and possibly also under diplomatic pressure, Europe has not acquitted itself too well. Sweden has made much of trumped-up rape charges that should have been laughed straight out of the police station, calling for Assange’s extradition as though he has been knocking women down in the street and raping them at knife-point.
England has held him on remand and has granted him temporary bail. The most Assange can be accused of is sexual opportunism. He slept with one of his accusers when she made overtures to him at a conference and invited him to dinner at her flat. Then the next day he slept with another woman who was at the same conference, again after she made overtures to him. The women found out about each other, compared notes, then decided to report him to the police for rape.
The grounds? He hadn’t worn a condom and might have infected them with something. And one of them claimed that he had “weighed her down with his body while having sex”. Perhaps men looking for quickies at conferences should take this as a lesson: make sure the woman is on top.
The worst of this spectacle of the democratic west persecuting an individual, using all the means at its disposal, is that we have lost the moral high ground. We cannot now turn to China and condemn its actions because, as the Chinese will say correctly, it is all a matter of degree. Essentially, what the United States is doing to Julian Assange with the cooperation of some parts of Europe is what China does to its own dissidents.
It is fortunate that Assange is not an American citizen. One hates to think what might have become of him by now had he been one. And I say this despite being a big fan of the United States – a sorely disappointed fan.
All this cannot have happened at a more unfortunate time, when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in absentia to the Chinese professor of literature, Liu Xiaobo, who is serving an 11-year prison term for what China says is “inciting subversion of state power”. This is exactly what the United States would like to do to Julian Assange.
The accusation, too, is the same. Only the definition is different, and that in the matter of degree.
When the panic has passed, the United States may yet come to understand how it has undermined its self-claimed position as the world’s champion of individual liberty. It has laid itself open to the well-founded accusation that individual liberty ends where the United States’ nose begins.
Though I do not agree with what Assange has done. I draw a distinction between his actions and choices and the manner in which he is being persecuted for them. The sight and sound of this persecution is sickening and disturbing.
I do not agree with his actions because he, too, has undermined his position. There is the world of difference between the whistleblowing leak of a document in the public interest – something targetted and relevant – and the wholesale dumping of hundreds of thousands of documents, most of them pointless and irrelevant, onto the internet just for the hell of it, to show you can do it. That’s just a form of vandalism, a show of force. There is something childish about it.
But there is nothing childish about the way Julian Assange is being hunted now. It is pretty scary. The persecution has centuries-old echoes to which many appear to be oblivious: accusations of sexual perversity used as the basis for getting rid of a troublesome individual.
If America could burn Julian Assange at the stake, it would do so. That is the real sadness of what this situation has revealed: that when it comes down to shutting up those who inconvenience us, we’re all brothers and sisters under the skin. It is just a matter of degree. China jails Liu Xiaobo and the United States tries to do the same to Julian Assange.
This article was published in The Malta Independent on Thursday, 16 December.
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I agree with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Not so long ago George W Bush and Tony Blair sold us a whopper that Saddam Hussein had WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) and so went to war in Iraq with thousands of military and civilian casualties. The head of the UN inspection team, Hans Blix, had confirmed to Downing Street and the White House that no trace of WMD had been found but they wanted to go to war at all costs. What about Alastair Campbell , Tony Blair’s communicatins guru, forcing Dr David Kelly to spice up his report on WMD and Iraq to have a pretext to go to war; afterwards Dr Kelly commited suicide. These people have no shame or contrition and yet they want to be protected from Wikileaks.
Daphne, do you think it right for a journalist to publish stolen material? If somebody broke into Mintoff’s house and found some juicy information about conversations and deals he had made, would you take them and publish them? What if an Air Malta employee fed you the salaries and expenses claims of the top employees? On the other hand, what if your ISP or hacker broke into your personal mails and published them?
You say you don’t agree with what Assange has done, but draw a distinction between his actions and the manner is which he is being persecuted for them. So you really believe the Americans successfully leaned on the Swedish to make fantasy accustations? Presumably they would only do that if they were confident of a successful prosection of this fantasy accusation, and that the result would be the end of Wikileaks, since anything less would increase his notoriety.
Dominic, in the US the publication of “stolen” material is protected by the First Amendment when that material is a matter of public concern. The Supreme Court ruled in Bartnicki et al v. Vopper that “a stranger’s illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield from speech about a matter of public concern.” This means that even if Bradley Manning acted illegally in leaking the documents – which I doubt – the publication of those documents remains legal.
Mintoff’s conversations in the abstract sense are not a matter of public concern, but if the conversations revealed public corruption, for example, then they would be. Context is everything.
I disagree with the opinion and arguments put forward in this piece.
While I am all out for freedom of expression and the freedom to express an opinion, I fail to comprehend the link and comparison between Assange and regime dissidents (China in this case). It is a huge disservice to Liu Xiaobo, because the two cases are not similar at all. Freedom of expression includes the right to criticize anyone, including the most powerful people. Assange’s leaks have nothing to do with freedom of expression..
Assange published confidential documents out of spite towards the US and as a result of his troubled personality. Xiaobo expressd an opinion on his own government. The two cases could not be more dissimilar.
Assange published documents that will definitely harm future diplomacy, jeopardize the US efforts in controlling international terrorism, and reveal (directly or indirectly) those sources who had come forward with useful information on international terrorism. Although the published documents were censored and did not include the names of individuals who passed on the information to the diplomats, it will nor be difficult for certain regimes to identify the sources and deal with them. Assange’s act was irresponsible and vindictive, and there was nothing heroic or journalistic about it.
Assange is a troubled individual with a difficult childhood. His mother is more unstable than him. This was clear during her interview. He changed houses more than 30 times in the first 14 years of his life, which leads one to believe that he did not have any friends at all, and must have built up a lot of inner anger. As a result, he now yearns for attention, and this website seems to be his medium to ‘solve’ his personal problems. Reportedly, he is also a megalomaniac, and was angry that he did not attract attention last summer. His aim is to humiliate people and / or nations. Even the ex-second in line at Wikileaks left the organization, to open a new website called Open leaks.
This article provides more details on Assange’s personality:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339859/Wikileaks-Julian-Assanges-promiscuous-lifestyle-revealed-Jemima-Khan-look-away-now.html
Ironically, he targets the most democratic nation, where the bill of rights is even read out to the most dangerous terrorists. Yes it is true, that a number of US politicians called for his arrest and extradiction, but that was just rhetoric, and no revenge or any action will take place. On the other hand, I doubt whether he will ever dare publish anything on Russia or China. He must know what the reaction would be, or rather his fate, if such a leak ever occurs. The present ‘persecution’ will pale in comparison.
He has already published about shady business deals between Putin and Berlusconi.
Sarah Palin wants him charged with treason when he is not a US citizen.
So you do not believe in freedom of information and want to be lied to by characters as George W Bush and Tony Blair (eg Saddam Hussein and Weapons of Mass Destruction).
Hmmm Daily Mail a rehashed article .
Takes all characters…………………….
Storm in a teacup, what. There’s nothing on Wikileaks that any half-decent intelligence agency didn’t already know. Even allies spy on each other.
The difference between “treason” and “free speech” cannot reside in the question whether the profitable harmful revelation of stolen secret documents, occurs in peacetime or in time of war, hot or cold.
In the case of Julian Assange, “treason” against which country? Australia? Please remember that Assange is an Australian cditizen. This brings to mind Sarah Palin/Tea Party reasoning!
“Sarah Palin” and “reasoning” shouldn’t be put in the same sentence, ever. Unless it’s separated with “lack of”.
And to day we have Republicans of all shades crying crocodile tears over the Arizona massacre after months of hate comments on blogs, radio, and Fox TV !
Julian Assange is an Australian citizen trying to obtain asylum in any country that would accept him. But the thief who purloined the secret and confidential diplomatic exchanges before passing them on to Assange (at what price?) is a USA soldier.
When you hear experts speaking about computer and internet security they smother us with gobbledegook and then they left archived diplomatic cables accessible to a young, bored (that’s the key word) soldier with time on his hands. Incredible!
This link shows that US government is requesting Twitter, apart from other social networks, to provide details of non-US collaborators of Wikileaks all in the name of freedom of information!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/iceland-us-ambassador-twitter-wikileaks