Wikileaks leaks information, yes, however, so far it has not been established that they are leaking "stolen" classified national security information, or stolen non-classified information.Tero wrote:"These conservatives seem to have forgotten that before Assange was revealing Clinton campaign emails, he was serially leaking stolen, classified national security information that has endangered the United States and its allies across the world.
In 2010, WikiLeaks dumped more than 76,000 unredacted, secret U.S. intelligence documents into the public domain, including the identities of at least 100 Afghans who were informing on the Taliban."
https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl= ... pt0-232727
Further,if they're not the one's "stealing" the information, but they are merely publishing the papers which were leaked or stolen by someone else, then it's no different than the New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers.
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg illegally released highly classified Pentagon Papers concerning US involvement in the Vietnam War. The Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that the Lyndon Johnson Administration (Democrat) systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress. , The papers revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scale of the Vietnam War with the bombings of nearby Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which were reported in the mainstream media. This was back when the President ordering bombings of a country was considered a problem. LOL.
Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy and espionage etc., and the only reason the charges were dropped was that the Nixon Administration had poisoned the prosecution (not intentionally) by dispatching "The Plumbers" to go out and discredit Ellsberg (all part of the Watergate Scandal) and the prosecutors basically dropped the case because of Watergate.
But, the fact was, the Pentagon Papers were classified documents and were not declassified until 2011, and they were illegally released to the public (stolen) by Daniel Ellsberg, and delivered to a media publisher. The media publisher (New York Times) published the material and it was found in court that the New York Times had every right to publish them.
The same is true here -- perhaps the material was leaked improperly by someone in the Clinton camp or the government. We don't know. Perhaps access was illegally granted by someone in that kind of position. We don't know. Perhaps the Russians hacked it, grabbed the info and are leaking it to media outlets. We don't know. There has been some assertion that the Russians did it by "unnamed officials on condition of anonymity" but - nobody has proved anything.
In any case - nobody has suggested Wikileaks illegally leaked them. Nobody has suggested that Wikileaks broke in and stole them, or hacked in and stole them. And, if they did, they would need to use the Hague Convention and extradition law to bring Assange and others in Wikileaks to court on charges.
Whatever the case - the fact that the material is stolen has zero bearing on their truth or accuracy. The fact that they are stolen (if they are stolen) has zero bearing on whether the material is newsworthy or should be considered in assessing the ethics, morality and legality of the actions of the players involved.
Wikileaks was never "serially leaking" anything, by the way. Wikileaks isn't working for the US government. A "leak" is someone who, within the State Department, for example, gives out information or allows it to be accessed, which is classified. That's the one who is doing the leaking. Wikileaks can't possibly do that. At most, what Wikileaks is doing is "receiving leaked information" (if it was leaked) and "receiving hacked information" if it was hacked. Now, we know it's o.k. for a private person (or entity) to publish leaked and even stolen information, based on the example of the Pentagon Papers.
It is most certainly possible for Wikileaks to be acting properly, but someone else, who stole or hacked, or leaked, the information, to be guilty of a crime.
Remember, you and me, the New York Times, Wikileaks, etc., we are not required to keep the government's secrets. If we see Hillary's emails and they're marked classified, that's HER legal failure. That's HER breach of duty. That's HER breach of trust. If we go ahead and share that information with other people, we haven't done anything wrong. The government wants us to think that. But, there is no law which says that a private person cannot disclose "classified" information he receives (unless it is received under specific obligation to do so - like if you work for a government contractor and have signed non-disclosure policies and requirements). Private persons are not automatically covered by laws about classfied information.
Where people will fall into Espionage Act and such issues, like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, without signing nondisclosures, is when they are acting for a foreign government. In that case, it was shown the Rosenbergs were working as agents for the Soviet Government. That hasn't even been alleged about Wikileaks. But, if it is alleged ever -- then, again, arrest the guy and prosecute him. It would start with an indictment in a US federal court, and efforts to extradite.
However, again, this can't be stressed enough. Even if he is arrested on espionage charges and convicted -- it has no bearing on the public interest value of the documents. It doesn't mean they aren't true. It doesn't mean they aren't fair game for us to read, now that they're out there. We don't have to consider them "fruit of the poisoned tree" and pretend they don't exist.
