The First Amendment Doesn't Care If Wikileaks Is A Media Organization
from the either-way... dept
One of the big debates over Wikileaks in the last few months was whether or not Wikileaks really was a media organization. Of course, as some people are finally realizing: it doesn't matter. The First Amendment should protect the organization no matter what kind of organization it is:That's one argument in an article that appeared Wednesday in the Harvard Law and Policy Review by Jonathan Peters, a lawyer and research fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism. The First Amendment, Peters argues, protects both free speech and freedom of the press, and neither of those protections is any more or less powerful in protecting an organization that publishes classified documents. The amendment, after all, reads "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, nor of the press," and doesn't make a distinction between the level of protection on either one of those two clauses.This seems like an important reminder for those still arguing over how to classify Wikileaks.
"The First Amendment does not belong to the press," Peters writes. "It protects the expressive rights of all speakers, sometimes on the basis of the Speech Clause and sometimes on the basis of the Press Clause. To argue that the First Amendment would protect Assange and WikiLeaks only if they are part of the press is to assume (1) that the Speech Clause would not protect them, and (2) that there is a major difference between the Speech and Press Clauses."
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Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, media, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks
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Oh, I get it now, the first amendment only applies when it's convenient to big corporations. Since the government usually represents industry interests, then protecting those who leak damaging information against our government isn't protected.
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At which point the First Amendment kicks in.
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No, what I'm arguing is simply that the US Constitution states that OUR congress will make no law abridging the rights to free speech of ANYONE. It does apply to people in China as far as OUR CONGRESS is concerned. That doesn't mean they have free speech, only free speech in the eyes of the United States. I still see nothing in the first amendment that claims it only applies to US citizens....
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Your point is ENTIRELY accurate. Part of the foundation of this country was and is that people have certain unalienable rights. Although that is the Declaration of Independence, its still a valid foundation point. One which the Constitution is at least nominally based upon.
So, insofar as this discussion is concerned, they are indeed subject to the Constitution in that the US may not infringe upon the rights of Wikileaks [and it's employees] regardless of their citizenship, or lack thereof, and also regardless of their location in the world.
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It doesn't matter.
Any prosecution pursued will be by … wait for it … AMERICANS! Just because someone or some entity isn't of American origin does NOT mean we can ignore our own laws! That's why judges, DA's, soldiers and a myriad of other sworn officers representing the US government swear to "uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America". They have never said "uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America, unless they're furners"
So sad that this very important lesson never got drilled into so many kids skulls in tenth grade civics class.
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FTFY.
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The First Amendment doesn't apply to Wikileaks
whether or not a censorship law would apply doesn't matter, Congress is forbidden from creating the law in the first place.
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Congress shall make no law...
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Lawmaking authority is not granted to the executive branch in the executive powers section of the Constitution.
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My point was that neither was warmaking, but it didn't seem to matter when it came down to it.
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The same definition of the press which would exclude Wikileaks from 1st Amendment protection would likewise exclude Benjamin Franklin. His publications had more in common with blogs and issue advocacy websites than modern newspapers. That, in and of itself, tells me it's a faulty definition. What freedom of the press is supposed to mean is freedom of publication. It refers not to a privileged group of people and organizations, but literally to a printing press, which was synonymous with publication when the US Constitution was written.
By extension, any prosecution of Julian Assange for assisting in leaking secret information while allowing newspapers, television broadcasters, and the like to publish classified information they've collected by interviewing government officials without similar action amounts to granting special legal status to The Press which was never intended by the Founding Fathers.
Whether the government has the right to take action over the publication of a particular state secret is something we should certainly discuss and debate. But any answer which relies on whether it was a media outlet or journalist who did the publishing has no legitimate constitutional basis. Likewise, if it was a crime for Wikileaks to assist in leaking US government secrets, it's ridiculous to say mainstream media outlets shouldn't be prosecuted for convincing government officials to leak other secrets.
Sadly, it's primarily The Press themselves I blame for our modern misunderstanding of the 1st Amendment. More than anyone else, they are responsible for the myth that a handful of words in the middle of an amendment enumerating the rights of the people are actually meant only to apply to them, and not to the public at large. They are the first to declare that an individual who isn't part of their fraternity isn't afforded the same protection they enjoy under the 1st Amendment and the last to criticize journalist shield laws which apply only to them. The fact is, there are no rights of The Press enumerated in the Constitution. Only rights of the people which also extend to The Press.
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Freedom of the press does not refer to some elite group of people who call themselves "the press". It refers to anyone's freedom to publish what they please as they please.
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The Press Mentioned in the First Amendment is not talking at all about media organizations. The Definition of Press at the time would be any written article. Its a Freedom of Spoken word and Written word.
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Citizenship is also irrelevant
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press = printing press
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Congress Shall Make No Law
Well then, I guess we will just have to put together an Executive Agreement to punish them. Maybe there is still time to sneak something into ACTA?
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Wikileaks
Our Constitution has been so eroded lately that it is no longer recognizable to those of us who love(d) Constitutional Law (in law school, but no longer in practice, I fear).
Even so, if we as a nation were willing to follow our own rhetoric, we would propose a Nobel prize (or equivalent) for both Assange and Manning.
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