WikiLeaks

[TheMercenary]

But that still leaves the Lincoln question of how to stop the likes of Mr. Assange? If he were exposing Chinese or Russian secrets, he would already have died at the hands of some unknown assailant. As a foreigner (Australian citizen) engaged in hostile acts against the U.S., Mr. Assange is certainly not protected from U.S. reprisal under the laws of war. Perhaps Lincoln would have considered him an "enemy combatant."

In his Saturday letter urging Mr. Assange to cease and desist, State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh accused the WikiLeaker of breaking U.S. law without mentioning a particular statute. Perhaps Mr. Koh meant the 1917 Espionage Act, a vague statute which has rarely been used to punish leakers, and never against a publisher. As recently as 2009, the government dropped an Espionage Act prosecution against two lobbyists for AIPAC, the American-Israel lobby, after a rebuke by a federal appeals court.

Mr. Assange is clearly trying to protect himself from such an indictment by inviting the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel to be his co-publishers. Newspapers used to understand that the right of the First Amendment implied some publishing self-restraint. But as publishers ourselves, we nonetheless worry that indicting a bad actor like Mr. Assange under an ambiguous statute would set a precedent that could later be used against journalists.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...285411052.html

This guy is far from a journalist and should not be afforded any such protections.