Secret grand jury meeting in Virginia on Wikieaks

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London (CNN) -- A secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, is meeting to consider criminal charges in the WikiLeaks case, an attorney for the site's founder, Julian Assange, told the Al-Jazeera network in an interview.

"We have heard from Swedish authorities there has been a secretly empaneled grand jury in Alexandria. ... They are currently investigating this," Mark Stephens told Al-Jazeera's Sir David Frost on Sunday, referring to WikiLeaks. The site, which facilitates the disclosure of secret information, has been slowly releasing a trove of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables since November 28.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that he had authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks' publication of the cables but has declined to elaborate.

Assange is sought for questioning in connection with allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. He surrendered to British authorities last week.

"I think that the Americans are much more interested in terms of the WikiLeaks aspect of this," Stephens told Al-Jazeera. He said it was his understanding that Swedish authorities have said that if Assange is extradited there, "they will defer their interest in him to the Americans. ... It does seem to me that what we have here is nothing more than a holding charge." The United States just wants Assange detained, he said, so "ultimately they can get their mitts on him."

"He is entitled under international law, under Swedish law, to know the charges or the investigation that's going on, the allegations made against him and the nature of the evidence which is said to support it," Stephens said. "As I sit here talking to you now, he hasn't that that information, so he's not been able to comprehensively rebut (the allegations)."Assange is next set to appear in court Tuesday. Stephens said his client is ready to meet with the Swedish prosecutor if she travels to London, but she has not done so.

The legal process could be a long one, he said. "There are a number of issues in this particular case which raise European Convention and human rights points."

Meanwhile, The U.S. House Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing Thursday on "the Espionage Act and the legal and constitutional issues raised by WikiLeaks," according to its website. More details on the hearing and a witness list had not been posted as of Monday morning.

Before WikiLeaks began posting the cables, Assange wrote to the United States and told them he did not want to imperil any ongoing operations or put anyone at risk, Stephens said. Redactions put in place are not seen to have exposed anyone to risk, he said.

Beside the United States, WikiLeaks has apparently angered Russia and China, Stephens told Al-Jazeera. Russia has accused him of being a CIA operative, according to the attorney, while cyberattacks against WikiLeaks have appeared to come from Russian and Chinese computers. "He does seem to have picked enemies, if you like, with the three major superpowers," Stephens said of Assange.

Last week, supporters of WikiLeaks calling themselves "Anonymous" and "Operation Payback" claimed responsibility for disabling or disrupting the websites of MasterCard, Visa and PayPal. The group tried unsuccessfully to bring down Amazon.com, saying on Twitter, "We don't have enough forces."

Anonymous made the attacks not through hacking but by directing a giant traffic surge to the targeted website in a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack. Such attacks are hard for most websites to defend against, and they can significantly slow or crash a website.

During the Bush era, I frequently wrote about escalating attacks by the U.S. Government on press freedoms. The Bush DOJ vowed to prosecute whistleblowers while steadfastly refusing to do the same for the high-level criminals they exposed. Alberto Gonzales openly threatened that the DOJ could prosecute editors and reporters of The New York Times for revealing the illegal NSA spying program. CIA Director Porter Goss vowed to subpoena journalists who publish classified information in order to compel them to disclose their sources or go to prison.

And, worst of all, Bush officials sought for the first time in American history to obtain an espionage conviction -- under the Espionage Act of 1917 -- against non-government-employees who had received and disseminated classified information. About that case -- brought against two AIPAC officials who had passed classified information they received from a Pentagon official to the Government of Israel (the Pentagon official pled guilty) -- I wrote about "the Bush Administration's broader, unprecedented assault on a free press of which the AIPAC prosecution is but a part," and argued that "the Bush Administration is seeking to criminalize the very act which defines what an investigative journalist does and has always done in America." The Washington Post's Walter Pincus reported at the time, quoting a legal expert, that "administration officials 'want this case as a precedent so they can have it in their arsenal' and added: 'This is a weapon that can be turned against the media'." After a series of adverse judicial rulings against the Government, the DOJ finally abandoned that AIPAC prosecution.

Amazingly, the Obama administration is surpassing its predecessor when it comes to assaults on whistle-blowing and a free press. As Politico's Josh Gerstein reported, "President Barack Obama’s Justice Department has taken a hard line against leakers. . . .'They’re going after this at every opportunity and with unmatched vigor,' said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists." The New York Times similarly documented: "the Obama administration is proving more aggressive than the Bush administration in seeking to punish unauthorized leaks." The Obama DOJ has launched nothing less than a full-on war against whistleblowers; its magnanimous "Look Forward, Not Backward" decree used to shield high-level Bush criminals from investigations is manifestly tossed to the side when it comes to those who reveal such criminality. And they even revitalized an abandoned Bush-era subpoena issued to The New York Times' James Risen, demanding that he disclose his source for an article in which he revealed an embarrassingly botched attempt to infiltrate and sabotage Iran's nuclear program.

But if current reports are correct -- that the Obama DOJ has now convened a Grand Jury to indict WikiLeaks and Julian Assange -- this will constitute a far greater assault on press freedom than anything George W. Bush managed, or even attempted. Put simply, there is no intellectually coherent way to distinguish what WikiLeaks has done with these diplomatic cables with what newspapers around the world did in this case and what they do constantly: namely, receive and then publish classified information without authorization. And as much justifiable outrage as the Bush DOJ's prosecution of the AIPAC officials provoked, at least the actions there resembled "espionage" far more than anything Assange has done, as those AIPAC officials actually passed U.S. secrets to a foreign government, not published them as WikiLeaks has done.

To criminalize what WikiLeaks is doing is, by definition, to criminalize the defining attribute of investigative journalism. That, to be sure, is a feature, not a bug, of the Obama administration's efforts. Just two days ago, The New York Times' James Risen wrote a story disclosing substantial classified information about the CIA, the DEA and Afghanistan, revealing that a high-level Afghan drug trafficker being prosecuted by the U.S. was long on the payroll of the U.S.; should he be tried for espionage? I wrote in detail back in August about the dangers posed and distortions required to prosecute WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act.

After a pro-prosecution consensus toward WikiLeaks in America's political and media class quickly formed, it seems some journalists -- both domestically and around the world -- are now realizing the dangers to them which such a prosecution would pose. To his credit, The New York Times' Scott Shane on Sunday exposed the lies being told about WikiLeaks' alleged "indiscriminate document dump" by making clear how indistinguishable its disclosures are from the world's leading newspapers (including his own); read the first three paragraphs on this page from Shane's article.

The Washington Times' neoconservative reporter Eli Lake last night wrote: "I oppose the application of the espionage statute to Assange because the same kind of prosecution would make me a criminal too." Leading newspaper editors and television producers in Australia have banded together in a letter to the Australian Prime Minister defending WikiLeaks, which reads:

In essence, WikiLeaks, an organisation that aims to expose official secrets, is doing what the media have always done: bringing to light material that governments would prefer to keep secret.

It is the media’s duty to responsibly report such material if it comes into their possession. To aggressively attempt to shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official leaks, and to pressure companies to cease doing commercial business with WikiLeaks, is a serious threat to democracy, which relies on a free and fearless press.

The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau and The Washington Post's Dana Priest -- both of whom won Pulitzer Prizes for publicly exposing classified programs of the Bush administration -- warned that prosecuting WikiLeaks would endanger investigative journalism generally. The Denver Post editorialized that the idea of prosecuting WikiLeaks "is about the only one in recent memory that has attracted bipartisan support in Washington" but "is ill-conceived and fraught with problems" and that "acquiring and publishing information is at the heart of the definition of a free press, which has substantial First Amendment protections." Even the government-revering Washington Post Editorial Page came out in opposition to prosecuting WikiLeaks on Sunday, recognizing that "the government has no business indicting someone who is not a spy and who is not legally bound to keep its secrets" and that "doing so would criminalize the exchange of information and put at risk responsible media organizations."

What's most striking about all of this, as usual, is how the worst and most tyrannical government actions in Washington are equally supported on a fully bipartisan basis. It is, of course, a Democratic President -- elected on a promise of creating the "most transparent administration in history" -- that is leading these attacks on whistle-blowing and press freedoms. And it's leading Democratic Senators like Dianne Feinstein demanding Assange's prosecution under the Espionage Act. And it's Democratic operatives like Bob Beckel -- Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager -- calling for Assange to be "illegally" murdered, stating on Fox News: "A dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, he's treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I'm not for the death penalty, so...there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a b***h" (note the illiterate-though-standard claim that Assange, an Australian citizen, has committed "treason" against the U.S.).

Back in the Bush era, this mentality was the province of hard-core conservatives, and Democrats typically reacted with horror. Behold how Bush followers universally spoke about the need to prosecute not only whistleblowers but also journalists. The Weekly Standard and Commentary repeatedly ran articles advocating the prosecution for whistleblowers and The New York Times under the Espionage Act. Bill Bennett demanded that all parties responsible for the disclosures of the NSA program and CIA black sites be prosecuted and imprisoned.

Over and over, the Right during the Bush era argued what has now become the battle-cry of both official Washington and Democratic leaders: that leaks of classified information cannot be tolerated and must be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Everywhere one goes, one hears such a mentality being advocated by Good Democrats, Progressives and Obama followers. Indeed, the only member of Congress who has thus far stood up and defended WikiLeaks and opposed prosecutions is . . . the universally disparaged GOP Rep. Ron Paul. It's just amazing how seamlessly the two parties end up mirroring each other's arguments and mindsets when in power.

If the grand jury convening is a secret, how come you know about it?

ruveyn

It was leaked.

Also: be suspicious of Ron Paul's rise in the mainstream of politics.

Be suspicious of what? Do you have a conspiracy like Inuyasha where Dr. Paul is actually an Obama sleeper cell all along?

Ron Paul is the only honorable man in Washington. I only pray that enough people on both self drawn lines realize this before 2012 instead of voting of the lesser of two evils between Obama and Palin/Romney/Huckabee/Gingrich. What are you afraid of? We have the worst of the worst ruling this country right now.

I'd say an unregulated market would be preferable to a market regulated by the biggest corporations which they use as a tool to stifle competition. But whatever, the priority should be stopping our global imperialist foreign policy, which will bankrupt faster than any supposed "pork barrel" spending, and the never ending assault on our civil liberties.

I don't know who you'd find more trustworthy than Ron Paul. He believes in what he believes

I'd say an unregulated market would be preferable to a market regulated by the biggest corporations which they use as a tool to stifle competition. But whatever, the priority should be stopping our global imperialist foreign policy, which will bankrupt faster than any supposed "pork barrel" spending, and the never ending assault on our civil liberties.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt146040.html

^What an unregulated market looks like.

You should move there.

It was demolished in 2003.

ruveyn

Ron Paul is the only honorable man in Washington.