Just read the article with the same title as this thread from start to finish, thought it might be good for a bit of discussion. Quoting the introduction below, followed by a link to the complete article:
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January 22, 2023
Daniel Ellsberg says using the Espionage Act against journalist Julian Assange in blatant violation of the First Amendment means the First Amendment is essentially gone.
Ellsberg gave the following address to the Belmarsh Tribunal on Friday night. A transcript follows.
Hi, I’m Dan Ellsberg. One of the foundation stones of our government here in the United States, for democracy and a republic, is our First Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids any law by Congress or the states abridging freedom of speech or of the press, along with freedom of religion or of assembly, that precluded the passage of a British type Official Secrets Act, which most countries have.
Almost no other country has a law singling out the press as protected by our freedom, by the First Amendment and the British type Official Secrets Act, which criminalizes any or all disclosure of information protected by the government executive branch. Even disclosure to the public or to the press or to Congress or Parliament is criminalized and subject to prison.
We’ve never had such an act because of our First Amendment. In fact, one was almost inadvertently passed by Congress in the year 2000, but it was vetoed by President Clinton as a clear cut violation of the First Amendment.
And he cited in his opinion accompanying that, some of the opinions in the Pentagon Papers case of half a century ago that had resulted from my disclosure of information that I had authorized possession of, as a contractor to the government at that time : 7000 pages of top secret documents about the history of U.S. decision making in Vietnam, which disclosed repeated sequence, by four different presidents, of lies and in effect, violations of the Constitution, treaties and in particular misleading Congress as to the costs for war. I was facing 115 years in prison, but not for Official Secrets Act, which we don’t have.
It was an experiment by President Nixon to use our Espionage Act, which had always been directed and intended for U.S. spies, giving information secretly to a foreign government, especially in time of war. It had never been used as it was by Nixon, in my case, as a substitute for an Official Secrets Act, for disclosure to the public, with no indication of my intentions there, but simply to hold that doing that was a violation.
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Full transcript here:
Ellsberg: Losing 1st Amendment Reverses War of Independence | Consortium News
**
January 22, 2023
Daniel Ellsberg says using the Espionage Act against journalist Julian Assange in blatant violation of the First Amendment means the First Amendment is essentially gone.
Ellsberg gave the following address to the Belmarsh Tribunal on Friday night. A transcript follows.
Hi, I’m Dan Ellsberg. One of the foundation stones of our government here in the United States, for democracy and a republic, is our First Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids any law by Congress or the states abridging freedom of speech or of the press, along with freedom of religion or of assembly, that precluded the passage of a British type Official Secrets Act, which most countries have.
Almost no other country has a law singling out the press as protected by our freedom, by the First Amendment and the British type Official Secrets Act, which criminalizes any or all disclosure of information protected by the government executive branch. Even disclosure to the public or to the press or to Congress or Parliament is criminalized and subject to prison.
We’ve never had such an act because of our First Amendment. In fact, one was almost inadvertently passed by Congress in the year 2000, but it was vetoed by President Clinton as a clear cut violation of the First Amendment.
And he cited in his opinion accompanying that, some of the opinions in the Pentagon Papers case of half a century ago that had resulted from my disclosure of information that I had authorized possession of, as a contractor to the government at that time : 7000 pages of top secret documents about the history of U.S. decision making in Vietnam, which disclosed repeated sequence, by four different presidents, of lies and in effect, violations of the Constitution, treaties and in particular misleading Congress as to the costs for war. I was facing 115 years in prison, but not for Official Secrets Act, which we don’t have.
It was an experiment by President Nixon to use our Espionage Act, which had always been directed and intended for U.S. spies, giving information secretly to a foreign government, especially in time of war. It had never been used as it was by Nixon, in my case, as a substitute for an Official Secrets Act, for disclosure to the public, with no indication of my intentions there, but simply to hold that doing that was a violation.
**
Full transcript here:
Ellsberg: Losing 1st Amendment Reverses War of Independence | Consortium News