By Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story
- “By its terms, it criminalizes not merely the disclosure of national defense information by organizations such as Wikileaks, but also the reporting on that information by countless news organizations”
December 13, 2010
The US Espionage Act could make “felons of us all,” a legal expert warned Monday as the House Judiciary Committee announced plans to reexamine the “constitutional issues raised by WikiLeaks.”
Attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have warned that US authorities are seeking to charge him with spying charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 for his role in helping the media publish leaked US State Department diplomatic cables.
Under the Act, anyone “having unauthorized possession of” information relating to the national defense or information that could be “used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation” may be prosecuted if he or she publishes it or “willfully retains” it.
