Why the government should not prosecute Julianne Assange.

Julianne Assange is a man who showed viewers the true color of the American government. Government officials have been trying to find a way to prosecute Julianne Assange and Wiki Links for the massive leak of State Department cables. Julianne Assange’s case should not be sent to trial because it would be a challenge to convict him without violating his first amendment rights. The national governments record of keeping classified information concealed form the general public would also be tainted. His conviction would also diminish a form of accountability from government officials. Taking Assange to trial would cause greater harm to the governments reputation than it would regain their municipal image.

The First Amendment (The Freedom of speech and practice) protects Assange right to speak freely as an American citizen. Assange simply collected disclosed documents and published them, making the documents accessible to the public. Because the information exposed did not depict a United States government fit for positive public relations they immediately struck defensively. Under no circumstance did Assange break any laws. The information published in Assange’s assembly of documents are not considered violations of specific statues that prohibit the disclosure of explicit material. When this issue arose of a statue to prevent this, Bill Clinton vetoed the idea of over classification within the government. He is completely within his right to publish this information. The government officials who are attempting to concoct some sort of crime to convict Assange of committing have no actions to base these claims on. If they want to challenge his exploitations they need to do so without infringing on his right to practice free speech.

For this case to have any chance of standing in front of the courts the facts in the articles would have to put the safety of the United States communities in danger. Assange would be at fault if what he had circulated proposed a threat to the national security of America. Assange has embarrassed the repute of the U.S. government. Attempting to get themselves out of the hot seat they are placing all blame on Assange. The lack of reputable positioning will not uphold in a serous trial. It has been rumored that Julianne Assange edited the information in order to avoid this exact scenario. To protect the safety of his nation, he ensured there was nothing going to be leaked that would break the governments rigidity. Assange has claimed to have had Wiki Links contact the New York times as an intermediary. He wanted the NY Times to contact the White House and have their officers review the disclosed material to guarantee no ones safety was in jeopardy. Unwilling to take responsibility, the Obama Administration did not respond and later the Pentagon denied the report of any meeting ever existing. New York Times editor, Bill Keller has validated Assanges attempts, but still headstrong the US government will not back down from their stance.

Freedom has been the welcome mat to Americas front door since it established itself as its own unit. Prosecuting Julianne Assange would dispose of the concept the government and citizens of the United States base the nations core values on. “Freedom of expression is an internationally-recognized human right that limits the power of the state to prohibit the receipt and publication of information. The burden is on the state to demonstrate that any restriction is both necessary and proportionate, and does not jeopardize the right to freedom of expression itself.” Amnesty International notes. Standing back and allowing this to happen would undue everything that historically sets America apart from all other unions. This would also show hypocrisy to America’s push and support for broad press freedoms in the Middle Eastern disturbance. With the U.S. prosecuting Assange it would ruin our protection of human rights leading to further prosecutions in the future.

If the government were to convict Assange is would most likely be under the Espionage Act approach. The Espionage act is an attempt to interfere with any military operations. The problem with the act is that it is very broad and there has never been a conviction of someone receiving information. He would only be convicted of the act if there was evidence of him encouraging the leak from the PTE Brian Manning. There is no evidence linking Assange to the young soldier. Prosecuting Julianne Assagne under this act would fall through considering he did not break the set circumstances of its outlined laws.

The US government wants to make an example of Assange to prevent any leakers in the future. What the government doesn’t see is that publishing confidential information has made government officials accountable for their action. Some of the information reveals corruption of National Security Officials. Security Officials are accustomed to doing everything in secrecy without any consequence of their behavior. Assange now forces officials to think twice when conducting shady relations, fearing that the act will get out to the public. The prosecution of Assagne will encourage officials to continue to do what they please, even if it is harmful to the nations standards. This will allow slack and confidence that officials will get away with their actions without having to worry about the outcome. The information that was published allows people to see and hold officials accountable for the acts they committed.

Assange should not be convicted because it is a National Security officers duty to ensure that no disclosed information gets out to the public. How could one soldier download so much confidential information and go undetected for so long? It raises the question of who will step to the face of these problems of securing information. The government needs to figure out a better way to oversee downloads and the accesses of different forms of confidential documents. If Assange did check with government officials then why should he be punished? He reached out for his approval by showing them what he was going to publish. They should have confronted him then before this case got out of hand.

The government should work on keeping their documents secure if they are afraid that the leaking of information endangers national security. In the end it was not Assange who hacked confidential information but a soldier. They should keep a better eye on their inside intelligence rather than prosecuting outside source. The government should not be worried about the conviction of Assagne but worried about keeping confidential documents out of the publics eyes. If a young soldier can gain access to so much information and get away with downloading it, then the government should be worried about who gains access to this information. Assange was not a threat to national security but, if the information ends up in the wrong hands it could be potentially dangerous. Instead of blaming people for the leak the officials should just ignore his documents and work on preventing the leaking of future disclosed information.

Julianne Assange will always be remembered as the man who exposed the government of embarrassment through the publishing of confidential documents. The Government should not attempt to try Assagne though. The case is already hard to try without going through the first amendment and the support of media freedom would be seen as hypocrisy. The Documents also have government officials fear of acts of their corruption will get out to the public. Diminishing this fear will diminish a essential form of accountability where it is needed most. The Government is better off ignoring the matter and thinking of away to secure confidential information in the future. Assagne has introduced a dilemma in that will force a movement from the government to ensure something like this will never happen again. Vanity fair says “Assange’s view, is to be a passive conduit for reality, or at least for slivers of reality, with as little intervention as possible—no editing, no contextualizing, no explanations, no thinking, no weighing of one person’s claims against another’s, no regard for consequences”. Julianne Assange believed it was necessary for the people to hear the reality of what goes on within the government. Allowing viewers to evaluate reality themselves. In the end why should the government punish a man who told the truth to Americans without bringing danger to anyone?