THERE is not one country of significance which WikiLeaks ignored. None, however, launched a campaign to persecute its founder Julian Assange as the US has — doggedly with total disregard for the law and decency.
It perceived, accurately, that it is the main, if not the sole, target of the disclosures. As he said he has “revealed some harsh truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars and broken stories about corporate corruptions”.
Damaging revelations on Guantanamo Bay, spying on representatives of members of the UN’s Security Council and its secretary-general and the like, the US can live with. Imminent exposure of its corporate giants causes sheer panic. The documents will give “unprecedented insight into the US government’s foreign activities”, WikiLeaks threatens.
The American press revels in publicising ‘scandals’ in other countries; not seldom at the behest of the leaders. Bob Woodward’s books contain, in direct quotes, aspersions on foreign statesmen cast by highest American officials and secret proceedings of the National Security Council on most sensitive matters of war planning and intelligence collection.
The law was broken by an administration official to identify Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in order to discredit her husband’s report which belied official claims. But the country goes into high dudgeon when its misdeeds are laid bare in other countries.
The US Customs tried hard to prevent the entry of documents published by Iranian students after they seized the US embassy in Tehran on Nov 4, 1979. They were confiscated as “stolen property”. Entitled Isnaad Lana Jasoosi (documents from the US espionage den), they contained reports from American embassies in Tehran, Islamabad, New Delhi and Kabul since copies were exchanged as a matter of course.
Volume 9 recorded the CIA’s attempt to bribe President Bani Sadr. He was offered a magnificent $1,000 a month for services as an informant. Its agent had met Bani Sadr when he was in exile in Paris. He was Guy Rutherford of a firm of consultants, Carver Associates, which provided the cover. In Tehran he became William Foster. Iranians cannot be blamed for their deep distrust of the US.
No gossip about the sister of the Shah of Iran was too salacious for embassy officials to relay to the State Department. The volumes reveal that the US had good reason to anticipate the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Its charge d’affaires Bruce Amstutz was in regular contact with the Soviet ambassador Vasily Safronchuk.
On May 29, 1979 Amstutz asked his bosses “Can we expect to see Soviet combat troops enter the Afghan conflict?” Demarches of the kind delivered to Moscow on Poland might have averted the Soviet invasion as it did in Poland.
There are two volumes on Pakistan. Iqbal Akhund and Agha Shahi emerge most creditably from the papers as staunch patriots. Ziaul Haq’s set-up was penetrated by the CIA. Scholarship in South Asia and the West has neglected these 60-odd volumes. One hopes the WikiLeaks dump will not share their fate.
The Lahore High Court deserves praise for rejecting on Dec 4, a petition to restrain publication of the WikiLeaks papers. The next day a French court acted likewise. Significantly, no such effort was made in the US. It prefers extra legal moves because two rulings of its Supreme Court would expose any such effort to ridicule.
The first was on the 43 volumes of a classified study, entitled History of the US Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy, the Pentagon Papers, published by the New York Times first on June 13, 1971.
They were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, author of parts of the study, who had worked in the office of the secretary of defence and served as analyst in Vietnam and RAND where the documents were copied.
On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court rejected (six to three) the Nixon administration’s plea for an injunction to restrain further publication. The Espionage Act was considered and regarded as irrelevant.
Chief Justice Warren Berger testily remarked in his dissent that the duty to report to the police discovery of stolen documents “rests on taxi drivers, justices, and the New York Times”. But the majority rested its ruling firmly on the people’s right to know.
Berger’s logic received short shrift on May 21, 2001 in Bartnicki v Vopper which is directly relevant. It involved “the repeated international disclosure of an illegally intercepted cellular telephone conversation about a public issue”. The court ruled (six to three) that it was permissible.
A teacher’s union was negotiating with the school board. Gloria Bartnicki of the union spoke on her cellphone to its president Anthony Kane who threatened “to blow off their (school board members’) front porches”.
An unidentified person re corded the call. Frederick Vopper, a radio commentator, acquired the tape from Jack Vocum who had found it in his mail box. Both, the interception and the disclosure by Vocum were clearly unlawful. But Vopper had no hand in that. He had obtained the tape ‘lawfully’ and was entitled to publicise it as if “a third party had inadvertently overheard the talk”.
A balance had to be struck between the “privacy of communication” and “publication of truthful information of public concern”. In this case, privacy concerns “give way when balanced against the interest in publishing matters of public importance”.
The ruling applies with greater force to WikiLeaks. The source of every sensational disclosure is indignation at public deception, be it the Iranian students, Daniel Ellsberg or Julian Assange. Deception prompts courts to tilt the balance in favour of disclosure. As a devout Christian, President Barack Obama should heed the words in the Bible from John 8: 32: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” ¦ The writer is an author and a lawyer.
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