WikiLeaks Demonstrates Blatant Need For Tighter Safeguards, Says Nader

By Kyle LaFleur

Famed consumer advocate and ex-presidential candidate Ralph Nader (I) was part of a panel that testified on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee to weigh in on the release of leaked classified U.S. military documents by the website WikiLeaks. 

Under the guidance of its founder Julian Assange, WikiLeaks recently leaked thousands of State Department messages online for public view, and has since come under fire for possibly violating American espionage laws. Furthermore, there are questions abound as to whether or not the website is protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

“What’s fascinating about this WikiLeaks controversy,” Nader said, “is that we have to avoid it becoming a vast distraction, [instead] focusing on these so-called leaks instead of focusing on the abysmal lack of security safeguards by the executive branch of the U..S government and making those who set up this poor system, or allow it to be penetrated, accountable.”

In his opening remarks, the committee’s chairman, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), defended the whistleblower site, comparing its most recent dump to the Pentagon Papers, a compilation of classified U.S. military documents about the Vietnam War that was published in the New York Times in 1971.

“Indeed, while everyone agrees that sometimes secrecy is necessary, the real problem today is too much secrecy, not too little,” Conyers said. Conyers then quoted former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who ruled in favor of the Times after the Nixon administration ordered the newspaper to cease publication of the documents.

“When everything is classified, nothing is classified.”

The panel mainly argued over whether WikiLeaks should be considered a journalistic entity, and whether the Espionage Act of 1917 needs modification in order to relevantly apply to today’s cyber world.

Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at American University College of Law, pointed out that the Act does not deal with “the elephant in the room,” which he described as “situations where individuals disclose classified information that should never have been classified in the first place, including information about unlawful governmental programs and activities.”

22-year-old U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is the key suspect in an investigation of how the most recent document dump ended up in Assange’s hands. Manning has allegedly admitted to being behind a previous WikiLeaks release earlier this year that included classified information about the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.