Im Februar 2010 begann die geheime Whistleblower-Website Wikileaks, interne Papiere des US-Außenministeriums zu veröffentlichen. Falls Julian Assange, Gründer der Seite, als Journalist zählt, so ist er durch den Ersten Zusatzartikel zur amerikanischen Verfassung geschützt, schreibt Katie Engelhart.
Im Februar 2010 begann die geheime Whistleblower-Website Wikileaks, interne Papiere des US-Außenministeriums zu veröffentlichen. Die Dokumente stammten aus 274 US-Konsulaten und amerikanischen Botschaften weltweit und enthielten vertrauliche Informationen (sowie mitunter sehr unschmeichelhafte Äußerungen) zu den jeweiligen Ländern und ihren politischen Führern. Angeblich hatte sie der US-Soldat Bradley Manning an Wikileaks weitergegeben. (Er wurde für diese Tat vor Gericht gestellt. Das Urteil steht noch immer aus.) Alles in allem wurden 250.000 geheime Dokumente veröffentlicht. Dies stellt die größte Aufdeckung vertraulicher Papiere in der Geschichte dar. Bis zum Ende des Jahres 2010 wurden zudem viele der preisgegebenen Informationen auch in der Presse veröffentlicht, nachdem Wikileaks Abkommen mit fünf großen Zeitungsunternehmen getroffen hatte. Der damalige US-Verteidigungsminister Robert Gates beschrieb die Veröffentlichungen als “außergewöhnlich peinlich“. Andere sahen in ihnen eine “Gefahr für die nationale Sicherheit”.
Die Affäre, die nun – in Anspielung auf den Watergate-Skandal in den 1970er Jahren – auch als “Cablegate” bekannt ist, machte Julian Assange berühmt. Doch macht sie ihn auch zu einem Journalisten? Diese Frage ist der Dreh- und Angelpunkt einer wichtigen Debatte darüber, wer im Internetzeitalter als Journalist gilt und was Journalismus als solches kennzeichnet. Ist Assange ein Journalist, so stehen ihm bestimmte Rechte zu, die in vielen Ländern speziell für diese Berufsgruppe bestehen. Beispielsweise schützt der erste Zusatzartikel zur U.S. Verfassung Reporter, die von der Regierung Informationen erhalten, und gibt ihnen zudem gewisse Privilegien. Ist Assange jedoch kein Journalist, so ist er auf sich selbst gestellt und nicht durch diese oder ähnliche Privilegien geschützt. Die Debatte über die Definition dieser Berufsgruppe besteht in den USA seit Langem. (Wie zum Beispiel die Veröffentlichung der “Pentagon Papiere” im Jahr 1971 zeigt.) In letzter Zeit jedoch hat sie sich die Debatte zugespitzt. Mehrere Staatsanwälte fordern nun, dass Assange für seine Beteiligung an “Cablegate” vor Gericht gestellt werden sollte.
Einige Kritiker argumentieren, dass das “Abladen” von Dokumenten im Internet keinen Journalismus darstellt. Sie halten Assange stattdessen für eine “Quelle”. Wikileaks ärgste Gegner bezeichnen die Organisation als Terrorgruppe, die mit Journalismus nicht das Geringste zu tun hat. (Die ehemalige Kandidatin für die US-Vizepräsidentschaft, Sarah Palin, setzt Assange mit al-Qaida gleich.) Gruppierungen wie das Zentrum für investigativen Journalismus erkennen Assange als einen der ihren an. Viele auf den Ersten Zusatzartikel spezialisierte Anwälte und amerikanische Meinungsmacher stimmen dieser Einschätzung zu. Sie argumentieren, dass “der Unterschied zwischen professionellen Journalisten und solchen Personen, die Informationen, Ideen und Meinungen an ein breites Publikum im Internet weitergeben, weitestgehend verwischt worden ist.”
(Assange selbst bevorzugt die Bezeichnung “Verleger und Chefredakteur, der andere Journalisten managt und leitet”.)
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I have been an activist for good causes for many years; I have a degree of ambivalence regarding it all. I believe that in some cases Julian Assange may have been wrong according to the written letter of the law. However surly the law should be able to accommodate fairness and justice. I must confess to being a moron and not having studied these issues devoutly. The more I have seen during my campaigning the more I have learned that the law is often the plaything of the rich. Particularly where the United States or big corporations are involved. I remember the Vietnam war and Daniel Ellsberg’s whistle blowing about the true horror and hopelessness of that war. Has time past : Anne Machon, Katharine Gunn, Craig Murry, and a multitude of others have spoken out regarding the ubiquitous horrors they had discovered.
I used to write silly campaign letters to ‚tin pot despots‘ in countries I had to look for on a big map; now I see evil all around me I have written to Julian Assange many times and have sent Postal Orders , but the Postal Orders have been stopped. The media has changed, few people trust the media or anything official. We are seeing much unrest.
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I fail to see what journalism has to do with it–except in the US? No profession should have special privileges. Either all have the same imprescriptible right of free speech or none have.
As to Julian Assange, his case rests entirely on whether he knew he was disseminating stolen materials. If yes, then he should be charged accordingly. If not, then he was free to disseminate them in the belief they were in the public domain.
Of course, if he were sensitive about the provenance of his materials, he should have inquired before scattering them all over the world. The evidence suggests that he was intent solely on embarrassing the American authorities. If that is the case, it is up to the Americans to charge him with some offence or other. But then, if he has not committed an offence in the country from which he disseminated the materials, he should not be subject to extradition. But we all know how politicians and governments behave when they want to appease or offend others.
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Fair point, Jorge, I was sloppy with Ellsberg and used his name as a shorthand for „disseminator of documents“ rather than inside whistleblower.
Ellsberg of course was arrested and very likely could have gone to jail or worse. The last time I saw him speak, last year at HLS, he talked about a plot by Nixon adviser Howard Hunt to „neutralize“ Ellsberg, including having Cuban waiters drop acid into Ellsberg’s soup before he was to speak at a benefit event.
I agree, Jorge, that Assange’s sneering public attitude has limited his ability to be perceived as a public hero. But is he a Woodward? He certainly disseminated a lot of information. But to my mind it was a glut, without much investigative or reportorial about it. (i.e. without much judgment or value added.) And none of it was as earth-shattering, at least in direct political effects, as the revelations of Woodstein (or, for that matter, Ellsberg) — so I’d hesitate to place Assange above them.
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I’m going to start my comment by agreeing, partially, with David. I’m not certain that it’s useful, or desirable, to distinguish between free speech and a specific journalistic privilege. But by that logic (and to return to Katie’s point), why isn’t Assange a journalist? He probably has little resemblance to your beat reporter, but how different is he from the editor or owners of the New York Times in terms of disseminating information? I don’t think Assange is wrong in asserting that hypothetically, although no one would want him as their editor. I think he is a journalist, rather than some sort of whistleblower or terrorist.
He’s also not a Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg was a definitely whistleblower, and in the same vein you could probably apply that label to Bradley Manning and other insiders who put their necks on the line. The two have shared different fates for the same reason: whether or not it was politically desirable to prosecute them for releasing classified information. What constitutes sensitive information for government officials is based on highly irrational logic. If you are government or military personnel, however, there are restrictions on your behavior that make releasing information from the inside illegal. Bradley Manning could have got the death penalty for what he did because he’s a soldier. Ellsberg, I’m sure, wondered for a while whether he’d go to jail (I think he may have even said so when Fred Logevall had him speak at Cornell my first year).
The fourth estate, however, has an obligation to dredge up the stuff that the government wants to keep classified. In this regard, one has to wonder how much Assange’s megalomania turned off potential defenders in the media. Clearly his best defense is to be seen as an investigative journalist of sorts. But NYT / DS /etc were certainly turned off by reckless decisions he made (such as revealing sources in cases where it would endanger their lives), and of course by his later sexual indiscretions.
I can’t help but think that the process of disseminating all the classified material that Wikileaks had gathered is ultimately what soured the professional and public perception of Assange. Ultimately he released classified documents in order to inform the public of what the U.S. government (and others) we up to. When we describe in one sentence what happened, isn’t he closer to a Novak, Woodward or even an Herbert Matthews than anyone else? Take away the sneering, nasty megalomaniac and focus just on his actions, and I see the most wildly successful piece of investigative journalism in history.
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Katie, within the context of „journalism,“ it’s hard to label Assange a journalist. He’s more like Daniel Ellsberg than Carl Bernstein. But the solution is not to expand the definition — legal, lay or otherwise — of „journalism.“ Because if speech is a right, whether or not a particular citizen is a „journalist“ shouldn’t matter.
If speech is a right, then all citizens should have so-called journalistic privilege. Speech rights (and derivative rights like press and religion) are universal, and shouldn’t be contingent on whether a citizen is a „journalist“ or a „cleric.“ It’s dangerous for governments to draw lines among „journalists“ and „non-journalists,“ (or any of the other categories you mentioned). It amounts to governments deciding who may and may not speak. This line-drawing — and the attendant situational government privilege-granting it entails — seems antithetical to the notion of speech as a „right.“
Even so, in this particular case, your concern with „applying the law in a lopsided fashion“ seems misplaced. I can’t say (at least, not briefly) whether or not Assange’s actions ought to be criminalized — or whether he’d have a valid First Amendment defense even if they were (the U.S. Government seems intent on his extradition, so let’s assume U.S. law at least for my sake). But Wikileaks‘ original publication of classified material is qualitatively and legally different from newspapers‘ ex-post publication of content that Wikileaks had already made public.