Professor delivers verdict on Wikileaks charges
The Prime Minister and Attorney-General’s comments suggesting Wikileaks founder Julain Assange is guilty were irresponsible and prejudicial to a fair trial, says Director of the Communications Law Centre at the University of Technology Sydney, Professor Michael Fraser.
“If they can show that he has obtained it, rather than simply received it, then they can charge Wikileaks,” he said.
“If they were to bring that kind of action against Wikileaks, then why would they not bring similar sort of actions against newspapers who’ve published these and any other kinds of leaks over the years?”
Prime Minister Julia Gillard initially labelled the publication “irresponsible” and “illegal”, only to later revise her statement to the following:
“The foundation stone of it is an illegal act. Information was taken and that was illegal, so let’s not try and put any glosses on this. It would not happen, information would not be on WikiLeaks, if there had not been an illegal act undertaken,” she said.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland said Australia would support any US legal action against Wikileaks and he has requested Federal Police to determine whether Australian law has been breached.
Professor Fraser said talk of an espionage charge, punishable by death in the US, is far fetched.
“There’s no suggestion that Assange or anyone in Wikileaks is working for a foreign government. So it couldn’t possibly be espionage – unless it were proven that he is actually an agent working as a spy against the United States – and I don’t think there’s any evidence for that,” he said.
Professor Fraser said although Wikileaks probably hasn’t broken the law, it has an ethical responsibility as a publisher to exercise judgement, discrimination and prudence.
“Not everything published, by a long way, is in the public interest, and in fact I think it harms the public interest. It’s been reckless, and made it impossible for governments to conduct frank diplomacy – to report back their impressions and their conversations – and that will just lead to more secrecy,” he said.
The Professor applauded the website for its justifiable whistleblowing documents, such as those exposing the Rudd Government’s concerns about the Afghan War.
“They’re asking our soldiers to go into harms way and they’re asking the community to support these wars – and they’re not providing really vital information to the community,” he said.
He also called on Wikileaks, as a powerful force in world politics, to live up to the high standards of transparency it demands of governments.
“We don’t know where the funding is coming from for Wikileaks, we don’t know about their governance, we don’t know about their board of directors, we don’t know what their publication policy is – what they publish or what they don’t publish, and on what criteria, we don’t know about their code of ethics, we don’t know who to complain to if we have a complaint, and what their complaint handling mechanisms are.”
by Lawrence Bull
