OMNI
ABOLISHING
THE ESPIONAGE ACT ANTHOLOGY
July
13, 2023
Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
https://omnicenter.org/donate/
CONTENTS
Opposition to the Espionage Act
History
of Espionage and Sedition Acts and the Resistance
Adam
Hochschild. “The Censor.”
John Kiriakou. “Everything you need to
know about the Espionage Act.”
Chip. “Congress Has the Chance to Fix the Espionage
Act.”
“Tlaib
Espionage Act Reform.”
“June is Espionage Act Month!”
Assange
Chris
Hedges. “State Persecution of Julian
Assange.”
Daniel Ellsberg on EA, Assange, and First Amendment.
Government Accountability Project (GAP) on Assange.
(and more).
Britain’s Espionage Acts.
Google Search
TEXTS
A FEW OF THE ORGANIZATIONS OPPOSED TO ESPIONAGE
ACT
ACLU
CovertAction
Magazine (CAM)
Defending Rights and Dissent (DRD)
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF)
Government Accountability Project (GAP, whistleblowers)
HISTORY
FROM THE ESPIONAGE ACT TO THE SEDITION ACT
Adam Hochschild.
“The Censor.” Mother Jones (Sept.-Oct., 2022). The attack on First Amendment
protections by the EA were extended and hardened by the Sedition Act.
“CovertAction
Bulletin: Everything you need to know
about the Espionage Act & Trump – with John Kiriakou.” By Rachel Hu and
Chris Garaffa. Covert Action Magazine.
Aug 17, 2022 11:42 am.
After news broke of the investigation into Trump under the
Espionage Act, we reached out to speak with Espionage Act expert, John Kiriakou
to tell us what the act is about and who is really punished under it. John is a
member of the Editorial Board of CovertAction
Magazine and was himself charged and sent to prison under the Espionage Act
for exposing the CIA’s torture program.
. . .
Also, this month is Black
August. Begun in the 1970s, Black August is a month to commemorate
political prisoners. For prisoners, it is a month of political education. It
marks the anniversary of the killing of George Jackson and his brother Jonathan
P. Jackson at San Quentin State Prison in 1971 and 1970, respectively.
REVISING OR ABOLISHING THE ESPIONAGE ACT
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“Congress has the
chance to fix the Espionage Act to protect whistleblowers and journalists.
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AMENDING IT
Tlaib Espionage Act Reform Would be
Major Breakthrough for Press Freedom and Transparency. Published by Defending Rights & Dissent at July 8, 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib
(D-MI) introduced an amendment to the annual National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) which would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to
increase civil rights, civil liberties, and due process protections in the law.
Representative Tlaib’s amendment targets a number of Constitutional defects identified
by legal scholars and press freedom advocates which encourage prosecutorial
abuse and prevent the possibility of a proper defense at trial.
Espionage Act prosecutions of journalists’ sources were once rare,
but under the Obama Administration
they became the go-to weapon against national security whistleblowers. Under
the Trump administration, the law
was charged for the first time against a publisher,
in the case of Julian Assange.
Nearly every press freedom group has warned of the dangerous precedent that
would be set in prosecuting Assange for Espionage.
[Take Action
Here: Ask your Representative to support the Tlaib Amendment]
“It is long past time for Congress to step up and end the
increasing abuse of the Espionage Act,” said Defending Rights &
Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons. “Rep. Tlaib’s amendment is the
boldest, most comprehensive effort we’ve seen yet. It would truly limit the
Espionage Act to the prosecution of spies, not journalists, not their sources,
and restore basic principles of due process in the event the government did
take someone to trial.”
Specifically, Tlaib’s amendment would: require the government
prove a specific intent to harm the U.S., require the information at issue be
properly classified, permit a defendant to testify as to their purpose for
disclosing the information, create an affirmative defense for revelations in
the public interest, and preclude the use of the Espionage Act against journalists
and publishers.
“For half a century, starting with my own prosecution, no
whistleblower charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 has had, or
could have, a fair trial,” said Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel
Ellsberg. “These long-overdue amendments would remedy that
injustice, protect the First Amendment freedom of the press, and encourage
vitally-needed truth-telling.”
In addition to Defending Rights & Dissent, a number of press
freedom and government transparency organizations have already endorsed the
amendment, including Freedom of the Press Foundation, Government Accountability
Project, and The Project on Government Oversight.
Tlaib’s amendment will now move to consideration by the House
Rules Committee, whose members will decide whether to allow it to move forward
for a vote.
ENDING IT
We Call It: June is Espionage Act
Month!
On June 15, 1917,
Congress passed the egregiously misnamed Espionage Act. Although it sounds like
a bill targeting spies and saboteurs, its initial targets were those Americans
who dared to oppose US participation in the First World War. Decades later,
it's still being used to crush dissent and silence truthtellers. Read More >>> Defending Rights and Dissent (7-1-22).
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Chris Hedges. “The Puppets and the Puppet
Masters.” The Hedges Report. October 9, 2022. The judicial proceedings against Julian
Assange give a faux legality to the state persecution of the most important
and courageous journalist of our generation.
This is the talk given by Chris Hedges
outside the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. on Saturday October 8
at a rally that called on the U.S. to revoke its extradition request for
Julian Assange. The judicial proceedings against Julian
Assange give a faux legality to the state persecution of the most important
and courageous journalist of our generation. Armed and Dangerous - by Mr. Fish WASHINGTON, D.C. — Merrick Garland and those
who work in the Department of Justice are the puppets, not the puppet
masters. They are the façade, the fiction, that the longstanding persecution of
Julian Assange has something to do with justice. Like the High Court in
London, they carry out an elaborate judicial pantomime. They debate arcane
legal nuances to distract from the Dickensian farce where a man who has not
committed a crime, who is not a U.S. citizen, can be extradited under the
Espionage Act and sentenced to life in prison for the most courageous and
consequential journalism of our generation. The engine driving the lynching of Julian is
not here on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is in Langley, Virginia, located at a
complex we will never be allowed to surround – the Central Intelligence
Agency. It is driven by a secretive inner state, one where we do not count in
the mad pursuit of empire and ruthless exploitation. Because the machine of
this modern leviathan was exposed by Julian and WikiLeaks, the machine
demands revenge. The United States has undergone a corporate
coup d'etat in slow motion. It is no longer a functioning democracy. The real
centers of power, in the corporate, military and national security sectors,
were humiliated and embarrassed by WikiLeaks. Their war crimes, lies,
conspiracies to crush the democratic aspirations of the vulnerable and the
poor, and rampant corruption, here and around the globe, were laid bare in
troves of leaked documents. We cannot fight on behalf of Julian unless
we are clear about whom we are fighting against. It is far worse than a
corrupt judiciary. The global billionaire class, who have orchestrated a
social inequality rivaled by pharaonic Egypt, has internally seized all of
the levers of power and made us the most spied upon, monitored, watched and
photographed population in human history. When the government watches you
24-hours a day, you cannot use the word liberty. This is the relationship
between a master and a slave. Julian was long a target, of course, but when
WikiLeaks published the
documents known as Vault
7, which exposed the hacking tools the CIA uses to monitor our phones,
televisions and even cars, he — and journalism itself — was condemned to
crucifixion. The object is to shut down any investigations into the inner
workings of power that might hold the ruling class accountable for its
crimes, eradicate public opinion and replace it with the cant fed to the mob. I spent two decades as a foreign
correspondent on the outer reaches of empire in Latin America, Africa, the
Middle East and the Balkans. I am acutely aware of the savagery of empire,
how the brutal tools of repression are first tested on those Frantz
Fanon called “the
wretched of the earth.” Wholesale surveillance. Torture. Coups. Black sites.
Black propaganda. Militarized police. Militarized drones. Assassinations.
Wars. Once perfected on people of color overseas, these tools migrate back to
the homeland. By hollowing out our country from the inside through
deindustrialization, austerity, deregulation, wage stagnation, the abolition
of unions, massive expenditures on war and intelligence, a refusal to address
the climate emergency and a virtual tax boycott for the richest individuals
and corporations, these predators intend to keep us in bondage, victims of a
corporate neo-feudalism. And
they have perfected their instruments of Orwellian control. The tyranny
imposed on others is imposed on us. From its inception, the CIA carried out assassinations,
coups, torture, and illegal spying and abuse, including that of U.S.
citizens, activities exposed in
1975 by the Church Committee hearings in the Senate and the Pike
Committee hearings in the House. All these crimes, especially after the
attacks of 9/11, have returned with a vengeance. The CIA is a rogue and
unaccountable paramilitary organization with its own armed units and drone
program, death squads and a vast archipelago of global black sites where
kidnapped victims are tortured and disappeared. The U.S. allocates a
secret black budget of about $50 billion a year to hide multiple types of
clandestine projects carried out by the National Security Agency, the CIA and
other intelligence agencies, usually beyond the scrutiny of Congress. The CIA
has a well-oiled apparatus to kidnap, torture and assassinate targets around
the globe, which is why, since it had already set up a
system of 24-hour video surveillance of
Julian in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, it quite naturally discussed kidnapping
and assassinating him. That is its business. Senator Frank Church —
after examining the heavily redacted CIA documents released to his committee
— defined the
CIA’s “covert activity” as “a semantic disguise for murder, coercion,
blackmail, bribery, the spreading of lies and consorting with known torturers
and international terrorists.” All despotisms mask state persecution with
sham court proceedings. The show trials and troikas in Stalin’s Soviet Union.
The raving Nazi judges in fascist Germany. The Denunciation rallies in Mao’s
China. State crime is cloaked in a faux legality, a judicial farce. If Julian is extradited and sentenced and,
given the Lubyanka-like proclivities of the Eastern District of Virginia,
this is a near certainty, it
means that those of us who have published classified material, as I did when
I worked for The New York Times, will become criminals. It means that an iron
curtain will be pulled down to mask abuses of power. It means that the state,
which, through Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs, anti-terrorism laws
and the Espionage Act that have created our homegrown version of Stalin’s
Article 58, can imprison anyone
anywhere in the world who dares commit the crime of telling the truth. We are here to fight for Julian. But we are
also here to fight against powerful subterranean forces that, in demanding
Julian’s extradition and life imprisonment, have declared war on
journalism. We are here to fight for Julian. But we are
also here to fight for the restoration of the rule of law and
democracy. We are here to fight for Julian. But we are
also here to dismantle the wholesale Stasi-like state surveillance erected
across the West. We are here to fight for Julian. But we are
also here to overthrow — and let me repeat that word for the benefit of those
in the FBI and Homeland Security who have come here to monitor us — overthrow the
corporate state and create a government of the people, by the people and for
the people, that will cherish, rather than persecute, the best among us. You can see the event here. This speech
is given at 3:34:10 |
WHISTLEBLOWERS
DANIEL ELLSBERG
“Losing 1st Amendment reverses War of Independence.”
Editor. Mronline.org
(1-29-23).
Daniel Ellsberg says using the Espionage Act against
journalist Julian Assange in blatant violation of the First Amendment means the
First Amendment is essentially gone.
Why Daniel Ellsberg
supports Defending Rights & Dissent
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DEFENDING
WHISTLEBLOWERS
ASSANGE
Government
Accountability Project
PRESS
RELEASE: Government Accountability Project Statement on the Department of
Justice’s Expanded Espionage Act Charges Against Julian Assange
May 24, 2019
Government Accountability Project
Statement on the Department of Justice’s Expanded Espionage Act Charges Against
Julian Assange
WASHINGTON –On
April 11, 2019, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in
London, charged with conspiring to
facilitate whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s acquisition and transmission of
classified information in order to make that information public. On May 23,
2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ) expanded the charges in
its indictment to add 17 new counts of violations of the Espionage Act.
Government Accountability Project Executive Director and
Founder, Louis Clark, stated:
“While Julian Assange is not a whistleblower himself,
as founder of a media outlet that publishes information provided by
whistleblowers, we recognize that his prosecution raises serious concerns for
both national security whistleblowers and journalists. Having represented
national security whistleblowers in the past, including National Security
Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake, we view decisions by the DOJ to prosecute journalists and
whistleblowers with great skepticism.” MORE https://whistleblower.org/press/press-release-government-accountability-project-statement-on-the-department-of-justices-expanded-espionage-act-charges-against-julian-assange/
Contact: Dana Gold, Senior Counsel & Director of Education
Email: danag@whistleblower.org Phone: (202) 457-0034 ext. 160
“Breaking: The UK High
Court Ruled Against Assange. Espionage Act Reform is Now More Urgent Than Ever.
“ 12-10-21
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Freedom of the Press
Foundation
Trevor Timm. “The extradition of Julian Assange must
be condemned by all who believe in press freedom.” June 17, 2022.
Timm is Executive Director of FPF.
Londres (Reino Unido),
18 de Agosto 2014
The British home
secretary has formally approved the extradition of WikiLeaks publisher
Julian Assange to the United States, in the latest development in a dangerous
and misguided criminal prosecution that has the potential to criminalize national security journalism in the United States.
Previously, a major
coalition of civil liberties organizations, including Freedom of the Press
Foundation, implored U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the case against Assange in the
name of protecting the rights of journalists everywhere. So, too, have the
editors of major news outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post.
By continuing to
extradite Assange, the Biden DOJ is ignoring the dire warnings of virtually every major civil liberties
and human rights organization in the country that the case will do irreparable damage
to basic press freedom rights of U.S. reporters.
The prosecution,
which includes 17 charges under the Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, covers events that took place more than a
decade ago, but was brought only under the Trump administration — after the
Obama Department of Justice reportedly considered charges but dismissed them for
their dangerous First Amendment implications.
MORE https://freedom.press/news/the-extradition-of-julian-assange-must-be-condemned-by-all-who-believe-in-press-freedom/
PEN America
https://pen.org/pen_tags/espionage-act/
“Justice
Department Should Drop Charges Against Julian Assange Under Espionage Act. “ June 17, 2022. “Today's decision makes clear: the onus is on the U.S.
Department of Justice to drop the charges against Assange under the Espionage
Act, once and for all. As we… More
Editor. Mronline.org
(7-31-22).
Last month, British Home Secretary Priti Patel approved
Assange’s extradition to the U.S., where he faces 175 years imprisonment under
the Espionage
Act
for publishing true information exposing American war crimes in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
CHRIS HEDGES: ESPIONAGE
ACT, JULIAN ASSANGE, AND FAILURE OF JOURNALISTS
Britain’s Espionage Act(s)
UK Bill Threatens Journalists With
Life In Prison
By Mohamed Elmaazi, Consortium News. Popular
Resistance.org (7-10-22). The British
Parliament is debating a national security bill which could undermine the basis
of national security reporting and ultimately throw journalists in jail for
life. A person convicted under the new offense of “obtaining or disclosing
protected information,” defined in Section 1 of National Security Bill
2022, faces a fine, life imprisonment, or both, if convicted following a
jury trial. A review of the parliamentary debate on the bill makes clear that
work by press outlets such as WikiLeaks is at the heart of Tory and
Labour MPs’ thinking as they push to make the bill law. -more-
Opponents of Espionage Act:
GOOGLE SEARCH
1.
Espionage Act, explained: Why was
it created? What is the …
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/...
The Espionage Act was
passed to bolster the war effort. Enforced by President Woodrow Wilson's
attorney general, the law made it illegal to share any information that could
interfere with the war or stand to benefit foreign adversaries. It was meant as
a safeguard against spying. At the time those found guilty
… See more
The Espionage Act of 1917, enacted just
after the beginning of World War I, makes it illegal to
obtain information, capture photographs or copy descriptions of any
information relating to national defense, with the intent for that … See more
What Was The Sedition Act of 1918?
Passed as an amendment to the Espionage
Act of 1917, the Sedition Act made it prosecutable by law to make false
statements that interfered with the war effort, insult or abuse the U.S.
government, flag, constitution or … See more
Is The Espionage Act Still in
Effect?
Many significant chunks of the Espionage Act
of 1917 remain in effect and can be used in the court of law. In its
modern iteration, the act has been used to prosecute spies and … See more
Most espionage crimes are investigated by the
CIA or FBI, making them matters of federal jurisdiction and resultant in
federal charges. Classified documents timelineThe journey of Trump’s classified
documents See more
What Is the Espionage Act and How Has It Been Used?
What Sentences Trump Could Face Under Espionage Act and …
Economic Espionage Act of 1996 - Wikipedia
Espionage Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Espionage Act - Definition, Examples, Cases,
Processes - Leg…
From usatoday.com
Content
Is The Espionage Act Still in Effect?
What Was The Sedition Act of 1918?
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/20…
The Espionage Act Has Been Abused —
But Not in …
Aug 17, 2022 · Congress amended the Espionage Act after the Second World War, but the
amended law, like the original, criminalizes a wide range of activity bearing
little resemblance to espionage as the term is ...
How bad would an Espionage Act violation be for a service m…
Trump Made It A Felony To Mishandle Classified Documents I…
People also ask
Is the Espionage Act being used against Trump?
That the law is being
used against Trump, however, isn’t one of them. This much the law’s
new critics have right: The Espionage Act is wildly overbroad. We know this
from experience. Former President Woodrow Wilson signed the measure into law in
1917 and immediately began using it as an instrument of political repression. Opinion | The Espionage Act Has
Been Abused — But Not in Trump’s Ca…
www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/17/the-espion…
What did the Espionage Act of 1917 prohibit?
The Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited obtaining information,
recording pictures, or copying descriptions of any information relating to the
national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information may be
used for the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign
nation.
Espionage Act of 1917 | The First
Amendment Encyclopedia
mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1045/espionage-act-of-…
Why was espionage a federal crime?
The Espionage Act of 1917, passed by Congress two months after
the United States declared war against Germany in World War I, made it a
federal crime for any person to interfere with or attempt to undermine the U.S.
armed forces during a war, or to in any way assist the war efforts of the
nation’s enemies.
The Espionage Act of 1917: Summary
and History - ThoughtCo
www.thoughtco.com/1917-espionage-act-4177012
Is the Espionage Act overbroad?
So the Espionage Act is overbroad in important
respects. In some of its possible applications, the law is probably
unconstitutional, too. But what does any of that have to do with Trump?
Opinion | The Espionage Act Has
Been Abused — But Not in Trump’s Ca…
www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/17/the-espion…
https://www.history.com/news/sedition-espi…
The Sedition and Espionage Acts
Were Designed to Quash
Sep 21, 2020 · Fearing that anti-war speeches and
street pamphlets would undermine the war effort, President Woodrow Wilson and
Congress …
o Estimated Reading Time: 9 mins
What was the purpose
of the Espionage Act of 1917?
BOOKS
• Chafee, Zechariah
(1920). Freedom of speech. New York :
Harcourt, Brace and Howe.
• Kohn, Stephen M. American Political
Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts. Westport,
CT: Praeger, 1994.
• Murphy, Paul L. World War I and the
Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States. New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, 1979.
Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license
o Enacted by: the 65th
United States Congress
o Effective: June 15, 1917
o
Long
title: An Act to punish
acts of interference …
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