Australian Assange, meet American Margaret Chase Smith

“ … Freedom of speech is not what it used to be … The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.” [U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience,” June 1950]

Excerpting, editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

In this new age, U.S. McCarthyism “High-Tech’ed” stomps the globe. Publisher meets politician: 21st century Assange meets 20th century Chase Smith

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
“WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the U.S. embassy cables. Other media outlets, including The Guardian in Britain, The New York Times in the U.S., El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.

“[But Australian] Prime Minister [Julia] Gillard and U.S. Secretary of State [former U.S. Senator] Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organizations … because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large; WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as … Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America .… The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.”

 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
“We are the underdogs [and] as the co-coordinator of … other groups, WikiLeaks has [undergone] the most vicious attacks and accusations from the U.S. government and its acolytes.

“I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a U.S., citizen
There have been dozens of serious calls in the U.S. for me to be ‘taken out’ by U.S. special forces
Sarah Palin says I should be ‘hunted down like Osama bin Laden’
A Republican bill seeking to have me declared a ‘transnational threat’ and disposed of accordingly sits before the U.S. Senate
An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister’s office, speaking on national television, has called for me to be assassinated
An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate Floor. Surely, the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely, we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we ‘dish out’ to outsiders.…”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
“[In WikiLeaks’ four-year publishing history] … not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the Congress of the United States that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it could not find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defense said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.

“[However] the United States, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as briefly as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (December 2010)
WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption….Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that [institution]. The [estate or institution of] media helps keep government honest.”

U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (June 1950)
“… It is high time we remembered that … the Constitution [of the United States], as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.

“Whether it be a criminal prosecution in court or a character prosecution in the Senate, there is little practical distinction when the life of a person has been ruined. Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism…”

Sources and notes
“Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths” (Julian Assange writing in The Australian), December 8, 2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

“Declaration of Conscience” — Senator Margaret Chase Smith spoke June 1 1950, in the dark days of Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism, witch hunts of the mid 20th century, archives at American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/margaretchasesmithconscience.html

Assange recapped in his December article in The Australian: “The U.S. diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:

► The U.S. asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably, Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too
► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the U.S. to attack Iran
► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran’s nuclear program stopped by any means available
► Britain’s Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect ‘U.S. interests’
► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and U.S. intelligence sharing is kept from parliament
► The U.S. is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbor Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.

“In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the U.S. Supreme Court said, ‘only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.’ The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.”


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