Opinion: Freedom in America - Espionage Act
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Brian Yan, Guest Writer
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November 1, 2021
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In America, we like to call ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave. Inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, American colonists proclaimed themselves a separate state from the British Empire, proclaiming that King George and the British Parliament were oppressing them. The Declaration of Independence pronounced that all men are created equal and that all are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a modified version of John Locke's idea of natural rights.
The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the First Amendment, in particular, guarantee certain rights like free speech, assembly, and freedom of the press. The stated goal of the American Revolution and the American experiment in liberal democracy was freedom. What we have now cannot be described as freedom. This series will explore the lack of and suppression of the freedoms this country claims to hold so dear and why we are not really free. |
Joint Press Conference Between Chancellor Ricardo Patiño and Julian Assange / David G. Silvers / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
Julian Assange has been a major target of the United States for over a decade, simply for telling the truth. |
To start simply, the United States does not have truly free speech, assembly, or freedom of the press. In 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act, allowing the US government far more power to limit what applied under the First Amendment. The Espionage Act allowed for the arrest of those who were believed to be subversives, might harm the US, or would aid a foreign country at the expense of the US and was passed during a time of great paranoia. This law allows the arrest, deportation, and indictment of dissidents by their contemporary US administrations.
Shortly after its enactment, the Espionage Act justified the arrest of anti-war activists and leftists, most notably Eugene V. Debs, the socialist organizer who advocated against US involvement in World War I. During this period, groups like the International Workers of the World, of which Debs was a co-founder, were also targeted as they were both anti-war and labor organizers. This culminated in the Palmer Raids, a series of raids against Eastern Europeans, leftists, anti-war activists, and labor groups, becoming one of the greatest symbols of the First Red Scare.
You may be asking why these events, which happened over a century ago, are important to a modern-day understanding of freedom in America. Well, the Espionage Act is still in use and has been used against whistleblowers who have attempted to expose corruption in the US. The most notable and most recent among them are Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange. Edward Snowden is a former contractor for the National Security Agency who, in 2013, released documents showing that the NSA could monitor and record private phone calls, texts, and emails. His leaks also revealed that the NSA could go through people's files stored with providers like Google, Yahoo, and more, without transparent oversight. Since the release of these documents, Snowden has been forced to live in Russia as the US State Department revoked his passport. Charged with three felonies, two under the Espionage Act, Snowden could face up to 30 years for telling the public their government was spying on them.
Before Snowden, there was the case of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, the founder of WikiLeaks and a former US soldier, respectively. Assange helped Manning publish documents revealing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange has been in America's sights since the revelations of Chelsea Manning's leaks in 2010 and 2011. Manning was arrested in 2010, convicted of 17 of her 22 charges, and sentenced to 35 years in a men's prison. During the trial, the prosecution recommended an even higher prison sentence in an effort to deter others. Recently, Assange has come back into the spotlight as new developments and revelations in American attempts to extradite him have unfolded. Leading up to that, however, Assange faced persecution by the US until recent developments.
As mentioned before, Assange first came to the spotlight when he helped Chelsea Manning publish documentation of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange has since been a major target for the US. In 2017, Mike Pompeo, then director of the CIA, called WikiLeaks a "hostile non-state intelligence service." Despite this label, major news outlets, as well as human rights and press freedoms advocacy groups, have called the indictment of Assange an attack on press freedoms.
"There is [Pompeo’s] statement that 'this,' i.e., WikiLeaks and its publications, end now. So, how does he propose to conduct this ending? He didn't say. But the CIA is only in the business of collecting information, kidnapping people, and assassinating people. So, it's quite a menacing statement that he does need to clarify," Assange said in response.
This statement appears clairvoyant as recent information, first reported by Yahoo News, shows that the CIA had planned to kidnap or assassinate Assange under Trump's administration. This isn't a surprise for many, as the CIA has dabbled in assassinations and extrajudicial execution before, hence Assange's statement. But, this sheds light on how, even in modern America, we still see the same suppression of speech and the press that the US government claims to be the weapons of dictators.
Comments — 1
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Richard C.
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I really enjoyed the article. I wanted to get in touch with Brian and discuss it with him. Unfortunately I have only his old number and was wondering if you could ask him to e mail me at my address listed below
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