So public documents can't be public? I understand information has to be classified to protect itself and others, but if it's made public, that kinda hurts the law more than the people.
Recently, the Library of Congress blocked Wikileaks on all its computers and databases. Yet the Congressional Research Service is a part of the Library of Congress. How can government employees that work for CRS do research about Wikileaks to warn the public if they cannot access the information to which the site has been revoked?
Plus, government agencies warned its employees about the site and to be careful accessing it. Yet, the Library of Congress is the only government agency (so far) that has banned the site.
The documents were never public to begin with. They were candid and confidential cables between diplomats and embassies from the 1960s to present day.
Plus, freedom of speech does not apply here. Julian Assange and Bradley Manning were not exercising free speech, because it was not THEIR speech. That would be like saying that printing an illegal copy of a newly released book and trying to sell it, and then when you get arrested you try to claim your 1st amendment rights were violated. If they were diplomats that authored the cables, and they leaked them because they felt it was morally right (or whatever reason you can think of), that is a different story because freedom of speech can apply there since they would have been the authors.
But, leaking classified cables....especially ones containing such sensitive information on foreign relations and foreign policies, is illegal and not protected by freedom of speech.
Also, the reason the Library of Congress blocked the website was because despite the cables being leaked they are still classified, and government employees are forbidden to read such documents without proper authorization/rank. Any federal government employee that reads those documents risks losing their job.
And it doesn't matter if the LOC is the only agency that blocked the website so far. I'm sure the Fed is more worried about stopping the leaks from destroying foreign relations (and getting people killed, tortured, imprisoned, or even starting wars) than their employees accessing the website.
I'm personally all for transparent government, and while I personally do not like our nation's foreign policy I am deeply infuriated that this leak was allowed to happen. It's one thing to leak videos like WikiLeaks did earlier this year, but to have blatant disregard for global security is grossly irresponsible.
If WikiLeaks wanted to be a legitimate media outlet, and to provide this information to the public, they should've refrained from publicly releasing the leaks and instead only provide them to newspapers and other respected media outlets for them to analyze and publish articles summarizing the information in the leaks. At the very least they should've removed all names (aside from government officials) of civilians and soldiers from the leaked materials...which they did not do.
What's even more disturbing is the sheer stupidity of the primary suspect of the leaks Bradley Manning. This was a low-ranking member of the armed forces that got access to the now-leaked files, was undetected when he was downloading the information and removing it from the government's servers, and then was stupid enough to brag about it online (which if he didn't do that (bragging), he probably would not have been caught). Now he's likely going to be tried for treason and imprisoned for the rest of his life unless some miracle happens for him in the court martial trials.
