Thom Hartmann: Okay, Julian Assange is sitting in a 19th century prison with 1600 other prisoners, apparently because he committed a crime, actually because he’s wanted for questioning in regard to a crime in Sweden that isn’t a crime anywhere else in the world as far as I can tell. Naomi Wolf on the line with us. She is the author of “The End of America" and “Give Me Liberty." NaomiWolf.org, spelled WOLF, is her website. Naomi, great to have you back on the program.
Naomi Wolf: It’s always great to be talking to you, Thom.
Thom Hartmann: Thank you. Thanks for joining us. I caught some of your debate with Jeffrey Toobin and Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker I think her name is, on CNN, and would like to get into some of that. What’s the largest frame in your mind of the entire WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, story/drama?
Naomi Wolf: Okay well there are two issues. One of them is a civil liberties issue and one of them is a sex crimes issue, obviously. And I just want to speak to the first one because people keep being stunned by the mainstream media in ways that are very destructive about what’s really at stake. As I said last night on MSN, Julian Assange is not the Daniel Ellsberg figure, if we’re looking at a parallel with the release of the Pentagon papers. He is the New York Times in this drama. And the courts are the place where it’s decided whether classified information release is outweighed by public interest in knowing, which is what happened with both Ellsberg and the New York Times back in that case. So if anybody needs to face a day in court because releasing classified information is in fact illegal, it’s whoever gave the classified information to Julian Assange.
And what I am trying to alert everyone to is that you know if you start to prosecute or criminalize people like Julian Assange who is the publisher, you know just like I am the publisher on my website of comments that people made about the WikiLeaks release, just like you’re the publisher of this discussion, you know if you start to criminalize journalists and editors for publishing information that is newsworthy, that is exactly what happens when people start to close up in society in right wing or left wing totalitarian or fascist regimes around the world. So that’s a very dangerous precedent. And you can’t like, all of this congressional activity and leadership on the right saying espionage, hang him, it’s completely improper because it is the courts that decide whether a crime has been committed, not by Julian Assange, but by whoever gave the information.
Thom Hartmann: Right, the crime was apparently committed, or at least some small part of it, by, or he’s charged with I guess so far, is Bradley Manning, this private first class, who apparently gave some of this information to Assange. But given the breadth and depth of the information he has, I think it’s inconceivable that it all came from one private first class. But even at that, it’s the person who took the top secret information out of its top secret environment and put it into the hands of a person who didn’t have a security clearance who broke the law. Once that person…
Naomi Wolf: Exactly. And, I’m sorry, I just want to jump in and stress that when Daniel Ellsberg went in to save whatever the judge was going to say about his having done something quite comparable with xeroxing, stealing, xeroxing releasing the Pentagon papers, he knew he was facing possibly 120 years in prison, he was willing to face that because he thought that the public interest, knowing that we were waging a secret war in Vietnam, overrode his personal risk, and he was released. The judge ruled that I understand this, that the public interest was overwhelming. But it was also clear from that decision that you don’t in America criminalize journalists for reporting the news. That’s like, insane. Assange is a journalist.
Thom Hartmann: Right. Because the New York Times was not penalized. And also the judge, arguably, that judgment was the first big whistle blower affirmation and the courts of course have gone backwards since then in some big ways and so have our laws.
Naomi Wolf: Yeah but it’s still the role of the courts.
Thom Hartmann: That’s right.
Naomi Wolf: I mean it just makes me tear my hair out, Thom, and it’s very satisfying to talk to you about this because you too tear your hair out about these things. To see you know, Sarah Palin and people in congress, and Joe Lieberman acting like they have the right to legislate this, it is, we still have a three, tripartite system and it is not the role of the court to, I’m sorry it is not the role of congress or political leadership to scream and yell about going after people or bringing criminal charges against journalists.
Thom Hartmann: Right. The first amendment is pretty explicit.
Naomi Wolf: Right, there we go. I also want to say something about the Espionage Act which is a very important message to get out to people right now. I predicted, and I don’t love being this annoying Cassandra figure who keeps saying oh my god this is going to happen, oh my god. You know, there is, I mean as you know, because we’ve discussed it, I’ve written for the last couple of years about how there are these clear steps to closing an open society. And this is step 7. And you know in “The End of America," which came out in 2006, 2007, I said what’s going to happen now is they’re going to start using the Espionage act to go after journalists and they’re going to go after the New York Times, so they tried to go after the New York Times with their disclosure of the Swift banking story which was also based on classified information. They’re doing what journalists are supposed to do. Right? Report on classified information that reaches them.
So then I went back to the history of the Espionage Act. And now you’ve got people on the right calling for prosecution of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act. Well ladies and gentlemen, I beg you, write to your representative, say you’ll place your vote if they call for this because the last time the Espionage Act was used in America, it was a very, very dark day. And if you go after Julian Assange with the Espionage Act, you go after all of us. Because the Espionage Act was brought into play in 1917 to attack individuals like you and me, teachers, educators, journalists, editors, who were critical of the drum beats of the first World War. And it was used to put people like that, peaceful critics of the war in prison where they were beaten. It was used to give one guy a ten year sentence for reading the first amendment out loud. And it was used basically to silence dissent in this country for a generation.
And again just putting it into context with how closing societies operate, every closing society from East Germany in the ‘50s to you know Nazi Germany in the ‘30s to you know Russia in the ‘30s and you know China in the ‘80s, what they do is they use something like the Espionage Act to start with obvious cases of spying but then there’s always mission creep and the mission creep always starts to criminalize reporting, critics of the administration, peace activists, educators, you know civil rights activists, people like you and me. It is a very dangerous precedent. It shouldn’t be touched.
Thom Hartmann: I absolutely agree. We’re talking with Naomi Wolf, NaomiWolf.org is her website. Her books, “The End of America" and “Give Me Liberty." Naomi, we have about two minutes left. Your thoughts on the possible crime that Julian Assange is wanted for in Sweden? Or is at least wanted for interrogation.
Naomi Wolf: I’m glad you asked. Right. I mean you know I wrote this piece, which on the Huffington Post, it’s a satirical piece, basically saying, saying to INTERPOL, now that you’re prioritizing this kind of accusation, you know I’m sure you’re going to be, I mean it’s just, it’s just, as a feminist, it defies belief that with you know millions of women violently raped in Congo and sex trafficking all over Asia and Eastern Europe, you know, INTERPOL is going after what from early reports seems to be an issue of consensual sex that became problematic or you know according to the accusers from what I have read, non consensual when a condom broke or when there was an issue of a condom.
You know, while every allegation of non-consent is important, as a feminist who cares about these things, I think it’s an insult to real survivors of real sexual abuse assaults all over the world who are ignored by the judicial system. That these charges, which are quite ambiguous are being used to go after someone who has clearly you know, become persona non grata for engaging in legitimate journalism. And so the day that INTERPOL starts to go after sex traffickers and you know systemic rapists, then I will believe that this is a serious you know, taking serious accounts of women’s issues and women’s right to consensual and full consent. But right now it looks very, very suspicious to me.
Thom Hartmann: That is such a brilliant context to frame it. Naomi Wolf, NaomiWolf.org the website. Naomi, thank you so much for being with us.
Naomi Wolf: Thank you, Thom.
Thom Hartmann: Keep speaking out, we need your voice. I truly appreciate it.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
