The release by WikiLeaks of some 250,000 previously confidential diplomatic cables has raised new questions about First Amendment protection for WikiLeaks, and for those media outlets that publish information they obtain from WikiLeaks, or other similar sources.
The Department of Justice is investigating WikiLeaks' publication of sensitive documents, and federal officials told The Washington Post they are considering criminal charges under the Espionage Act for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
U.S. media outlets took different approaches in deciding whether to publish the WikiLeaks information. The New York Times provided an extensive explanation of its decision to publish, after obtaining the documents from an anonymous source. But The Wall Street Journal and CNN declined to enter into a confidentiality agreement with WikiLeaks in order to obtain some of the documents, WSJ reports.
During a recent ACS event, experts provided some helpful First Amendment perspective on the WikiLeaks phenomenon, including how First Amendment protection of sensitive information has developed and what place shield laws that protect anonymous sources have in this discussion.
Moderator Adam Liptak, Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, and a former lawyer for the newspaper, framed the discussion in saying:
The great democratization of information on the Internet, notably in the form of WikiLeaks, means there is no responsible party to negotiate with on the other side. For better or worse, we [The New York Times] held back on the warrantless wiretapping story, in part because we consulted with, and were persuaded by, things the government was telling us. We may have made the wrong decision, but it wasn't for want of trying to get it right, trying to strike the balance correctly. That doesn't seem to be the case in many quarters on the Internet today. So, we live in a new world.
ACS has compiled some of the most relevant comments in a WikiLeaks highlights video below. Watch the full discussion on the interplay between national security and government transparency here, including a keynote address by White House Open Government Initiative Director and U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Beth Noveck.
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