Wikileaks as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

I had written my original post on Wikileaks before I learned of this little detail being discussed in the news. Guess I was too busy actually reading Wikileaks to notice? From AFP:

US Republican congressman Peter King, the ranking member of the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee, urged the attorney general to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for espionage.

The latest release "manifests Mr Assange's purposeful intent to damage not only our national interests in fighting the war on terror, but also undermines the very safety of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan."

He went on to urge the State Department to designate WikiLeaks a "Foreign Terrorist Organization," saying it "posed a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States," in a statement from his office.

Apparently Rep. Peter King has written a letter to the State Department on this specific issue (if you see a link to the letter, plz add to comments). As I pointed out in the earlier post, United States Code: Title 18,2331 has a very broad definition of "international terrorism" that claims activities that are "dangerous to human life" and "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion" fall under the definition of international terrorism. Wikileaks may qualify under that definition (although you can bet that will be challenged in court).

The law is the law. I personally believe the law is fairly broad, but was designed as such to give the US flexibility in dealing with non-state actors that were conducting activity intending to harm the government or people of the United States. For better or worse, the language is quite generic, and indeed this is a case where a non-state actor is conducting activity intending to harm the government or people of the United States. Maybe in that sense the law is written correctly? I'm not certain.

The criteria for being named a Foreign Terrorist Organization are bit more detailed, as defined on the Department of States website. In this situation I think there is a good case to make that what Wikileaks is doing falls under US code to be defined as international terrorism, but I am much less sure that Wikileaks itself falls into the more strict definition of a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), and I certainly have no idea if Assange qualifies as a Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).

I'll leave these details to the lawyers.

I am hearing from sources tonight that the letter by Rep Peter King is being taken quite seriously by the leadership in the State Department and the Justice Department, and this is an "all hands on deck" evolution at State to come up with options as of Monday morning. The dynamics and discussion of Wikileaks being characterized as a foreign terrorist organization may emerge as one of the early responses by the United States government to watch unfold over the next few days.

The impact to Wikileaks, anyone associated with Wikileaks, and Julian Assange himself should the State Department apply the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) or Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) label would be crippling with second degree effects like making people who donate financially to Wikileaks liable for supporting terrorism financially, among many other negative impacts to Wikileaks.

I am not against what Rep Peter King is trying to do, even though I admit I am not a big fan of such a broad definition of international terrorism. At the minimum for me, Peter King is doing what a leader in government should be doing about Wikileaks - attempting to stand up for the United States government and the State Department specifically in what is clearly a difficult situation - and right now I expect at least that from my political leaders.

I believe this is an issue worthy of keeping an eye on.