Rep. Peter King (left) introduces anti-WikiLeaks legislation … The bill, known as the SHIELD Act, would amend the Espionage Act to make publishing classified information "concerning the identity of a classified source or informant of an element of the intelligence community" an act of espionage. Sens. John Ensign (R-NV), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Scott Brown (R-MA) introduced similar legislation in the Senate last week. "These organizations are a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States," Rep. King continued. "Julian Assange and his compatriots are enemies of the US and should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. This legislation provides the Attorney General with additional authority to do just that." – Raw Story
Dominant Social Theme: The threat of WikiLeaks refocuses Peter King's pathologies.
Free-Market Analysis: WikiLeaks continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. We've analyzed WikiLeaks from the point of view of a power elite gambit and the pieces of the puzzle continue to fit together. Not only that, but the WikiLeaks sub dominant social theme was assembled relatively rapidly in our view with Julian Assange taking over WikiLeaks only about four years ago. That's a blink of an eye in terms of elite promotions, which can run 50 or even 100 years (see central banking). Here are links to three Assange-like stories, a trilogy if you will:
WikiLeaks seems to talk a better leak than it offers. One thing it HAS been good at – as we would expect if it were ultimately an Anglosphere psyops – is generating pushback from Anglosphere political elites, especially in America (see excerpt above). There is of course no "security" measure that is too Draconian for someone like Peter King, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, who has backed virtually every legislative disassembling of American civil rights for the past decade. WikiLeaks, conveniently, has given him a renewed opportunity to further polarize the US security debate and whittle away further freedoms. Here's more from Raw Story regarding King's latest jeremiad:
… King sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder … demanding that WikiLeaks be deemed a "foreign terrorist organization" and it's founder declared a terror ringleader … "Julian Assange and his associates who have operated and supported WikiLeaks not only damaged US national security with their releases of classified documents, but also placed at risk countless lives, including those of our Nation's intelligence sources around the world."
The ACLU, which has done exactly nothing to slow America's descent into authoritarianism, opposes the latest King gambit. In a statement, the ACLU urged Congress to, "resist the urge to broaden the Espionage Act's already overbroad proscriptions and, instead, to narrow the Act's focus to those responsible for leaking properly classified information to the detriment of our national security. Publishers who are not involved in the leaking of classified information should be praised by our society for their contributions to public discourse, not vilified as the co-conspirators of leakers with whom they have no criminal connection."
We doubt that King's gambit will go far, but it does contribute generally to the continued miasma of paranoia that afflicts the Hill. The Patriot Act itself, which only recently failed to garner a two-thirds super majority, passed the House on Monday via a simple majority. The vast majority of House Republicans voted for it, and so did over 60 Democrats. The provisions as usual are focused on terrorism but, in the breach, will be applied to every US citizen. As TPM reported on legislation that continues to be unconstitutional:
The provisions allow investigators to get "roving wiretap" court orders allowing them to follow terrorism suspects who switch phone numbers or providers; to get orders allowing them to seize "any tangible things" relevant to a security investigation, like a business's customer records; and to get national-security wiretap orders against non-citizen suspects who are not connected to any foreign power.
One might have thought that the Tea Party movement itself, which aligns itself with the US constitutional framework, would have been circumspect about supporting such legislation. But Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN-6), who has emerged along with Sarah Palin as a spokesperson for the movement backed the legislation and released a 3rd person statement explaining her reasons. "Today's vote was for a ten-month extension of three provisions that would have expired later this month. These provisions maintain the flexibility that our intelligence community needs to monitor terror suspects and protect our country against international terrorism. As a mother of five and a foster mother to 23 children, I voted for these authorities so that our laws keep pace with the evolving threats posed by terrorists."
These then, are the fruits of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange has burst onto the scene in dramatic fashion, but his activities have tended to polarize the security debate and have even given rise to more Draconian legislation. When one examines his track record there is not much to justify the tremendous coverage he has received from the mainstream media. He has a million-dollar book contract, has been nominated for the Nobel Prize and his life story is being made into a major motion picture. Frankly, this kind of adulatory treatment is reserved for those who are most important to power elite narratives.
Each of these instruments of notoriety is controlled by the elite; major motion pictures about young men (who are still alive) are rarely if ever made. Million-dollar book contracts are generated by a very few authors. Nobel Peace Prizes are given out sparsely and hardly ever to young men. Assange is getting the "star treatment." At the same time, his actions have not yielded up anything of note regarding Western improprieties – or little that is new anyway.
Assange has however hardened the "terrorism" debate in the West and the United States, making it easier for the Peter Kings and Michele Bachmanns of the world to further restrict citizens' civil rights while expanding the grasp of Leviathan. If that is the point of WikiLeaks, Assange is seemingly succeeding. And perhaps it is.
