The U.S. government indicated today that WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange could be in legal jeopardy for disclosing classified information because he is "not a journalist."
When asked whether "traditional media" organizations that republish secret documents could be prosecuted, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that the administration applauds "the role of journalists in your daily pursuits."
"In our view, Mr. Assange is not a journalist," Crowley added.
So, let me see here.
If you're an accredited journalist — a private citizen, but one with a press badge — and you get your hands on classified information, you apparently have the State Department's carte blanche to distribute it far and wide. Or so Crowley appears to be implying.
On the other hand, if you're not a journalist — but still a private citizen — and you do the same thing, you're subject to arrest and prosecution under the Espionage Act. Because, lacking a press card, you are presumed not to have the protection of the First Amendment guarantee of free press.
But should being a journalist trump espionage, if it really is espionage? And even if so, is it really espionage if Wikileaks publishes a diplomatic cable, but somehow not espionage when the New York Times reprints the same cable? Or is the Espionage Act being selectively used as a big stick with which to beat Wikileaks for embarrassing the world's governments, and the US government in particular?
The rule of law only works when there is one body of law that applies uniformly to everyone. It's already bad enough when the government doesn't follow its own laws; but when the government starts declaring more or less arbitrarily that this or that law applies to one group of people but not to another, using it as a big stick of convenience to smite whom it wants at that moment to smite, it's the beginning of the end of the rule of law.
In this matter as in many others, the government is acting as though it can arbitrarily declare the law to mean what it wants it to mean, and apply to whomever it wants it to according to its whim of the moment. But, in this matter as in all others, the government cannot — must not — be above the law. The government must be the exemplar of the law. Because if the government is seen to casually flout the law, then who else is going to respect it? And if nobody respects the law, then society descends rapidly into chaos.
And that is as bad for government as it is for everyone else — if not worse; because when society descends into chaos, particularly when it does so because of the actions of government, the government and its agents and symbols become the first targets.