Senators demand prosecution of Assange for espionage

All companies hosting WikiLeaks called to terminate relationship

PTI | December 3, 2010



Two powerful Senators today asked the Obama Administration to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on espionage charges after the whistleblower site leaked thousands of classified US documents.

Senators Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Christopher Bond, vice chairman of the committee, in a joint letter asked Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for espionage.

"The unauthorized release of this information, including the recent release of approximately 250,000 State Department documents, is a serious breach of national security and could be used to severely harm the United States and its worldwide interests," the letter said.

"We believe that Assange's conduct is espionage and that his actions fall under the elements of this section of law. Therefore, we urge that he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act," the Senators said.

Meanwhile, Senators John Ensign, Joe Lieberman and Scott Brown introduced a legislation that will help derail the very real threat posed to human intelligence sources by WikiLeaks.

Their legislation, the SHIELD Act, would give the Administration increased flexibility to go after Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange by making it illegal to publish the names of human intelligence informants (HUMINT) to the United States military and intelligence community.

In another development, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, called on any company or organization that is hosting Wikileaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them.

"Wikileaks' illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world. No responsible company ‘ whether American or foreign ‘ should assist Wikileaks in its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials," he said after Amazon.com decided to terminate its relationship with Wikileaks.

 

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