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[For all those who used the free speech argument in favour of de
facto US control of the "root" not for political obsequiousness...]<br>
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<h3 class="artbcrumb"> <span><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/">Editorial</a></span>
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</span> Published: December 9, 2010 23:30 IST | Updated: December 9,
2010 23:30 IST <span class="dateline"> <span class="upper"> </span>
December 9, 2010 </span>
<h1 class="detail-title">Shooting the messenger</h1>
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<p class="body"> The high-profile arrest of besieged WikiLeaks
Founder Julian Assange could, in normal times, have been
explained away as a bona fide step taken in furtherance of the
due process of law. But these are extraordinary times, and the
talented Editor-in-Chief of the whistle-blower website is the
target of right wing and lunatic fringe politicians in
America, some of whom want him assassinated. The charges
against Mr. Assange will convince only the credulous. The
accusations, by two women, of unlawful coercion, molestation,
and rape in Sweden are highly suspect because of their timing
and the way they have been pursued. All accounts of the sexual
encounters suggest they were consensual and perhaps even
planned. The charges were dropped after initial enquiry, but
mysteriously revived. Across the Atlantic, of course, the
campaign against WikiLeaks has been constructed around not
concerns over women's rights but the website's sensational
disclosures of highly embarrassing diplomatic cables.
Repressive measures against WikiLeaks — such as booting it
from Amazon's cloud computing servers, cutting off Paypal,
Visa and Mastercard payment gateways, denying it an Internet
domain name, and freezing an account held by the website in a
Swiss bank — have been achieved through private,
extra-judicial manoeuvres. This is what makes the arrest
appear vindictive. </p>
<p class="body"> The vicious campaign to silence WikiLeaks
through distributed denial of service attacks and threats of
prosecution for espionage in the United States have produced
the opposite effect, by provoking supporters of the website to
mount a counter-offensive against the companies involved. The
net outcome is a cyberwar where militant responses to
continued repression are guaranteed. Western governments,
especially those involved in calamitous wars abroad, could
then succumb to temptation and institute authoritarian
controls on Internet access. Now that the WikiLeaks Founder is
in detention, Washington should not be allowed to come up with
tendentious arguments to get him extradited to be prosecuted
for espionage. As Noam Chomsky and several other prominent
American citizens have pointed out to Australian Prime
Minister Julia Gillard, the rhetoric in the U.S. is
increasingly violent and there are grave concerns about Mr.
Assange's safety. At a broader level, the WikiLeaks challenge
presents a clear choice to leaders and governments of western
countries: to crack down on free speech in the name of
official secrecy and national security or to make government
more transparent and accountable. After all, tolerating what
pleases you, or at least does not displease you strongly, is
no big deal. How <i>l'affaire</i> Assange gets resolved will
be the acid test for free speech in countries that claim to be
liberal democracies. </p>
<div id="articleKeywords">
<p>Keywords: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">WikiLeaks
founder</a>, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">Julian
Assange</a>, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">arrest</a>, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">espionage</a>, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">U.S.
secret cables</a>, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">cablegate</a>, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">whistle-blower</a>, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article941936.ece?css=print#">sexual
scam</a><br>
The Hindu<br>
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