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Julian Assange: the freedom of free speech : Comments
By Stuart Rees, published 7/6/2012A lesson from the Assange controversy is what we may learn about the nature of justice.
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Assange being a media representative in the form of his internet website Wikileaks was indeed a Whistleblower( a nieve one).
He should have assumed some responsibility for what may have been in those documents before revealing them, maybe by handing them to the opposition parties or the senate for scrutiny first. A democracy has checks and balances in place against rogue governments, that’s why we have an elected opposition. Assange would have been better off following due process and letting the opposition do it’s job by letting them assess the documents first.
However the media as a whole Likes to break stories for the prestige and sale of their papers so how can Julian Assange be blamed.
I know he did hand the leaked information to the news media in America .
It comes down to a dilemma really, of where do governments draw the line on the freedom of speech of their soldiers? What if we were in a real stoush like World War2 and threatened with real annihilation and loss of country? Should freedom of speech only apply to off-shore, far off wars or cover all wars and how does a government draw the line? And can we fight nice gentlemanly wars where no innocents are killed? Is that even possible? Democracy is there, use it. Take it to the senate or opposition for security assessment.