"Lying is Not Patriotic" – Congressman Ron Paul on WikiLeaks

Dec 11, 2010
Teena Clipston

Congressman Ron Paul - wikimedia common images

On December 9, 2010, Congressman Ron Paul spoke to the senate about WikiLeaks, the Pentagon Papers, and government corruption.

Republican Congressman Ron Paul, for the 14th congressional district of Texas, spoke to the senate about his position on the WikiLeaks and the Assange affair, bringing nine questions to consider before any charges be laid against Assange.

“It has been charged, by self-proclaimed experts, that Julian Assange, the internet publisher of this information, has committed a heinous crime deserving prosecution for treason and execution or even assassination,” stated Paul.

Is this an example of killing the messenger for the bad news? Considering Private First Class Bradley Manning who was arrested for stealing the cables was only charged with unauthorized use and disclosure of U.S. classified information and not for treason or espionage. How could a publisher be charged with espionage for printing them?

Paul continued, “But should we not at least ask how the U.S. government can charge an Australian citizen with treason for publishing U.S. secret information, that he did not steal?

And if Wikileaks is to be prosecuted for publishing classified documents, why shouldn’t the Washington Post, New York Times, and others that have also published these documents be prosecuted? Actually, some in Congress are threatening this as well.”

Questions to consider (has stated by Ron Paul):

1. Do the American people deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

2. Could a larger question be: how can an Army Private gain access to so much secret material?

3. Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not our government’s failure to protect classified information?

4. Are we getting our money’s worth from the $80 billion per year we spend on our intelligence agencies?

5. Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths; lying us into war, or WikiLeaks’ revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

6. If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information, that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the First Amendment and the independence of the internet?

7. Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on WikiLeaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

8. Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in the time of a declared war—which is treason—and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death, and corruption?

9. Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it’s wrong?

The Pentagon Papers

The Pentagon Papers are a top secret United States Department of Defense study on the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The papers were published on the front page of the New York Times in 1971. The papers disclosed corruption by the U.S. government during the Vietnam war.

Whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg stated to the press, “I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.”

Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act. However, due to government misconduct, all charges were dismissed.

The newspapers who printed the Pentagon Papers, also came under attack. Nixon obtained a court injunction forcing the Times to cease publication after the publication of three articles. The Times appealed the injunction (New York Times Co. v United States). On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court decided that the government failed to meet the burden of proof required for the injunction against the Times.

Justice Black wrote: “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”