Whistleblowers - Week 4

Though being thought of being a thing of the past, infringement of U.S. residents First Amendment rights are still being violated to this day. The Bill of Rights was written centuries ago, but those in power still still abuse and misuse it. The United States government has shown that anyone can be a victim, on any level. 

The perhaps most arguably extreme infringement of the First Amendment was in more modern times; the 2010s. However, how the U.S. Government responded and tried these citizens were almost like it was the early 1700's again. In 2010, WikiLeaks, ran by renown journalist Julian Assange, released the Iraq War Logs. This revealed that United States presence in Iraq had accounted for a lot more civilian casualties than originally thought, up to 15,000 civilian deaths were added onto the Iraq Body Count. 

The government, just like in the past, even hundreds of years ago, are trying him for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 when releasing the Iraq Logs. This, just like James Franklin and countless others, impedes on Julian Assange's rights. Assange, not even being a U.S. citizen, is being criminalized in a country that he is not even a member of. Even the United Kingdom has threatened to extradite him from the country. He in fact had to ask the Ecuadorian Embassy for sanction and protection. Assange, now, after spending years in the Ecuadorian embassy costing British taxpayers almost $21 million dollars, resides in a high security prison in London, where many murderers and rapists are held, and was sentenced to 50 weeks.  Similarly, Edward Snowden was exiled from the United States for leaking classified information to Russia, in 2013. 

Julian Assange is no different to anyone throughout history who the government has punished for using their First Amendment rights. He, and dozens of others, have formulated either their own opinions, or just published information that should have been readily available and known to the general public, and have been reprimanded. As much as the government impedes on citizens rights, they still fear them. 

The most recent and perhaps most prevalent case is the silencing of President Donald J. Trump. Donald Trump is well known for his outspokenness, whether it is logical or not, and across various, nontraditional platforms such as Twitter. Though, as of recently, a plethora of these platforms have completely banned Trump from using them. No announcement, no warning.

 One day after midnight, many apps and websites suspended Donald Trump's accounts. These include but are not limited to Twitch, Snapchat, Twitter, and even music streaming app Spotify. The fact that these big technology companies were able to do this has alarmed many. 

It was written in Politico by Thierry Breton, an EU commissioner advocating for more regulation of digital stages, that "The fact a CEO can pull the plug on Potus' loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing. It is not only confirmation of the power of these platforms, but it also displays deep weaknesses in the way our society is organized in the digital space"(Breton, 2021).

 It is being stated that because of statures like those as Mark Zuckerburg, they (for some reason) believe that they have the right to silence who they want, because they own the companies. This sounds logical, but because of how important these platforms are for communication, it also makes sense that this is a case of rights being infringed on. Some people agree with this doing, but others don't. The United States government has and continues to show their true colors.

For more background and information, the sources used are listed below.

1. Ingber, S. (2019, May 1). British Judge Sentences Julian Assange To 50 Weeks In Prison. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/05/01/718945707/british-judge-sentences-julian-assange-to-50-weeks-in-prison.

2.  Gosztola, K. (2020, October 23). Decade After WikiLeaks Published Iraq War Logs, Assange Is In Prison. https://shadowproof.com/2020/10/22/ten-years-wikileaks

3. Gript News. (2021, January 13). Angela Merkel criticises Twitter's de-platforming of Donald Trump. Gript. https://gript.ie/angela-merkel-criticises-twitter-trump/. 

4. Vos, E. (2019, April 3). Ecuador president implicated in financial scandal, blames Wikileaks, threatens Assange with expulsion from embassy. Sott.net. https://www.sott.net/article/410405-Ecuador-president-implicated-in-financial-scandal-blames-Wikileaks-threatens-Assange-with-expulsion-from-embassy.