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Will Congress and Trump Declare War on WikiLeaks? – Article by Ron Paul

Will Congress and Trump Declare War on WikiLeaks? – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
September 3, 2017
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The Senate Intelligence Committee recently passed its Intelligence Authorization Act for 2018 that contains a chilling attack on the First Amendment. Section 623 of the act expresses the “sense of Congress” that WikiLeaks resembles a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such.” This language is designed to delegitimize WikiLeaks, encourage the federal government to spy on individuals working with WikiLeaks, and block access to WikiLeaks’ website. This provision could even justify sending US forces abroad to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or other WikiLeaks personnel.

WikiLeaks critics claim that the organization’s leaks harm US national security. However, these critics are unable to provide a single specific example of WikiLeaks’ actions harming the American people. WikiLeaks does harm the reputations of federal government agencies and politicians, however. For example, earlier this year WikiLeaks released information on the CIA’s hacking program. The leaks did not reveal any details on operations against foreign targets, but they did let the American people know how easy it is for the government to hack into their electronic devices.

For the last year, most of the news surrounding WikiLeaks has centered on its leak of emails showing how prominent Democrats worked to undermine Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. In order to deflect attention from these revelations, Democrats, aided by their allies in the media and even some Republicans, promulgated a conspiracy theory blaming the leaks on Russian hackers working to defeat Hillary Clinton. Even though there is no evidence the Russians were behind the leaks, many in both parties are still peddling the “Putin did it” narrative. This aids an effort by the deep state and its allies in Congress and the media to delegitimize last year’s election, advance a new Cold War with Russia, and criminalize WikiLeaks.

If the government is successful in shutting down WikiLeaks by labeling it a “hostile intelligence service,” it will use this tactic to silence other organizations and websites as well. The goal will be to create a climate of fear to ensure no one dares publish the revelations of a future Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning.

Some have suggested that criticizing police brutality, the surveillance state, the Federal Reserve, or even federal spending aids “hostile foreign powers” by weakening the people’s “trust in government.” This line of reasoning could be used to silence, in the name of “national security,” websites critical of the welfare-warfare state.

By labeling WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service” and thus legitimizing government action against the organization, the Senate Intelligence Authorization Act threatens the ability of whistleblowers to inform the public about government misdeeds. It also sets a precedent that could be used to limit other types of free speech.

President Trump should make it clear he will veto any bill giving government new powers to silence organizations like WikiLeaks. If President Trump supports the war on WikiLeaks, after candidate Trump proclaimed his love for WikiLeaks, it will be further proof that he has outsourced his presidency to the deep state.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, along with notable whistleblowers, foreign policy experts, and leading champions of peace and liberty, will be addressing this important issue at my Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s conference on Saturday, September 9 at the Dulles Airport Marriott Hotel in Dulles, Virginia outside of Washington, D.C. You can get more information about the conference and purchase tickets at the Ron Paul Institute.

Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.
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This article is reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
More Mission Creep in an Illegal War – Article by Gene Healy

More Mission Creep in an Illegal War – Article by Gene Healy

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The New Renaissance HatGene Healy
November 4, 2015
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In the 15 months since the president unilaterally launched our latest war in the Middle East, he’s repeatedly pledged that he wouldn’t put U.S. “boots on the ground” in Syria. As he told congressional leaders on September 3, 2014, “the military plan that has been developed” is limited, and doesn’t require ground forces.

Alas, if you liked that plan, you can’t keep it. Earlier today, the Obama administration announced the deployment of U.S. Special Forces to Northern Syria to assist Kurdish troops in the fight against ISIS. U.S. forces will number “fewer than 50,” in an “advise and assist” capacity; they “do not have a combat mission,” according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest. Granted, when “advise and assist” missions look like this, it can be hard for us civilians to tell the difference.

Asked about the legal authorization for the deployment, Earnest insisted: “Congress in 2001 did give the executive branch the authority to take this action. There’s no debating that.”

It’s true that there hasn’t been anything resembling a genuine congressional debate over America’s war against ISIS. But the administration’s legal claim is eminently debatable. It’s based on the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, the Congress passed three days after 9/11, targeting those who “planned, authorized, [or] committed” the attacks (Al Qaeda) and those who “aided” or “harbored” them (the Taliban).

In 2013, Obama administration officials told the Washington Post that they were “increasingly concerned the law is being stretched to its legal breaking point.” That was before they’d stretched it still further, 15 months later, to justify war against ISIS, a group that’s been denounced and excommunicated by Al Qaeda and is engaged in open warfare with them. Headlines like “ISIS Beheads Leader of Al Qaeda Offshoot Nusra Front,” or “Petraeus: Use Al Qaeda Fighters to Beat ISIS” might give you cause to wonder–or even debate!–whether this is the same enemy Congress authorized President Bush to wage war against, back before Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod.

In the Obama theory of constitutional war powers, Congress gets a vote, but it’s one Congress, one vote, one time. This is not how constitutional democracies are supposed to go to war. But it’s how we’ve drifted into a war that the Army chief of staff has said will last “10 to 20 years.” Sooner or later, we’ll have cause to regret the normalization of perpetual presidential war, but any congressional debate we get will occur only after the damage has already been done.

Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute. His research interests include executive power and the role of the presidency, as well as federalism and overcriminalization. He is the author of False Idol: Barack Obama and the Continuing Cult of the Presidency; The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power; and editor of Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything.

Healy has appeared on PBS’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer and NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and his work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Legal Times, and elsewhere.

Healy holds a BA from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.

This work by Cato Institute is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.