This weekend, Vice President Joe Biden joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and conservative reality TV show star Sarah Palin in suggesting the actions of Wikileaks' Julian Assange are comparable to "terrorism" on Meet The Press:
I would argue that it's closer to being a high tech terrorist than, than the Pentagon Papers. But look, this guy has, has done things that have damaged and, and put into jeopardy the lives and, and occupations of people in other parts of the world. He's made it more difficult for us to conduct our, our business with our allies and our friends. For example, in my meetings, you know I meet with most of these world leaders , there is a desire now to meet with me alone rather than have staff in the room. It makes things more cumbersome. And so it is, it has done damage.
Assange has acted recklessly and has a political agenda, but he's no terrorist. if the act of publishing secret information is terrorism than the best national security journalists in the country are terrorists. The First Amendment doesn't make an exception for the political views of journalists when it states that Congress shall make "no law" that abridges "the freedom of speech, or of the press." But having now characterized Assange as a "high tech terrorist," Biden has now opened up the question of why the administration is not handling him more harshly. So not only did the Vice President just jump on the right's unconstitutional, anti-First Amendment bandwagon, in doing so he's made it more difficult to explain why it hasn't neutralized Assange using the kind of violent means Republicans have demanded.
Biden's follow-up exchange with MTP host David Gregory was no more comforting:
Gregory: Do you think he's a criminal?
Biden: If he conspired to get these classified documents with a member of the U.S. military , that's fundamentally different than if somebody drops on your lap, "Here, David , you're a press person, here is classified material."
So Biden has implied Assange is a "high tech terrorist," but he can't go as far as calling him a "criminal" because he's not entirely sure he's even broken the law. But if he did break the law, it would have been in the process of doing something that mainstream journalists do all the time--try to get government officials to tell them things the public doesn't already know.
It's absurdly self-refuting: Having suggested Assange is a terrorist, Biden can't name a crime he's committed. If we're talking about an actual "terrorist," shouldn't that be the easy part?
