My Parents Were Executed Under the Unconstitutional Espionage Act -- Here's Why We Must Fight to Protect Julian Assange
The Espionage Act is a huge danger to our open society; it's been used to send hundreds of dissenters to jail just for voicing their opinions, transforming dissent into treason.
By Robert Meeropol
December 28, 2010
Rumors are swirling that the United States is preparing to indict Wikileaks leader Julian Assange for conspiring to violate the Espionage Act of 1917. The modern version of that act states among many, many other things that: “Whoever, for the purpose of obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States” causes the disclosure or publication of this material, could be subject to massive criminal penalties. It also states that: “If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions … each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.” (18 U.S. Code, Chapter 37, Section 793.)
I view the Espionage Act of 1917 as a lifelong nemesis. My parents were charged, tried and ultimately executed after being indicted for Conspiracy to Commit Espionage under that act.
It is no accident that Julian Assange may face a “conspiracy” charge just as my parents did. All that is required of the prosecution to prove a conspiracy is to present evidence that two or more people got together and took one act in furtherance of an illegal plan. It could be a phone call or a conversation.
Viewing the Wikileaks situation through this lens, it becomes apparent why the government would seek to charge Assange with conspiracy. Not only Assange, but anyone involved in the Wikileaks community could be swept up in a dragnet. Just as in my parents’ case, the prosecutors could seek to bully some involved into ratting out others, in return for more favorable treatment. This divide and conquer approach would turn individuals against each other, sow the seeds of distrust within the broader community, and intimidate others into quiescence.
This kind of attack threatens every left wing activist. I urge all progressives to come to the defense of Julian Assange should he be indicted for violating the Espionage Act of 1917.
Read the full article at:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/149345/my_parents_were_executed_under_the_unconstitutional_espionage_act_--_here%27s_why_we_must_fight_to_protect_julian_assange/Eugene Debs, the great labor leader and socialist was also falsely charged with espionage under the Espionage Act for giving an anti-war speech! He served five years in prison!
I don't believe the Rosenbergs were guilty of "stealing the secret" of the atomic bomb and giving it to the Soviet Union. They didn't have the atom bomb "secret" and they were not members of the American Communist Party as government prosecutors suggested. They were executed under bogus charges.
The Rosenberg's conviction and execution intensified the big post World War II government witch-hunt that charged members of the Communist Party and other radical organizations with being secret spies for the Soviet Union. That claim was total bull shit but most people believed it was true because of an effective "anti-Red" propaganda campaign by politicians of both major parties and the mass media and the Communist Party's support of the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.
I don't agree with the policies of the American Communist Party during that period or afterwards. And most radicals during that dark period of McCarthyism didn't agree with the views of the Communist Party, but, members of the Communist Party and their supporters were not Russian spies.
BBI