What is the fate of wiki leaks? (text composition)

What will it mean if the U.S. government pursues legal action against Wikileaks? The first amendment of the Constitution protects the press, there by giving them the freedom to publish what they want.

In the case of Wikileaks, many are accusing them of espionage, for publishing top-secret documents. Yet the nature of the documents does not warrant conviction of espionage. The nature of the documents published by Wikileaks does not matter; rather the way in which the documents were acquired is the only issue. An example of how Wikileaks would be guilty if they directly stole the documents they published, and then they could be convicted. Yet Wikileaks was acquired many of the documents from an unassociated source, making it legal for them to publish.

So if Wikileaks can’t be prosecuted because the documents are not stolen, then how can they be prosecuted? Well this is a sticky situation for the government to try and pursue. To convict Wikileaks they would have to side step the first amendment and every thing it protects in our nation. So this brings up the question how will this case set the precedence for freedom of press and every thing our country was founded on? No one is exactly sure what effects this would have on our countries founding values. But we do know that by prosecuting Wikileaks it will change the interpretation and protection that the first amendment has for press and the people.

Yet the WikiLeaks document dump in fact appears to fall into an unresolved area of US law. The First Amendment strongly shields the publication of truthful information, legally acquired. But what if the information is gotten illegally? For many of the documents dumped by Wikileaks, this is the case.

Yet how could the Government prosecute Wikileaks under the Espionage Act? Well no one is really sure because the act only covers “any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States.” This does not cover email, due to the act was written in 1971 right after World War I.

So in these modern times, how can the government prosecute Wikileaks? Well no one is quite sure because there are many things that legally have to be clarified, which is a process that will take a long time to pass threw the legislature. Only time will tell what will be the fate of Wikileaks.