WikiLeaks Case and the First Amendment's Protection

Private Bradley Manning: Life in prison for leaking documents?

"We continue to disagree about what to make of Private Manning and WikiLeaks. But we agree that WikiLeaks is part of what the Fourth Estate is becoming, that the leaks included important disclosures and that their publication is protected by the First Amendment no less than the publication of the Pentagon Papers was.

"Private Manning’s guilty plea gives the prosecution an opportunity to rethink its strategy. The extreme charges remaining in this case create a severe threat to future whistle-blowers, even when their revelations are crystal-clear instances of whistle-blowing. We cannot allow our concerns about terrorism to turn us into a country where communicating with the press can be prosecuted as a capital offense."

--Floyd Abrams and Yochai Binkler in today's NYTimes (here for the entire op-ed)

(Photo: telegraph.co.uk)