WikiLeaks are Not Terrorists — A Critical Assessment of the “Hacktivist” Challenge to the Diplomatic System

On 16 December 2010, the non-governmental organization GetUp! Action for Australia published a full-page advertisement in the New York Times entitled “WIKILEAKS ARE NOT TERRORISTS.” Addressed to “America,” President Barack Obama, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder from 92,897 Australians, the open letter condemned the “calls for violence, including assassination,” of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks and an Australian citizen, “or for him to be labeled a terrorist, enemy combatant, or treated outside the course of justice in any way.” GetUp!’s advertisement included a number of the more incendiary published remarks about Assange made in the wake of WikiLeaks’ November 2010 release of thousands of leaked confidential diplomatic cables from American embassies around the world. These included former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s likening of Assange to an al Qaeda leader and syndicated political columnist Jonah Goldberg’s mordant query, “Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?” Near the end of the letter is the particularly pregnant passage: “We are writing as Australians to say what our government should have: all Australian citizens deserve to be free from persecution, threats of violence and detention with charge, especially from our friend and ally, the United States.”