WikiLeaks: Hate it or love it, but Internet regulation would be a totalitarian solution

By Brandon Loran Maxwell

WikLleaks poses an interesting conundrum. On one hand, Julian Assange is not American -- he's Australian, so he can't be tried for treason (as many conservatives would like to see). But likewise, because he's not American, he's not entitled to First Amendment rights (as many liberals would like to believe).

If one thing is for certain, though, it's that unprecedented litigation on the legality of such anonymous information dump sites like WikiLeaks is on the horizon -- a prospect that should be worrisome.

Regardless of what transpires, however, I find it amusing how quickly the left has chosen to embrace Julian Assange -- hailing him as if he were the second coming of Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein -- when in reality, Assange's latest dump on WikiLeaks has hurt the left far more than the right.

Not only did Assange's latest release embarrass U.S. diplomats and allies, consequently and unnecessarily sabotaging otherwise peaceful diplomatic relations (diplomacy supposedly being one of the ideological cornerstones of liberalism) -- but it further strengthened the neo-con argument that countries like Iran pose a legitimate threat to surrounding neighbors.

So what are conservatives complaining about? Logistically speaking, conservatives came out ahead -- and the "sensitive" information released, if anything, only verified and vindicated something conservatives have said all along -- that the world is a dangerous place, full of nuts.

In truth, I could care less about any of the impertinent statements made by our diplomats concerning other diplomats and foreign leaders. In fact, I think our true feelings ought to be made known more often -- even if our feelings are a bit boorish. I never have been a proponent of beating around the bush.

And while I admit I've had problems in the past with WikiLeaks and some of its releases -- this isn't one of them. Instead, what worries me is the implication that bureaucratic regulation of the Internet -- the people's last frontier -- is inescapable. Sove have already began reforming whistleblowing laws.

Make no mistake, however, regulatory measures are nothing more than an attempt to overcompensate for procedural laziness, a power grab.

It's the internal procedures and practices of government to which the responsibility of protecting information deemed "sensitive" ultimately solely rests. Not "we the people" or our avenues of communicating.

Does this mean I approve of Julian Assange? No, quite the opposite. But if there's one thing the Patriot Act should have taught us, it's that our government isn't responsible enough to refrain from extending its tentacles beyond what is initially permitted. So we're better off taking our chances with the laws we have.

If other countries want to regulate the information available on their side of the Internet, fine. But in the United States, we operate differently (at least we're supposed to), and sometimes this is simply the price we pay to live in a free society.

Brandon Loran Maxwell lives in Woodburn.