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The attacks on us
in the difficult situation we are in, will presumably continue.
The Pentagon made three,
extraordinary public demands
in a press conference, by Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell.
Number one - that we destroy -
"return" was the word that they used - return
the Afghan War Diaries,
and similar material.
Number two - that we return any
material that we had for upcoming publication, and that includes
the Iraq war logs,
and number three - that we not solicit
similar material from
the United States Government in the future.
That phrase,
that unusual - that word, unusual word, "return",
(which seems...
which seems extraordinary to use for any digital content,
because of course you can just make a copy.
We have joked internally about should we just email
four hundred thousand records back
back to the Pentagon and say, "There you're done. There it is, it's done.")
actually mirrors
similar language that is used in the Official Secrets Ac
of the United Kingdom.
So you'll see on the front of UK government documents,
"It is an offense to destroy or retain
this document."
When we have received
UK Official Secrets Act documents,
and seen this on the front of them-
you cannot retain
or destroy this document, that only leaves one option, right?
Which is to publish it.
But the language used in that Pentagon demand
comes out of the U.S. Espionage Act,
and those three statements
the early statements about the content of -
the alleged content - of the material,
it is in fact a trigger
to prosecute us
under the U.S. espionage act.
Just yesterday
the former CIA General Counsel made a public statement,
saying that it was his belief
that such a prosecution would be legal.
James Madison might disagree but,
that was that Counsel's opinion and
we know of many investigative and other
legal review attempts to, in fact, get of that espionage prosecution.
In the publishing of this material we have
said and demonstrated
clearly that we will not
be threatened in that manner,
and we will stick to our promises
to the public and to our sources of publishing
material that is given to us
(of the nature that I described earlier)
in a responsible manner.
But we can expect over the next few months those
difficulties that come out
of those threats by The Pentagon to continue to manifest.
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