WikiLeak legislation

WikiLeaks, online since 2006, has hardly been a household name and, as CNN’s news blog said yesterday morning, "doesn't look like it would stir incredible worldwide controversy. But that's what the whistleblower website has done since this summer, and most recently over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend when it published part of what it says is a cache of more than a quarter-million U.S. diplomatic cables. The leak of this classified material could be embarrassing at best, some say -- At worst, revelations in the cables ‘can damage national security’ and ‘may put lives at risk.'"

Law.com, meanwhile, reported that "following the latest baring of U.S. secrets on the Internet, Congress was now poised to pass legislation giving employees in the most sensitive government jobs a way to report corruption, waste and mismanagement without turning to outside organizations like WikiLeaks.

"Without protections spelled out by law, whistleblowers risk being fired or demoted for informing their chains of command about misconduct, according to Tom Devine, legal director at the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) public interest group founded in 1977. That leaves no alternative to anonymous -- and potentially damaging -- leaks unless whistleblowers are willing to jeopardize their careers."

Senate Bill 372 was introduced by Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka in February 2009 and placed on the Senate's Legislative Calendar under General Orders in December of that same year, according to the Library of Congress' site. The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based public interest group who’s stated mission is "producing original investigative journalism about significant public issues to make institutional power more transparent and accountable," has more.

In the meantime, MSNBC.com this morning's reporting that "leaders of the Senate intelligence committee called on Attorney General Eric Holder Thursday evening to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for espionage."