Rebecca MacKinnon Quotes

The United States has made it through more than 200 years without ever finding it necessary to prosecute a journalist for soliciting a public employee to disclose confidential national security information.

Discerning the legal difference between what WikiLeaks did and what news organizations do is difficult and would set a terrible precedent.

I think it's wrong for the government to subpoena records from journalists involved in national-security reporting (particularly since I do it myself). I do believe it has a chilling effect on the ability to gather news about potential abuses masked by inappropriate classification.

It is crazy to have Judith Miller in jail.

I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the The New York Times and The Washington Post that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most important case.

It seems like WikiLeaks has better information on Hillary Clinton than she does herself.

Saving Edward Snowden from prison is one of WikiLeaks' achievements of which I am most proud.

Federal prosecutors want to indict Julian Assange for making public a great many classified documents.

Free speech and freedom of the press are under attack in the U.K. I cannot return to England, my country, because of my journalistic work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and at WikiLeaks. There are things I feel I cannot even write.

Wikileaks in its essence is a publisher, pure and simple. They were very much in the same position as 'The New York Times' and 'The Guardian.'

In the Pentagon Papers case, the government asserted in the Supreme Court that the publication of the material was a threat to national security. It turned out it was not a threat to U.S. security. But even if it had been, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be published.

Mr. Luskin also says that Rove did not knowingly disclose classified information and did not tell any reporters that Valerie Plame worked for the C.I.A.

In the United States, whatever you may think of Julian Assange, even people who are not necessarily big fans of his are very concerned about the way in which the United States government and some companies have handled Wikileaks.

We are all Julian Assange. Serious reporters discuss classified information every day - go to any Washington or New York dinner party where real journalists are present, and you will hear discussion of leaked or classified information. That is journalists' job in a free society.

The U. S. press has become a major source of unauthorized intelligence information. Classified information disclosed in the press is the equivalent of information obtained by enemy espionage.

Government has an obligation not to inhibit the collection and dissemination of news…. I’m convinced that if reporters should ever lose the right to protect the confidentiality of their sources then serious investigative reporting will simply dry up.

I do not want to respond to leaks that concern things that have to do with state secrets of the first degree.

I don't see anything that's come out on WikiLeaks that was a legitimate secret.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

Simply stated, sometimes journalists can only get their information from informants who must remain anonymous in order to protect their careers and sometimes even their lives: Watergate: Confidential sources. The Pentagon Papers: Confidential sources. Enron: Confidential sources.

Under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the Justice Department prosecuted more people for having unauthorized discussions with reporters than all prior administrations combined.

RT was one of the first channels to cover the Wikileaks story and to interview Julian Assange a long time ago, way before it made headlines around the globe.

Leaking classified information is a crime. And if we have evidence that somebody in the executive branch is committing a crime, we should prosecute that person.

I’ve been an investigative reporter for a long time, and almost always, the government says that [‘you can’t publish that because of the national security risk’] when you write a story. And then they can never back it up. They say that about everything. And it’s like the boy who cried wolf. It’s getting old.

I wasn't terribly familiar. I had read some of the headlines but didn't quite understand difference between WikiLeaks...[Edward] Snowden. And then watching the documentary, working on the film, you got to see his personal journey through this and sort of understand more about what he went through.