Matt Apuzzo Quotes

In a film muddied by fictional detail, the new Spielberg production 'Fifth Estate''s portrayal of the 'Guardian''s work with Wikileaks is accurate in describing the running dispute between journalists who wanted to redact documents to make them safe and Julian Assange, who wanted no such restraint.

Let's face it: WikiLeaks exists because the mainstream media haven't done their job.

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.

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has on several occasions talked about transparency as an absolute principle. I don't personally believe that.

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

There isn't much question that the person who obtained the WikiLeaks cables from a classified U.S. government network broke U.S. law and should expect to face the consequences. The legal rights of a website that publishes material acquired from that person, however, are much more controversial.

It is beyond dispute that President Obama and his aides have an extreme, even unprecedented obsession with concealing embarrassing information, controlling the flow of information, and punishing anyone who stands in the way. But, at least theoretically speaking, it is the job of journalists to impede that effort, not to serve and enable it.

It is crazy to have Judith Miller in jail.

I thought it was a classic David and Goliath story, and I was fully onboard Team WikiLeaks. I was very pro the leaks, barring the redaction issue. But I see WikiLeaks as a publisher.

In hindsight, Watergate was a curse as well as a blessing for American journalism. The courageous reporting of the 'Post' and the 'New York Times' - coupled with the favourable Supreme Court rulings on publication of the Pentagon Papers - were landmarks for the interpretation of First Amendment rights and the freedom of the press.

The job of a journalist is to find out stuff. The job of the government - sometimes - is to keep stuff secret. There's a natural tension there.

Journalists must not be made accomplices by the secret service to solve its own problems.

The fact is that when it comes to judgment as to what should be secret and what should not be secret, Julian Assange's judgment has been pretty good so far.

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.

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.'

Whistle-blowing and publishing should not be seen as a crime, and certainly not as terrorism.

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.

No less a philosopher than Chief Justice Burger was outraged by Ellsberg's publication of classified documents. They belonged to the Government, Burger reasoned, and Ellsberg had no more right to give them to the people than he would have to filch another man's property off a taxicab seat. The Government, of course, commonly leaks classified documents when it deems publication convenient to manipulate public opinion to its advantage. Only the Government, it seems, has a legal right to manipulate opinion with hot documents.

So far as the Constitution goes .. the press is free to do battle against secrecy and deception in government. But the press cannot expect from the Constitution that they will succeed…. The Constitution itself is neither a Freedom of Information Act or an Official Secrets Act.

The Snowden leaks were important – a legitimate scoop – and we might never have known about the NSA’s law breaking if it had not been for them.

Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech. But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive.

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

The Espionage Act is very broadly written. It doesn't make distinguish - or it doesn't make distinctions between categories of people that can receive and publish information and under what circumstances.

National security is a really big problem for journalists, because no journalist worth his salt wants to endanger the national security, but the law talks about anyone who endangers the security of the United States is going to go to jail. So, here you are, especially in the Pentagon. Some guy tells you something. He says that's a national security matter. Well, you're supposed to tremble and get scared and it never, almost never means the security of the national government. More likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something.

There has been no more significant disclosure in the history of our country. And I’ll include the Pentagon Papers in that.