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The US Senate Intelligence Committee published its annual intelligence spending bill this week - and nested in the bill is a provision which would declare WikiLeaks to be a "non-state hostile intelligence service".
In an
interview with the Daily Beast, Mieke Eoyang, a former House intelligence committee staffer, said the move would open WikiLeaks up to more extensive surveillance by the US government, allowing the intelligence community to "collect against [WikiLeaks] in the same way they collect against al-Qaeda".
Lone dissenterThe bill which includes the WikiLeaks provision was voted on last month by the Senate intelligence committee. It passed 14-1, with Oregon senator Ron Wyden being the only dissenter. Wyden, a Democrat,
explained that he voted against the bill due to the "legal, constitutional and policy implications" of the WikiLeaks provision.
In particular, Wyden said, he worried that the phrasing "non-state hostile intelligence service" could be applied to journalists inquiring about government secrets or using information released by WikiLeaks.
But that really is the whole point of the exercise. The Senate is doing its best to discredit WikiLeaks as a transparency organization and credible source of information. Those who associate with WikiLeaks in any way - by publishing information released by WikiLeaks for example - would be tarred with the same brush. Wyden, no fan of WikiLeaks himself, cautioned against the introduction of "vague, undefined new categories of enemies" of the US.
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