Gene Healy: Campaign against WikiLeaks is lawless

What’s surprising about Washington’s ongoing anti-WikiLeaks conniption isn’t what the purloined cables disclose about American foreign policy. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates admits that, despite a few “awkward” exposures, the consequences for U.S. national security will be “fairly modest.” No, what’s really telling is how Washington’s political class has reacted to WikiLeaks. As they see it, anyone who threatens to undermine government secrecy is morally equivalent to Osama bin Laden.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says that if existing laws can’t stop WikiLeaks, “we need to change the law,” dammit, because the organization’s founder, international man of mystery Julian Assange, is a “high-tech terrorist.”