[THS] Am Library Assn. Resolutions in Support of WikiLeaks, Manning

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/report-american-library-assn-takes-resol

Report: American Library Assn. Takes Up Resolutions in Support of WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning 
Friday, June 24, 2011 
By Susan Jones 

(CNSNews.com) - At its annual convention in New Orleans, the American Library Association is expected to vote on a resolution calling on the U.S. military to release Bradley Manning, the American soldier accused of leaking more than 250,000 classified diplomatic memos to Wikileaks, Fox News reported.

The ALA resolution reportedly compares Manning's leak to the "courageous action" of Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1971 released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret study of U.S. government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers. Ellsberg himself is scheduled to give a presentation at the ALA conference on Sunday afternoon.

Fox News reported that resolution is based on the American Library Association's strong support for "the principle of government accountability and the protection of whistleblowers."

Another resolution expected to come up for a vote supports WikiLeaks' "rights" to publish leaked government documents and urges libraries to "link their websites to the WikiLeaks website."

At a meeting in January, ALA executives discussed the decision by the Library of Congress and other government agencies to block online access to the WikiLeaks website.

An ALA blog quotes Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels as saying that "WikiLeaks raises many policy issues including, but not limited to, access to government information, censorship and the blocking of websites, government secrecy and the over-classification of government information, treatment of whistleblowers, government transparency, and the legalities surrounding classified information."

Author Dan Savage, who launched the anti-gay-bullying campaign called "It Gets Better,” will address the ALA's opening general session on Friday afternoon. Savage co-authored a book with his same-sex partner called "It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living."

The ALA conference runs through Monday.