Wikileaks Receiving Gestapo Treatment? 667
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks announced on Mar 21 (via its twitter account) its intentions 'to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am.' It appears that during the last 24 hours someone from the State Department/CIA decided to visit them, by 'following/photographing/filming/detaining' an editor for 22 hours. Apparently, the offending leak is a video footage of a US airstrike."
Re:[citation needed] (Score:3, Informative)
They said "We have something, we're going to show you then and then".
Re:Don't do that (Score:5, Informative)
The summary is not the story. one editor was detained 22 hours and had is laptop "confiscated", another was followed internationally, their editorial meetings were bugged, and recorded.
Re:Don't do that (Score:4, Informative)
Appears there's some interpretation/conflation by the person who submitted the Slashdot summary. What the relevant tweets says is:
"WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation. Following/photographing/filming/detaining. "
Then, later:
"One related person was detained for 22 hours. Computer's seized.That's http://www.skup.no"
and
"We have been shown secret photos of our production meetings and been asked specific questions during detention related to the airstrike."
followed by
"We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don't think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is WikiLeaks."
(see, you could have gotten all this by following the link in the summary). I've got to say, the hubris implied by that last one seriously reduced by sympathy for these guys.
Re:Well, what did they expect? (Score:5, Informative)
2. Wikileaks does not place itself above the law
They do if they are publishing classified information, private information about individuals, etc. I'm not sure any jurisdiction in the world actually has absolute freedom of speech coded in law — even in the US, there have been Supreme Court cases balancing the First Amendment against other concerns with legal weight — and there are explicit exemptions in the basic constitutional or human rights legislation almost everywhere covering things like genuine national security interests.
3. When?
A common example is publishing the membership list of the BNP. It is particularly ironic since by outing those people, Wikileaks actually removed some protection and consequently damaged the freedom of expression of a minority political group that has been subject to dubious restrictions by mainstream politicians.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I don't like the BNP's politics at all. I just don't like censoring them rather than beating them with rational argument any better.)
Re:Doesn't matter what country you are in... (Score:3, Informative)
In a hilarious twist, most of the people who are saying that it's oppression and taking away our rights were also fully supportive of the Patriot Act.
And drug laws.
Re:Well, what did they expect? (Score:3, Informative)
Supporting an organisation that actively tries to place itself above the law is not the solution to those problems. We should fix bad laws for the good of everyone, not merely try to circumvent them.
And how do you do that? The problem isn't that national security laws are bad, it's that those laws are misused and abused.
Re:Doesn't matter what country you are in... (Score:3, Informative)
The government should regulate anything that one person's actions directly affect another person's rights. ie. FDA makes sure some company doesn't sell you shitty drugs. however, health insurance doesn't affect me if you don't have it.
Ever hear of Underwriters Laboratories? You don't need government regulation for product safety.
Re:Doesn't matter what country you are in... (Score:2, Informative)
What's the most ironic about drug laws is that the laws cause the very social problems they purport to solve. Marijuana actually IS a gateway drug; the people who sell pot usually also sell cocaine and other illegal drugs. Back in the seventies (they still may do this), they'd take crap weed and lace it with elephant tranquilizer (PCP, aka "angel dust").
Re:What do they expect? (Score:3, Informative)
I assume you're aware that even the Supreme Court has ruled that there are limits to those freedoms, especially where sensitive information is concerned, yes? If so, please elaborate on your post explaining why they don't apply here, as the original poster was suggesting that they do. If not, please don't post such nonsense until you do understand that there are limits on freedoms.
Re:Gestapo Treatment? (Score:2, Informative)
Ignoring the Godwin in the headline.
What do you think would have happened to someone in 1938ish Germany who had similar film and accusations regarding the Spanish civil war?
Would it have ended with monitoring?
Fuck Wikileaks and their hyperbole.
Would you also get angry if a woman screams to escape a would-be rapist? That unless she is actually raped, she shouldn't be making any noise to cause you discomfort?
Or is that example too intense for you? Is it too "Godwin-esque"?
It's exactly because they're ringing bells in a public forum that they aren't getting strong-armed. There are a LOT of cases where people have been abused by truncheon-wielding state and federal troops, residences raided, computers seized, people imprisoned, (the US has the highest percentage of its population in prison than any other nation on the planet). But those stories don't get a lot of ink, digital or otherwise, so you have to be awake and go looking. You can't just drift along in a dream state and expect to know a damned thing. The government is entirely capable of being draconian and it's getting more so with each passing year, and anybody like Wikileaks, who put themselves in harm's way in an effort to combat corruption would be insane not to take precautions, and they should be forgiven for being a bit jumpy.
Honestly. Some people are too stupid to even realize there's a problem. And that's exactly how the corporate/government likes it. Maybe you just slipped up today. I don't know. But that post was the sort of thing an Orwellian 'model citizen' would write.
-FL
Re:Doesn't matter what country you are in... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well, what did they expect? (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Classified information is still considered classified even if someone without clearance has seen it.
Re:Well, what did they expect? (Score:3, Informative)
In the United States at least, "classified" binds the people responsible for maintaining its secrecy, basically people in the government. But once it's out, Wikileaks is within their legal rights to share that information. Unless of course it's protected by the DCMA.
This whole claim that Wikileaks thinks it's above the law is bunk.
Re:Doesn't matter what country you are in... (Score:3, Informative)
the people who sell pot usually also sell cocaine
Usually? As in half the time or more often? You are grossly misinformed. For states like CA and MA, where most of the pot you can buy is local-ish, you are just dead wrong. The converse statement (cocaine dealers are usually pot dealers) would be a lot more plausible.
What's the most ironic about drug laws is that the laws cause the very social problems they purport to solve.
I agree completely.