WikiLeaks In New Legal Battle

geegel writes "The US Justice Department is now fighting in court demands from three WikiLeaks associates to disclose the names of several electronic service platforms that received requests to hand over user information. This comes after Twitter obtained a court order to unseal the demands in order to notify the three persons. The current legal row has seen both the ACLU and the EFF provide legal assistance to the WikiLeaks associates."

Re:Hey Slashdot!

[Soulskill]

We haven't received any such requests since I've been working here, so no, nothing's been turned over to the Feds or anybody else. I'm not aware of any requests happening before that either, but I couldn't say for sure.

The closest we've come, to my knowledge, was a DMCA takedown request [slashdot.org] after copyrighted Scientology material was posted in a comment. The comment ended up being deleted, but I think the post pretty clearly illustrates how we felt about that. There was also a time Microsoft asked us to remove some comments [slashdot.org] back in 2000. Those comments stayed in place [slashdot.org].

I actually have no idea if we have a "policy" for such requests, since it hasn't come up. If it were up to me, I'd tell them to get stuffed. I suspect CmdrTaco would as well. Honestly, I don't know what records we'd have that would be worth requesting.

Re:So many 503s

[Soulskill]

We're working on the 503 problems. Sorry it's been such a pain.

Re:EFF

[artor3]

Even if you accept the US's jurisdiction as world-wide, what Wikileaks did wasn't illegal. It falls squarely under freedom of the press. What Manning did was illegal, and he'll be punished for it, but once the information is out there, the media has no obligation to cover it up.

Re:National Defense is Different

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time [cbsnews.com], Haiti was going to increase their minimum wage from $0.24/hour to $0.61/hour. Levi Strauss and Hanes (among others) didn't like that, so the US State Department pressuredHaiti to create an exemption for textile workers.

The only reason anyone knows that happened is because of wikileaks.

Re:National Defense is Different

[cold fjord]

Once upon a time, ...

"Once upon a time"? What a splendidly evasive way to say, under the Obama Administration.

WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap [businessinsider.com]

A Wikileaks post published on The Nation shows that the Obama Administration fought to keep Haitian wages at 31 cents an hour

Once again we see Wikileaks essentially in the role of, "If you don't know it, it's news to you". Geeks that wouldn't give a damn about anything in Haiti are finally reading about it in Wikileaks, take whatever information is there with no context, and assume the worst.

Haiti minimum wage protests escalate [smh.com.au]

The debate has fuelled unrest across the impoverished Caribbean nation. Some critics argue that an increase would hurt plans to fight widespread unemployment by creating jobs in factories that produce clothing for export to the United States. . . .

Many in the international community who view garment factories as the way to boost Haiti's economic development oppose the wage increase.

With new trade advantages that allow for duty-free exports of clothing to the US, such factories could provide "several hundred thousand jobs to Haitians ... over a period of just a few years," according to a report submitted to the UN in January.

But it said that plan requires that costs be kept down.

The report had been requested by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and prepared by Oxford University professor Paul Collier. It is now being promoted by former US President Bill Clinton, the new UN envoy for Haiti.