German Police Raid Homes of Wikileaks.de Domain Owner 430
BountyX writes "First and foremost, wikileaks.org is back up after downtime due to server load; however, the German government wants to keep the site down. According to their twitter page, police have raided the home of Wikileaks.de domain owner Theodor Reppe (PDF) over internet censorship lists that were leaked two weeks ago. What the Australian government's secret ACMA internet censorship blacklist has to do with Germany is a mystery. This case is a prime example of multiple governments collaborating in support of censorship." Reader iter8 provides a link to coverage on Wikileaks itself, which says that police searched Reppe's homes in both Dresden and Jena, and adds:
"According to police, the reason for the search was 'distribution of pornographic material' and 'discovery of evidence.' Wikileaks has published censorship lists for Australia, Thailand, Denmark and other countries. Included on the lists are references to sites alleged to contain pornography, including child pornography. Wikileaks has not published any images from the sites."
What do the German's have to hide? Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently the German's have something they want to hide. Power to the people.
Who's going after who? (Score:2, Interesting)
What happened to the whole "Conroy: Go after our source and we'll go for you" thing?
Was their bluff called?
I have to ask (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:lemme get this straight (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes it will. Acquiring the list or being in possession of the list is also illegal. Basically, with the new law, even if you don't look at it, you're storing child pornography (most likely for later use, you filthy bastard).
As i said, it's enough to TRY to acquire the list to get you in jail for as long as the government wants.
Re:German "CIA" are still enraged (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to be under the impression that military intervention in Afghanistan is actually "useful". I agree with some of the aims of the Afghan war -- toppling a theocratic dictatorship, liberating women from oppression, maybe even hunting down those responsible for 9/11 (maybe) -- but the fact is, we're not accomplishing those goals there. The Afghan people have been kicking the ass of world powers for decades now, and if they don't want you there, you can't succeed there. Maybe the Germans recognise this.
Re:lemme get this straight (Score:5, Interesting)
So by downloading Integard you are breaking the law, because it contains 'the list' ?
Re:German "CIA" are still enraged (Score:4, Interesting)
Military intervention absolutely is useful, the issue is that it's not being backed up by the improvements to peoples lives through engineering projects and so forth that must go with it.
Part the issue in Afghanistan, particularly in the South is that as soon troops clear an area and move on to clear the next the Taliban are moving back in and destroying any projects created to help the people or preventing any new projects being started.
More combat troops are required to keep ground held so that the other, longer term changes can be made to improve things like providing reliable road networks, power sources, fresh water and so on.
So we do need more combat troops for sure, it's just that that's not all we need - we need to back it up with real changes to make people's lives better. My comments regarding Germany's politicians using the excuse of the past to avoid combat operations is also not based on speculation but fact, as we have had on the news here in the UK German politicians stating this as the very reason they are not interested in combat so it does seem to be a very real feeling that they don't want to get involved because they're afraid of how people might see them rather than because they don't think it'll help.
If Germany didn't feel troops would help then there's little reason for them to be there at all. But also the idea that the Afghan people don't want us there seems false, documentary after documentary from countless impartial sources shows that most Afghans want peace above anything else, but as a secondary objective would love to have peace without the Taliban being the ones imposing it - they would much rather it comes from us. The people do want us there, they just want us to do the job properly and it's that that we're not doing. A lot of current schemes seem to be focussed on actually using the Afghan people who want us there to fight with us - I remember reading a very recent article on the BBC about Afghan militia that were fighting against the Taliban.
It's not like the soviet occupation or the 19th century British occupation where the majority of the people didn't want what we were imposing, your average Afghan is on our side this time round and that's the fundamental difference and why it's wrong to make a direct comparison to past invasions. In the 19th century the British were there to impose colonial rule, in the 80s, the Russians were there to bolster an unpopular communist government, neither had the support of the general population.
It's also worth pointing out that further evidence as to us being wanted there is the fact that Afghanistan is nowhere as messy as Iraq - the only people attacking us and the civilian population are the Taliban as opposed to the various tribes and religious sects fighting each other which would undoubtedly be the case (as it was in Iraq) if the Afghan people weren't aligned in what they want. A lot of people say we're failing in Afghanistan but really, the quality of life across large parts of the country has increased massively and the kind of death tolls we see in Afghanistan are absolutely minimal compared to Iraq. The real problem is that we're stalled and breaking away from that requires more troops, more investment, and more effort to work with the people (rather than accidently killing them all the damn time). The real danger is if we don't break away from that, because then we certainly will see decline.
A suggested increase of the Afghan army to 200,000 troops, another 17,000 troops from the US are going to be a good help, even if it only means we can stem the flow of Taliban from Pakistan by defending Afghanistans borders better.
Questions for Conroy (Score:3, Interesting)
Steven Conroy will be appearing on a public forum broadcast live on Australian TV on Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 10:30:00 UTC (9:30pm AEST). Questions for this forum can be posted at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/
Wikileaks is the least of your worries, then (Score:2, Interesting)
> but realize secrets are needed because our enemies have no qualms
> about using secrets
I daresay that any information which has hit Wikileaks is 99.9% likely to previously already be known to any intelligence agencies which would be interested in it. All Wikileaks is doing is letting us see it also. Security through obscurity is usually bad security.
> or using our knowledge against us.
So it's good that we remain as uninformed as possible? Yes, I understand that you probably didn't mean it that way. Just couldn't resist.
There is a fine balance which needs to be maintained between secrecy which protects the public interest and secrecy which is against the public interest. It's not clear to me that this raid, or rather, having secret Internet censorship lists, falls in the "protects the public interest" side. Even if I think people producing, selling, or distributing child pornography should have their own special corner in a Hell which I don't even believe in.
Re:Wikileaks treads a fine line (Score:4, Interesting)
However what would happen if something really major got posted on Wikileaks, something that a government would need to go all out to remove. Say someone posted a list identifying all CIA agents. Would the US government make its allies act to take down wiki leaks presence in each of their country?
I am an american and mostly proud to be one.
however, I lost complete faith in our so-called freedom and democracy.
I would believe that the US would have anyone killed that it finds to be a PITA. it will look like an accident or something, but the US has shown, time and time again, it will 'do whatever it wants' in the name of censorship and keeping the status quo of those in power.
we have, in the past, done 'extradition' and we had our own private gulag in cuba. its not at all farfetched to think that, if you piss off the US gov enough, you'll be 'disappeared'.
in the US they also have 'sneek and peeks' where the gov can enter your house, not tell you about it and gag anyone who was helpful in letting them in.
don't fuck with the govs. they LIKE their power and if you threaten them they will fight like rabid dogs. it won't be pretty.
welcome to the new world order ;(
Re:Smart Move (Score:3, Interesting)
I think your example of the 1960's civil rights revolution really never happened. Hear me out:
Slavery took place because wealthy people enslaved blacks, everything was about power. Slavery had come to an end, and by the 60s when so called "civil rights" were won back by the masses, it really amounted to nothing. Those in power did not lose anything by appearing to represent the public. If anything they gained more power and support of the public.
In the big picture of things, everyone not in the ruling class, are treated like slaves. In effect Its no longer about race (which it never really was)... Its about wealth. Slavery was about wealth and power, not race.
Religion is about wealth and power... not god.
If i give you change for a $5 bill, because you need it to make a phone call, in end i still just gave you $5 in change. Nothing really changed except the form or perception.
In the 60's the public may have wanted civil rights, but in the end, they really didnt get it and what they got was slide of hand.
Re:German "CIA" are still enraged (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, my uncle is the head of the union of Afghanis in Germany. And according to him, it went like this:
There was an evil dictator king, that ruled Afghanistan.
Then the Taliban removed him, which brought much joy to most Afghanis.
The Taliban then became just as evil. But mostly only to non-believers. Which is not such a big problem in Afghanistan. They are very religious anyway.
The USA then removed the Taliban, and put the king back in place. People hate him, and this is not going to change.
So now, instead of only punishing you for not being religious enough, now you can be punished for anything again.
The problem is, that Afghanistan, and Iraq, are clan hierarchies. They all belong to a clan. People there have a hierarchy of trust.
You can't create a democracy there. Because they will vote for their clan leaders anyway.
So what you get is a parliament of all the clan leaders and the now hated king, bashing their heads over the same shit, that they fought each other over for the last centuries.
It changes nothing. If it does, then it only makes things worse.
If you want to imagine how Afghanistan works, think of the people and organizational structures of the USA, Russia, France, and some other countries, in one single country. Merged all over the place. They often do not like each other. But you can't separate them by splitting the land. They live right next to each other, and they will not move.
The only thing you can do is give them education and to actually have the free time to learn stuff. Because only this this gives them the ability to resolve their differences, which they do not have now! (After generations of war, they only know hate and war.) And it removes extremist religious movement like the Taliban too.
But with the USA, this will not happen. Because the USA -- please do not take offense here -- can't even resolve the religious and educational problems in their own country.
Oh, and my father was a mujaheddin and son of a city leader btw. If you saw Rambo 3, you saw what his life looked like. Including the bullet-proof Russian helicopters and Stinger rocket launchers.
Re:Why should that be a discouragement? (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, I would probably consider someone going through my trash pretty bloody suspicious. And be sure to call the Terror Hotline every time you happen to look at a CCTV camera and let them know it was a mistake, so they don't waste resources investigating. Tell your friends to do likewise; it's your patriotic duty.
But seriously: what kind of moron came up with these? I can understand trying to build a police state on fear - that's the oldest trick in the book - but how can anyone be so bloody incompetent at it? Or is it an attempt to make everything "suspicious behaviour"?