EFF, ACLU Back WikiLeaks

souls writes "Seems like the forces to protect freedom-of-speech in the groundsetting Wikileaks.org case have spoken: Henry Weinstein at LA Times reports that a coalition of media and public interest organizations today urged judge Jeffrey White to rescind the shutdown of Wikileaks.org, which presents 'restraint on free speech that violated the First Amendment,' and is generally considered to become a representative case for free online speech. The dirty dozen organizations fighting for your voice and mine include the EFF, the ACLU, The Times, AP, Gannett, Hearst, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Society of Professional Journalists. Lets hope that is enough muscle to stop a judge running wild in favor of a bunch of offshore bankers! Meanwhile wikileaks is still going strong via all available other domains, and is currently organizing support and donations."

Comments

Let me be one of the first dozen people to say...

[NetDanzr]

UCLA != ACLU

free speech can be overriden

[kevgaxxana]

during times of war or when a threat of national security is imminent. wikileaks poses a threat to national securtiy and should be shut-down

Re:free speech can be overriden

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikileaks IS national security. it secures against the threat of the corrupt and criminal within our own government. They are the anonymous that watch the watchmen.

Re:free speech can be overriden

[Ice Tiger]

Which nation?

Re:free speech can be overriden

[MWoody]

When was the last time the US government wasn't either at war with someone or claiming that a threat to national security was imminent?

Re:free speech can be overriden

[Mister Whirly]

Wikileaks would not post the actual data, it would post a story about how the data had been compromised. They are in the business of reporting whistle-blowing activities - not committing the same crimes they are trying to prevent by making them public.

And if they did post protected medical information, it would be very easy to legally have it removed under the HIPAA laws, and would likely be fined heavily for the violation.


*read-->think-->understand-->post* in that order only

Re:free speech can be overriden

[kelnos]

Actually, if you RTFA (I know, I know...), it references a landmark case during the Nixon administration that ruled that prior restraint cannot be applied in these matters, even in cases where so-called "national security" is at stake.

Re:Let me be one of the first dozen people to say.

[kurt555gs]

Of course UCLA = ACLU.

This message is brought to you by the DNA ( National Dyslexic Association )

Re:Let me be one of the first dozen people to say.

[morgan_greywolf]

UCLA, ACLU, potato, potahto...

Although, I'm not altogether certain what why the United Crazy Lunatics' Association is involved in this case ...

Am I the only one ....

[garett_spencley]

who, upon reading the headline, imagined members of the EFF and UCLA (I'll let others decide if that was a typo) holding hands in a human barricade across a nuclear bunker in an effort to protect it from a physical attack ?

Let's hope not

[Trails]

Lets hope that is enough muscle strength to stop a judge running wild in favor of a bunch of offshore bankers

No, let's hope it isn't. I'm not saying I think wikileaks should be shut down. I'm saying that I loathe the notion that what it takes to get it back up is "muscle". I hope the wikileaks suppression order is rescinded because of sound legal arguments.

Re:Let's hope not

[sm62704]

No, let's hope it isn't. I'm not saying I think wikileaks should be shut down. I'm saying that I loathe the notion that what it takes to get it back up is "muscle". I hope the wikileaks suppression order is rescinded because of sound legal arguments.

You must be new here.

Not to slashdot, but to THIS PLANET. Here, we follow the Golden Rule: he who has the gold, rules. The US Constitution, the Magna Carta, all those other lovely documents all over the world were written with one purpose in mind - to give you the illusion of freedom while your collar remains firmly around your neck and chained to the grindstone so you can generate more wealth for the people that actually matter. The Gatses and Ellisons and Hiltons and Trumps own and rule the world, and if you believe otherwise you've bought into the illusion they want you to keep.

Make no mistake about it, the laws you must abide by can be safely ignored by them. They can change those laws if they want to; you never will. They own the media and the governments and they will convince you that the boot on your head is a good thing and you will clamor for another stomping from them.

Who should you vote for next election? It doesn't matter, all the candidates are owned by the same people. None of "your" representatives actually represent you.

The only thing I can't figure out is why they let the internet happen. Seems like a really bad move on their part; now I have a voice.

Re:Let's hope not

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The only thing I can't figure out is why they let the internet happen. Seems like a really bad move on their part; now I have a voice.

I can think of two possibilities with respect to your worldview. Either they don't have the kind of control you think they do, or it's really a grand distraction to make you think you have a voice when you really don't have one at all.

Re:Let's hope not

[sm62704]

A little googling found this and more reliably this. The last link is from opensecrets.org, which reports that over half of all contributions to him came from businesses. I found this bit of ABC News mudslinging by Clinton to be interesting:

"Sen. Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors Exelon, a big nuclear power company; apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure of the nuclear industry," she said.
<snip>
Obama's spokesperson, Bill Burton, however did return fire.

"Leave it to Senator Clinton to attack Barack Obama for a bill that she actually co-sponsored and supported. Instead of playing the same Washington games that people are sick of, she should prove how fully vetted she is by finally releasing her tax returns so that voters can see where the millions of dollars she's dropped into her campaign are coming from," Burton said.

McCain, the Republican nominee, is a Republican. At least the Republican wing of the Corporate Republicrat Party is honest about who holds their leashes.

Prior Restraint

[esocid]

On a broader level, attorney Thomas Burke and colleagues Handman and Kelli Sager, representing 12 media groups that filed a friend-of-the-court brief, cited the 1971 Supreme Court decision in the Pentagon Papers dispute as authority for their position.

If that is indeed the case, this judge is going to get hammered to such a blatant disregard of the Bill of .... what's that called again? Oh yeah, Bill of Rights. It's been so long. They have quite a substantial backing of groups in that amicus curiae, especially the AP and the EFF, I'm hoping that this friday will turn the tables on censorship issues a-brewing.
What did bother me was how Dynadot just rolled over and took this without batting an eye. They simply complied and let it happen without bother to contest it. Is it possible for wikileaks to get wikileaks.org changed to another domain registrar or should they just jump ship from this spineless drone?

Re:Prior Restraint

[Chrisq]

Is it possible for wikileaks to get wikileaks.org changed to another domain registrar or should they just jump ship from this spineless drone?

1 Dynadot shall immediately lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar,.

Part of the settlement with Dynadot is for them to lock the domain so it cannot be transferred. Of course should the ruling be overturned they can then change ISPs if they want.

It's "Ground-Breaking" or "Trend-Setting"

[R2.0]

WTF is "ground setting? *&$^#% editors...oh, wait, this is /.

Nevermind.

Re:Let me be one of the first dozen people to say.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Q: How do you identify a dyslexic, agnostic insomniac?
A: They lie awake at night, wondering whether there's a dog.

(This joke was brought to you by the Society for the Perpetuation of Misunderstandings of Dyslexia.)

Re:UCLA or ACLU?

[sm62704]

I realize they both have the same letters in them, but this seems pretty careless.

Ewe muss bee knew hear!

Re:UCLA or ACLU?

[Zephyn]

> I realize they both have the same letters in them, but this seems pretty careless. Unless
> the Union for Civil Liberties in America is involved...

"Surely we must be united against the common enemy!"

"The Civil Liberty Union of America?"

"No! The censors!"

Re:Now we know.

[Thanshin]

1)Create an anonymous leak web site. 2) Be jailed for child pornography, drug trafficking and... terrorism!

Next time, the government will react faster.

Wikileaks is not shut down.

[mbone]

Still there at

http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks

Their DNS is, of course, another question.

WikiLeaks is not Accountable

[Martin Spamer]

No doubt I'll get modded down for defying the slashmind groupthink but the problem I have with WikiLeaks is their cavalier disregard of accountability.

They have ignored court orders. They publish whatever they like and people seem to automatically assume that everything they say is the absolute truth, despite they having no credible track record. WikiLeaks is not a wiki in the true sense, there is no collaboration, the only people allowed to post are their little Cabal. Wikipedia, despite it's problems allows people to challenge its decisions in a publicly accountable way.

I think WikiLeaks are manipulative and deliberately courting controversy. Dig beneath the surface and all I see is another self appointed authority with a poor regard for balance.

Re:WikiLeaks is not Accountable

[esocid]

They have ignored court orders.

I don't think that they have ignored, as much as waited for a serious usage of the law. "Their legal demand to Wikileaks, Northern Rock's well-known media lawyers, Schillings, invoke the DMCA & WIPO, claim it'll be 10 years in prison for Wikileaks operators for not following the UK injunction, but then, incredibly, refuse to hand over a copy of the order unless Wikileaks' London lawyers promise not to give it to Wikileaks. Finally they claim copyright and more -- on their demands!"
That seems more like bullying than sound legal requests.

They publish whatever they like and people seem to automatically assume that everything they say is the absolute truth, despite they having no credible track record.

The purpose of their site is not to be an encyclopedia like wikipedia, rather a muckraking site that allows whistleblowers to expose illegal behavior without worrying about exposed. I realize that there are laws, which seem pretty ineffective to me, which protect whistleblowers and that they can go to press personnel but wikileaks has no obligation to owners that may want to prevent some material surfacing.

I think WikiLeaks are manipulative and deliberately courting controversy. Dig beneath the surface and all I see is another self appointed authority with a poor regard for balance.

While that may be true, that's what gives them the notoriety that they have right now. They offer a haven of yellow-journalism that serves to monitor illegal corporate behavior. If there weren't so much going on, wikileaks wouldn't have so much notoriety now would they?

Re:WikiLeaks is not Accountable

[sim60]

They have ignored court orders. They publish whatever they like and people seem to automatically assume that everything they say is the absolute truth, despite they having no credible track record. WikiLeaks is not a wiki in the true sense, there is no collaboration, the only people allowed to post are their little Cabal. Wikipedia, despite it's problems allows people to challenge its decisions in a publicly accountable way.

I think you've missed the whole point of WikiLeaks.

It's designed to be immune to national court orders, because it's meant to report on abuses by governments and their legal processes.

It's also designed to be unaccountable because it's meant to be immune to pressure on individuals by governments and corporations.

The fact that wikileaks has to go to these lengths to ensure that reporting corruption and abuse is possible is a reflection on the societies we live in, not the organisation itself.

Re:WikiLeaks is not Accountable

[immcintosh]

despite they having no credible track record.

I could be wrong, but I believe they have actually broken a number of stories that have subsequently run in credible print news sources.

They have ignored court orders.

Yes. Now your argument as to how this hurts their credibility as an organization that takes as its mission the opposition of governmentally enforced censorship (court orders) among other things? It's called civil disobedience and is often a Very Good Thing. Whether you agree it's a good thing in this case is a valid argument, but just stating "They have ignored court orders," does nothing to convince me of their malice.

They publish whatever they like and people seem to automatically assume that everything they say is the absolute truth

That is no fault of wikileaks. That is the fault of whatever gullible mind is willing to accept as gospel that which they have not independently investigated. If you go to their their site, you'll see they make a point of providing at least some analysis of stories for validity.

I think WikiLeaks are manipulative and deliberately courting controversy.

This is just a link right back to exactly what the article we're posting after is about. It was that bank in the article you link that started the proceedings that got their domain "confiscated," which in turn is now according to this article being fought by the groups mentioned above. In fact, I find it somewhat disingenuous of you to claim what you link here as being "deliberately courting controversy," unless you want to argue that the very act of releasing sensitive information is "manipulative and deliberately courting controversy," in which case I will simply have to disagree strongly with you.

Can't these places take more assertive action?

[Xest]

Why don't universities and so forth point wikileaks.org to a live Wikileaks IP address rather than the one site the judge shut down effectively bypassing the judges wishes?

Whilst many DNS providers may not follow suit, even if some did it would prove a point that a) he shouldn't have the power to shut down a site of international interest because America doesn't own the internet and b) that even if he does it's futile.

Re:Can't these places take more assertive action?

[Arancaytar]

1.) No site was shut down. The IP address that is quoted so often is the same server as the one wikileaks.org pointed to.

2.) If any DNS provider wanted to point wikileaks.org at its actual IP address rather than behaving like a good DNS and pointing it where its registrar says it should point, they could (I'm a bit shaky on the technical aspects, but this is after all how pharming works, so it's possible).

3.) I am principally opposed to hijacking domain names like this, and so should everyone who cares about a reliable internet. If we can't trust DNS servers to return the proper zone records, we are in very deep crap, technologically. This is just short of what Pakistan did with Youtube, and of cutting deep-sea cables - Don't Mess With The Internet. I know the centrally regulated names and numbers thing has its drawbacks at times, but it beats all-out anarchy.

Re:Can't these places take more assertive action?

[Mister Whirly]

"Wikileaks isn't a legitimate source of news, it's a bunch of asshats with an agenda who think that free speech includes libel and slander."

Since when did Wikileaks become talk radio?

Re:Let me be one of the first dozen people to say.

[Arancaytar]

What do Disclosure Non-Agreements have to do with this?