German Police Raid Homes of Wikileaks.de Domain Owner

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."

Comments

lemme get this straight

[Swampash]

His house was raided by the cops because he was listed as the registrant for the domain wikileaks.de? Is that what passes for probable cause in the Fatherland?

WTF?

Re:lemme get this straight

[h4rm0ny]

Wow! I think I might actually start making donations to these people - If they're getting this much hassle and attitude of various governments and agencies, they must be doing something right.

Sure, I'll probably go on a government watch list, but the way things are going we either all already are or soon will be, so why should that be a discouragement?

Re:lemme get this straight

[AHuxley]

Ernst Uhrlau, President of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) (German CIA) put out a nice press release that might give a hint
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/German_spy_chief_threatens_Wikileaks
Markus "Mischa" Wolf would be proud ;)

Re:lemme get this straight

[aetherworld]

And his laptop and an external HD were taken. Police in Europe (at least in Germany and here in Austria) are allowed to raid your house when they believe there is imminent danger to the security of the state or other citizens ("Gefahr im Verzug"). They don't need a judge's permission/order for this. If they don't find anything, they can just file a simple 2 page report and be done with it.

This was used in the case of wikileaks.de - the police didn't read his rights to Mr. Reppe and when he insisted the police add a witness name to the report, they didn't do so.

Basically it's just spreading fear among the people. The problem is, since the blacklists contain links to child pornography pages, you're not allowed to publish the list, as you would also make links to child pornography publicly available. Which is the whole point of the black list:

The government could just take down the child porn sites. But instead they create filters and blacklists for those pages as well as other websites that might be against their ideals. You're not allowed to check those lists for any illegitimate censorship because then you would also look at child porn. You're also not allowed to distribute them. Voila! They successfully used peoples hatred agains child pornography to censor anything they want.

Re:lemme get this straight

[knarf]

Ah, but there is a relatively easy solution to that: don't spread the list itself, instead spread a list of secure hashes (sha256 or something similar) of the blocked domains. If you want to check whether your domain is blocked you run it through a similar hashing algorithm. If the hashes match the domain is on the list (assuming that the hash size has been chosen well so that the chance of collisions is negligible). You could run this whole process in a convenient web page. Add several lists of hashes for known blocklists and you've got yourself an online blacklist checker which the authorities can not (legally) touch. Should it ever come to a court case the actual list(s) can be revealed and the hashes recalculated so as to prove that they are correct.

Re:lemme get this straight

[aetherworld]

You don't understand. LOOKING at the list is illegal and punishable by up to 15 years of jailtime. The list is classified.

Worse. Since January 1st, there is a new law which even makes TRYING to acquire the list by ANY means punishable.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Mikkeles]

No, ordinary human rights.

Re:lemme get this straight

[c0p0n]

Police in Europe (at least in Germany and here in Austria) are allowed to raid your house when they believe there is imminent danger to the security of the state or other citizens ("Gefahr im Verzug"). They don't need a judge's permission/order for this.

Can't speak for our other euro colleagues, but certainly not in Spain pal.

Re:lemme get this straight

[aetherworld]

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:lemme get this straight

[asdir]

Police in Europe (at least in Germany and here in Austria) are allowed to raid your house when they believe there is imminent danger to the security of the state or other citizens ("Gefahr im Verzug"). They don't need a judge's permission/order for this. If they don't find anything, they can just file a simple 2 page report and be done with it.

This was used in the case of wikileaks.de - the police didn't read his rights to Mr. Reppe and when he insisted the police add a witness name to the report, they didn't do so.

Actually, they did have the permission of a judge, at least according to this: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Hausdurchsuchung-bei-Inhaber-der-Domain-wikileaks-de-Update--/meldung/135147
Although you are right that police can enter the domain without judges under certain circumstances, evidence might be forfeit if they did it for the wrong reasons. It is not as easy as you depict it, even if it would apply to our case here (which it does not).
I too think that the German police has too much power (especially warrants like these are a bit fishy at times, not to mention copyrights, demonstration rights, etc), but we are still a democratic state with a halfway decent judicial system.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

The raid is politically motivated. Ursula von der Leyen (Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth) is on a crusade against child pornography on the internet. She's fast-tracking all sorts of network blocking efforts, from voluntary agreements and contracts between ISPs and the BKA (Germany's FBI) to law initiatives which force all ISPs to block access to an unpublished list of web sites. She presented child pornography to reporters in an attempt to explain and emphasize the need for these measures. People, companies and organizations who have criticized these efforts have been smeared and had their motivations questioned. The organization of ISPs expects that these filters are only the spear head for more censorship obligations and a way to establish the infrastructure with as little opposition as possible.

It should be noted that German law does not unconditionally forbid use of evidence which has been gathered in an illegal way, e.g. in an illegal raid. The right against unlawful search and seizure is weighed against the seriousness of the crime proven by the evidence.

Re:lemme get this straight

[DiSKiLLeR]

So by downloading Integard you are breaking the law, because it contains 'the list' ?

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a problem with that statement:
There is only one reason why a democracy should _ever_ have anything classified: That is an ongoing investigation which would be in danger if the details about it were public (the criminal would know he is investigated).
And even then _everything_ should be made public after the investigation is over.

Democracy means people can decide stuff. People can only decide if they are informed. Classified (government) documents should be a criminal offense in any democracy.

Re:lemme get this straight

[DrgnDancer]

Well, first this is relevant to Australia and Germany, so I doubt Bush had anything to do with it (You were making a joke, I know, "Whoosh!", etc. but it was pretty poor). Second, I think the objection here is not that publishing classified documents is a crime, most non-libertarian fringe people on the site would probably agree with that, but rather that this document, which has significant potential for quelling free speach and political dissent, is classified. Here we have a list of sites that an entire nation worth of the "Free World" is not allowed to look at. A list which clearly contains sites not relevant to the original purpose of the list (basically to block kiddie porn). A list, in short, which the Government of Australia could conceivably use to block any speech that they see fit, and NO ONE is allowed to know what is actually on the list to protest.

There has been some screwed up crap going on in the US, but I don't think even Bush would have tried something like this.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Nursie]

you are one of those scary people who believe everything the gov't does = evil.

Until such time as the western governments stop being evil all the time, I think that's a perfectly reasonable position to take.

Re:lemme get this straight

[xouumalperxe]

There's a difference between "Hey, look! I got kiddie porn, check it out here", and "Look, these guys are censoring these sites: a, b, c, d. Seems that b is kiddie porn, c is hate speech and terrorist incitement, we're not quite sure a and d are anything except inconvenient".

Re:lemme get this straight

[iknowcss]

Raise your hand if you just had to mouse over that link to see where it pointed ...

Re:lemme get this straight

[furby076]

Yea it was a joke, people blame bush for everything (and i do blame him for a lot) I just figured to carry it to an extreme :)

Anyhow - if the document contains information which should not be classified it is not up to joe schmoe to determine this and release the information. First off joe schmoe may not have all of the facts (and often doesn't) - there may be some legitimate reason why those sites are classified. They could tell you those reasons, but it would release more classified information. Yes some would say "that's shady, etc" but that is life. We, humans, want to know everything. We want to be the ones in on the secrets - so when we aren't we are saying they are doing things to hurt us. Which is a false arugement.

But even if this guy was correct and that all of the information he posted was fine to post - it was still a classified document and there are ways to go about doing things. He should have gone through legal channels, lawyers, court system, etc. But to release the information, while blatently violating the integrety of the classified documents is to break the law. Breaking the law carries penalties.

Re:lemme get this straight

[zsau]

Doesn't slashdot automatically show the domain name of links for you? I thought did that for everyone to help us avoid goatse and similar.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Olotila]

I've never donated to any organisation just because they exist and do what they do. Until now. My 10e might not be much, but it sure felt good giving it to Wikileaks.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Arancaytar]

That is a very good idea - have the government keep the real list under locks and only distribute an officially sanctioned hash-list.

However, you make the assumption that the stated reason the list is classified is the actual reason. The government doesn't want you to vet the list, even for a URL you already know. That's the point of censorship; to make information disappear as thoroughly as if it were never there.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Curunir_wolf]

Until such time as the western governments stop being evil all the time, I think that's a perfectly reasonable position to take.

Yup evil things, like public education (even if it sucks, it's better then nothing), social security to help our elderly, roads so we can drive our cars, the Internet....all evil things.

Yep.

• public education = Indoctrination centers for your children that the government owns. Don't send them to their indoctrination and go to jail.
• social security = ponzi scheme designed to provide the government more money, enslave the population, encourage the beneficiaries to vote for more benefits, and which will inevitably bankrupt the entire system as more people go on the entitlement list and fewer are paying into the ponzi scheme pot. Maybe they'll just send old people those IOUs that the treasury has filled the SS "trust fund" with.
• Roads so we can drive cars, and spend money on gas to get to our isolated homes where no stores or businesses are within walking distance, and enrich the global oil conglomerates and the tyrannical dictators that control the oil supplies.
• The Internet, mostly built with private funds and the vast majority of which is privately owned, but which governments are quickly trying to get under control so they can censor the dissenting voices.

Yep, all those evil things.

Re:lemme get this straight

[HungryHobo]

perhaps the editors of wikileaks weren't too keen on the idea of looking at hundreds of childporn images themselves.

Re:lemme get this straight

[TheGratefulNet]

yes, bush did try this.

it was ashcroft's idea (remember that asshole? too bad his mother didn't have an abortion..)

he wanted to sign up anyone who has the job of entering peoples' homes (pizza delivery guys, phone repair/installers, cable guys, even apartment managers). there was a secret society he was creating of snitches. this has all been leaked and documented and perhaps it shamed the BA into rethinking it. probably they just took it even MORE undercover.

large companies had 'reps' who would meet with other 'reps' and they even had the gov-given 'right' to use force in times of 'emergency'. yes, untrained non-cops using deadly force if the president gave the ok and declared some kind of local emergency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_TIPS

I WISH I was making this up! ;(

it was very real and it was (is?) very scary.

thsi is NOT your father's america. its not, anymore. its been converted into something that we always used to joke about - we have become 'just like' soviet russia.

Re:lemme get this straight

[xouumalperxe]

There is, but responsible media says "look, in addition to child porn, these guys are censoring a, c and d. they said they were only censoring child porn". The child porn links were completely unnecessary.

That's a tempting position to take, and one I seriously pondered before posting what I did. But the thing is, I'm not sure whether it was an accident or on purpose, but the example (c) I listed as hate speech and implicitly stated was OK to censor is something that you seem to have posted as bad censorship. That, in and of itself, is enough reason for Wikileaks to post the complete list, insofar as they can gain access to it: that way you and I judge what's legitimate and what's illegitimate censorship by ourselves, rather than seeing the leaks through already filtered lenses.

Ultimately, I don't think posting those sites on wikileaks meaningfully spreads or promotes child pornography, and the last thing I want from a site that specializes in political leaks is editing (beyond compilation and readability, of course).

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, okay. So I suppose they were expected to through every one of those 2000 URLs, download the contents, examine it and determine for themselves whether or not it was CP, in full violation of the law. That would be beyond idiotic, and posting an edited version of the list would itself serve as a confession to having knowingly possessed CP. The idea of posting a link like this is to let people make their own minds up, which they have every right to do.

As it is, I don't see the problem. They are not hosting images, they are hosting text. And if we're reached the point where posting non-libelous text can be a crime, then the situation in Australia is the least of our worries; it puts this country back on the level of totalitarian regimes which censor and outlaw the possession of certain books (and even those countries generally allow people to access the list of banned books).

Re:lemme get this straight

[russotto]

Wait attempting to acquire/read, let alone posting, of CLASSIFIED documentation is illegal?

This case was in Germany. But since you seem to be in the USA, here's some information on a landmark case about publishing leaked classified information:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB48/

Summary: The New York Times and Washington Post published the so-called "Pentagon Papers", illegally leaked to them by Daniel Ellsberg. The government sought and obtained an injunction against further publication, but the Supreme Court overturned the injunction 6-3.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Nursie]

All the new initiatives, all the rhetoric on security, all the police powers. All evil.

Not only that, but in the UK the education policy has resulted in a decade or more of both grade inflation and falling literacy, the elderly are being given a raw deal on pension rises due to a change in the measurement of inflation and the government are trying to monitor and restrict the internet.

Those are not good examples of areas where the government is being good, pure, honest and beneficial to the people.

Re:lemme get this straight

[mdwh2]

Right, but apart from education, social security, roads and the Internet, what have the Government ever done for us?

Re:lemme get this straight

[TheP4st]

I care about privacy, state control issues and so on, but a lot less than I care about shutting down these monsters.

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

Re:lemme get this straight

[h4rm0ny]

I also despise the creation of child pornography. But I believe that various governments are deliberately mixing the issue up with others so that it can be used to justify totalitarian measures. If we adopt a passive acceptance that whenever "child pornography" is mentioned the government can overpower any law or objection to their behaviour, then we'll be hearing the a Hell of a lot about "child pornography". Which come to think of it, we are.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it isn't. There is an exemption in the german penal code for "lawful public or professional purposes" for posessing child pornography (roughly translated). If you understand german, you can have a look at This page; the "subsection" ("Absatz") i am talking about is (5).

Re:lemme get this straight

[cayenne8]

"Right, but apart from education, social security, roads and the Internet, what have the Government ever done for us?"

The aqueduct?

Re:lemme get this straight

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So by downloading Integard you are breaking the law, because it contains 'the list' ?

Others have said it before - the future is not George Orwell's "1984," it is Kafka's "The Trial."

Re:lemme get this straight

[linhares]

you are one of those scary people who believe everything the gov't does = evil. Until such time as the western governments stop being evil all the time, I think that's a perfectly reasonable position to take.

I have to disagree profoundly. I think the governments are here to help us out.

Respectfully, Dr. Linhares, Senior Vice President, AIG

Re:lemme get this straight

[jambox]

Yeah exactly. They don't care as long as it's on the other side of the border. It could all be shutdown, but it would cost too much money. Hell, they could probably wipe out 90% of malaria and malnutrition for £100bn, and save 5,000 lives per day. But do they?

German "CIA" are still enraged

[AHuxley]

The BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst ~ foreign new service) ie German CIA are still upset over its secret agents getting exposed in a black flag operation in Kosovo.
T-Systems (Deutsche Telekom) was exposed revealing over two dozen secret IP address ranges used by the BND.
The email of a top BND official might have also been listed.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=Bundesnachrichtendienst&fulltext=Search should give slashdot readers some idea as to why Germany is so active around wikileaks.

Re:German "CIA" are still enraged

[jeti]

But none of these issues were mentioned during the search. The search protocol names "distribution of porn" (AFAIK not a crime) as the reason. It's fairly obvious that the reason for the search are the leaked filter lists of various countries. The home of a German blogger linking to the lists on WikiLeaks has already been searched. So has the home of a person maintaining a website linking to the blog post.
Several German ministers are keen on introducing mandatory DNS black lists in Germany. It's currently a hot topic.

Btw, the search was warrantless, citing "Gefahr im Verzug" (an immedeate danger).

Re:German "CIA" are still enraged

[Xest]

I didn't realise German secret services were involved in that sort of thing.

That and this article certainly shines a whole new light on German politics for me. It seems hypocritical that they're not willing to perform combat operations in Afghanistan because of fears this will make people link it to it's Nazi past in being seen as an oppressive force yet meanwhile, back home, their security services are, well, acting as an oppressive force?

It sounds like Germany's political elite are suffering an identity crisis - do they accept they've moved on (which they have) and that they can stop worrying about how people will view them and actually do something useful in Afghanistan or do they keep living under that cloud of fear of what people think of them and their past, in which case, they need to stop doing shit like this because this sort of thing links them to their past much more strongly than actually doing their fair share in Afghanistan would.

They can't have it both ways, either do something useful in Afghanistan and stop caring what others think or stop doing this kind of shit to oppress your citizens back home.

Re:German "CIA" are still enraged

[m.ducharme]

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:German "CIA" are still enraged

[Xest]

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.

Re:German "CIA" are still enraged

[Hurricane78]

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.

Whack-a-mole

[Dracophile]

To us, it looks like a game of whack-a-mole. To the authorities, however, it may look like a hydra, and I worry that they might start acting like it. If they haven't already.

What do the German's have to hide? Hmmm

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Apparently the German's have something they want to hide. Power to the people.

Smart Move

[Jane_Dozey]

Smart move, raiding the home of a person involved in a website devoted to leaking crappy behavior by companies and governments. Even smarter citing wishy-washy reasons for doing so. Real smart.

Re:Smart Move

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

It doesnt matter.

Civilians have no rights anyways. That is the great American lie that has been used by the US government, and now all foreign governments, to trick their citizens into believing as if they matter or have any say in anything. It helps calm the rage of the poor and suffering, and gives them hope that one day it might change.

It never will though.

All that matters is the ruling class and wealth.

Its all VIP, and you're not important.

Re:Smart Move

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart move, raiding the home of a person involved in a website devoted to leaking crappy behavior by companies and governments. Even smarter citing wishy-washy reasons for doing so. Real smart.

Yeah, I can't wait until this explodes on the mainstream news!

Oh, wait. It won't, and most people will never hear about it, or about wikileaks.

Re:Smart Move

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

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.

Who's going after who?

[dohzer]

What happened to the whole "Conroy: Go after our source and we'll go for you" thing?
Was their bluff called?

Re:Unbelievable...

[thhamm]

Many posts so far and still no mention of Nazis

we don't need nazis anymore over here. we can fuck up just by ourselves now.

I have to ask

[aepervius]

I have to ask because i don't know. If some secret document from the CIA was leaked onto wikileaks, how quick and how hard would the CIA ask for a retraction ? Do we know ? Did this happen ?

Re:I have to ask

[digitalchinky]

From a secret 3 letter agency point of view, it's no secret that the US and German governments share a limited amount of intelligence - google abounds with info on it, so you can bet your backside that anything leaked from either of those governments to wikileaks is going to come under scrutiny at some level. Australia is part of the big 5 (UKUSA), so if I were a betting kind of person I would lay good odds that Australia also has one or two agreements in place with Germany as well, thus the raid.

If the CIA finds any of their secret stuff on wikileaks, what they do about it will depend on the classification and severity of damage that would occur if they did nothing. Has it happened before? I have no idea, but not many people will be talking about it if it did.

The problem with leaking this particular Australian blacklist is that it will reveal to a few key people exactly how certain things got on that list in the first place. A pretty big heads up if you're at the centre of one of these child porn rings (or other criminal activities that can be deduced from the list)

Leaking certain types of secret isn't so bad it would seem, but leaking single source secrets, or slipping up with the source or methodology, that might get you a free visit from ASIS and a gun if you live outside the country, or ASIO if you're living locally.

All of that said, it wasn't me!

Re:I have to ask

[Arancaytar]

In Soviet Russia KGB tracks leak back and shoots you.

Oh come on. How can you pass it up?

"In Soviet Russia, KGB makes you leaky."

Eh?

[mokus000]

... however, the German government wants to keep the site down. According to their twitter page, ...

The German government has a twitter page? ;-)

Obligatory Ghandi Quote...

[LaminatorX]

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Keep up the good work, wikileaks. Somebody's got to.

Re:Obligatory Ghandi Quote...

[siri_kan]

I am no grammar Nazi , but please use Gandhi and NOT Ghandi

Re:Unbelievable...

[msuarezalvarez]

No, they were not. The immense majority of currently living Germans were not even planned at the time of the Nazis. Guilt is not inherited, you know...

Why should that be a discouragement?

[denzacar]

Sure, I'll probably go on a government watch list, but the way things are going we either all already are or soon will be, so why should that be a discouragement?

Because the list is probably numbered, graded and color-coded?

Re:Why should that be a discouragement?

[h4rm0ny]

You mean I'll get bumped up to a higher priority? It's possible. But it's like being arrested for something. Before it happens, you're worried about getting caught for any little thing and possibly getting a record. But once that's actually happened to you and you've been through it, you're no longer afraid of being arrested for its own sake, afraid of being judged or labelled, but only because of estimated consequences which you weigh up for yourself. The emotional 'omg - I'll be accused of something' side of things is gone. This is particularly the case if you were hassled falsely or otherwise don't feel what you did was wrong. Going on a government watch list is the same - there might be different degrees of consequence but once the initial "we might add you to the list" threat is gone, it loses a lot of its power over you. I now accept that I'm probably on a list somewhere (not through actions, but through speaking my mind and membership of a few human rights organizations) and my behaviour has gone from a vague unease that something I might do could make me look suspicious to a feeling of what the Hell, they already said they don't trust me.

Have you seen these hysterical new posters for the UK police "anti-terrorism" campaign. It's hard to believe that those producing them think they'll have any actual anti-terrorism effect and that it isn't just a deliberate attempt to promote fear and distrust amongst people. Honestly - telling people to inspect their neighbour's rubbish for bomb-making materials? You could not make it up! When "lists" get too pervasive and warnings get so dumb,the concern about being labelled a suspect loses its power to control you because pretty much everyone you know and associate with is in the same boat. At this rate the only people not on the list will be the police themselves, at which point it becomes society vs. authority again and history takes its usual course.

I'm just waiting for the first "Terrorist Pride" march.

Re:Why should that be a discouragement?

[h4rm0ny]

Bugger! Mistyped a tag. The UK government's parody-defying "anti-terrorism" posters are here.

Honestly - an Anti-Terrorism hotline? Are they so swamped with calls that they need to filter them off from regular police calls?

Re:Why should that be a discouragement?

[ciderVisor]

I'd suggest you watch it on the TV when and if it ever happens.

The revolution will not be televised.

Re:Why should that be a discouragement?

[ultranova]

Bugger! Mistyped a tag. The UK government's parody-defying "anti-terrorism" posters are here.

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"?

Re:Why should that be a discouragement?

[Repton]

Don't forget the American logo: Terrorist Buster!

Re:Dual citizenship sucks

[morgan_greywolf]

More seriously, what the fuck did the police think they're doing? They are persecuting people for exposing censorship.

Well, you're a German citizen, right? Germany has, last I checked, a constitutional federal, parliamentary representational democratic republican form of government, correct? Does the Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland not guarantee your basic rights?

Well, then stand up for them and write your representatives in parliament. Tell them you, as a German citizen, won't stand for the rights of citizens being violated! Tell them that Germany is no longer a gestapo state. The Geheime Staatspolizei is no more! And you won't stand for having it recreated!

Wikileaks treads a fine line

[abigsmurf]

If this looks like the first case of international collaboration over a wikileaks takedown, it could be a sign of things to come.

Wikileaks relies on the fact that, although they piss countries off, they never piss of a lot of countries at once. As such a takedown in one country means little because of its distribution.

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? Would they get ICANN involved and order them to wipe all of its urls off the web? Even block all wikileak IPs at a root server level?

The second a website like Wikileaks which tries to evade potential countermeasures becomes a nuisence to enough people, there'll be plans (if they don't already exist, it's hard to see intelligence agencies not having thought about it) drawn up about how you'd go about wiping a site from the internet. If this does happen, it'll have dire consequences about the future of the net.

Re:Wikileaks treads a fine line

[TheGratefulNet]

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:Wikileaks treads a fine line

[dotancohen]

Say someone posted a list identifying all CIA agents.

Actually, this is the first time I've found myself on the other side of the fence. If a list of _human_beings_ were published on wikileaks, I would be all for taking it down. I don't care what those humans have done, do, or may do. Wikileaks should not endanger real living humans.

Questions for Conroy

[Anonymous Coward]

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/

Information Control!

[cagrin]

There would seem to be a concerted effort across the globe to tighten control of information that gets out to the public. Jay Rockefeller trying to take down the existing(free) version of the internet is another example. One of the many sources of information out there that the "establishment" is concerned about is the Alex Jones Show (or infowars.com) Inform yourself, we are coming to an important time in history where those in power(our so-called leaders) are moving to a global government that has been planned for many years(i am not against global government per-say but i AM against one lead by the current corrupt pricks in power). Also something of interest: The Movie - The Obama Deception One other thing: I Want You to get MAD!!

Re:Nice rosey glasses, there, eh?

[furby076]

Organizations like the CIA tend to do whatever the US government wants them to do

Yes that is a duh statement. They are employees of the US gov't and do what the US gov't wants. Just like the KGB did what the Communist Russian gov't wanted. Just like the Mossad does what the Israeli gov't wants. Makes sense.

This may include trying to save lives (but, most probably that would be in actuality, lives of citizens of the US and, to some extent, its allies), but it most likely also includes things like toppling foreign governments which the US dislikes, irrespective if this would likely make Americans safer.

Yes the CIA tries to topple gov'ts and while there can be abuse your statement of "irrespective" makes it sound like that is their primary goal. I would argue their primary goal is to make the US safer. You would have to prove otherwise.

It is really not clear, and actually rather unlikely, that the CIA is able to accurately predict the consequences of its present-day actions on the future safety of US

Nobody can accurately predict the future - but when you stop a terrorist cell you are pretty sure you did something to help save lives - or do you think terrorist cells are going to support the Infidels?

The reality, if you would take off your glasses, is that as long as everything the CIA really does is kept secret from you, you have no idea whatsoever if what they do is actually what you believe they do. After living for a while in an Internet-enabled world, I, for one, become less and less willing to blindly believe whatever the US government tells me "the CIA is doing for me".

The reality is I do not wear glasses, nor contacts. My vision is 100% fine - so is my perception of reality. While I do not know everything the CIA does I realize I do not need to know everything. If everyone knew every inch of the CIA there is no way they would be effective. It would be in the news "CIA investigates Joe"...well first, Joe may get harassed by people as many may already assume Joe is a criminal (hey if you are being investigated you did something wrong)...second if Joe was a criminal may stop or shift his activities foiling CIA plans to figure this out.

I am not asking you or anyone to blindly believe the US gov't is 100% kosher - make sure you vote and get the right people into office...or better yet, get yourself into office and on the right comittees. Join the CIA/FBI and do the right thing - but realize secrets are needed because our enemies have no qualms about using secrets or using our knowledge against us.

Wikileaks is the least of your worries, then

[Mathinker]

> 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:Unbelievable...

[mcgrew]

Guilt is not inherited, you know...

Tell that to American blacks.