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Without Registration, Swedish Law Does Not Protect Wikileaks Sources
An anonymous reader writes with word that Wikileaks, which currently stores a lot of their material on servers in Sweden, may not be as safe there as once believed. From the above linked article (from April): "Wikileaks is benefiting form Sweden's basic law 'Grundlag' on the freedom of print information, because it also guarantees the anonymity of sources in digital media, say sources at the European Parliament. In Sweden, if a website registers with the public authorities and can prove it has an editor-in-chief, then it can also be protected under the law, argues the parliamentary source." Says the anonymous submtter, "However, it seems Wikileaks never registered with the public authorities (article in Swedish; here it is auto-translated to English), and thus is not protected by the freedom of print information basic law even if they do have an editor-in-chief."
WL exists because the sources are anonymous, not because the sources are protected by law. Registration is just a way to denote a person who takes the blame instead of the source. It doesn't relieve the publication from blame, it shifts it. That's not the point of WL. The concept behind Wikileaks isn't journalism, it's making raw information available. It's in the name, you know? If Wikileaks were to be taken offline by any country, servers in other countries are ready to replace them. If push comes to shove, there's Freenet.
It literally means Sweden's constitution.
Original source
Fucking rumour starters at it once more.
http://twitter.com/wikileaks/statuses/20558340142
I really know little about the matter, but I thought it was worth pointing out that WikiLeaks is refuting this claim.
CAPTCHA was "spinners".
Another Swedish newspaper (Sydsvenskan) has a well written article in english here
Please let me clarify.
If you become a registered publisher in Sweden all your sources anynomity are protected by the law. Your anynomity is however not.
The interesting part about Swedens laws about protecting sources is that it is illegal for the publisher to tell who his sources is so the source will not need to trust the publisher completely. It is also illegal to ask the publisher about his sources so the police, government or anyone who want to track the source cannot do so through the publisher.
The law is made to protect the sources, not to protect the middlemen. (There are other laws for that.)
Well, it's not really that simple. The editor in chief is directly responsible for what is published. A typical situation would be if a news paper commits copyright infringement, then the editor in chief is directly responsible and may be personally fined for that. Registering does not allow you to break the law.
The legislation does actually give some protection, and that includes things like not having to reveal your sources. Not even the police can force a registered news media to reveal their sources. That's were the protection is targeted, not at the media itself.