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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."
Have you turned over any records to the Feds concerning Wikileaks members (or any records, period)? If you can't comment on that, then perhaps you could outline what Slashdot's policy is for turning over records to law enforcement when not accompanied by a Federal warrant or National Security letter.
And regular newspapers absolutely never do that...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I'll bite.
What about the new york times and bazillions of other news organizations? How does the type of organization you are determine the legality of ones actions?
Years ago someone posted the "top secret" scientology documents into the comments and they were deleted. I can't recall if it was court ordered or merely a scare letter from an attorney.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
And people who aren't Freemasons can't wear the Freemason ring. However, since I'm not a Freemason, their prohibition doesn't affect me; therefore, I can wear their ring if I want to. The US's jurisdiction isn't supposed to reach outside its borders (even if it does in fact).
What they did was illegal. You can't post classified and / or stolen information.
Tell it to the New York Times, asshole posting as AC.
Or listen to the laughter if you tell it to any reputable news publication.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
We're working on the 503 problems. Sorry it's been such a pain.
I believe in the EFF. I wish they never defended wikileaks. What they did was illegal. You can't post classified and / or stolen information. Pretty simple.
As your privacy is gradually stripped away, how many times have you heard the words "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear."
Why would the justice dept want to hide who it is asking records from.
If they are in the right.. well.. why hide it.
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.
Once upon a time, 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.
because you can't.
there is no law banning the 'leaking' of classified information.
there are several different laws that ban specific types of information, some of it classified, in certain situations, by certain people.
the truth is that the vast majority of the documents that Manning released do not fall under any law simply becasue they are classified.
read his charge sheet, then look up the actual laws and read them. the civilian laws that he broke do not use the word 'classified'. at all. the Espionage Act (he has about 5 or so charges on this) is regarding 'national defense information'.
please tell me how information about Gadhafi's "hot nurses" are information vital to the national defense.
congress has been unwilling or unable to pass any law making a blanket ban on passing classified information.
or the Collateral Murder video. how does that rise to the level of the Espionage Act?
why is there no blanket anti-classified leaking law? because congress itself leaks classified information all the time, in order to fight political battles in the media. thats where all the 'senior officials who did not wish to be named' comments come from in news stories.
you can read about Ollie North's experience in the 80s, the whitehouse leaked, congress leaked, everyone leaked. it was part of their media strategy.
There is a great paper from the 1973 Columbia Law Journal by Schmidt and Edgar about this, you can read it online at
http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/index.html
Essentially, the American nation has put more faith in open debate and discussion than in government secrecy and its associated blatant lying and corruption (see Reynolds v. United States for a classic example).
this principle is slowly being chipped away by various underhanded tactics over the years, but the spirit of openness is like an unquenchable flame or some kind of endemic weed... the human condition is to ask questions and demand accounability from authority.
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
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
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
What Manning did was illegal, ...
What happened to innocent until proven guilty? He is still only a suspect ...
Not all those who wander are lost.