In a stunning and unconscionable blow to the 1st Amendment, a federal court in California has granted an injunction against the website Wikileaks.
The whole purpose of Wikileaks is to expose government and corporate corruption through posting of documents leaked by anonymous contributors around the world. You would think that the United States Government, founded upon the very idea of free speech and freedom of the press, would be 100% behind such a venture.
Well, given recent history, maybe you wouldn’t think that.
Either way, it is an incredibly wrongheaded decision on its face. Not only did the court order the site shut down, but in addition Dynadot, the ISP for Wikileaks, has been ordered to turn over information that could lead to the discovery of the anonymous contributors. How very Orwellian of them.
The good news in all this, of course, is that the very nature of the Internet makes ham-fisted decisions somewhat moot. All one need do is go to one of the Mirror Sites in Belgium or India, and wait for the authorities to do something about it.
As to the fate of the brave contributors to Wikileak who may be ratted out by the stupidity of the American Justice system, one can only hope they will be able to escape the wrath of their governments, where ever they may be.
UPDATE: As I was reading the lawsuit, I saw this section:
. . . [defendants are] ORDERED to immediately give notice of this Order to all of theWikileaks Defendants’ DNS host service providers, ISP’s, domain registrars,website site developers, website operators, website host service providers, andadministrative and technical domain contacts, and anyone else responsible or with access to modify the website, and that they are to cease and desist from any currentand any further use, display, posting, publication, distribution, linking to and/orother dissemination of copies of and/or images of the JB Property . . .
Of course, this being a WIKI, by definition, anyone who goes to the site can modify it. So, if you’re in the mood to defy the feds today, feel free to go to the mirror sites and mess with some of the information at dispute in this case. In the words of Homer Simpson, you can thus “STICK IT TO THE MAN, BOY!”
Very informing post. Just stumbled across an excellent site with UK government documents on it – http://www.officialdocumentwatch.com is a really well made site and them seem to be very up to date – always posting the latest UK government documents released to the public. Worth a look.
Very informing post. Just found an excellent site with UK government documents on it – http://www.officialdocumentwatch.com is a really well made site and them seem to be very up to date – always posting the latest UK government documents released to the public. Worth a look.