4 ms·

What you can do to support Wikileaks

12 points by perone 16y ago

ENOTTY 16y ago
>France and United States, which always criticized China and other regimes due their policies on freedom of expression, are doing the same now This is a terrible comparison. In China, if you publish something like Wikileaks, the government will order your webhost to take it down and then send goons out to take you away. In the US, one senator basically sent letters or publicly asked companies not to cooperate. No evidence of any threat to harm people. Sure it is a curtailing of freedom of speech, much like prohibiting yelling fire in a theater is, but its not on the order of China.
- BigZaphod 16y ago
  Just to play devil's advocate: Isn't the end result basically the same, though? The commercial entities in the US ultimately took the content down. They may or may not have had to, technically/legally, but the fact remains that they did. That companies obeyed this "request" from the government only empowers the government further - and as soon as someone eventually pushes back against this kind of thing, a law or technicality will be found making such push-back illegal because, hey, they used to get away with these requests all the time and it totally must have been making the country safer! We wouldn't want to give that important national security power up! Let's make it official! And then boom - we're just like China.
- OpieCunningham 16y ago
  Sure it is a curtailing of freedom of speech, much like prohibiting yelling fire in a theater is It's nothing like that. Unless you're talking about one person in one theater yelling fire and getting persecuted for it while a dozen+ others in a dozen+ other theaters (NYTimes, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais to name just a handful) sit back and "get away" with the exact same activity. Of course, it's also nothing like yelling fire in a theater because there is no evidence that releasing these documents is a direct threat to the safety of anyone, as yelling fire in a theater is.
DjDarkman 16y ago
The US is by no means less communist than China in this matter. You can tell me that Mr. Lieberman asked everyone politely to stop helping Wikileaks. But hey, go see a movie about mafias and gangsters and you get pretty much the same. The reality is that democracy is just a cover up, the government can always see your personal emails, but you can't see what the government does. Call this freedom. But without transparency there is no freedom.
seanieb 16y ago
You could provide them with a Mirror. http://46.59.1.2/mass-mirror.html http://46.59.1.2/mass-mirror.html
- perone 16y ago
  Thank you, I've added the link into the post.

12 points by perone 16y ago

>France and United States, which always criticized China and other regimes due their policies on freedom of expression, are doing the same now This is a terrible comparison. In China, if you publish something like Wikileaks, the government will order your webhost to take it down and then send goons out to take you away. In the US, one senator basically sent letters or publicly asked companies not to cooperate. No evidence of any threat to harm people. Sure it is a curtailing of freedom of speech, much like prohibiting yelling fire in a theater is, but its not on the order of China.

BigZaphod 16y ago
Just to play devil's advocate: Isn't the end result basically the same, though? The commercial entities in the US ultimately took the content down. They may or may not have had to, technically/legally, but the fact remains that they did. That companies obeyed this "request" from the government only empowers the government further - and as soon as someone eventually pushes back against this kind of thing, a law or technicality will be found making such push-back illegal because, hey, they used to get away with these requests all the time and it totally must have been making the country safer! We wouldn't want to give that important national security power up! Let's make it official! And then boom - we're just like China.
OpieCunningham 16y ago
Sure it is a curtailing of freedom of speech, much like prohibiting yelling fire in a theater is It's nothing like that. Unless you're talking about one person in one theater yelling fire and getting persecuted for it while a dozen+ others in a dozen+ other theaters (NYTimes, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais to name just a handful) sit back and "get away" with the exact same activity. Of course, it's also nothing like yelling fire in a theater because there is no evidence that releasing these documents is a direct threat to the safety of anyone, as yelling fire in a theater is.

DjDarkman 16y ago

The US is by no means less communist than China in this matter. You can tell me that Mr. Lieberman asked everyone politely to stop helping Wikileaks. But hey, go see a movie about mafias and gangsters and you get pretty much the same. The reality is that democracy is just a cover up, the government can always see your personal emails, but you can't see what the government does. Call this freedom. But without transparency there is no freedom.

seanieb 16y ago

You could provide them with a Mirror. http://46.59.1.2/mass-mirror.html http://46.59.1.2/mass-mirror.html

perone 16y ago
Thank you, I've added the link into the post.