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French homeland intelligence threatens a sysop into deleting a Wikipedia Article
- AndrewDucker 14y agoI suspect we're about to see the Streisand effect in action.
- monsterix 14y agoAbsolutely. However, a public office bullying a neutral agency in to deleting 'information with notability' i.e. public information is certainly suspicious.
- ernesth 14y agoNothing proves that DCRI wanted to delete public or notable information. There were speculations over the current use of this station on the wikipedia page. Obviously, they were not sourced, and probably, this is classified information.
- monsterix 14y ago> Nothing proves that DCRI wanted to delete public or notable information. Why the hoopla then?
- hmottestad 14y agoNothing proves, but everything points to the DCRI. They are like the big child standing with a lollipop in their hand next to the screaming baby.
- stfu 14y agoApparently the original article is quite of international significance. Can we get an English version thereof?
- nsns 14y agoIn fact, that's perhaps the best mode of action now: to propagate the article in all other languages.
- tlrobinson 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_radio_station_of_Pierre-sur-Haute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_radio_station_of_Pierr...
- davidgerard 14y agoIt is turning into a Major Press Shitstorm, yes.
- sold 14y agoIt became the second-most read French Wikipedia article, according to English Wikipedia.
- jontro 14y agoThe french intelligence agency has done many mistakes in the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior is seen as one of the most counter productive operations done my military agencies to date
- duncan_bayne 14y agoMistake? Are you saying they meant to give the boat a new coat of paint, and accidentally blew it up instead, killing a bystander in the process?
- jontro 14y agoMistake as in stupid decision.
- duncan_bayne 14y agoIt wasn't merely stupid, it was evil. They blew up a civilian vessel and killed a man.
- omonra 14y agoI wouldn't go so far as to call it evil - death happened due a miscalculation, it was not intentional. I think intent matters if we call something evil.
- vickytnz 14y agoYep, the death was unfortunate (photographer goes back for his gear and doesn't come back). Still, a lot of us Kiwis are still angry at what happened afterwards (France plays hard ball and gets the agents on a French Atoll and then back to France, where they wrote books and moved up the ranks).
- omonra 14y ago
- johnchristopher 14y agoEDIT: If, like it randomly happens to me, the link takes you in the middle of a french discussion, you just need to scroll all the way down to get a much more explicative message from the WMF about the chain of events. I always have a hard time navigating wp discussion pages. Here is what looks like a more informative post that the one linked in the title of this HN post. EDIT: disregard that comment about the title as it might be a navigation problem on my side. > First, my apologies for speaking in English in response to this thread, but I fear my French would not be adequate to convey what I would like to. If someone who is fluent in English and French would be so kind as to translate my message so that everyone on this thread can understand it, I would very much appreciate that. The Wikimedia Foundation's legal team was contacted by Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur in early March regarding the French language Wikipedia article entitled "La station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute". The Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur requested that we delete the article in its entirety under the claim that it contained classified military information. I responded to Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, requesting more detailed information because it was not apparent what classified information the article could possibly contain from a plain reading of the article. The Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur repeatedly failed to provide any further information and simply continued to make a general takedown demand, despite my explanation that we could not remove the information without more information from them. Eventually, I had no choice but to refuse their request until they are willing to provide me with more information so that I can properly evaluate their claim under legal standards. The community remains free, of course, to retain or remove the article as it sees fit. But at this point, we do not see a demonstrated reason to remove it on legal grounds. --Michelle Paulson, Legal Counsel (WMF) And this is "Remi"'s first post about the whole thing (rough translation and report): > Bonjour, > je vous informe que l'article Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute vient d'être supprimé par mes soins. Cet article contrevenait à l'article 413-11 du code pénal français (compromission du secret de la Défense nationale). La police française m'a convoqué en tant qu'administrateur, suite au refus de la Wikimedia Foundation de supprimer cet article en l'état des éléments fournis. > La remise en ligne engagera la responsabilité pénale de l'administrateur qui aura effectué cette action. Remi M. (d · c). À Paris, ce 4 avril 2013 à 11:11 (CEST) In a nutshell: - He deleted an article about a military radio station (Pierre sur Haute) ; - he states that that article violates article 413-411 of the french penal code (violation of state defense secret) ; - french police asks him to come to their office for a little chat (can't recall the english legalese for this) following wikimedia foundation refusal to delete the article. Him=a wikipedia administrator. - he finally states that any admin who restores the article would face legal and penal consequences. I understand from this first post that it is implied he deleted the article after the whole wikimedia refusal to delete the article but don't quote me on that and check for the exact chronology of events yourself when it surfaces. There is also now a debate about the role of wikipedia admin on articles and their rights to delete or endorse responsabilities (I haven't read everything yet, take my rough report and translation with a grain of salt).
- stefantalpalaru 14y agoI find the fact that an intelligence agency does not understand Wikipedia scarier than the actual bullying. These are people allowed to circumvent the law in order to protect the country. People who do counter-espionage and counter-terrorism it what amounts to a police state. If they can't figure out this, how are they dealing with the serious stuff?
- ptaipale 14y agoMy thoughts exactly. Intelligence agencies ought to be, well, intelligent.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoThis is not about intelligence - its about Point of View. We the French government have said that 100ft tower over there is a secret - so don't look at it. We the people of a democracy like to look around and ask questions like "what is that 100ft tower over there?"
- MacsHeadroom 14y ago"We the people of a democracy?" Democracy has nothing to do with censorship. Italy, for example, is both far more democratic and employs more censorship than the US does. The US is one of the least democratic democracies in the world. An abismal percentage of the population votes on anything. The president is chosen by about 9% of the people. 9% of the population chosing a corporate puppet to write executive orders is a democracy? Okay, sure...
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoDemocracy is a choice - 9% or 99% it is a free choice of those people. No one is preventing them exercising their votes except themselves. Don't like the corporate puppet bit? The sunlight foundation amongst others is a good place to start. Oh and don't knock the USA too quickly - Italy only makes "flawed" democracy in the Economist global rankings. Edit: the 9% did strike me as low. Turnout in 2012 was 58% and Obama won on 51:49 - making him elected with ~30% not 9%. Are you somehow counting minors (ie whole population) to drag that down to 9%? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec...
- thotpoizn 14y agoSuddenly I cannot think of a single thing QUITE so intoxicatingly interesting as what the French might be up to with this radio station on Pierre sur Haute! Surely it must be just sinfully rich with secret sauce, mystery, and espionage! If only there were thousands of like-minded, curious individuals with the wherewithal to investigate and help bring these wonderful mysteries to light...
- praptak 14y agoObviously all this might be staged to divert our attention from the real shady stuff happening somewhere totally different :-)
- vidarh 14y agoIf only... The article states it's one of four military radio relays along the North-South axis in France, and that launch orders for nuclear weapons could pass through it if used. As such it'd probably be one of the primary targets for anyone who'd like to attack France. That kind of position probably makes some intelligence officials feel incredibly important if they can find an excuse to demand even relatively trivial information about it deleted.
- varjag 14y agoIt's pointless either way. If the intention was to keep the relay station secret, there's no use trying to put worms in back in the can once the information is public. They should relocate it and try better at not spilling the beans next time.
- jarek 14y agoBit hard to hide a 30 m heavy concrete tower in a country as densely populated as mainland France, especially from people actively looking for it.
- avar 14y agoFor some reason the submitted story links to the original insertion of that notice, but it's been updated a lot since then (including a translation into French and an ensuing discussion): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Bulletin_des_administrateurs/2013/Semaine_14#Wikimedia_Foundation_elaborates_on_recent_demand_by_French_governmental_agency_to_remove_Wikipedia_content%2E https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Bulletin_des_ad...
- thomasjoulin 14y agoSeems the article is still here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_hertzienne_militaire_de_Pierre_sur_Haute http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_hertzienne_militaire_de... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_radio_station_of_Pierre-sur-Haute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_radio_station_of_Pierr...
- kahirsch 14y agoIt was restored 22 hours after deletion. 5 avril 2013 à 09:16 Inisheer (discuter | contributions) a restauré la page Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute (30 versions restaurées : suppression précipitée) 4 avril 2013 à 11:02 Remi Mathis (discuter | contributions) a supprimé la page Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute (Article qui contient des informations classifiées, qui contrevient à l'article 413-11 du code pénal)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- thatthatis 14y agoThe absolute most interesting thing about this station, from the article, is that the government wanted an article about it to be deleted. Which means there's probably more there that is interesting. So, they've now broadcast to the world "hey, scrutinize this otherwise innocuous-looking radio site to find what we wanted to hide." Someone didn't think this thing through. They should have just edited it to make it sound more boring or to contain red herring information like "This site is notable for its former use as communications center and currently for the largest pygmy marmoset population in Europe." Anyone reading that would click the pygmy marmoset link and the base would have been hidden in plain sight.
- benmmurphy 14y ago"If French nuclear weapons (Force de Frappe) were used, the fire order may pass through this relay." and the bit about it being protected against electromagnetic pulses, having independent power, water, etc is probably what the wanted to suppress.
- wolf550e 14y agoWikipedia is full classified information, the same way as Jane's and Aviation Week is full of classified information. Intelligence agencies read this stuff and try to sift disinformation from genuine leaks. Counter-intelligence agencies try to act cool and make the enemy suspect the information is inaccurate.
- sp4ke 14y agoFellow living in France here. For those who want to learn more, the radio station built at this site is part of a Tropospheric Scatter Communication Network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter) named Ace High and which is used by NATO for military and civilian communications. You can see it here on a map with other TSCN networks http://rammstein.dfmk.hu/~s200/tropo.html#ace http://rammstein.dfmk.hu/~s200/tropo.html#ace
- raonyguimaraes 14y agoHere is the cached version of the article http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hnvaMcjr4nEJ:fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_hertzienne_militaire_de_Pierre_sur_Haute+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=br http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hnvaMcj...
- _quasimodo 14y agoAnd here is a link to the automatic translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3AhnvaMcjr4nEJ%3Afr.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FStation_hertzienne_militaire_de_Pierre_sur_Haute%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dbr http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js...
- walshemj 14y agoSeems rather anodyne and doesn't seem to have much (or anything) that could be considered sensitive the fact that a state has installations like say RAF chicksands or the Lincolnshire poacher numbers station - both of which have Wikipedia articles. Sounds like some french civil servant overracted - though unfortunately the French do have a nasty poujadist anti American strain that can come out at times.
- camus 14y agoI'm french i read the article , i dont see the big deal ? there is nothing special in that article. It's a stupid move from the french "secret" services as it will draw attention on something nobody cared about.
- onemorepassword 14y agoNot defending the idiotic actions of the DCRI here, but try looking at it from a non-American perspective. American organizations appear to bend over backward to be of service to American intelligence interests around the world, but tend to act arrogantly if approached by local authorities over local matters, to the extend of openly violating the law of the country they're operating in. For all we know (I'm neither a lawyer nor French), French law requires the whole publication to be taken down immediately pending further procedure. In that case it's not surprise that something designated a matter of national security gets escalated fast. Wikipedia's blunt refusal has probably pissed the French of more than the actual content of the article.
- elpachuco 14y ago>>American organizations appear to bend over backward to be of service to American intelligence interests around the world, but tend to act arrogantly if approached by local authorities over local matters, to the extend of openly violating the law of the country they're operating in. Why is it that this makes what the French authorities did OK? Your argument boils down to "He did it so I should be able to do it too?" What kind of screw up logic is that. Seriously, W.T.F. We are not talking about kids here.
- vidarh 14y agoWhere does he say this makes it ok? It makes it easier to understand why they picked this approach. It is possible to try to understand someones motivations without supporting them.
- smokeyj 14y ago> but try looking at it from a non-American perspective. I think you mean the pro-censorship perspective..
- sergiotapia 14y agogroan Puh-lease. Not every country has the same 'golden' standard North America has. (Notice my heavy quotes around golden)
- mzr 14y agoLiberté, égalité, farterai....ahh nevermind
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoI can best translate that as waxing? Could you explain - I must have missed the presumably French idiom
- alxndr 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A9,_%C3%A9galit%C3%A9,_fraternit%C3%A9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A9,_%C3%A9galit%C3%A9...
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoYeah I know that, obviously. But why Liberty, Equality, Waxing?
- GuiA 14y agoI think OP was trying to write "fraternité", and the fact that his misspelling became an actual word is a mere coincidence.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoYeah, I was just hoping there was some trend in French schools to mess with the sacred cows and I had not heard of it :-)
- ErrantX 14y agoWikimedia France just published an article (in English) with more details: http://blog.wikimedia.fr/dcri-threat-a-sysop-to-delete-a-wikipedia-article-5493 http://blog.wikimedia.fr/dcri-threat-a-sysop-to-delete-a-wik... What's distressing about this is that they found a French Wikipedia sysop who they could identify in real life and "summoned" him to their offices (I presume from the language it was a summons he couldn't refuse). Then forced him to delete it there and then, despite no prior connection to the article, or else be detained. Whatever the rights and wrongs of them wanting to delete the article, or whether it had super-secret information, there is only really one response to what they did; What. The. Fuck. The precedent they are setting is something like "if you are involved in a website where someone else does something we consider problematic, you could be in trouble. If we feel like it".
- gsnedders 14y agoThe precedent seems to be more along the lines of, "If you are an administrator of a website hosting (what we claim to be) illegal content, you are obliged to delete it upon being informed".
- misiti3780 14y ago" It receives hundreds of requests for deletions of articles every year, and cooperates with requests when those are clearly motivated." It only receives hundreds? Something is wrong with sentence.
- 14y ago
- kefeizhou 14y agoSimply deleting the article doesn't erase it from the internet. If the content is really that important people who want it badly enough can still find it in archives and old database dumps.
- justincormack 14y agoWikipedia deletes only hide the article from non-admins (well there is a real delete too but the agency did not appear to know that). There is one click restore if you are an admin.
- sold 14y agoThey do have "oversight", which deletes from administrator view too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight
- brianstorms 14y agoHere's an article about the site with interesting photos... it's in French but use Google Translate to get the gist. http://j28ro.blogspot.com/2012/09/la-station-hertzienne-militaire-de.html#more http://j28ro.blogspot.com/2012/09/la-station-hertzienne-mili...
- mseebach 14y agoA couple of points: - The laws on official secrets typically (and uncontroversially IMO) forbid any unauthorized handling or distribution of classified material. This is not a US-pandering post-9-11 knee-jerk thing, it goes back at least to WWII, and probably much longer. - Many facts are classified, even though they don't appear significant. Sometimes they indeed aren't, sometimes the motivation is that a multitude of such facts collectively suggest something which is significant. - Telling an uncleared person what is classified amounts to giving that person even more classified material that they're not allowed to have. Obviously, so is saying that there's classified material on the page at all, but arguably less so. - There are some items on the Wikipedia page in question that have "citation needed", ie. they are not immediately obviously sourced from publicly accessible material. Chances are that the problematic material is among those facts.
- cloverich 14y ago> - Telling an uncleared person what is classified amounts to giving that person even more classified material that they're not allowed to have. Obviously, so is saying that there's classified material on the page at all, but arguably less so. What recourse does a person have then? If the information is publicly posted, it hardly seems more of a security risk to tell one person what to remove than have the 'secrets' published for the entire world to see. Additionally, how can a company such as Wikipedia possibly comply without any specific information? I.e. - how can they prevent the re-posting of said information if they have no idea what that information is?
- mseebach 14y agoYes, there is a certain catch-22. I'm guessing that there is precedence in how intelligence services interact with the press. Surely, similar issues come up from time to time there.
- sampo 14y ago> if they have no idea what that information is? Reminds me of this case in 2007 in China. A newspaper ad "Paying tribute to the strong(-willed) mothers of June 4 victims" slipped through the censorship, because the young clerk had no idea that June 4 is a reference to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the talking of which is not allowed. Because she had never heard of the Tiananmen Square protests, because censorship had been so effective. http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/06/us-china-tiananmen-advertisement-idUSHKG14616220070606 http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/06/us-china-tiananmen...
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoI think this is a really revealing story. Not revealing as in what the French Government were worried about specifically but as in the changing of the world. Firstly the grey world of interesting classified information - it has long been the domain of Janes' Ships and similar publications - who themselves had been "trusted" not to go too far, and only occassionally (as in the reveal of the Stealth bomber as an airfix kit in the late '80s) does it come to mass public attention. This resulted in a grey world where secrets were not actually secret - just private. Secondly - the loss of privacy. We worry about it for individuals - but it is happening to governments too, and faster. And they, like us, have not accpeted the new reality - there is no privacy. Facebook can determine if you are having an affair, are gay or ill. Combined tracking of sites and queries can reveal almost anything about ourselves and our medical conditions. Concerned your employer might know you are rethinking your sexuality? Don't Google "gay bars". Don't friend anyone. Remove the battery from the iPhone before going out for the night. The same goes for governments - if it is not a secret, it is open. And it is not a secret because you say so - its a secret because no-one knows. Thirdly this leads to a simple choice - decide on the things you are going to keep secret. And keep them secret with all the resources of the State. This clearly does not work in the "I say that is secret and you will now forget it" approach taken here. It works in the not F$%king telling anyone sense. Fourthly - Most things will be open - its not feasible to hide a 100ft tower in the middle of the French countryside. You cannot keep a plane secret. You cannot keep a prison secret. In fact there is not much in an open andinquisitive society you can keep secret. What does this leave? I am not too sure. Secret rendition flights are monitored by plane-spotting enthusiasts and soon will just be a google-satellite search away. I think it will be a better world - less secrecy usually means better function, but there is a really big threat - the tempting way to keep things secret is to keep everything secret. Shut down the open, democratic society. Shut down inquisitiveness. Piece by piece. And we do need to fight that at each and every turn because until governments get it - this is their default, tempting solution. Fighting terrorists? Lets torture some. Nuclear strike warning network under threat? Put wikipedia under French control. My only suggestion is as follows: define National Security. Something like a reasonable belief that this things will threaten to destroy 2% of GDP or 1000+ deaths of citizens. Embarrassment to Politicans? Loss of a couple of agents? Not likely. So when someone quotes National Security, people listen. And if you quote it for a wikipedia article - woe betide you. If we do it right we shall slowly find that like online security, you get it right by actually being secure. Lesson here - security by secrecy, is no security at all.
- kghose 14y agoWhat I would do as a real intelligence agency is start inserting fake information into the article.
- unimpressive 14y agoAnd then relocate the tower, then have the article deleted on the basis that the tower doesn't exist.
- jarek 14y agoWhy? Keep it, all the better to confuse competing intelligence agencies.
- unimpressive 14y agoTheres a lot of ways you could do it. Keeping it is one option, removing it is another, without knowing more about the function of the tower it's hard to make a determination either way. (That is, it could be more advantageous to make it seem like a hoax, or it could be better to leave the "hoax" up with faulty information.)
- aaroncray 14y agothe French have intelligence? I thought they lost that with bravery?
- anonbit 14y agofrench fry boycott
- HunterV 14y agoI grew up in France, this isn't unexpected or unusual for the government to do. But it is a perfect example of why administrative rights (the ability to delete/censor an article) should reside in a country that has complete freedom of the press, America.
- mitchi 14y agohahaha :)
- bmmayer1 14y agoWhat's next? How easy would it be for French officials to decide that something that's critical of the president or the ruling party may be a threat to state security and censor the internet accordingly?
- froggyDoggy 14y agoSo why not put the article back up? if its already public knowledge? and Just lock it to teach them a lesson?
- benbataille 14y agoWhile I agree the situation underlines a real problem, I don't think it lies where people think. If you read the text, you will realise that, even if they are really clumsy, the issue here is not so much the DCRI than French law itself. Let's look closely at what is happening : 1 - The DCRI aks the Wikimedia Fundation to delete an article from Wikipedia because it's infringing article 413-11 of the French penal code. 2 - The Wikimedia Fundation refuses arguing the order should state which piece of information in the article is classified. 3 - As the Wikimedia Fundation is an american organisation, the DCRI turns itself towards its French arm, the French Wikimedia and its representative. 4 - Under pressure, the president complies and removes the article pointing that people putting it back will be breaking the law. Well, actually, he is probably right. While I understand why the Wikimedia Fundation took a stand and refused to remove the article, as silly as it seems, the fact remains : In France, putting classified information online is illegal even you don't know they are classified. Let's look at the article 413-11 : http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessionid=FB03D025759E0DF0811DDCFEC51257B5.tpdjo17v_1?idArticle=LEGIARTI000020933031&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070719&dateTexte=20130406&categorieLien=id http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessioni... First, this article is aimed at everyone not mentioned in article 413-10. Article 413-10 lists the sanction for people which are legitimately depositary of a state secret. Thus, article 413-11 concerned anyone knowing a state secret without being mandated. Now, there is three points in the article. The first one says that the mere fact of knowing classified information without being mandated is illegal (yes, even by accident). The second one that destroying, stealing or copying such information is illegal (yes, it's unnecessary considering that to do that you have already committed 1). The third (unnecessary too) states that sharing this information with the public is illegal too. So yes, if the Wikipedia article contains classified information, Wikimedia France already broke the law and its legal representative is liable and yes it's laughable. But now, the best part. Do you know why there is so unnecessary part in this law ? Because it was changed in 2009 ! Previously, article 1 only criminalised illegally acquiring classified information, not knowledge of it. But, you nailed it, transforming unknowing citizen into criminals was obviously a necessity to protect us against terrorists and the amendment was passed in a state of general indifference despite some warning from the press (for once). So, if you want to blame someone, blame the French parliament and the French people. It's entirely our own fault (you can also do some lobbying if you happen to be French, the new government might hear you but I doubt it).
- dreamdu5t 14y agoIdeas are not property. Government secrets == thoughtcrime. The "intelligence" agency doesn't even understand how Wikipedia works! Scary.
- D9u 14y agoThe article has been updated to reflect the current controversy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_radio_station_of_Pierre-sur-Haute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_radio_station_of_Pier... Perhaps this is the sensitive portion? The most important part of the site is the underground part, used for transmissions dispatch: at a speed of 2 Mb/s, communications from the towers are analysed, then redirected to be transmitted as appropriate.
- Vlaix 14y agoFunny how the overreaction mostly comes from foreigners or people involved with Wikimedia activities. It may have been handled abruptly (if it were properly handled, there wouldn't be any significant article about the event anywhere), but the DCRI is perfectly within its rights and was right to have the info taken down. No, information isn't free or benign. The right info in the right hands can be destructive, and I'm glad there are people watching out so that our national soil remains more or less safe. Knowing about very sensitive compounds _isn't_ a right nor a liberty. Furthermore, it's not for the Wikimedia Fondation to assess the sensitivity of information, they merely provide efficient ways of spreading it and should stick to that.
- wilfra 14y agoSomebody, somewhere in France should go on strike.
- slacka 14y agoHere's a link to a pastebin of the original article dated July 20, 2012 before it was deleted. Also includes a link to the video that started the controversy: http://pastebin.com/vYGkSzyA http://pastebin.com/vYGkSzyA
- PaulHoule 14y agoI dunno, you've gotta watch out for Wikipedia. I know a guy who had a rare car, of which there were twelve in the world. One day some people came and tried to steal his car and the cops told him to get the photo taken down because this would encourage future attempts.
- polynomial 14y agoWas the article later restored by Wikipedia? It doesn't make any sense that it would have been permanently deleted.
- edouard1234567 14y agoOne simple suggestion to prevent this from happening in the future : require each deletion to be approved by another Wikipedia representative in a DIFFERENT COUNTRY.
- rdl 14y agoI see Ms. Streisand works for French Intelligence now. I hope this gets a South Park episode, too.
- ballard 14y agoNot to reach for the big "let's invent a new policy" stick, however does wikia have guidelines for those contributing articles where there is obvious life-and-limb danger to subjects, and by-proxy contributors? Also, don't contributors have some basic moral duty to not reveal things (0days, troop movements, etc.) that puts others in immanent danger?
- ancarda 14y agoAnd initiate the Streisand effect; I'm now digging around to find the article to read what sensitive information is hidden from me.
- epo 14y agoWhat is it with this moronic word "homeland"? This was the DCRI, an internal security organization. "Homeland" is a fascist-style euphemism which the Americans have become conditioned into using.