Topic: Censorship: No Matter Where You Live, Your World Just Got More Dangerous!

[MG]

Hopefully, you recall that WikiLeaks is the website that revealed the video of the US helicopter crew firing on civilians in Iraq.

  Published on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 by Salon.com
WikiLeaks Founder Has His Passport Confiscated

by Glenn Greenwald

This is a reminder that one can't run around exposing the secrets of the most powerful governments, militaries and corporations in the world without consequences (h/t):

    The Australian founder of the whistleblower website Wikileaks had his passport confiscated by police when he arrived in Melbourne last week.

    Julian Assange, who does not have an official home base and travels every six weeks, told the Australian current affairs program Dateline that immigration officials had said his passport was going to be cancelled because it was looking worn.

    However he then received a letter from the Australian Communication Minister Steven Conroy’s office stating that the recent disclosure on Wikileaks of a blacklist of websites the Australian government is preparing to ban had been referred to the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

    Last year Wikileaks published a confidential list of websites that the Australian government is preparing to ban under a proposed internet filter -- which in turn caused the whistleblower site to be placed on that list.

The Australian document was so damaging because the Australian government claimed that the to-be-banned websites were all associated with child pornography, but the list of the targeted sites including many which had nothing to do with pornography.  That WikiLeaks was then added to the list underscores the intended abuse.

Forcing Assange to remain in Australia would likely be crippling to WikiLeaks.  One of the ways which WikiLeaks protects the confidentiality of its leakers and evades detection is by having Assange constantly move around, managing WikiLeaks from his laptop, backpack, and numerous countries around the world.  Preventing him from leaving Australia would ensure that authorities around the world know where he is and would impede his ability to maintain the secrecy on which WikiLeaks relies.

Secrecy is the crux of institutional power -- the principal weapon for maintaining it -- and there are very few entities left which can truly threaten that secrecy.  As the worldwide controversy over the Iraqi Apache helicopter attack compellingly demonstrated, WikiLeaks is one of the very few entitles capable of doing so and fearlessly devoted to that mission.  It's hardly surprising that those responsible would be harassed and intimidated by governmental agencies -- it'd be far more surprising if they weren't -- but it's a testament to how truly threatening they perceive outlets like WikiLeaks to be.  I hope to speak with Assange later today and will provide more details as I know them.
© 2010 Salon.com

[DeAutogids.nl]

"it was looking worn". If there is a reason to be found, they will do so.

I must say that "child's pornography" is the perfect weapon for governments. "We are closing such and such because it had ..." and nobody can check if it is true, because it is closed or blocked.

We thought that the Stasi was all-controlling. The so-called "free world" seems to know more about it's citizens then the Stasi ever did...

[MG]

We thought that the Stasi was all-controlling. The so-called "free world" seems to know more about it's citizens then the Stasi ever did...

Abso-damn-tutely! 

Over here, we are trying desperately to keep people from coming in. I guess in Australia they are more worried about their people getting OUT!     Hmmmm......didn't the GDR have a similar policy?   

[Allemano]

"it was looking worn". If there is a reason to be found, they will do so.

I must say that "child's pornography" is the perfect weapon for governments . "We are closing such and such because it had ..." and nobody can check if it is true, because it is closed or blocked.

We thought that the Stasi was all-controlling. The so-called "free world" seems to know more about it's citizens then the Stasi ever did...

Excuse that I start bitching again, but It seems you do NOT know what you are talking about.
In the EU the plan is not to ban sites with child-pornographic content, but to delete them which is absolutely OK for me.
What do you want?
Free access??

The government's weapon is not child pornography, but much more the fight against int. terrorism as a welcome chance to control and monitor every innocent citizen whereever he walks and whatever he/she talks.

And by the way: I would be more anxious about Googol's power than government's influence in the coming years, decades.
Unfortunately we help them day by day.

[Ultra]

Until Google can arrest, detain, tax or conscript me I will continue to fear government a hell of a lot more than I do Google. To me the real concern is when Google is co-opted by government. 

[DeAutogids.nl]

Until Google can arrest, detain, tax or conscript me I will continue to fear government a hell of a lot more than I do Google. To me the real concern is when Google is co-opted by government. 

It seems we agree. It scares the shit out of me.

[DeAutogids.nl]

Excuse that I start bitching again, but It seems you do NOT know what you are talking about.
In the EU the plan is not to ban sites with child-pornographic content, but to delete them which is absolutely OK for me.
What do you want?
Free access??

The government's weapon is not child pornography, but much more the fight against int. terrorism as a welcome chance to control and monitor every innocent citizen whereever he walks and whatever he/she talks.

And by the way: I would be more anxious about Googol's power than government's influence in the coming years, decades.
Unfortunately we help them day by day.

I do know what I am on about. In Germany sites are ALREADY being blocked. Today's case against the Piratebay just underlined it. In Holland certain (christian) parties want to do the same thing. But you already made this discussion futile by brining in trrsm. My sentiment with terrorism is the same as children's pornopgraphy. It is a perfect weapon for governments to strip us of our rights. We've seen how easy Guantanamo was, how civil rights have been put aside formore safety, thus creating an unsafer world and a world that has given in into terrorism has become worse for it. I cannot go - as a matter of speech - go in my pyaama to the corner shop in Holland, because a policeman can ask me for ID and arrest me if I do not have it on me. Al for terrorism. Same as with all those security on airports and still they get on board. And they will find other ways and they will other targets. No, I do NOT want to give up privacy to fight terrorism and neither do I  want that for pornography. The right on privacy is not for people who have something to hide. The right on privacy is for people who have nothing to hide.

[MG]

It is a perfect weapon for governments to strip us of our rights.

Hear! Hear!   

Information is power. Those in power always seek to control the flow of information in order to increase and prolong their power. it is only through unrestricted access to information that power can be harnessed and controlled.  This is why the people who wroth the US constitution put "freedom of the press" into the First Amendment. They depended on a vigorous and often antagonistic press to suppress the inexorable accretion of power that all governments encourage.

It now appears that the head of WiklLeaks had his passport returned to him after 15 minutes, but was informed that it was ABOUT to be canceled. But as of this moment, it has not been. Still, the government of Australia is sending him a message:  Don't fuck with us or we will fuck with you. 

[Ray B.]

The fundamental rights are not negotiable, that's for sure. Once we accept an encroachment, you can bet it will larger the next time.
That's why we must be very careful when we discuss them.

For instance, DeAutogids.nl: I think you cannot write what you do (and which I fundamentally approve), and end with "The right on privacy is not for people who have something to hide. The right on privacy is for people who have nothing to hide.".
If you define whom a right can apply to, and who must be deprived of it. You and me, terrorists, pedophiles, all must have exactly the same rights. Deprive some categories of those rights is not fighting them (there are other ways), it's fighting against civil liberties.

[DeAutogids.nl]

The fundamental rights are not negotiable, that's for sure. Once we accept an encroachment, you can bet it will larger the next time.
That's why we must be very careful when we discuss them.

For instance, DeAutogids.nl: I think you cannot write what you do (and which I fundamentally approve), and end with "The right on privacy is not for people who have something to hide. The right on privacy is for people who have nothing to hide.".
If you define whom a right can apply to, and who must be deprived of it. You and me, terrorists, pedophiles, all must have exactly the same rights. Deprive some categories of those rights is not fighting them (there are other ways), it's fighting against civil liberties.

I understand. It's a kind of play on "the right of silence is for the innocent", as discussed by an American teacher talking about justice. I am not saying we should strip it from people who have something to hide, I am trying to say it actually ams at your average Joe. Does that make sense?

[MG]

Yes, it does make sense.  W. Somerset Maugham, an author of the early 20th Century (He wrote Of Human Bondage) once said: "If the world were to know all my innermost thoughts, I would go down in history as one of the greatest monsters who ever lived."  We have our public persona, we have a "self" that we share with business associates and  casual friends, we are more forthcoming with close friends and even more so with spouses, children and such. But we ALL have things that we never, ever share with others.

Privacy means being able to have monstrous thoughts. It does NOT grant license to act upon them, however.