Swedish Pirate Party Offers to Host Wikileaks

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PawBear

July 29, 2010 at 4:16pm

Spying, like pirating, tends to cost someone something.  In this case it's going to be Afghan and American lives.

For what it's worth, I prefer captchas to comments that are actually ads.

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sniggler

July 29, 2010 at 7:50am

For ever major 'controversy' site (including torrent sites) that is shutdown, 2 more pop up in its place. GIVE IT UP

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KOMMANDER

July 29, 2010 at 3:36am

I have a son in Afganistan and I certainly don't want any info getting out that might get him hurt or God for bid killed. I hope that who ever got and relased the info is caught and dealt with harshly. As for these sites that will reales sensitive info they should be shut down.

 

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mkzzk

July 28, 2010 at 4:42pm

Perhaps they could offer to host the Journo-List archives also, and maybe the Climategate email cache.

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Mark17

July 28, 2010 at 2:18pm

It will be interesting to see if Wikileaks accepts the offer. It seems that governments and corporations will stop at nothing to restrict the freedom of information. I would love to see the reaction from the US government should Wikileaks take The Pirate Party up on that deal.

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Arrowdodger

July 28, 2010 at 7:08pm

Well, in that case, under "Freedom of Information", I double dog dare you to post your name, address, social security number, and bank account/routing number in /b/. I mean, anyone should have access to any information they want right? So, accept my challenge, or admit you're a hypocrite.

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kiaghi7

July 28, 2010 at 3:38pm

Perhaps you were't informed, there is no "freedom of information"... No constitution anywhere, written by anyone, denotes a freedom to know anything about anything for any reason.

 

Maybe you didn't know, but the documents being hosted were illegally acquired (i.e. stolen) which is in and of itself a crime, obviously, but the redistribution of stolen materials is also a crime. That doesn't even touch on the fact that the documents were top secret...

 

I am all for free access to information, of the variety that isn't stolen, sensitive, top secret, and of course directly associated with the safety and security of the forces in the warzone, both military and civilian, as well as potentially those at home.

There is a cut-off point where there are things that you just don't get to know. You don't get to know the cell phone numbers of whatever famous star you'd like to talk to, and if that number is somehow acquired, they proceed to get another and hide it from you as well. You don't get to know the President's nuclear weapons code(s), not only is it none of your business, but if it were leaked it would of course quickly be remedied and the person who leaked it would not get a pat on the back.

 

Hosting stolen materials, public or private, civilian or military, is not "freedom of information" it's just wholesale theft of information.

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Jelson

July 29, 2010 at 12:35pm

.........."Perhaps you were't informed, there is no "freedom of information"... No constitution anywhere, written by anyone, denotes a freedom to know anything about anything for any reason"........hehe, now that's well said.

I think he might be thinking about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA for sort) of which, documents classified as secret are not subjected to, unless declassified by the government. 

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Mark17

July 28, 2010 at 9:30pm

Ok, well I do agree with you that there should be information that should be top secret. And I mean actually top secret. According to the Washington Post there are approximately 854,000 people with top secret clearance. Quite frankly, I don't think that information that has that many people with access to it should be classified as top secret. The top secret clearance is supposedly the highest level of classification of information (though, maybe there is a higher level that we don't know about because it's actually a secret, hmm).

While the documents were obtained illegally, I still don't think that it was morally wrong. Ok, maybe the documents released could possibly contain some kind of revealing information that could maybe put some citizen or group of people in harm's way, but that's not what I mean when I say I would like more freedom of information. The real problem I have is that there is so much information that was released that is completely irrelevant to anyone's safety. It's the thousands of documents that paint a clear and extremely gruesome picture of what is actually going on over there. To me the problem is that the government tries to hide this information, though I believe that a lot of what is was contained within the released documents is information that people need to know. While going in and taking the information wasn't the best thing to do, I still don't think that it was wrong. The government should not be hiding certain kinds of information from it's citizens.

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kiaghi7

July 29, 2010 at 3:33pm

"Ok, maybe the documents released could possibly contain some kind of revealing information that could maybe put some citizen or group of people in harm's way, but that's not what I mean when I say I would like more freedom of information."

 

You can't have it both ways though... You are all for the release of more information, including this case apparently, but you didn't mean that it is ok for people to be hurt as a result of the information being released?

 

Where is the line drawn? I am all for Freedom of Information Act acquisitions of knowledge that has been declassified, but if it is classified as any level of security that the public is not privy to, then stealing it and illegally redistributing it isn't the solution. It is especially problematic when, as in this case, it can and very potentially will result in endangering those involved in the information as either subject, deliverer, or even messengers merely reviewing that information.

 

Pretending like it's ok to steal any sort of non-public information for the purpose of illegal redistribution simply because a lot of people have some level of clearance is both a straw-man argument and an impotent feint away from the actual problem of the theft. Should the material have been better secured? The situation suggests that it obviously should have, but it's a bit late for that now, however just because someone doesn't lock their car door isn't an excuse for stealing it... It's still theft.

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Mark17

July 29, 2010 at 7:17pm

Ok, I see what you are saying. Of course I wouldn't want information leaked that could potentially harm others. I never said I was for the release of more information, including this case. I am for the release of information that does not have any impact on the safety of others. In this case, and cases in the past, there has been leaked military information that  has had no impact on anyone's safety. For example, a few months ago there was a video released by Wikileaks showing the U.S. military killing two completely innocent Reuters reporters. Or even the recently released reports detailing many different situations in which innocent civilians were needlessly killed by the U.S. military. This I believe is information that people need to know. It is the information that actually shows how terrible this war is and why it needs to come to an end. It seems a lot (not all) of this information was classified not because it could potentially be used to harm others, but because it makes war, and the U.S. military look bad. Just by going through some of the released information, you get the impression that the U.S military thinks they can do whatever the hell they want.

Also, when I mentioned the freedom of information, I was in no way referencing the Freedom of Information Act. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that. I was talking about the freedom of information in general, and how a lot of information is kept classified for no reason, or no good reason. I am for the release of information that could not potentially affect the safety or well being of others. I would bet most of the information released does not. 

And about mentioning the fact that a lot of people have the top secret level of clearance, I was simply trying to make the point that specific types of information should be more secure, that the entire information system is flawed, and needs to be fixed. Sorry, I was trying to make two different points at the same time. I was in no way saying that it's ok just because a lot of people have access, that would just be absurd.

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somethingelse

July 28, 2010 at 4:02pm

Well aren't you just the most moral person.  I agree with Mark, i think it'd be funny to see what happens if wikileaks partners with pirate party.  I have a few servers of my own (for legit reasons, really), i wonder if pirate party can cut me a deal on hosting...if they can beat the price I'm paying for colocation now, it's a done deal! :D

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