Wikileaks – Protector Of Civil Liberties, Or Utterly Misguided?
Theodor Reppe, who owns the server owns the German domain name of document-leak site Wikileaks, has had his home raided by German police, days after the site posted a list of websites blacklisted by the Australian authorities; some are suggesting the two things are linked. It’s a case that forms one giant moral grey area, that really needs to get painted in clearer shades.
Wikileaks has been at the centre of a number of high-profile information-sharing cases, the most recent being the publication of the BNP member address list and the leaked memos on Barclays’ tax avoidance. For the latter, applause – these were documents that laid bare the complexity of Barclays efforts to avoid supporting the country. For the former, boos – whatever you think about the BNP, it’s an invasion of privacy to have your political affiliations, which many people regard as deeply personal, pushed out into the open. The BNP’s members aren’t necessarily racist or xenophobic, and to put them on a list encouraged whitewashing of the issue.
Now with this Australian blacklist, there are similar charges of compromised civil liberties, with blocked sites weirdly including innocent destinations like a dentist’s office and a kennels. The idea of blocking access to certain websites is argued by Wikileaks to be undemocratic – they accused Australia of ”acting like a democratic backwater” with the list. The way Theodor Reppe, the owner of the site, had his home raided was personally damaging – the German authorities painted it as a search for child pornography, as Wikileaks publishes lists of blocked sites that include child pornography links.
Wikileaks says: “once a secret censorship system is established for pornographic content the same system can rapidly expand to cover other material, including political material” – they published a Thailand blacklist that featured sites criticising the Thai royal family.
All quite compelling. But it’s interesting when you learn that the dentist’s office website, that allegedly proves Australia’s internet suppression extends beyond child pornography, had its server hacked by a porn website and was redirecting users to their site, hence the ban from the government. If you take a look down the list of sites blocked to Australia’s people, the URLs alone make for uncomfortable reading, and are compelling evidence for a blacklist. If a dentist’s office that couldn’t keep their security in order appears on it, then it’s a small price for protecting users from child pornography.
Even more morally dubious is Wikileaks actually posting clickable links to all blocked child porn sites on its website – “If the customer is presented with a “STOP!” page, the site is still listed in the filter.” This is surely the most wrongheaded reaction imaginable – when you start to argue for free speech by disseminating child pornography, you know your argument has lost legitimacy.
Depressingly, the Australian blacklist that’s caused all this fuss is, according to one internet filterer, hopelessly out of date, with two thirds of the links dormant and the whole list only representing 0.2% of illegal pornographic material. To hamper efforts to combat this problem with accusations over mild limits on freedom is again wrongheaded.
The raid of Reppe may be overkill, and symptomatic of the apparent “hysteria” gripping Germany over paedophilia, but blacklists can surely be managed by an independent body to ensure there isn’t a creeping infringement upon civil liberties. But it’s another example of paranoia and kneejerk distrust, just as there was with Google’s Street View launch last week. Some “infringements” are useful when you’re trying to find your way round some bizarre street system, as in the case of Street View, and important when trying to combat abuse, in the case of blacklists. When it comes to protecting children, the paranoid howlings of Wikileaks should be kept to a low volume.
Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Sci-tech | March 26, 2009 3:20PM |
March 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
“Theodor Reppe, the owner of the site[Wikileaks]”
He is only the sponsor of Wikileaks German fileserver, one of 12 worldwide.
“when you start to argue for free speech by disseminating child p0rnography, you know your argument has lost legitimacy.”
Not so simple.
They were well warned that a blacklist would be a “directory to depravity” and that it would leak. Well, just as predicted, it has, and the ACMA is now living a nightmare entirely of its own making. (Wiki “The Streisand effect” – as of last night there were already over 200 mirrors of the blacklist, not counting filehost URL’s).
The clear problem is that “child p0rn” is being used as a political figleaf to secretly cover a much greater area – anti-abortion, anti-war, and anti-Scientology sites, and at least two blogs I’ve seen whos only offence seems to be attacking ISP filtering – sites that are perfectly legal. If this isn’t “political censorship” then I don’t know what is.
Even the blacklisted p0rn sites I’ve reviewed so far are either of children but “non-nude”, or like our own Abby Winters, of 18+ subjects and claiming to conform with US law. On paper this site would be newsagent-legal here.
Nobody wants to see children abused, but even before the pilot starts we can see how the secret system has *already* been hi-jacked by extremist sectional interests represented by “Mr.2%”, the erratic Family First Sen.Field.
Had the list comprised, say, 90% child p0rn you might have an argument, but it doesn’t even come close. The point here is not the 50% of URL’s that arguably *should* be on a blacklist – it’s the 50% that *shouldn’t* be (ACMA figures).
“If the customer is presented with a “STOP!” page, the site is still listed in the filter.”
This is purely imaginary. A “Stop” page is not part of the system (except where the host itself has removed the site) – you just get a normal “server unavailable” timeout error, no indictation you have been censored. It must work this way if the blacklist is to remain secret. As a site operator there is no notification that you have been blacklisted, nor any means of appeal or review. The innocent dentist and others have been arbitarily denied natural justice and is therefore probably unconstitutional.
“blacklists can surely be managed by an independent body to ensure there isn’t a creeping infringement upon civil liberties.”
Perhaps, but this is also imaginary because that simply isn’t what is proposed or happening.
Material in Australia is (lawfully) classified by the Classification Board, but the ACMA has been (un-lawfully) making up its own rules on the run in secret, rules that are now self-evidently much more conservative than the proper authority. Hence Henson photographs which *have* been (lawfully) classified as acceptable by the Board have still been (un-lawfully) blacklisted by the ACMA. Just another “error” according to Sen.Conroy. It appears that any ratbag wowser can ring up the ACMA and get just about any site they dislike blacklisted under the catchall heading of “objectionable” or by claiming copyright infringement.
A central problem is the very lack of transparency or accountability in the management of the ACMA blacklist. The lawfully authorised Classification Board DOES NOT CONTROL the ACMA! Both the actual leaking and the content have confirmed worst fears about the secret “trust me” process. We now have proof positive that they can’t be trusted with such power – that the ACMA have already seriously abused it.
As a website publisher I am placed in the absurd situation where I can be blacklisted for linking to a site that itself has a link to blacklisted material – like Wikipedia, blogspot and YouTube – but the blacklist itself is *secret* so I have NO WAY OF AVOIDING OR KNOWING if I’m offending. For this *secret* crime I can be fined $A11,000 a day and gaoled for up to 10 years!
It is also not clear if I’m offending by linking to a site two or more links removed from a blacklisted one. Moreover it is now clear that “child p0rn” will also include *copyright* material (such as Scientology tracts) and images of *grafitti*!
“You were speeding”.
“What’s the speed limit officer?”
“That’s a secret”.
To turn your argument on its head – a few disgusting photos are a small price to pay in the defence of a basic Democratic right from secret Government encroachment and arbitary imprisonment.
Senator Conroy has misled from the start and compounded that with false denials. Finially last night on “Q&A” (ABC-TV) he admitted that “it is not illegal to go and look for yourself”. Only illegal for anyone to link to the list that would allow you to do so.
Another can of worms has been opened by somebody posting the blacklist link to a Melbourne neo-con journalists’ blog, thus creating a liability for him.
The base cause of this fiasco isn’t child p0rn but the need for the Federal Government to pander to a fanatical extremist who holds the balance of power in the Senate on a vote of 2% of the population – Senator Field.
Politicians are the last group in Australia to learn about the Internet, and Sen.Field is a particular bonehead. If Web users are really outraged by particular site and images, let them organise a community-wide DoS attack on them – more effective and far more Democratic.
Like me, 90% of Aussie’s don’t want to live in a theocracy.
For more detail see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia