Germany shuts down Wikileaks
»»»p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:-Recently, The BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst), Germany’s CIA equivalent, warned Wikileaks there’d be an “immediate criminal prosecution” if the site owners didn’t take down all, “files or reports related to the BND”.
And spy boss Ernst Uhrlau (right) claimed to have, “already engaged the BND’s legal machinery,” p2pnet quoted Wikileaks as saying.
Then in March, “Seven police officers in Dresden, Germany, and four in Jena, raided the home of Theodor Reppe, holder of the domain registration for ‘wikileaks.de, the German name for wikileaks.org, said another p2pnet story.
“According to police documentation, the reason for the search was ‘distribution of pornographic material’ and ‘discovery of evidence’,” said Wikileaks.
Hogwash, of course, but it served the purpose and now, “On April 9th 2009, the internet domain registration for the investigative journalism site Wikileaks.de was suspended without notice by Germany’s registration authority DENIC,” says Wikileaks, continuing »»»
The action comes two weeks after the house of the German WikiLeaks domain sponsor, Theodor Reppe, was searched by German authorities. Police documentation shows that the March 24, 2009 raid was triggered by WikiLeaks’ publication of Australia’s proposed secret internet censorship list. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) told Australian journalists that they did not request the intervention of the German government.
The publication of the Australian list exposed the blacklisting of many harmless or political sites and changed the nature of the censorship debate in Australia. The Australian government’s mandatory internet censorship proposal is now not expected to pass the Australian senate.
On March 25 the German cabinet finalized its own proposal to introduce a nation-wide internet censorship system. Australia and Germany are the only Western democracies publicly considering such a mandatory censorship scheme.
While last week German police claimed to the news magazine Der Spiegel that they had been ignorant about WikiLeaks’ role as an international press organization, this “excuse” is surely no longer valid. Despite being questioned by the press, German authorities have still not contacted WikiLeaks or its publishers to resolve the issue, or indeed, at all. The lack of contact is inexcusable.
The situation is similar to the legal dispute between WikiLeaks and the Swiss bank Julius Baer last year. WikiLeaks had published documents exposing hundreds of millions dollars hidden by Baer under Cayman Islands trusts. That case saw the “wikileaks.org” domain temporarily disabled by a California judge following an ex-parte hearing by the bank. Publishing continued on other WikiLeaks domains and following representations by WikiLeaks lawyers and 20 major media and civil liberties organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, the EFF, the Associated Press and Public Citizen, the judge admitted his error and rescinded his orders.
Like the Swiss bank, German authorities have attempted to silence an entire press outlet over their objection to a handful of documents or articles.
WikiLeaks continues publishing on its other (non-German) domains. If the German cabinet’s censorship proposal passes the Bundestag, presumably those WikiLeaks domains would be added to Germany’s secret blacklist.
Germany and China are now the only two countries currently censoring a WikiLeaks domain.
We are investigating the matter and expect to have further updates soon.
Stay tuned.
(Cheers, Marc)
p2pnet - German spy boss threatens Wikileaks, December 22, 2008
p2pnet – German cops raid Wikileaks, March 26, 2009
Wikileaks – Germany muzzles WikiLeaks, April 9, 2009
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April 11th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
We keep hearing about more and more of this kind of thing. More and more governments taking right away from their citizens. Eventually someone will go too far and all hell will break lose. Hopefully not violently, but if things keep going this direction, there is going to be a breaking point eventually.
April 11th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
@Qix,
This is where everything is headed.
The only thing missing is that German guy being thrown in a gulag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag). After ACTA, that will be the next step.
April 11th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Censor much?? LOL
April 12th, 2009 at 8:12 am
oh, have a little faith.
censorship is a hot word these days. while undemocratic, it’s not strange that people in power seek out ways to stop people who oppose or fault them. germany will get its wikileaks back soon enough.
censorship’s not a trend, it’s just the flavor of the month.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
“itâs just the flavor of the month.”
hardly, it’s perpetual
April 12th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
From this joke page:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051124144305/http://www.bugmenot.com/register.php
Have you ever fantasized about killing your boss?
Have you ever sympathized with members of Al Qaeda?
List the names of any of your friends, family or neighbors you suspect may sympathize Al Qaeda:
Have you ever contemplated overthrow of a government?
I consent to having this information sold to the highest bidder on eBay
April 12th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Germans are slaves to authority and law, regardless of whether it is reasonable or ridiculous.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
“Germany and China are now the only two countries currently censoring a WikiLeaks domain.”
But it is still easy to access wikileaks from China in despite of the governement.
Wikileaks is unstopable because it has servers all other the world and proxies are everywhere.
This is a message to all the corrupted and criminal members of governements in the world: Don’t do any crappy stuff because it will be on Wikileaks! The world will know and the world will get you for that sooneer or later.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
“âitâs just the flavor of the month.â
hardly, itâs perpetual”
Until internet.