Worsening State of Freedom of Speech in the West

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

A lot of people would have you believe that it's Muslim migration into Europe and North America that is the gravest threat to freedom of speech and other liberties because Muslims want to create an absolutist Shariah government wherever they live. You'd be surprised but the biggest assault on freedom of speech comes from the West's own governments, organizations and individuals.

Is it true that freedom of speech begins to be loathed when it's use is to your detriment?


Here are a few people who are in on the act of curtailing of access to information:

- The US Government
- Amazon
- Various European governments
- PayPal
- Independent hacker-groups in the West who are also afraid of freedom of speech
- Many more...

As we speak, these entities and others are desperately trying to find legal loopholes to shut this website down because they do not like freedom, liberty, freedom fries, freedom wine, democracy and all the other good things in life that the terrorists hate us for. If we start hating freedom, the terrorists will stop hating us, if you go by that logic. We can't have that. We must have the terrorists hating us.

BERLIN – WikiLeaks has lost a major source of revenue after the online payment service provider PayPal cut off its account used to collect donations, saying the website is engaged in illegal activity.
The announcement also came as WikiLeaks is struggling to keep its website accessible after service providers such as Amazon dropped contracts, and governments and hackers continued to hound the organization.
The weekend move by PayPal came as WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of United States diplomatic cables brought commercial organizations on the Internet that have business ties with the organization under more scrutiny.
WikiLeaks also is under legal pressure in several countries, including the U.S., and a former colleague of founder Julian Assange has said he will launch of a competing platform.
Donating money to WikiLeaks via PayPal was not possible anymore on Saturday, generating an error message saying: "This recipient is currently unable to receive money."
PayPal said in a blog posting that cutting off WikiLeaks' account was prompted by a violation of the service provider's policy, "which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity."
The short notice was dated Friday, and a spokeswoman for PayPal Germany declined on Saturday to elaborate and referred to the official blog posting.
WikiLeaks confirmed the latest trouble in its Twitter account, saying: "PayPal bans WikiLeaks after U.S. government pressure."
WikiLeaks has embarrassed Washington and foreign leaders by releasing a trove of brutally frank U.S. diplomatic cables.
PayPal, a subsidiary of U.S.-based online marketplace operator EBay Inc., offers online payment services that are one of several ways WikiLeaks collects donations — and until now was probably the most secure and convenient way to support the organization.
The other options listed on WikiLeaks' website are through mail to an Australian post office box, through bank transfers to accounts in Switzerland, Germany or Iceland, as well as through one "credit card processing partner" in Switzerland.
WikiLeaks' PayPal account redirects users to a German foundation which provides the organization with the money. The Wau Holland Foundation, named after a German hacker, confirmed Saturday in a Twitter message that its PayPal account had been taken down because of the "financial support to WikiLeaks."
The foundation's president, Winfried Motzkus, earlier this week was quoted by the local newspaper Neue Westfaelische in his hometown of Bielefeld as saying that Wau Holland has collected euro750,000 ($1 million) for WikiLeaks, covering the organization's expenses.
WikiLeaks' recent releases seem to have been a boon for the foundation, which had previously described itself as the organization's main financial backer.
On its website, the foundation said "the huge and in this form unique amount of donations has caused the delay of issuing contribution receipts" — which allow Germans to deduct donations from their taxes.
Messages left for the foundation and for Motzkus were not immediately answered.
While WikiLeaks vows to make the world a more transparent place, very little is known about its day-to-day functioning. It has no headquarters, few if any paid staff and its finances remain opaque.
Wau Holland's vice president, Hendrik Heye Fulda, last month told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that WikiLeaks operates on a tight annual budget of about $200,000. Fulda could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Meanwhile, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WikiLeaks' spokesman, has announced plans to launch a new and more transparent platform on his own, German news magazine Focus reported.
It will provide the technical infrastructure for anonymous postings and allow informants to choose themselves how and by whom to publish the information, Focus quoted Domscheit-Berg as saying. The 32-year-old Domscheit-Berg, who also has used the name Daniel Schmitt, said he will soon publish a book about his time with Assange at the website.
On Friday, WikiLeaks was forced to move from one website to another as governments and hackers hounded the organization, trying to deprive it of a direct line to the public.
EveryDNS, a company based in Manchester, New Hampshire, stopped directing traffic to the website wikileaks.org late Thursday, saying cyber attacks threatened the rest of its network.
But while wikileaks.org remained unreachable Saturday, it has found new homes. Its German website wikileaks.de was reachable Saturday, and so was its Swiss domain.
The Swiss address directs traffic to servers in France, where political pressure quickly mounted with Industry Minister Eric Besson on Friday, saying it was unacceptable to host a site that "violates the secret of diplomatic relations."
The web hosting company OVH confirmed that it had been hosting WikiLeaks since early Thursday, after a client asked for a "dedicated server with ... protection against attacks," adding it was now up to the courts to decide on the legality of hosting the site on French soil.
French newspaper Le Monde — which was among the publications that were granted full access to the diplomatic cables beforehand — said in one of its online articles Saturday it could not provide links to the relevant cables "as a result of the computer attacks WikiLeaks has suffered and the refusal of some Internet hosts and countries to take in the site."
Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders on Saturday condemned the personal attacks on Assange and "the blocking, cyber-attacks and political pressure" in what it called the first "attempt at the international community level to censor a website dedicated to the principle of transparency."
WikiLeaks has been brought down numerous times this week by what appear to be denial-of-service attacks. In a typical such attack, remote computers commandeered by rogue programs bombard a website with so many data packets that it becomes overwhelmed and unavailable to visitors. Pinpointing the culprits is difficult. The attacks are relatively easy to mount and can be performed by amateurs.
The attacks started Sunday, just before WikiLeaks released the diplomatic cables. To deal with the flood of traffic, WikiLeaks moved to Amazon.com's Web hosting facility.
But Amazon booted WikiLeaks from the site on Wednesday after U.S. congressional staffers started asking the company about its relationship to WikiLeaks.
The U.S. is currently conducting a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks' release of the diplomatic cables.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101205/...i_te/wikileaks

[Armenum]

Even if it's access to top secret information? There are freedom of information acts in many countries that guarantee the access to information for all citizens, but when it comes to governmental secrets why should they also be accessible to the public, these freedom of information laws don't pertain to that level of documents? They are secret for a reason, thus the curtailing of such leaked documents and their information is appropriate and justified.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

"Freedom of information" never really exists de facto. What exists, is the mass spreading of information by means of the media.

The problem is, that any information publicly known in such a manner could be far better defined as "advertising" than relevant and real knowledge. There's just a myriad of problems in how media channels treat things and how they are subject to special interests that really give more than enough reasons against the notion there's really "freedom of speech" understood in its broadest sense. As a matter of fact, when alternative views are presented, they are often relegated to their own silence - the "conspiracy of silence", and not just because all non-mainstream knowledge is made by whackos in mom's basement, though it is useful for someone trying to control you to think so.

Same is true for many other fields, like politics.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Well freedom of information per se can be as dangerous as no freedom at all. So as westerners we live in an ''information limbo'' where most things get their space to express themselves but at the same time the really important thing ends up being how much you can expose it.

The Wikileaks case is a strong demonstration of governments against total freedom of speech, but at the same time the tremendous debate and outrage generated by the dubious basis behind Assange's persecution have also demonstrated how many citizens are not willing to give up their freedoms that easily, the conflict has reached a hot point and sooner or later, in order to maintain some legitimacy' the governments will have to comply on some things and force their coercion on others.

[HissingNewt]

Here are a few people who are in on the act of curtailing of access to information:

- The US Government
- Amazon
- Various European governments
- PayPal
- Independent hacker-groups in the West who are also afraid of freedom of speech
- Many more...

Going by your list we've got maybe to the US government, no to Amazon because they can choose who to host, maybe to the Euro's, no to Paypal and yes to the hackers. But it was a nice attempt to paint everyone who opposes Wikileaks as being an enemy of free speech.

[Phier]

So what you are saying is we get no freedom of speech AND Muslims? Oh great.......

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

So what you are saying is we get no freedom of speech AND Muslims? Oh great.......

In self-proclaimed Islamic Republics such as Pakistan, there is no freedom of speech. That is why we take inspiration from the West so that we may advance in that direction. However, this onslaught on free speech under different contexts is very disappointing to see and if they can justify censorship, the fundamentalists here argue, why can't we?

i think the issue is the defence mechanism ppl get when other ppl criticize their religion/country/family etc etc

those hackers shutting down wikileaks would be motivated not by a sense of vandalism, but a sense of nationalism/patriotism

I believe the people who banned Facebook and Youtube in Pakistan had the same motivation. That is exactly what I was getting at. As an ideological Islamic state, Pakistan's nationalism stems from its religious identity.

When it comes to national pride, these people (mostly conservative Americans but others, too) are no different from the Muslims they love to criticize so much. When information they don't like becomes abundant, they do whatever they can, out of nationalist pride, to curtail it.

It leads to the conclusion that freedom of speech is an idea we should always strive towards, no matter what the obstacles. We are not quite there, globally speaking, but we're well on our way.

[Phier]

In self-proclaimed Islamic Republics such as Pakistan, there is no freedom of speech. That is why we take inspiration from the West so that we may advance in that direction. However, this onslaught on free speech under different contexts is very disappointing to see and if they can justify censorship, the fundamentalists here argue, why can't we?

Only its hardly an onslaught on free speech. I think calling it such is a rather gross exaggeration of the situation.

[Exarch]

i think the issue is the defence mechanism ppl get when other ppl criticize their religion/country/family etc etc

those hackers shutting down wikileaks would be motivated not by a sense of vandalism, but a sense of nationalism/patriotism

[Viking Prince]

There is not a "right to information". You have in many countries a "right to speak publicly your thoughts". You however to not have a right to use somebody else's property to assist you in speaking those thoughts. Your posting rights on the internet are no greater than your right to insert a speech into the local printed paper. If Amazon or any owner of internet servers does not wish to host Wikileaks -- so be it. As they say --- this is a free country.

[antaeus]

i think that in the case of amazon and paypal... if what wikileaks is doing breaches us law, then its within their terms and conditions that they shut down wikileaks. it doesn't matter how honourable wikileaks' stance is. it's not so much a freedom of speech issue with those companies... but an obligation they have to their shareholders to not assist in the law being broken. they didn't really have much choice.

on the other hand, the new york times continues to release material for wikileaks... which is the proper place for media of this type to be released... through media protected by the first amendment.

if and when the new york times is gagged... as newspapers in russia and china have been over this issue... then you americans really have something to worry about.

i'd be more worried about full body pat downs at airports and warrant-less search and seizure than freedom of speech

[Viking Prince]

i think that in the case of amazon and paypal... if what wikileaks is doing breaches us law, then its within their terms and conditions that they shut down wikileaks. it doesn't matter how honourable wikileaks' stance is. it's not so much a freedom of speech issue with those companies... but an obligation they have to their shareholders to not assist in the law being broken. they didn't really have much choice.

on the other hand, the new york times continues to release material for wikileaks... which is the proper place for media of this type to be released... through media protected by the first amendment.

if and when the new york times is gagged... as newspapers in russia and china have been over this issue... then you americans really have something to worry about.

i'd be more worried about full body pat downs at airports and warrant-less search and seizure than freedom of speech

The media has the right to release the wikileaks because you as an individual have the right to do so. The NYT is not special because they are a publisher. This brings to mind a similar controversity involving what is known as the Pentagon Papers. From the New Republic:

There is no "right to know" anything; but there is (or there should be) a right to publish. There is a world of difference between the two concepts. If the Washington Post or the New York Times see fit to publish some stolen documents purveyed to them by Daniel Ellsberg, that is their right. But it has nothing to do with the alleged "right to know." This is one example of the way in which the claim to a false privilege may in the end weaken a legitimate privilege. There is something absurd in the picture we have been given of Kay Graham and her executives waiting breathlessly in the old newsroom of the Post for the decision of the Supreme Court about the Pentagon Papers, and the excited cry of grown men, "We've won. We've won." They had won what? Really little more, and perhaps much less, than the more traditional right to "publish and be damned!"

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/...-without-honor

More of the article is available to subscribers only, so I just included a portion of the public bit.

[antaeus]

The media has the right to release the wikileaks because you as an individual have the right to do so. The NYT is not special because they are a publisher. This brings to mind a similar controversity involving what is known as the Pentagon Papers. From the New Republic:

i didn't suggest the nyt was special because they were a publisher, sorry if it wasn't worded very well. they are special because they are one of the papers chosen by wikileaks for their partnership...

[Tiberios]

A lot of people would have you believe that it's Muslim migration into Europe and North America that is the gravest threat to freedom of speech and other liberties because Muslims want to create an absolutist Shariah government wherever they live. You'd be surprised but the biggest assault on freedom of speech comes from the West's own governments, organizations and individuals.

Is it true that freedom of speech begins to be loathed when it's use is to your detriment?


Here are a few people who are in on the act of curtailing of access to information:

- The US Government
- Amazon
- Various European governments
- PayPal
- Independent hacker-groups in the West who are also afraid of freedom of speech
- Many more...

As we speak, these entities and others are desperately trying to find legal loopholes to shut this website down because they do not like freedom, liberty, freedom fries, freedom wine, democracy and all the other good things in life that the terrorists hate us for. If we start hating freedom, the terrorists will stop hating us, if you go by that logic. We can't have that. We must have the terrorists hating us.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101205/...i_te/wikileaks

Being opposed to Wikileaks =/= being opposed to freedom of speech. As has been said by several here already, PayPal has every right to shut this down if they do not whish to be associated with what Wikileakes are doing. They have a responsibility for their shareholders as well and as a company it would be very bad for them to be involved in breaking the law. It's a free country and they have every right to do this.

[Denny Crane!]

Free country? I wonder if this was a decision made in a vacuum, I doubt it.

[Simon Cashmere]

A lot of people would have you believe that it's Muslim migration into Europe and North America that is the gravest threat to freedom of speech and other liberties because Muslims want to create an absolutist Shariah government wherever they live. You'd be surprised but the biggest assault on freedom of speech comes from the West's own governments, organizations and individuals.

I agree, most fo those who wish to speak the truth about Islam's violent tyrannical hateful philosophy, established empirically by its own writings are prevented from doing so by the do gooder leftist enablers of Islam.

As for 'freedom of speech' for Julian Assange, imagine if he was trying to write something about Islam, say he was making cartoons about Mohammed - then there would be an outcry. But putting a few hundred thousand diplomatic cables on the internet? No big deal. Trading in national secrets has never been about free speech. This is not about comment that Assange is making about the US government, but of information he stole from them which he is doing with as he pleases.

I find it all quite amusing though for the Obama administration, which is entirely clueless. So I dont mind what Assange does, in large part.

[Gromovnik]

The state of freedom of speech in the west is deffinitely worsening. You can't even publish a cartoon without a major .

[General Brittanicus]

The state of freedom of speech in the west is deffinitely worsening. You can't even publish a cartoon without a major .

Well you can publish cartoons and most people will be fine with it in the west, but if some group finds it offensive then other countries it becomes world news and they all start burning flags.

If this is helping to stop wikileaks its fine with me though, it doesnt bother me if they are being stopped from releasing stuff that could damage world relations. I would be more concerned by the EU as a force for cutting freedom of speech than the story posted.

[Seether]

The state of freedom of speech in the west is deffinitely worsening. You can't even publish a cartoon without a major .

Freedom of speech is not worsening in the west. Wikileaks, and the crap they 'leak', is not freedom of speech. The thing is, nobody is entitled to anything not belonging to them. You can have free speech cover your independent speech, thoughts, and writings, but espionage and treason are entirely different matters. People who feel they 'deserve' or are 'entitled' to information (such as diplomatic cables) are just narcissistic crybabies who are more than likely jerk off to The Matrix every night. Just because someone is a US citizen doesn't entitle them to know EVERYTHING or ANYTHING that their government does. Don't like it, too bad, because that's the way it has been and will continue to be until long after your bones turn to dust and you become one with the earth. But if you think freedom of speech in the west is getting worse, then I suppose Muslims killing cartoonists over images of Muhammed isn't anything to worry about.

[Yosemite]

Freedom of speech is not worsening in the west. Wikileaks, and the crap they 'leak', is not freedom of speech. The thing is, nobody is entitled to anything not belonging to them. You can have free speech cover your independent speech, thoughts, and writings, but espionage and treason are entirely different matters. People who feel they 'deserve' or are 'entitled' to information (such as diplomatic cables) are just narcissistic crybabies who are more than likely jerk off to The Matrix every night. Just because someone is a US citizen doesn't entitle them to know EVERYTHING or ANYTHING that their government does. Don't like it, too bad, because that's the way it has been and will continue to be until long after your bones turn to dust and you become one with the earth. But if you think freedom of speech in the west is getting worse, then I suppose Muslims killing cartoonists over images of Muhammed isn't anything to worry about.

why is it not freedome of speehc