The Hindu: Op Ed: Digital McCarthyism

[RLENT]

"It has been one long battle for WikiLeaks merely to exist on the Internet since it started publishing the U.S. diplomatic cables. The cat-and-mouse game that it has had to play to retain an accessible address in cyberspace is the result of a virulent attack launched by right-wing lawmakers in America and their supporters, and commercial entities such as Amazon, which caved in to the pressure.

But more fundamentally, the WikiLeaks saga represents the acid test for free speech. With each tranche of documents published online, the world is witnessing the total loss of dominance of secretive governments over information. The backlash has come swiftly, with bellicose American Senators engaging in plain intimidation to get commercial entities to stop offering services to WikiLeaks on the ground that it is distributing material it does not own.

Some politicians have made a jingoistic pitch and called for the execution of the source of the leaks. This is nothing but Digital McCarthyism. Were it not for the threat it poses to the free Internet, it would even appear amusing. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama was ‘troubled' by the cyber attacks on Google, which were said to originate in China, and wanted those responsible to face the consequences. The more freely information flows, the stronger society becomes, he had said during an earlier visit to China. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also strongly critical of Internet restrictions in China. Now the boot is on the other foot. Concern for free speech is nowhere in evidence as extra-legal methods are deployed to deny Americans their First Amendment rights.

The campaign against WikiLeaks is a clear move to censor political material on the Internet and, potentially, on other media. The first moves made by lawmakers such as Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, have no legal foundation and yet have succeeded with Amazon and PayPal. What has followed is shockingly repressive and obscurantist. The Library of Congress blocked access to WikiLeaks across its computer systems, including reading rooms, and Columbia University students aspiring for diplomatic careers have been advised not to comment on, or link to, the whistleblower website's revelations. It is doubly tragic that such concerted attacks are securing support from countries with a progressive legacy such as France.

The intolerant response to WikiLeaks is a potential threat to all media and must be fought. Senator Lieberman and other lawmakers have introduced legislation that proposes to make the publication of an intelligence source a federal crime. Already, U.S. law allows the shutting down of some Internet domains managed in that country on grounds of infringement of copyright. The threat to the publication of inconvenient material, even with responsible redactions, is all too real."

Original article:

Digital McCarthyism

 

[Turtle]

Wow, that "article" is passing off an awfully lot of assumption and unsubstantiated rumor as fact, and then reaching conclusions based on those fabricated facts. And the parts that aren't fabricated are mostly overblown hyperbole. For example, "With each tranche of documents published online, the world is witnessing the total loss of dominance of secretive governments over information." That's actually pretty funny. Total loss of dominance over information, har, har, har. It's hardly a total loss of dominance of secretive governments over information, when this information is nothing more than a relatively small amount of information, that was stolen. Most all of the UN-stolen information remains under heavy domination, I'd say.

Also, this is apparently the first time in Leiberman's lifetime that people believe him without having evidence to do so. But even Lieberman isn't taking credit for forcing Amazon to take down Wikileaks. The folks of the (excuse me, but I hafta) retardosphere have made that claim for him. And Amazon stated flatly that a call from Lieberman's staff did not factor into their decision to cut off Wikileaks. Notice that none of the major news organizations have written that Lieberman forced Amazon to do anything. It's the bloggers who are writing that. You can not believe Amazon, of course, but if you so that then you are left believing at face value someone in the government, but the government and everybody in it always lies. What to do, what to do.... Should be seek out the real truth, or go with the one that fits better for what we want to accomplish? Tough call. I guess we'll go with Lieberman and the evil bully government. Yeah, that's the ticket.

What's driving me nuts is that smart and intelligent people fail to see the in-your-face obvious here, where even if Lieberman and the evil bully government is 100% behind Amazon's kicking Wikileaks off it's servers, so what? Amazon is absolutely not obligated in any way to allow Wikileaks to host files on Amazon's servers, especially if Amazon believes the files that Wikileaks is hosting were obtained illegally or that Wikileaks doesn't own the right to distribute the files.

So let's whine about the hypocrisy of the ends justifying the means when it comes to the government, but we'll ignore the same hypocrisy when it comes to what Wikileaks is doing, since the ends in their case always justify the means.

It's laughable how hypocritical so many people are on this issue. They rail on the government for this or that, but give Assange a pass for doing the same stuff. There's your hoot, right there.