I've changed by profile picture to support EFF's anti-censorship campaign, and I have donated $100 to their cause. This is a protest and I urge you to participate. We are protesting the use of political pressure by American politicians to shut down a website.

If you believe in due process of law and the right to freedom of expression you should join us in taking a stand. It is important that we take a stand right now.

It doesn't matter whether or not you support what Wikileaks is doing. If I were handed such a rich trove of private information I might have moral qualms about dumping the whole thing on the Internet. That is totally irrelevant.

In the United States of America we are a country of laws. If Wikileaks has violated a law than the appropriate way to respond to that is through the use of the legal system. In fact, like it or not, it is most likely the case that Wikileaks has not violated the law. Therefore, senior politicians in this country have taken it upon themselves to use their personal influence to shut the website down, and a number of corporations, large and small, have obliged them.

In a free country with a strong legal system and a tradition of upholding the right to freedom of speech, this sort of thing is not acceptable. Life, liberty, and property should only be taken away through due process of law and not simply because some powerful people desire it and present thin arguments in favor of it.

As The Internet Society recently stated in their newsletter:

[Wikileaks] must be subject to the same laws and policies of availability as all Internet sites. Free expression should not be restricted by governmental or private controls over computer hardware or software, telecommunications infrastructure, or other essential components of the Internet.

Unless and until appropriate laws are brought to bear to take the wikileaks.org domain down legally, technical solutions should be sought to reestablish its proper presence...

Anger about these events runs deep. Right now, many of the companies who assisted in cutting off Wikileaks have been subjected to distributed denial of service attacks. While I share the anger of those who are launching these attacks, I cannot condon... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

"This was gonna happen sooner or later," Barlow says.  "I actually thought it might happen before now, but this seems to be the opening salvo in what is going to be a protracted struggle."

"EFF takes the position that Wikileaks, having acquired the information, has the right to disseminate it, and nobody has the right to shut them or anyone else down online."

It's a fairly robust position of support that few other organizations have taken publicly...in part, Barlow admits, due to the complicated nature of the issues, the Wikileaks organization, and co-founder Assange.  However, keeping with the battlefield metaphor, he says sometimes you choose the fight, and sometimes it chooses you.

"I can't say that Mr. Assange makes the absolutely perfect poster child, especially given these allegations in Sweden, and I also think that some of the things that were released are troublesome," admits Barlow.  "But you take the battle that you've got."

I think maybe riot is a better description than war for what is going on right now.

WAR

Oh wow, its so nice to read someone who gets it!

Many advocates of reform don't seem to realize that restrictions on corporate political expenditures have applied, and, pursuant to the proposed constitutional amendment would apply to their favorite not for profit advocacy groups, as well as "big bad" business corporations...

The insistence that "corporations aren't people" is employed selectively: The 4th and 5th amendments explicitly apply to "people" and "persons," but I have yet to hear any liberal advocate of campaign finance reform argue that the government may subject corporations to unreasonable searches and seizures or prosecutions devoid of due process...

The Foolishness of Campaign Finance Reformers - Wendy Kaminer - National - The Atlantic

Days after an announcement that a strain of bacteria can apparently use arsenic in place of phosphorous to build its DNA and other biomolecules — an ability unknown in any other organism — some scientists are questioning the finding and taking issue with how it was communicated to non-specialists.

NASA's Microbe announcement gets toxic response : Nature News

"Apple doesn't understand that talking to businesses about IT-related things is not the same as doing it with consumers," said John Welch, IT director at the Zimmerman Agency, a digital marketing and PR firm. "With consumers, when they don't hear anything and all the sudden -- ta da! -- they get a new iPhone, that's great. For us IT guys, that's a nightmare. We hate that."

Steve Jobs said as much in response to an irate Xserve customer: "Hardly anyone was buying them."

People aren't buying them because you don't know how to serve business customers, and in pulling the plug this way you just sent a clear message that enterprises should avoid trying to go down this road with you in the future.

In killing Xserve, Apple spooks enterprise customers - Dec. 7, 2010

Recently, we have witnessed the effective disappearance from the Internet of a website made infamous through international press coverage and political intrigue.

The Internet Society is founded upon key principles of free expression and non discrimination that are essential to preserve the openness and utility of the Internet. We believe that this incident dramatically illustrates that those principles are currently at risk...

Unless and until appropriate laws are brought to bear to take the wikileaks.org domain down legally, technical solutions should be sought to reestablish its proper presence, and appropriate actions taken to pursue and prosecute entities (if any) that acted maliciously to take it off the air.

Emphasis mine.

ISOC Monthly Newsletter - The Internet Society on the Wikileaks issue

In other words, this is very sensitive stuff because it gets into the America's first amendment.

But if you go from the initial crime, Private Manning charged with the crime of stealing these classified documents, he gives them to WIKILEAKS, I certainly believe that that's a -- WIKILEAKS has violated the Espionage Act. But then what about the news organizations including The Times that accepted it and distributed it? I know they say they deleted some of it, but I'm not here to make a final judgment on that. But to me New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship. And whether they've committed a crime, I think that bears very intensive inquiry by the justice department. And, again, why do you prosecute crimes? Because if you don't, well, first you do because that's what our system of justice requires. Second, if you don't prosecute people who commit crimes, others are going to do it soon and again. And I'm afraid that's what's going to happen here.

Leiberman: DOJ should investigate NYT for Espionage

There does not seem to be a convincing reason in principle not to prosecute the Times for espionage and treason.

This reductio ad absurdum is worth exploring to illustrate the absurdity of the situation we are now in. The United States government for all intents and purposes is legally unable to protect classified information, safeguard national security, and prosecute leaks. The one tool it has -- the Espionage Act -- is a nearly century-old statute that is so draconian, politically radioactive, and difficult to implement that it is essentially defunct.

As I said before: The primary consequence of Wikileaks will be the tools, process, and laws that will be used in the future to suppress other leaks.

Replace the Espionage Act - By Paul Miller | Shadow Government

A day after a number of national and international businesses including Mastercard and Visa, acting under pressure from the U.S. Senate, refused to do business with Wikileaks on the grounds that they are violating the law - someone in the Senate has finally offered which law, specifically, Wikileaks is alleged to have broken:

The law Mr. Assange continues to violate is the Espionage Act of 1917. That law makes it a felony for an unauthorized person to possess or transmit "information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation."

Is this correct? How is Wikileaks differentiated from the NYT? If this is correct, why hasn't the Obama admin charged Julian Assange under this statute?

In light of the actions taken by various companies to shut down this website and the implications for freedom of speech the question of legality is vitally important.

Dianne Feinstein: Prosecute Assange Under the Espionage Act - WSJ.com

The greatest threat we face right now from Wikileaks is not the information it has spilled and may spill in the future, but the reactionary response to it that’s building in the United States that promises to repudiate the rule of law and our free speech traditions, if left unchecked.

Lieberman's actions have cost the US Gov the moral high ground regarding the Wikileaks issue.

Why WikiLeaks Is Good for America | Threat Level | Wired.com