A Political Glimpse from Ireland

Balancing Freedom with Safety

I am a big believer in the written and the spoken word but I suppose that is a given considering I am writing this blog on a Friday night. In recent weeks, the freedom of people all around the world has been compromised with the shutdown of Wikileaks.org by Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District in San Francisco. Many people are aware of the prefix “Wiki” as in Wikipedia however not too many people know about Wikileaks.org in my humble opinion. This is a great site because it allows people from all over the world to anonymously post documents or media to expose corruption, unfair practices and injustices around the world.

To the bloggers who do read this site, you should have a look at some of the mirrors for the moment because there are a lot of useful articles for future posts.

Wikileaks is a great balancing mechanism in a world where government and big business are so closely allied that it is hard to tell them apart on certain days. Companies, governments and people in power take advantage of the system for their own benefit which is why we need sites like Wikileaks around. These sites do their best to even the odds in modern society and provide the biggest political punch for the ordinary citizen. The Judge shut down the site because someone anonymously posted confidential documents from a Swiss bank Julius Baer onto the website. The bank did not want these documents up there so they went to court in the USA to have it shut down however the information had already dispersed to people around the world as well as other mirror sites like:

http://www.cryptome.org/

These are just two of the sites that have exactly the same information that the American Wikileaks was shut down for. Why Julius Baer went this far is beyond me since their lawyers must have told them that there was no cost efficient way that they could shut down every Wikileaks site around the world. The only other logical conclusion that I can figure out is that they are hoping to lessen the impact of these leaked documents by closing down the American site therefore reducing the traffic somewhat? I highly doubt that but beyond that stretch of a reason, it was just a waste of money and time.

The interesting ponderings from this case show how censorship has increased in the USA to a certain extent. The title of this blog is how the judiciary decides the balance between freedom and the safety of the people. I believe that censorship is justified if it protects the physical well being of the population from eminent bodily harm i.e. terrorism. Beyond that there is no other excuse to shut down a site like Wikileaks or any other site that actually makes society a better place. An interesting tidbit of information is that the judge in charge of this case was appointed by President Bush who I am sure got some calls from some very irritated rich people when their questionable finances were disclosed all over the internet.

I am not a Bush Basher but it is an interesting coincidence that when some of the richest and most influential people are exposed online in terms of them hiding their money from the IRS that all it takes is a simple call to the President who then makes another call and “bob’s my uncle” we have a ruling that clearly violates the “Safe Harbor” provision of the DMCA.

People have to able to say what they want to say, this is what makes America and other countries around the world great. The freedom for me to say I think the current President is somewhat incompetent is essential in a modern and progressive society. I often criticize the Chinese government to my friends for their open censorship of blogs like my own and other sites in the West. I don’t think that this kind of censorship is moral in this day and age, freedom needs to increase as oppose to decrease. That being said I would like to encourage everyone to support Wikileaks in California by writing to your congressman or political representative to tell them about this injustice, you can also support Wikileaks by pledging some money to this email:

supporters@sunshinepress.org

This is supposed to be a Political blog and some people who read this may question this post’s relevance but that is what I am trying to assure people, this is an issue that not only effects Wikileaks but people all around the world. Freedom is truly precious and we must treasure it and fight for it when we need to. For people in America have a look at project Global Integrity and their comparative study on censorship around the world and observe how the USA is no longer number 1 in terms of the most free information nation in the world. I would also like to extend my pledge of support to the Wikileaks group and wish them the best of luck with their upcoming court date.