Wikileaks is a site dedicated to collecting and distributing evidence of incompetence, corruption, and criminal behavior by governments and other organizations in the public trust. Needless to say, this irks control freaks like China, who have done their best to stymie the site.
Those of us in freedom-loving countries like the United States can shake our heads at this kind of backward behavior, but our own legal system has proven to be a tremendous tool for those who would rather not operate in the sunshine. A federal judge in California has granted an injunction forcing wikileaks.com to be stricken for the domain name system without so much as a trial.
When I heard about this my immediate reaction was shout it at the world. As @jeromejtk pointed out, censoring something basically makes everybody suddenly learn about it. I for one had never heard of Wikileaks, and seeing the headline, I thought Apple had gone after another rumor site.*
If you have a blog, an account on Twitter or another social networking site, or even just an iChat status, I encourage you to help “spread the leak” by spreading the word.
Wikileaks have basically registered under every top-level domain, so you can go to, say, wikileaks.cx. If heavy hands are going to try to use our nameservers against us, we should publish their IP address as well: http://88.80.13.160.
But Mike, I hear you say, what if they go after their ISP? I have to imagine content mirrors are popping up even as we speak. That would be good information to spread as well.
* I am not equating Apple with China. As has been established, there is a difference between the public’s right to know and the public’s idle curiosity. I acknowledge there is a slippery slope between the First and Fifth Amendments. Still, I think it’s safe to say most reasonable people can agree that, while it may be appropriate to make judgments as to the appropriateness of a particular item, it’s a whole other matter to force down an entire site with obviously legitimate use.
Censoring something basically makes everybody suddenly learn about it, as the graph of mentions from Technorati shows.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Spread the Leak
