News From The Infowar Front: Would Bahnhof Cancel Hosting Of WikiLeaks If Demanded? "Of Course Not."

[Hissyspit]

http://wlcentral.org/node/506

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The US government went so far as to warn Switzerland against granting Julian Assange political asylum, reports 20 Minuten...

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The onslaught is creating growing resistance. "American pressure to dissuade companies in the US from supporting the WikiLeaks website has led to an online backlash in which individuals are redirecting parts of their own sites to its Swedish internet host," writes The Guardian. "At the same time, scores of sites "mirroring" WikiLeaks have sprung up – by lunchtime today, the list was 74-strong and contained sites that have the same content as WikiLeaks and – crucially – link to the downloads of its leaks of 250,000 US diplomatic cables." The mirror list counts now hundreds of domains.

WikiLeaks' Swiss host, Switch, said that there was "no reason" why the site should be forced offline, despite demands from France and the US, in a statement released by the Swiss Pirate Party. French host OVH declared that it was up to judges, and "not up to the politicians or OVH to request or decide the closure of the site," in a response to the French government.

John Karlung, the CEO of WikiLeaks's Swedish host, Bahnhof, told The Daily Beast that "The service is provided in Sweden — where Swedish law applies. We are not subject to American law, Chinese laws or Iranian laws either, for that matter. WikiLeaks is just a normal business client. We do not treat them any different than any other client." He said that the US had not contacted the company to ask it to cancel hosting for WikiLeaks, and when asked whether Bahnhof would comply if such a request were made, he answered "Of course not."

Evgeny Morozov has cautioned in The Financial Times that the US backlash against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange may have unintended consequences:

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[gateley]

1. I love that some countries are standing up to the Most Powerful

Nation In The World.

What they're (we're) trying to do leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[ananda]

2. This would be fine with me ...

"An aggressive attempt to go after WikiLeaks – by blocking its web access, for instance, or by harassing its members – could install Mr Assange (or whoever succeeds him) at the helm of a powerful new global movement able to paralyse the work of governments and corporations around the world.""

[Angry Dragon]

3. To bad the officials feel that they need to be afraid

they must be hiding a lot of illegal activities
Are they afraid that we will learn that people are pissed off at them
for trying to overthrow governments
Or are there terrorists out there besides themselves

[glinda]

4. Maybe Assange is doing what the US Government intended to do in the sense

of using cyberspace as a a major control weapon. Perhaps they already have done some of that.

[msongs]

5. Obama is not getting his way again. are the swedes all republicans lol nt