World media have been reporting on Wikileaks editor Julian Assange’s efforts to gain support in Iceland for making the country a haven for the world’s free press and whistle-blowers.
Here Assange explains the situation in his own words in a message sent to journalists all round the world:
“I am in Iceland. You should be too, or at least, reporting about it.
“I have been in Iceland the past few weeks advising parliamentarians
here on a cross-party proposal to turn Iceland into an international
“journalism haven”–a jursidiction designed to attract organizations
into publishing online from Iceland, by adopting the strongest press
and source protection laws from around the world.
“In my role as WikiLeaks editor, I’ve been involved in fighting off
many legal attacks. To do that, and keep our sources safe, we have
had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications
and people around the world to activate protective laws in different
national jurisdictions.
“We’ve become good at it, and never lost a case, or a source, but
we can’t expect everyone to go through the extraordinary efforts
that we do. Large newspapers are routinely censored by legal costs.
Even internet-only publishers writing about corruption find
themselves disconnected by their ISPs after legal threats. Should
they not relent, they are hounded, like the Turks & Caicos Islands
Journal, from one jurisdiction to another. It is time this stopped.
It is time a country said, enough is enough, justice must be seen,
history must be preserved, and we will give shelter from the storm.
“That’s why I’m excited about what is happening in Iceland, which
has started to see the world in a new way after its mini-revolution
a year ago.
“The proposal, called the “Icelandic Modern Media Initiative” is
expect to be filed on Monday the 15th. All 15 members
of parliament approached so far [out of 51 max, the Cabinet of 12
can not propose] are willing to be listed as movers/authors. They
represent every party, including the governing coalition. I think
it is going to happen and so do the politicians.
“The draft site and Parliamentary proposal is available here,
and is embaroged until the 15th, when it is due to be publicly
filed [parliament has next week off].
That’s it!
Julian Assange.”
Iceland has two (out of three) things that could be extremely attractive to web server farms: relatively inexpensive electricity and an abundance of cold (the third thing would be better submarine fiber optic cable connections to mainland Europe and to North America).
If extremely strong protections for journalists and journalism were enacted, Iceland would become very attractive to most legitimate news organizations. The downside would be attracting the ire of larger/wealthier countries and multinational corporations.
Or (and?), you could adopt extremely lax copyright and patent laws – which would also make Iceland a popular place to host web sites.
I wonder if the domain ‘Buccaneer-Cove.is’ taken yet?
Fisy says:
“But classified informations ( whether it * should * be classified or not ) is a whole different story.”
Classified as what? secret to one state? Outside that state its fair game to be headline news?
>wikileaks represents the 21st century realities of information publishing. Wether we like it or not, confidential information cannot be protected by the courts once one party decide to leak it.
But classified informations ( whether it * should * be classified or not ) is a whole different story.
This is very interesting.
“We have anxiously and curiously been following Wikileaks Twitter messages. According to the tweets, “WikiLeaks is currently under an aggressive US and Icelandic
surveillance operation,” which consisted of following, photographing and filming of editors. Computers were seized and one “related person” was allegedly detained for 22 hours. Two of the surveillance agents apparently had diplomatic passes from the US State Department.
The WikiLeaks team added earlier “If anything happens to us, you know why: it is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible.” Having a look at the Wikileaks Twitter stream reveals the whistleblowers allegedly received an encrypted video showing a US military airstrike on January 8th this year. Wikileaks called for supercomputer time, to aid with encryptment. The encryption was announced cracked on February 20th this year.
Apparently, the video shows the shooting of journalists and civilians by the hands of the US military. The public will know more on April 5th, when Wikileaks says it will release the film. If the video in question indeed shows the slaughter of unarmed journos and civilians, heads are bound to roll.”
http://www.techeye.net/internet/wikileaks-under-attack
Looks like WikiLeaks is under an aggressive US and Icelandic
surveillance operation.
http://twitter.com/wikileaks
http://www.techeye.net/internet/wikileaks-under-attack
http://immi.is/?l=en&p=vision
This is a very good proposal and hope it will go through. Just please be honest in your aims and porpose. A very good haven indeed which can provide staffs, technicians and good modern communication facilitis with lower cost of maintainance operation as compared to other countries in mainland Europe.
good idea
This is a great idea, good to see its being followed trough.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8504972.stm
http://wikileaks.org/
wikileaks represents the 21st century realities of information publishing. Wether we like it or not, confidential information cannot be protected by the courts once one party decide to leak it.
Still it surprises me that despite visits Julian Assange and he team did not expose the corrupt EU grants that certain Social Democrat MPs have received in the last years.
I suppose that some corruption is more equal than others for exposing..
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/10/15/uk-sfo-iceland-trip-bearing-fruit/#comment-96439
I don’t know who the other two posters are, but from my U.S. perspective, it would be great for a country to create proper legislation to protect press freedom and whistleblowers… Lord knows it’s no longer America.
There isn’t any place where the power structure doesn’t already own the main press, I’m not surprised such is the case in Iceland. I think what Julian Assange is trying to accomplish is to create a ‘safe haven’ where journalist might be shielded from corporations and their armies of lawyers.
How ironic, given that Icelandic press is monopolised by a few Icelandic oligarchs!! Even shaming Berlusconi! But hey, why not just pay lip service as it at least wont cause Icelanders more financial angst! Peter from London seems to have sniffed the same rat! Yet again Iceland strives to prove itself!
Hey, maybe China should follow suit as its another bastion of the free press.