Dear people this is an important case for any activist or free speech media. Please read on.
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Thursday July 18, 2002 14:10
by no censorship
Dear people this is an important case for any activist or free speech media. Please read on.
Hi,
Dear people this is an important case for any activist or free speech media. Please read on.
story
Until the mid 90's, the German eco-anarchist magazine Radikal was published regularly on the internet. Then the Deutsche Bahn won a court case against the internet provider that published the magazine forbidding them to publish any longer (the magazine contains two articles describing how to sabotage railways that transport nuclear waste). So far not a disaster, the internet is world wide, so the Dutch sister provider xs4all.nl mirrored the magazine until now. In spring this year the DB also won the courtcase against them in the Netherlands and they had to take off the mirror.
Several providers all over the world mirrored the mag. The more concerning developements in this case are that recently DB won a courtcase against Indymedia.nl for publishing links to these mirrors. This is a dangerous precedent in history because the internet is based on hyperlinks.
Also DB has started a courtcase against Google, and they have also contacted! other major searchrobots ordering them to remove links that lead to the articles. They are planning lawsuits against yahoo and altavista if the links aren't removed. Google says they want to arrange this out of court, and they are working to remove the links.
It defenitely looks like they want to push this thru all the way and totally remove this info from the net.
We think this would be a major breach of free speech and press freedom and therefor call all freedom loving people to take action against this, because we fear that if they can pull this off, there will be more companies and governments trying to do the same thing.
Our idea is that if enough mirrors and links exist all over the world, it will become financially impossible for DB to sue everybody, and other companies will be discouraged to do the same.
what you do?
publish the two forbidden articles in your magazine, spread them as widely as possible, before they dissappear.
mirror Radikal and sent us more links to mirrors
make links to the existing mirrors of Radikal
sent donations to indymedia.nl, because they are an independent organisation ran by volunteers, and right now, there is no money to take on this case in a higher court
mail google, yahoo, altavista, etc to convince them of the importance of this case and not to remove the links, but to take this on in court
mail us a good translation of these articles (important)
mail us with proposals for actions or campaigns
resources
www.indymedia.nl
their press release: http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2002/06/4836.shtml
links to the mirrors can be found on our website: www.anarchisme.tk
in attachment the two forbidden articles
Thank you for reading,
Anarchist Collective Ghent Belgium
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Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3This is the most pernicious example of censorship yet seen on the internet, one which could very well herald the end of its usefulness - if people do not take decided steps to protect it.
The content of the censored information is really quite immaterial at this stage. Much, much more is at stake than a few nuke-transports in Germany being delayed for a few hours.
The distinct tendancy in Euro-Governments these days is to attempt to criminalise possession or distribution of such information as they do not approve of - shortly thereafter it will become a 'Terrorist Offence', very popular now, and soon they will 'legally' jail economically destroy people for opening their mouths the wrong way - i.e. while not bowing or crawling on the floor.
Vive la Resistance !!
maybe you shouldn't be telling people how to sabotage railways, particularly ones which are carrying nuclear fucking waste.
that is perhaps true, that one shouldn't tell people how to sabotage trains, as they *could* actually do so, with the potential risk to material and/or persons.
But then again, if they were so disposed and had any initiative, they could quickly devise for themselves methods of how this sabotage can be done.
Your argument also presumably extends to cover the hypothesis that one should not tell cave-men how to make fire, nor pointed sticks, since someone *could* eventually have their fingers burned or an eye poked out?
It is childish to think that mere access to information equates to incitement to violence or crime. For example, every adult with an I.Q. of above, let's say, 50, *knows*, or at least should know, how to mug an old lady on the street or sling a Molotov-cocktail at an invading Army or repressive police force. Does this mean that all will now automatically do so as opportunity arises? Even going so far as attacking young ladies and perfectly docile village bobbies?
Should the newspapers be allowed to report the facts of such attacks - as they have done since time immemorial?
Should they be allow to report it on the web?
Now imagine someone opened a website discribing refined tactics of mugging little old ladies and a new under-arm throwing technique which can easily add 10m to the lob of even the weakest Molotov-swinger - would you have the Judge close it down? If so, on what grounds?
What consequences do you think this might have for free-speech in an environment of quickening repression of political dissent?
Do you trust your own Government, never mind others, which are far more sophisticated in their instrumentarium of repression and control, as far as you could throw a bull by the horns?
What people decide to do with the information they recieve is up to them, and if it has socially unacceptable consequences, then society will probably try to hold them responsible for their *actions*; not thoughts, not information.
Some people *use* their information to build a raft of Nukes and destroy a few major cities, with potential for many more - but far from being censured, they usually have their pidgeon-chests decked with brass as a consequence. Now which would you ban first, such *use* or the bare *information* that can *potentially* enable such use? Remember, the same basic information can be used to build civilian nuclear power-stations, x-ray machines, microwave-ovens and provide radiotherapy for testicular-cancer-patients (do not try this at home - it hurts worse than an eager beaver thinking your knackers are that last sapling he needs to build his lodge!)
Communication has been the basis of human development to date - there is no reason to think that history has ended.
Information is the hardest thing to kill, and on the Internet, just trying to do so only exacerbates the problem enormously - this will never be possible on the Internet.
See this link to Dr. Dave Touretzky's "Gallery of DeCSS Descramblers" for an example of the phenomenon censorship of information and free-speech produces: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
Apart from all that, the hinderance of passage of trains carrying nuclear waste is a legitimate political tactic - a campaign of civil disobedience supported at least tacitly by not just a few German Parlementarians as a means of exercising political pressure against the nuclear option so favoured by large industry.
The objective is obviously not to derail or explode any such transport, but rather to interrupt the supply of electrical current to the train's motors, causing a stoppage around which a protest action can be launched - and even if it were, the waste-containers involved have been specifically designed to withstand the direct impact of a fully-tanked space-shuttle - so there should be no worries on that score!!
Yours etc., BlackPope
PS: Have you seen the latest episode of 'Sesame Street', it was just grreaatt!!
PPS: What other interesting things can you think of doing to nuclear waste, besides 'fucking'?