в страхе

11:21 | 10-01-2011 | Censorship, Jurisprudence, Twitter | 1 Comment

свежая история о распоряжении Федерального суда США, обязавшего Twitter предоставить в распоряжение Департамента Юстиции всю информации о лицах, принимавших участие в развитии WikiLeaks, конечно, показательна:

The subpoena was issued by the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia on Dec. 14 and asks for the complete account information of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence specialist awaiting a court martial under suspicion of leaking materials to WikiLeaks, as well as Ms. Jonsdottir, Mr. Assange and two computer programmers, Rop Gonggrijp and Jacob Appelbaum. The request covers addresses, screen names, telephone numbers and credit card and bank account numbers, but does not ask for the content of private messages sent using Twitter.

подробный анализ можно прочитать здесь, но куда важнее, мне кажется, сейчас не столько юридические ньюансы, сколько общая картина. и она получается совсем неутешительной:

The real damage to the Twitterites’ hopes for techno-democratization, however, lies in the fact that the Justice Department’s request is perfectly reasonable and justifiable by all legal standards. Twitter can’t refuse, so they protest by publicizing the request. Yet publicity in this case is simply precedent-setting, and it is a precedent that countries with Freedom House scores lower than America’s will happily cite. For repressive regimes, the benefit is clear.

A chilling effect will set in among the citizens of freer countries, as well. Just the rumor that the federal government would refuse to hire graduate students who read Wikileaks cable, as well as the more concrete instructions to federal employees and contractors not to read the material, has–in my direct, personal experience–led academics and grad students to shy away from discussing or reading such materials.

разумеется, если что-то нельзя уничтожить, то необходимо максимально затруднить доступ — в том числе и очевидными экономическими мерами: сегодня вы написали что-то в Twitter о WikiLeaks, а завтра лишись средств к существованию — ну, разве не восхитительный кнут и пряник?

остается только надеяться:

[Clay Shirky] recognizes that samizdat and Xeroxes and fax machines and text messaging and Twitter–each generation, it seems, brings its own new revolutionary technology–have only sometimes contributed to democratizing outcomes. Yet he argues that in the long run, open communication leads to open societies. Consider the printing press and the postal service, he says. The former facilitated the Protestant Reformation and the latter the American Revolution.

  

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