A French judge has today overruled an order by French Industry Minister Eric Besson to shut down a WikiLeaks website, saying the government needed to make some sort of argument as to why the site was illegal instead of just ordering it censored.
The ruling came after French Internet host OVH sought legal clarity regarding the order, saying it lacked transparency. OVH was contracted to host WikiLeaks after Amazon.com dropped the site last week in response to US threats. OVH said they only learned they were hosting WikiLeaks through media reports about the government’s efforts to see it shut down.
“OVH is neither for nor against this site,” insisted Octave Klaba, its managing director. “Now that it’s with us, we will fulfill the contract. That’s our job.” Minister Besson has vowed to continue to try to find some legal way to silence WikiLeaks, saying it was “unacceptable” for France to allow it.
WikiLeaks has been struggling with its Internet presence in the face of numerous cyber attacks and official attempts at censorship. The site lost control of the wikileaks.org domain after its DNS provider dropped them, saying they could no longer cope with the attacks on the site. The attempts have led to the creation of a massive number of privately run mirror servers, and applications to help users find the best such mirror. WikiLeaks.Antiwar.com now offers a convenient way to find a mirror. This sort of widespread distribution is making it virtually impossible to silence the whistleblower.
I would serioulsy love to know what the French public thinks about their government playing lapdog to the US government and coming out uncritically in favor of censorship simply because "Washington told me to." Can anyone tell me what is going on in the French media?
MSM media in France are the same as the MSM media in the U.S. And France has its own version of neocons in power. What the French public thinks in private is a completely different matter.
Thank you, I don't read French so I always wonder what's going on over there. Interesting about them having their own version of the neocons, that explains a lot.
I live in France and find few people willing to discuss the issue, but in general most French people support fighting for their rights, so are unlikely to support the government's craven policy.
First Pakistans then the French Judiciary refusing to uphold their Respective Governments attempts at stopping Wikileaks. Wonder if US Judges have the Cahones to obey the Constitution instead of the Government?
"Wonder if US Judges have the Cahones to obey the Constitution instead of the Government?"
That is a great sentence! Very powerful!
Obvious answer would be no. US District judges are servile lapdogs to the State and owe their judicial seating to politicians that have NO desire to obey our Constitution let alone understand what our Constitution might actually mean.
Seems like that once upon a time, separation of the three branches of our government ACTUALLY meant something. Separate but equal branches of government. Pipe dreaming in some maudlin manner?
Ben Franklin must be hanging his head in utter disbelief and disgust. You know, on account of what Ben said about "giving us a Republic?" Yeah, 'we the people' couldn't keep it. Gave it away "we" did.
Sorry, I needs to be specific about federal judges. Circuit, Appellate, and Supremes. Sold us out 4 sure.
Constitution? What Constitution?
Le Jour de Gloire est arrive!
Aux Arms Cityoens!
Btw, Eric Besson is the same guy who said that it was impossible to explain to idiots why their security was at stake in Afghanistan. He is a former socialist who went rightist after being proposed a government post by Sarkozy.
Ha ha ha! Good for him!
Vive la France!
I wonder if a distributed donations system would work?
I seriously want to know what a F#%¤&)&%#"K the Swedish government and the Social Democrat or for that matter the opportunist communists parties all over the Europe would do when the governments of all kinds have and trying hard to silence people.. in another word.., what is happening here is the rising of a new dictatorial regimes both in US and Europe whom are calling themselves democrats, social democrats and right or left, using and abusing names such as democracy or social democracy and etc.
The two women involved in having "impropriate" sex with Assange are the active party member from the Swedish Social Democrats whom didn’t and don’t agree with Assange and Wikilies idea in governments transpierces, honesty and above all working for people and not lying to them. Is Sweden has become a yet another US lapdog.? If that is the case.., no wonder they (Social Democrats with Green and Red Party lost very big in last election) they have no one to blame but themselves and their stupidity.
The world didn't expend half as much energy to capture OBL in so short a period of time as they've done to nab Julian Assange. He surely must know where all the bodies are buried.
Assange is a hero in the fullest sense of the word, willing to stand by his prinicples come hell or high water…something I can say of NO world leader today.
Now mastercard, visa etc do not resist the US damands, and banks refuse accounts. Long live the FREE WORLD.