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<TITLE>Re: [governance] Wikileaks - ISOC</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>I must say, nice to see ISOC standing up on this issue – they have not always historically shown independence from the US Government and this is a great step and an admirable one. Presumably this also means that wikileaks.org .(org being run by PIR which is effectively owned by ISOC) – will also stand independent of USG pressure - unless there is a legal action (rather than political pressure) which forces them to take action to restrict access.<BR>
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So far we have seen everydns, mastercard, amazon and paypal cave in to political pressure, although there is no legal action against wikileaks, let alone a successful one. On the other hand, ISOC (and presumably PIR) and Facebook of all bedfellows have stood firmly on the side of a free Internet.<BR>
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I think an IGC statement on this issue would be useful! <BR>
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Ian Peter<BR>
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<HR ALIGN=CENTER SIZE="3" WIDTH="95%"><B>From: </B>Michael Gurstein <<a href="gurstein@gmail.com">gurstein@gmail.com</a>><BR>
<B>Reply-To: </B><<a href="governance@lists.cpsr.org">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a>>, Michael Gurstein <<a href="gurstein@gmail.com">gurstein@gmail.com</a>><BR>
<B>Date: </B>Tue, 7 Dec 2010 17:19:09 -0800<BR>
<B>To: </B><<a href="governance@lists.cpsr.org">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a>><BR>
<B>Subject: </B>[governance] Wikileaks - ISOC<BR>
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Source: <a href="http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=2706">http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=2706</a><BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT FACE="Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:10pt'><B>ISOC Monthly Newsletter<BR>
</B></SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"><B><FONT SIZE="5"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:18pt'>The Internet Society on the Wikileaks issue<BR>
</SPAN></FONT></B><FONT SIZE="1"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:9pt'>Recently, we have witnessed the effective disappearance from the Internet of a website made infamous through international press coverage and political intrigue.<BR>
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The Internet Society is founded upon key principles of free expression and non discrimination that are essential to preserve the openness and utility of the Internet. We believe that this incident dramatically illustrates that those principles are currently at risk.<BR>
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Recognizing the content of the wikileaks.org <<a href="http://wikileaks.org">http://wikileaks.org</a>> website is the subject of concern to a variety of individuals and nations, we nevertheless believe it must be subject to the same laws and policies of availability as all Internet sites. Free expression should not be restricted by governmental or private controls over computer hardware or software, telecommunications infrastructure, or other essential components of the Internet.<BR>
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Resilience and cooperation are built into the Internet as a design principle. The cooperation among several organizations has ensured that the impact on the Wikileaks organizational website has not prevented all access to Wikileaks material. This further underscores that the removal of a domain is an ineffective tool to suppress communication, merely serving to undermine the integrity of the global Internet and its operation.<BR>
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Unless and until appropriate laws are brought to bear to take the wikileaks.org <<a href="http://wikileaks.org">http://wikileaks.org</a>> domain down legally, technical solutions should be sought to reestablish its proper presence, and appropriate actions taken to pursue and prosecute entities (if any) that acted maliciously to take it off the air.<BR>
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(end)<BR>
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