Nice try, but no legal protection from Sweden, Wikileaks

August 6, 2010 4:50 PM

Swedish law does not protect Wikileaks sources despite what has been reported, the Swedish 'grundlag' does not protect whistleblowers at Wikileaks just because their servers are in Sweden. There's a technicality, Wikileaks the website has no licence to publish material in Sweden.
posted by dabitch (37 comments total)

I'm probably missing something, but why on earth would you ever need a license to publish anything?
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 4:56 PM on August 6, 2010

Because the First Amendment isn't in the World Constitution. Which doesn't exist. Remember that copyright was originally framed as monopoly right to publish.
posted by pwnguin at 5:02 PM on August 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

Hmm, I wish there was a better word to translate that. "Utgivningsbevis" is something you simply apply for, every publication can get one, and once you're registered, presto - you are now an official publisher (be it a website or a national newspaper). Then the law that protects publishers (and the laws you have to uphold as a publisher) come into effect.
posted by dabitch at 5:03 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

There's a technicality, Wikileaks the website has no licence to publish material in Sweden.

Ah, technicalities. Technicalities are great. Technicalities get war criminals off the hook. Technicalities let armies use chemical weapons against civilians. Technicalities let crooked governments find an excuse to prosecute whistleblowers. Gotta love those technicalities.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:06 PM on August 6, 2010 [6 favorites]

I recall that Iceland was considering dramatic free speech protections, so it's not like Wikileaks hasn't been securing backup plans.
posted by pwnguin at 5:08 PM on August 6, 2010

I'm probably missing something, but why on earth would you ever need a license to publish anything?

So that you're behind a country's protections. Kinda seems like an administration issue. Fill out the paperwork, pay the $35, and they're licensed, right?
posted by hal_c_on at 5:26 PM on August 6, 2010

i guess they cant just go and get a license then?
posted by BurN_ at 5:28 PM on August 6, 2010

Ah, technicalities. Technicalities are great. Technicalities get war criminals off the hook. Technicalities let armies use chemical weapons against civilians. Technicalities let crooked governments find an excuse to prosecute whistleblowers. Gotta love those technicalities.

Yeah! Damn those technicalities protecting the letter of the law! Never did nothin' good for nobody anyhow!
posted by wrok at 5:28 PM on August 6, 2010 [9 favorites]

And in other news, the Pentagon has banned all military members from viewing Wikileaks, stating that viewing the website, even on personal computers, is a security violation.
posted by daHIFI at 5:32 PM on August 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

When reading Wikileaks is outlawed, only outlaws will read Wikileaks. Like, duh.
posted by GrammarMoses at 5:35 PM on August 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

"Utgivningsbevis" is something you simply apply for, every publication can get one, and once you're registered, presto - you are now an official publisher

And yet somehow I forsee the Swedish government managing to come up with a reason to deny it to Wikileaks.
posted by Justinian at 5:49 PM on August 6, 2010

Oops.
posted by planet at 5:55 PM on August 6, 2010

Well, a great thinker once posited, technically correct is the best kind of correct.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:06 PM on August 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Because the First Amendment isn't in the World Constitution.

Obviously. However, the idea of disliking restraints on speech seems to be fairly universal, and I'm surprised that a European country tolerates "Pay X or our laws don't apply to you".
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 6:12 PM on August 6, 2010

I recall that Iceland was considering dramatic free speech protections, so it's not like Wikileaks hasn't been securing backup plans.

They passed those laws.
posted by homunculus at 6:27 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

However, the idea of disliking restraints on speech seems to be fairly universal
universal? It barely counts as continental let alone global. The Germans and Austrians restrict Nazi-denial, the Brits restrict a tonne of "hate" speech and have Byzantine libel laws, the French restrict certain kinds of privacy invasion. All in all, the Swedes look pretty liberal among our crew.
posted by bonaldi at 6:40 PM on August 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

All in all, the Swedes look pretty liberal among our crew.

If they grant you a license, yes.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:56 PM on August 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

daHIFI: "And in other news, the Pentagon has banned all military members from viewing Wikileaks, stating that viewing the website, even on personal computers, is a security violation."

So, some giant screens showing a feed of content from Wikileaks should be an excellent area denial weapon for terrorists everywhere.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:06 PM on August 6, 2010 [7 favorites]

The Germans and Austrians restrict Nazi-denial, the Brits restrict a tonne of "hate" speech and have Byzantine libel laws, the French restrict certain kinds of privacy invasion. All in all, the Swedes look pretty liberal among our crew.

As much as I dislike all the above restrictions (and concur in your description of them), they seem to be less overarching than a bureaucracy/licensing system for designation as "able to engage in some degree of free speech". And I think in most cases people try to justify speech restrictions by saying "But...but...this only restricts horrible thing X and won't impact "valid" exercises of free speech!", but I don't see where that particular slippery slope could even be invoked here.

Yes, I know, I'm practically begging for some low-level gov't chair-warmer to drum up a sound bite doing just that.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 7:17 PM on August 6, 2010

You know, when the Valarie Plame thing was going on, people were calling for a journalist exception to contempt of court for refusal to reveal sources. And there were real, and serious, right here in the US, calls for a distinction between journalists and joe on the street. Not quite licensing, but you can Michigan's working on it.
posted by pwnguin at 7:32 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

"And in other news, the Pentagon has banned all military members from viewing Wikileaks, stating that viewing the website, even on personal computers, is a security violation."

I am guessing they are monitoring the site to see if any military members view it in the future and want to filter out curiosity seekers.
posted by empath at 7:34 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

And there were real, and serious, right here in the US, calls for a distinction between journalists and joe on the street.

Yeah, that was a pretty dumb situation. I guess part of my reaction to the licensing and similar things is "Well, now that there's this whole 'Internet everyman as journalist!' thing going on, how can anyone purport to sell admission to the ranks?"
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 7:35 PM on August 6, 2010

It occurs to me that for any leaked group of documents there is likely at least one nation that is a rival that would be interested in the documents dissemination and willing to allow them to be hosted. In the notable recent instance .ir and .kp.
posted by vapidave at 8:42 PM on August 6, 2010

From what I have seen, it has been the Army and the Navy that have banned access to Wikileaks. That is not all of the military. Has it been reported that the Air Force has banned access?
posted by Quonab at 11:28 PM on August 6, 2010

Damn those technicalities protecting the letter of the law!

Where this argument fails is in the intention of the use of these technicalities for the purposes of attacking Wikileaks. Use of these technicalities isn't about protecting the letter of the law, or about protecting human rights and specifically the rights of otherwise disenfranchised people to access a legal system. It's about abusing the dusty corners of an imperfect system to protect politicians, military and intelligence who are prosecuting an illegal war, who have been caught killing innocent children and adult civilians.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:40 PM on August 6, 2010

This has been all over the Swedish papers.

I should point out that Wikileaks is supported by members of "The Pirate Bay" who have made a career in ignoring the law (they do not call themselves "pirates" without reason.) Their symbol is a Pirate Ship flying the Jolly Rodger for chrissake.

The problem is not Swedish law, but that the members of the Pirate Bay and Wikileaks have failed to educate themselves about Swedish law and failed to take advantage of the strong protections available under it.

Stupid is as stupid does.
posted by three blind mice at 11:53 PM on August 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Nothing stupid about, just a hard dose of realism. If Wikileaks approaches any nation's government anywhere for any kind of protection, (1) that nation can and inevitably will expect preferential treatment in NOT getting their own secrets leaked (bad for Wikileaks) and (2) that nation will be subjected to hostility from every other nation that has been 'burned' by Wikileaks (bad for the nation). I don't understand why anyone would expect Wikileaks to get protection from ANYBODY if they truly do the job they have pledged to do.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:15 AM on August 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

threeblindmice: I should point out that Wikileaks is supported by members of "The Pirate Bay" who have made a career in ignoring the law (they do not call themselves "pirates" without reason.) Their symbol is a Pirate Ship flying the Jolly Rodger for chrissake.

Their symbol is indeed a galleon flying a flag. It isn't the Jolly Roger, though, it's the tape and crossbones.
posted by Dysk at 2:43 AM on August 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

There is a continent-wide right to free speech in Europe but (see section 2) it can't prevent you from being sued for libel, or prosecuted for denying the Holocaust. In the same way, though by interpretation, the US constitution famously doesn't allow you to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre.

What Wikileaks appears to want is protection from legal consequences of publishing anything, true or false, no matter what the result of publication, with the rest of us relying on their bona fides. You can argue the merits of that one way or another but I don't think that it's a freedom of speech issue except on an extreme definition of freedom of speech.
posted by athenian at 2:53 AM on August 7, 2010

Article: "The publisher is named in the publication licence of the media outlet. Only the publisher may be prosecuted or punished for publishing information. Everyone else has the right to anonymity. "

The Swedish law offers a strong protection for sources, but it would be useless without a strong system of connecting the publishers (who can be sued) to publications (whose inner workings are protected). There needs to be a paper trail that can be proven or questioned or otherwise I would make my personal attack letters and claim myself as protected source and the real publisher you have to sue is either a) ISP-provider, b) Google, c) U.S. Government, d) the Pope, e) Wordpress ... If there is a paper trail required, we'd find a 3rd party official document where (a-e) announces to be the publisher of these pages and my claim holds, otherwise the plain research if the journal X has person Y who could claim to be protected would mean stepping into the protected area of journal X. I can be wrong here, IANAL. Licensing could also have something to do with the historical right of National Archives or National Library to archive a copy of every publication, and the subsequent need for drawing boundaries for what needs to be archived and what not.
posted by Free word order! at 3:07 AM on August 7, 2010

Brother Dysk: "Their symbol is indeed a galleon flying a flag. It isn't the Jolly Roger, though, it's the tape and crossbones."

Thank you Brother Dysk. I stand corrected.

oneswellfoop: I don't understand why anyone would expect Wikileaks to get protection from ANYBODY if they truly do the job they have pledged to do.

My point is that there are very strong protections available in Sweden for precisely this sort of journalism. It simply requires registering as a publisher which is easy and not expensive. Yeah, it's a quirky formality, but when it comes to the law, formalities matter. A lot.

Anders R Olsson is a writer and journalist, specialising in freedom of speech issues. He makes a similar observation as Håkan Rustand.

"A website needs a licence in order to be protected by the laws regarding freedom of speech. You can't claim anonymity in the sense of the state being prohibited from investigating sources without the protection of constitutinal law," he says and continues:

"Even when the publisher is protected by constitutional law, the ban on investigating sources isn't watertight. In the case of top secret information that is of great importance to the military, police and prosecutors have a duty to try to find the leak and prosecute the source".

What's your view on Wikileaks' promise that Swedish laws protects its sources?

"I think it is a bit strange that Wikileaks doesn't seem to know the rules."

I don't think it's strange. As I said, these people don't seem care about laws that hinder their goals, why should they bother with laws that would help them?
posted by three blind mice at 6:08 AM on August 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

For what it’s worth.
posted by kipmanley at 8:37 AM on August 7, 2010

The article currently being spun about WikiLeaks source protection legalities is false.

ORly? Perhaps Wikileaks has gotten one of the helpful fellows from the Swedish ISP employed as editorial staff and applied for that utgiviningsbevis. The only criteria is that there's a connection to Sweden (ie; Swedish editorial staff), a form filled in and filed for a fee. Wouldn't be impossible to arrange.

What Free word order! said about the National Library having a copy of everything is true as well.

Also, I now will write license 100 times on the blackboard.
posted by dabitch at 8:49 AM on August 7, 2010

I've watched @sydsvenskan and lots of other people ask @wikileaks about that tweet that you linked kipmanley, but they haven't followed up on that at all. If the story is false, as they claim, it doesn't seem that it would take them too long to throw a clarification up somewhere, would it? Just leaving it alone after a 140 char tweet feels a little... arrogant.
posted by dabitch at 3:24 AM on August 10, 2010

From what I have seen, it has been the Army and the Navy that have banned access to Wikileaks. That is not all of the military. Has it been reported that the Air Force has banned access? --Quonab

Air Force can only wish they were military. QED.

Go Army!
posted by Fezboy! at 7:48 AM on August 10, 2010

Here's a bit of an update, in the national news here - Sydsvenskan, SvD and Swedish Radio - Wikileaks has now said (while Assar is visiting Sweden) that they are going to apply for a "utgivningsbevis".

Wikileaks to apply for Swedish publication authorization
Internet site Wikileaks will next week seek its own publication authorization in Sweden in order to benefit from the Swedish freedom of information, according to TT.

posted by dabitch at 5:42 AM on August 14, 2010

Swedish Pirate Party to host Wikileaks servers: The party will donate severs and bandwidth free of charge
posted by homunculus at 9:12 PM on August 18, 2010