French homeland intelligence threatens a sysop into deleting a Wikipedia Article
blog.wikimedia.fr
blog.wikimedia.fr
What's distressing about this is that they found a French Wikipedia sysop who they could identify in real life and "summoned" him to their offices (I presume from the language it was a summons he couldn't refuse). Then forced him to delete it there and then, despite no prior connection to the article, or else be detained.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of them wanting to delete the article, or whether it had super-secret information, there is only really one response to what they did; What. The. Fuck.
The precedent they are setting is something like "if you are involved in a website where someone else does something we consider problematic, you could be in trouble. If we feel like it".
It only receives hundreds? Something is wrong with sentence.
I think that's an overestimate. As a volunteer on the Wikimedia email ticket system (where most such requests, and indeed I believe this example as well, go to) I've only seen a few such requests from public bodies.
EDIT: actually, it seems this did go through the (employed) WMF legal team, rather than the volunteer support service. Sorry :)
Oversighting is a community process too; most Wikis elect or appoint a small group of editors to have access to the tool.
"The precedent they are setting is something like "if you are involved in a website where someone else does something we consider problematic, you could be in trouble. If we feel like it".
The other way goes that: 'If I have time sensitive information due to the changing landscape of warfare, I could get soldiers and civilians killed if I feel like it'
I sadly would trust the gov't on this decision than an individual.
Steps taken after the fact have a lot more to do a desire on the part of the people who failed to keep secrets secure to be seen as doing something, to punish, or to escape embarrassment.
If history has been any lesson, conflict will come, regardless of whether you want it or not.
Come off it. Hyperbole much? Why don't you take it even a bit further and in the name of transparency have everybody walk around nude so that you know, we can see that you are not carrying any weapons.
You know the comment you replied to did not talk about transparency to this extreme.
I am not arguing for pacifism. I put the 'need to wage war' into the original moral calculus as a valid consideration, not to dismiss it.
I for one think that the following, "ends justifies the means", approach is not acceptable; "Trust us, we're the government and though it looks innocuous it is threatening lives right now. So we will take any measures to remove it". If it is that much of a risk I feel they should be able to convince someone of that fact without divulging the exact problem.
Through all of this the intelligence agency have apparently failed to communicate this sort of urgency, in private, to either a trained lawyer or the sysop in question. Indeed, the legal team quite clearly suggest they made no effort to convince them of such an urgency.
In either case, had they done so, then both would have been able to explain how to quietly remove the article without this sort of Streisand effect...
All of which still does not excuse the fact that they threatened a private citizen with terrorism charges.
> I sadly would trust the gov't on this decision than an individual.
I feel that what is often forgotten about govt. is that they are made up of individuals. What you are actually arguing here is that of the several individuals involved, some of them presumably have more information (i.e. secret govt. information) than the others.
Yeah, and I'm not really condoning the French govt actions, nor do I really want to defend them, but there was one thing I wondered reading about this incident. The intelligence agency obviously didn't want to tell the Wikimedia Foundation which part(s) of the WP article were sensitive, because doing so would also divulge sensitive information, namely hints of what could have been so sensitive about this article in the first place. This obviously put them in a tight spot as well.
I still don't think it's OK how they handled these matters, but having no idea what it is/was they actually wanted to hide, I can't really say what they should have done instead, either. It's probably really complicated. Having a "secret wikimedia council" who can be trusted with sensitive info, would also need to have power to delete content from WP without having to explain why, and that sounds like a really really bad idea as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_radio_station_of_Pier...
So are Nellis and Groom Lake. So are the three air force bases in the central US that house Minuteman III ICBMs, and the two naval bases where the Trident-equipped Ohio-class submarines are based. So are the Pentagon and the White House.
All are covered on Wikipedia in far more detail than this radio station.
From the article (thanks for linking it btw, it has slightly more info than the English text in the OP):
"This volunteer had no link with that article, having never edited it and not even knowing of its existence before entering the DCRI offices."
So I'm guessing he complied with the summons because he didn't know what it was about and therefore saw no reason not to.
There's some comments below the article you linked, criticizing the sysop for not refusing to delete the article, calling it an abuse of his powers. Well. I don't know who this sysop is, but if he's just an average Jacques, never having had to deal with strong-arming by intelligence agencies, I can totally understand why he chose that course of action. After all, you can always undelete an article, and right then, at that moment, things must have seemed pretty scary to him. From the (English part of the) OP, it states that he tried to talk them out of it, that despite his role as a sysop it was not his decision to make, point them to the Wikimedia Foundation, etc. Who knows what they threatened him with (probably jailtime), I can't blame him for not risking that, or at least not risking it until he gets a clearer picture.
He probably thought, let's get myself out of this first, and let the inevitable publicity shitstorm sort things out later. And indeed, apparently the article is back up.
I'm not sure if this is a cultural difference between France and the states or if I'm overly paranoid, but if I were to receive a summons of any type by any government agency with more authority than the dept. of motor vehicles, there is precisely nothing that would get me to comply with that summons without talking to my lawyer first.
Speaking for myself; if MI5 (to pick an example) contacted me as a public and relatively high profile UK editor/sysop and asked me to come in and, say, advise them I probably would.
I keep forgetting we are reading a lot of translated text here; so "summons" might not be the right word in this context. I perhaps jumped to conclusions given the stuff that happened once he'd attended the meeting :)
The OP writes that he was threatened to be held in custody (French: "garde à vue"). This is a common trick of the French police: when people are held in custody, they have the right to an attorney and to keep silent, which the police don't like. So the police question "free" people and threaten them to hold them in custody if they don't cooperate obediently. Most people (especially good citizens) are scared of being held in custody, so the trick works quite well: people answer every single question and have no attorney, despite their right (and interest) to do otherwise.
In the present case, the charges (had any been pressed — he was there as a free person) would have been akin to terrorism, which means that the custody would have been under anti-terrorism rules: a very unpleasant experience that can last up to 96 hours. So the pressure was very high, despite his being "free".
ErrantX also brings up a good point about translation, "summon" could mean something as simple as a phonecall asking for a meeting, without any implication that one may be in trouble. Probably not something one would expect to find themselves being threatened with jailtime.
I doubt you'd need to worry about receiving a summons.
Pressure works differently on different people and those in alphabet agencies know what buttons to press.
....maybe they'll leave me alone, if I just talk to them. No need for lawyers (OMG I don't even have the rent money this month!) and no uncertainties over life in prison. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
How could I possibly justify not contacting a lawyer? I'm not qualified to read such a letter in the first place!
It's not what very many at all in the U.S. do though -- even those who think in the abstract that they wouldn't talk to the authorities without taking to a lawyer first (or at all) -- end up doing so. In part because the authorities are pretty expert at getting you to talk to them (by intimidation or persuasion).
But the more you think about it in advance and prepare, the more likely you can remember to exersize your rights.
I can't say for France, but in the U.S., remember NOT, ever, to talk to the authorities without talking to a lawyer first. It's really hardly ever going to make things better for you or your friends and loved ones. Don't talk to the cops.
(WMFR has no control over Wikipedia content or servers.)
Fixed that for the GP.
If the chapter, as an entity, tried to "interfere" in one of the Wikis it would go down very badly within the community. There is a certain amount of push and shove that means chapters are extremely careful to be seen only ever as facilitating.
But that's a whole rabbit hole of politics beyond the scope of this discussion :D
Once the authorities concluded a crime was being committed by organisation X, they found someone involved with that organisation and forced them to stop.
They clearly correctly identified that person as a) being a member, and b) having the means to delete the article.
That's not a new precedent, that's perfectly normal. The only real issue is the ridiculous attempt to make the information "disappear" in the first place.
This is public, non-secret information hosted outside of France by a non-French organization.
If a Boeing sysadming goes to France on vacation, can they ask him to delete stuff out of Boeing servers?
- The laws on official secrets typically (and uncontroversially IMO) forbid any unauthorized handling or distribution of classified material. This is not a US-pandering post-9-11 knee-jerk thing, it goes back at least to WWII, and probably much longer.
- Many facts are classified, even though they don't appear significant. Sometimes they indeed aren't, sometimes the motivation is that a multitude of such facts collectively suggest something which is significant.
- Telling an uncleared person what is classified amounts to giving that person even more classified material that they're not allowed to have. Obviously, so is saying that there's classified material on the page at all, but arguably less so.
- There are some items on the Wikipedia page in question that have "citation needed", ie. they are not immediately obviously sourced from publicly accessible material. Chances are that the problematic material is among those facts.
What recourse does a person have then? If the information is publicly posted, it hardly seems more of a security risk to tell one person what to remove than have the 'secrets' published for the entire world to see.
Additionally, how can a company such as Wikipedia possibly comply without any specific information? I.e. - how can they prevent the re-posting of said information if they have no idea what that information is?
Reminds me of this case in 2007 in China. A newspaper ad "Paying tribute to the strong(-willed) mothers of June 4 victims" slipped through the censorship, because the young clerk had no idea that June 4 is a reference to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the talking of which is not allowed. Because she had never heard of the Tiananmen Square protests, because censorship had been so effective.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/06/06/us-china-tiananmen...
Wikimedia was perfectly within their right to tell the DCRI to pound sand, and when DCRI threatened an unrelated individual then they lost their credibility.
We don't actually know that, this is an assumption.
> when DCRI threatened an unrelated individual then they lost their credibility.
Yes, obviously, DCRI bungled the handling of the case. That doesn't make the case meritless.
The revolting issue is that a Wikipedia volunteer got bullied because of this incident. Let me rephrase this: They went through the legal channels, met with a refusal from the other party's lawyer. Instead of moving the issue to a judge or a competent authority (remember, the article had been up since 2009, I really don't think they were in a hurry), they harass a kid who had no idea the page even existed.
Talking of whether Wikimedia should take this down or not has absolutely nothing to do with this far greater problem. And most of us probably don't have a fraction of the info to grasp the bigger story. Let's focus on the real issue here, the one where government stepped out of line!
Note that DCRI is not just any agency, it is the French equivalent of FBI.
Also the "kid" they bullied is not a kid at all, and he is the president of Wikimedia France.
[1]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/twitter-sued-50-m...
Interestingly, the US has no corresponding law. There were previously some similar terms in the Espionage Act, but the courts have held them to be unconstitutional. A civilian who comes in to possession of state secrets is not obligated to keep them secret. Selling them to foreign governments would probably still constitute espionage, but selling them to newspapers is protected under free speech/free press.
Sure, in an ideal world, where we trust government and its institutions, I couldn't agree more. Problem is that, for many, its no longer the case. We have seen it abused to protect mere individuals or money, when it is supposed to protect the state from attack.
The other problem is that most states now equate business and commerce to state and security. What they certainly don't do any more, if they ever did, is equate the citizens to state.... until you vote. The scope is out of hand.
Imagine if the state valued our individual rights and privacy as much as it values the rights and privacy of the itself?
Surely it must be just sinfully rich with secret sauce, mystery, and espionage! If only there were thousands of like-minded, curious individuals with the wherewithal to investigate and help bring these wonderful mysteries to light...
That kind of position probably makes some intelligence officials feel incredibly important if they can find an excuse to demand even relatively trivial information about it deleted.
5 avril 2013 à 09:16 Inisheer (discuter | contributions) a restauré la page Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute (30 versions restaurées : suppression précipitée)
4 avril 2013 à 11:02 Remi Mathis (discuter | contributions) a supprimé la page Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute (Article qui contient des informations classifiées, qui contrevient à l'article 413-11 du code pénal)
Someone didn't think this thing through.
They should have just edited it to make it sound more boring or to contain red herring information like "This site is notable for its former use as communications center and currently for the largest pygmy marmoset population in Europe." Anyone reading that would click the pygmy marmoset link and the base would have been hidden in plain sight.
and the bit about it being protected against electromagnetic pulses, having independent power, water, etc is probably what the wanted to suppress.
For a story that somewhat parallels what the French did (but a WHOLE different level) check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramil_Safarov
If someone throws rocks at oncoming cars, you can't claim innocence because "I didn't mean to kill a family in a car crash!" If you invade an oil-rich Middle Eastern country and cause half a million excess deaths, it's just as bad as if you personally murdered each and every one of them.
On the actual statement - I disagree 100%, but we're talking ethics, so rational arguments can't go very far :)
If you read very carefully, you'll notice that person you're replying to was delineating between evil and culpable.
What you are doing is diluting the 'evil brand'. If you call a drunk driver evil, you have nothing left for the likes of Hitler and Pol Pot. What are they then - double evil?
A mistake can be something that just turns out to be a bad idea. E.g. "we really need joins; using NoSQL was a mistake".
But, yes, from a New Zealand perspective, The Rainbow Warrior affair triggered an equally dramatic change in foreign policy.
Why the hoopla then?
They are like the big child standing with a lollipop in their hand next to the screaming baby.
American organizations appear to bend over backward to be of service to American intelligence interests around the world, but tend to act arrogantly if approached by local authorities over local matters, to the extend of openly violating the law of the country they're operating in.
For all we know (I'm neither a lawyer nor French), French law requires the whole publication to be taken down immediately pending further procedure. In that case it's not surprise that something designated a matter of national security gets escalated fast.
Wikipedia's blunt refusal has probably pissed the French of more than the actual content of the article.
Why is it that this makes what the French authorities did OK? Your argument boils down to "He did it so I should be able to do it too?" What kind of screw up logic is that. Seriously, W.T.F. We are not talking about kids here.
It makes it easier to understand why they picked this approach. It is possible to try to understand someones motivations without supporting them.
I think you mean the pro-censorship perspective..
Puh-lease. Not every country has the same 'golden' standard North America has. (Notice my heavy quotes around golden)
For those who want to learn more, the radio station built at this site is part of a Tropospheric Scatter Communication Network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter) named Ace High and which is used by NATO for military and civilian communications.
You can see it here on a map with other TSCN networks http://rammstein.dfmk.hu/~s200/tropo.html#ace
Perhaps this is the sensitive portion? The most important part of the site is the underground part, used for transmissions dispatch: at a speed of 2 Mb/s, communications from the towers are analysed, then redirected to be transmitted as appropriate.
Firstly the grey world of interesting classified information - it has long been the domain of Janes' Ships and similar publications - who themselves had been "trusted" not to go too far, and only occassionally (as in the reveal of the Stealth bomber as an airfix kit in the late '80s) does it come to mass public attention.
This resulted in a grey world where secrets were not actually secret - just private.
Secondly - the loss of privacy. We worry about it for individuals - but it is happening to governments too, and faster. And they, like us, have not accpeted the new reality - there is no privacy. Facebook can determine if you are having an affair, are gay or ill. Combined tracking of sites and queries can reveal almost anything about ourselves and our medical conditions. Concerned your employer might know you are rethinking your sexuality? Don't Google "gay bars". Don't friend anyone. Remove the battery from the iPhone before going out for the night.
The same goes for governments - if it is not a secret, it is open. And it is not a secret because you say so - its a secret because no-one knows.
Thirdly this leads to a simple choice - decide on the things you are going to keep secret. And keep them secret with all the resources of the State. This clearly does not work in the "I say that is secret and you will now forget it" approach taken here. It works in the not F$%king telling anyone sense.
Fourthly - Most things will be open - its not feasible to hide a 100ft tower in the middle of the French countryside. You cannot keep a plane secret. You cannot keep a prison secret. In fact there is not much in an open andinquisitive society you can keep secret.
What does this leave? I am not too sure. Secret rendition flights are monitored by plane-spotting enthusiasts and soon will just be a google-satellite search away.
I think it will be a better world - less secrecy usually means better function, but there is a really big threat - the tempting way to keep things secret is to keep everything secret. Shut down the open, democratic society. Shut down inquisitiveness. Piece by piece.
And we do need to fight that at each and every turn because until governments get it - this is their default, tempting solution. Fighting terrorists? Lets torture some. Nuclear strike warning network under threat? Put wikipedia under French control.
My only suggestion is as follows: define National Security. Something like a reasonable belief that this things will threaten to destroy 2% of GDP or 1000+ deaths of citizens. Embarrassment to Politicans? Loss of a couple of agents? Not likely. So when someone quotes National Security, people listen. And if you quote it for a wikipedia article - woe betide you.
If we do it right we shall slowly find that like online security, you get it right by actually being secure.
Lesson here - security by secrecy, is no security at all.
I read an interesting article somewhat related to this:
http://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/digital-natives-dig...
It uses Anonymous and Wikileaks as examples (which you may or may not disagree with), but I'm linking it for the general discussion about a sort of digital generation gap, how the "governing class" of people hasn't caught up with this digital era quite yet.
This is a little mental exercise for me so bear with me please. Imagine that all the digital footprints I leave are available through nice open APIs and easily accessible (its not, it wont be but...)
Then I know that these are collected without any malicious or surveillance intent:
1. Physical location - iPhone collects this every 5 mins by default. Thats almost everything you need right there. I also log into different wifi hotspots, duck in and out of cells. You can infer an enourmous amount about me by knowing where I am, and even more by knowing who is there with me. My sex life, my business deals.
2. Interests - google searches for itchy skin rashes, my debit and "loyalty" cards with costa coffee and the supermarkets who know what itch cream I just bought. Do i have a cat - I buy cat food at Tescos so its a good guess. One of my two cats just died, which is very sad, but Tesco will know soon as my purchases halve and stay that low. When I buy puppy food Tesco can sell me pet insurance.
3. Networks - who I email (gmail knows all), who I phone (skype, cell provider), Facebook, linkedin, and most insidiously this cross-website-cookie business that is coming up (there is a name for it but basically how ad networks know to show me ads on different sites). If my iphone and one of my contacts iphones meet up, am I preparing to leave my employer? Would you want to know who is in the same location as Google's HR people if you were Zuckerberg?
4. Real world monitoring - CCTV is too poor to convict bank robbers most of the time, but Stanford did a study where a good camera could identify faces and match them to Facebook photos 1 in 3 times. You know the bit in CSI:NY where they search for the baddie and two dzoen photos flash by and suddenly they have an address. Thats real. Just not in neon blue lights with good looking lab assistants.
5. travelcards and train tickets, Uber taxi cab bookings from my mistresses flat to my wife's house. (NB I dont actually have a mistress but you get the point. <- you see the paranoia is getting to me, just in case my wife reads HN :-)
I could go on, but really, all this is starting to fall into place - I could happily do an Research MSc on pulling these sources together...
Anyway - privacy, gone.
And that leaves us with two circles in our Venn diagram of life. Anything that can be found out by someone somewhere in the world , and if there is anything left over it is a secret.
Oh and I think my Phd would be on inference of privatives - that is being able to spot the "black holes" in a persons digital footprints that tell you something they want to keep secret is going on.
Really, if the Intelligence Services lived up to their names, this is the stuff they should be eating up. (And those vast NSA computer farms....oh yes, of course :-)
Sounds like some french civil servant overracted - though unfortunately the French do have a nasty poujadist anti American strain that can come out at times.
I always have a hard time navigating wp discussion pages. Here is what looks like a more informative post that the one linked in the title of this HN post. EDIT: disregard that comment about the title as it might be a navigation problem on my side.
> First, my apologies for speaking in English in response to this thread, but I fear my French would not be adequate to convey what I would like to. If someone who is fluent in English and French would be so kind as to translate my message so that everyone on this thread can understand it, I would very much appreciate that. The Wikimedia Foundation's legal team was contacted by Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur in early March regarding the French language Wikipedia article entitled "La station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute". The Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur requested that we delete the article in its entirety under the claim that it contained classified military information. I responded to Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, requesting more detailed information because it was not apparent what classified information the article could possibly contain from a plain reading of the article. The Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur repeatedly failed to provide any further information and simply continued to make a general takedown demand, despite my explanation that we could not remove the information without more information from them. Eventually, I had no choice but to refuse their request until they are willing to provide me with more information so that I can properly evaluate their claim under legal standards. The community remains free, of course, to retain or remove the article as it sees fit. But at this point, we do not see a demonstrated reason to remove it on legal grounds. --Michelle Paulson, Legal Counsel (WMF)
And this is "Remi"'s first post about the whole thing (rough translation and report):
> Bonjour,
> je vous informe que l'article Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre sur Haute vient d'être supprimé par mes soins. Cet article contrevenait à l'article 413-11 du code pénal français (compromission du secret de la Défense nationale). La police française m'a convoqué en tant qu'administrateur, suite au refus de la Wikimedia Foundation de supprimer cet article en l'état des éléments fournis.
> La remise en ligne engagera la responsabilité pénale de l'administrateur qui aura effectué cette action.
Remi M. (d · c). À Paris, ce 4 avril 2013 à 11:11 (CEST)
In a nutshell:
- He deleted an article about a military radio station (Pierre sur Haute) ;
- he states that that article violates article 413-411 of the french penal code (violation of state defense secret) ;
- french police asks him to come to their office for a little chat (can't recall the english legalese for this) following wikimedia foundation refusal to delete the article. Him=a wikipedia administrator.
- he finally states that any admin who restores the article would face legal and penal consequences.
I understand from this first post that it is implied he deleted the article after the whole wikimedia refusal to delete the article but don't quote me on that and check for the exact chronology of events yourself when it surfaces.
There is also now a debate about the role of wikipedia admin on articles and their rights to delete or endorse responsabilities (I haven't read everything yet, take my rough report and translation with a grain of salt).
Actually, they ask for him to resign as a wikipedia administrator as long as he remains the president of wikimedia France (not the other way round).
The "intelligence" agency doesn't even understand how Wikipedia works! Scary.
Could you explain - I must have missed the presumably French idiom
But why Liberty, Equality, Waxing?
http://j28ro.blogspot.com/2012/09/la-station-hertzienne-mili...
(That is, it could be more advantageous to make it seem like a hoax, or it could be better to leave the "hoax" up with faulty information.)
I know a guy who had a rare car, of which there were twelve in the world. One day some people came and tried to steal his car and the cops told him to get the photo taken down because this would encourage future attempts.
It may have been handled abruptly (if it were properly handled, there wouldn't be any significant article about the event anywhere), but the DCRI is perfectly within its rights and was right to have the info taken down. No, information isn't free or benign. The right info in the right hands can be destructive, and I'm glad there are people watching out so that our national soil remains more or less safe. Knowing about very sensitive compounds _isn't_ a right nor a liberty.
Furthermore, it's not for the Wikimedia Fondation to assess the sensitivity of information, they merely provide efficient ways of spreading it and should stick to that.
Let's look closely at what is happening : 1 - The DCRI aks the Wikimedia Fundation to delete an article from Wikipedia because it's infringing article 413-11 of the French penal code. 2 - The Wikimedia Fundation refuses arguing the order should state which piece of information in the article is classified. 3 - As the Wikimedia Fundation is an american organisation, the DCRI turns itself towards its French arm, the French Wikimedia and its representative. 4 - Under pressure, the president complies and removes the article pointing that people putting it back will be breaking the law.
Well, actually, he is probably right. While I understand why the Wikimedia Fundation took a stand and refused to remove the article, as silly as it seems, the fact remains : In France, putting classified information online is illegal even you don't know they are classified.
Let's look at the article 413-11 : http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessioni...
First, this article is aimed at everyone not mentioned in article 413-10. Article 413-10 lists the sanction for people which are legitimately depositary of a state secret. Thus, article 413-11 concerned anyone knowing a state secret without being mandated.
Now, there is three points in the article. The first one says that the mere fact of knowing classified information without being mandated is illegal (yes, even by accident). The second one that destroying, stealing or copying such information is illegal (yes, it's unnecessary considering that to do that you have already committed 1). The third (unnecessary too) states that sharing this information with the public is illegal too.
So yes, if the Wikipedia article contains classified information, Wikimedia France already broke the law and its legal representative is liable and yes it's laughable.
But now, the best part. Do you know why there is so unnecessary part in this law ? Because it was changed in 2009 ! Previously, article 1 only criminalised illegally acquiring classified information, not knowledge of it. But, you nailed it, transforming unknowing citizen into criminals was obviously a necessity to protect us against terrorists and the amendment was passed in a state of general indifference despite some warning from the press (for once).
So, if you want to blame someone, blame the French parliament and the French people. It's entirely our own fault (you can also do some lobbying if you happen to be French, the new government might hear you but I doubt it).
Guess I had better cancel my trip to Paris...
>the mere fact of knowing classified information without being mandated is illegal (yes, even by accident). The second one that destroying, stealing or copying such information is illegal (yes, it's unnecessary considering that to do that you have already committed 1). The third (unnecessary too) states that sharing this information with the public is illegal too.
That is comically absurd. Thank you for the detailed explanation.
We the French government have said that 100ft tower over there is a secret - so don't look at it.
We the people of a democracy like to look around and ask questions like "what is that 100ft tower over there?"
Democracy has nothing to do with censorship. Italy, for example, is both far more democratic and employs more censorship than the US does.
The US is one of the least democratic democracies in the world. An abismal percentage of the population votes on anything. The president is chosen by about 9% of the people. 9% of the population chosing a corporate puppet to write executive orders is a democracy? Okay, sure...
Oh and don't knock the USA too quickly - Italy only makes "flawed" democracy in the Economist global rankings.
Edit: the 9% did strike me as low. Turnout in 2012 was 58% and Obama won on 51:49 - making him elected with ~30% not 9%. Are you somehow counting minors (ie whole population) to drag that down to 9%?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec...
And anyway, democracy is that you have the right to vote, not that everyone votes, or that all votes are for the one that got elected. In fact, the places where someone is elected with 100 % of votes are decidedly not democratic.