12th December 2010, 12:41 PM
Yeah, I often disagree greatly with Ron Paul, but on this issue I agree with everything he said in the video.
Has Wikileaks done anything illegal? I'm not sure, really. Maybe, maybe not. The people releasing stuff to them have, surely, and they encourage people to give them that stuff. It's possible that the excuses Visa, Amazon, etc. have used to drop Wikileaks -- that they violate the terms of service that say 'no illegal activity' -- are actually valid. Oh yeah, and Julian Assange doesn't seem like a very nice person... But still, the reaction has been incredibly disproportionate, no question about that, and the free speech implications of trying to crush them are troubling; as Ron Paul said, Wikileaks didn't get that stuff itself, it just published stuff sent to it.
Has Wikileaks done anything illegal? I'm not sure, really. Maybe, maybe not. The people releasing stuff to them have, surely, and they encourage people to give them that stuff. It's possible that the excuses Visa, Amazon, etc. have used to drop Wikileaks -- that they violate the terms of service that say 'no illegal activity' -- are actually valid. Oh yeah, and Julian Assange doesn't seem like a very nice person... But still, the reaction has been incredibly disproportionate, no question about that, and the free speech implications of trying to crush them are troubling; as Ron Paul said, Wikileaks didn't get that stuff itself, it just published stuff sent to it.