[Rintaran]

On a related note, if PPCA does introduce the motion to support wikileak and it pass - I will leave the PPCA for good after events of cumulating sequences that led to this event

If you're going to issue the PPCA an ultimatum concerning your continued membership, you may as well leave. Ultimatums do not contribute to the pool of knowledge and information. Additionally, as mentioned previously, if any statement of support were to be made, it would need to be highly restrictive to the portion of Wikileaks that the general membership may be in support of (and that's where I think your opinions can best come to light). I'm sorry if you feel as though you're under attack on this issue, as I'm sure it is not by intent. Mikkel has taken his patient time to push in either direction on this issue, both for you and for Steve at various points. I'd appeal to you to not become passionate about this issue, one that I believe will ultimately be forgotten in everyone's eyes in a month or two, and redact your ultimatum.

Although the individual opinion is important, the PPCA will not be held captive to one individual's opinion when they threaten to quit otherwise. You're here because you want to be, and because you want to effect change within the purview of the range of issues that the PPCA covers.  If you would like to have more influence, I'd recommend running for a seat on our Federal Council. If you want to be the boss, you're welcome to make a motion to have a confidence vote against Mikkel and then run for Leader, but the childish nature of putting forth the above ultimatum immediately puts me and many others well out of your camp, even if someone weren't overly impressed with your competition and may have found some of your views in the past to be interesting.

My personal view is that Wikileaks should get off the stage and hand over the microphone. Their "release" is just distracting people everywhere from the real issues that are affecting global and local economies and people. I wouldn't be surprised if Wikileaks were being fed the information purposely to distract the public from real issues, but that's a conspiracy theory and bears no basis in fact, and is why I haven't brought it up prior.

Again, Biogrand and Steve, I encourage you both to take a step back, calm yourselves, and think about whether your actions and statements are really what you want to say concerning this issue. I would also ask that you move beyond your opinions on this matter, apologize for upsetting one another, and help move the party forward with the more important tasks before us.

Thank-you.

[dzver]

Strange to find opinions as Biogrand's in our camp.

I am not very active member but logged in to see what is the position of PPCA on Wikileaks matter.

Surprisingly I see no official statement - will there be one, or PPCA will keep silent?

Thanks.

[Rintaran]

I am not very active member but logged in to see what is the position of PPCA on Wikileaks matter.

Surprisingly I see no official statement - will there be one, or PPCA will keep silent?

From the route the thread has travelled, there probably will be a statement of some sort. How it will be worded is a different matter entirely, and I don't think it will happen until after the General Meeting on the 19th.

Wikileaks is a very touchy topic and you're likely to find opinions across the entire spectrum, regardless of which party's doors you walk through. Although I love the disclosure of information, I don't love that it block out more pressing matters that should be handled now. The latest bastion of released cables is hardly surprising, but people are glued to it and ignoring just about everything else. Hell, most of those cables have no need to have been marked confidential in the first place.

[dzver]

Rintaran, thank you for the quick reply.

I mostly share your opinion on wikilieaks case.

But the fact is that want it or not, it already IS a hot public topic - and for PPCA to not address it in any way will be rather hide-your-head-in-the-sand and pretend nothing is going on stance (and as was already mentioned, missed opportunity for more media exposure).
If the eventual-statement-to-be appears with huge delay (months etc) there is a chance to be not only inadequate, but funny as well.

Not sure what are the other pressing mattters, but imho public image is one of the most important aspects of a party.

Cheers.

[trailblazer11]

I am sure we can work something out. Biogrand, our party is bound to have lots of disagreements on issues since we are encouraging free flow of information and non restrictive platform on a lot of issues. Hope you don't quit because of one disagreement. The debate is far from over.

Personally, I think we can work something out. Here is one example of what our statement can say. Note, this is just a personal statement not official or anything. Just exploring ways we can deal with this.

The Wikileak controversy shows that when government stifle information and mislead people, people result to extra ordinary means to seek out information denied to them by a government who is supposed to be serving them. PPCA recognize the importance of protecting the citizen's private information and would work to ensure openness and transparency of government records and activities. It encourages the government to work with Wikileak who have volunteered to allow government's review of the documents prior to its release. It also condemns any government officials from making statement that could be construed as encouraging violence and murder just as it condemns any individual who talks about assassination and utter death threat against a person or government official. It also opposes government harassing and libelling an individual's reputation through unsubstantiated claims and extra legal means.
Hope this will encourage discussion to find common ground rather than people buckling down on their respective position.

[cshen]

I would also like to see at least a statement in support of Wikileaks.

While most traditional political parties are wary of supporting the actions of whistleblower site Wikileaks, Pirate Parties around the world have made it very clear whose side they are on. Just before the weekend Wikileaks moved to a Pirate Party owned domain, and today a conglomerate of Pirate Parties have just announced that they are now providing the site with several much needed mirror servers.

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-parties-supply-wikileaks-with-much-needed-servers-101205/

[trailblazer11]

Looks like wikileaks wants PPCA to help them out, how did wikileak expect the world to react for releasing all these documents? Because it seems like Assange and his crews are under pressure because of it and they barely just began. Poor planning on their part.

http://whoacanada.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/wikileaks-links/

Even if there's consensus to help host them, we simply don't have the resources or ability to do that right now.

[Mikkel Paulson]

Looks like wikileaks wants PPCA to help them out, how did wikileak expect the world to react for releasing all these documents? Because it seems like Assange and his crews are under pressure because of it and they barely just began. Poor planning on their part.

http://whoacanada.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/wikileaks-links/

That's a private blog, not a spokesperson for WikiLeaks.

Even if there's consensus to help host them, we simply don't have the resources or ability to do that right now.

Yes we do. Hosting a mirror is not difficult or expensive.

[Mikkel Paulson]

https://www.pirateparty.ca/uncategorized/on-wikileaks

[trailblazer11]

Yes we do. Hosting a mirror is not difficult or expensive.

ic. Did not realize it's just mirror. Torrent would be a great tool for distributing their files. Looks like they already did and have released a 1.3 GB file with 256 bit encryption. The key will be released in the event that Mr. Assange is arrested. The file includes those that they have chose not to release to protect the lives of spies and soldiers.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/assange-threatens-to-release-entire-cache-of-unfiltered-files/article1825922/

Would the U.S. government step up their crackdown on Torrent sites just as they did against Torrent-Finder and few others last week? Not that it would matter. It is a futile effort on the U.S. government part.

Another reason I have reservation about how we voice our support is we are a political party and cannot be seen as explicitly supporting hacking. However, revelation like the fact that the Spanish copyright law was written by the U.S. are fair game IMHO. Wikileak on a lot of instances replaced the job of what media used to do back when investigative journalism were done by journalist who risked their lives to expose government's malpractice. So on matters relating to government actions, Wikileaks are acting like a journalist. They did not do the hacking themselves but are merely releasing information given to them by an insider. Some government agency protect whistle-blower for the purpose of encouraging exposé of malpractice (e.g. The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act). However on matters where a private citizen's information is released without their consent, then it depends on the value of the information in relation to keeping the government honest. If the individual is not involved in wrong doing then their name should be blocked out. We can maybe release a statement to that effect if we are to support Wikileaks for keeping government accountable. Although for the latter case, judging the value of information and individual's involvement in some instances might be too subjective.

[RyanShepherd]

The way I see it, a Statement of Support regarding Wikileaks from the PPCA does not have to be black or white. We can support what they have done with the Iraq War Logs and CableGate, and distance ourselves from actions that run counter to Canadian Constitutional Rights or Party Platform. We cannot, however, remove offending material from a mirror.

We can also include in our statement specific support for our Pirate Party brethren in other countries who are running mirrors (as long as it does not violate their countries' laws).

Officially State Support for Wikileaks +1
Mirror Wikileaks  -1

[Steve Henderson]

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-parties-supply-wikileaks-with-much-needed-servers-101205/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak

[cshen]

Saw that our position will be put to vote. Please also put to vote whether we should offer to mirror. I would certainly be voting in favour.

[Mikkel Paulson]

Already on the agenda.

https://www.pirateparty.ca/forum/index.php?topic=589.0

[cshen]

awesome! I'll try to join the IRC meeting.