
Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository - marolafm
https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/Spain/2019/2019-10-23-GuardiaCivil.md
======
banjodeluxe
For a bit of context I'll leave my two cents here trying to be as objective as
possible, leaving politics out of it as much as I can.

Following the judge's veredict of the Catalan politicians who coordinated the
"proces", or series of political movements to attempt to secede Catalonia from
Spain; demonstrations have arisen within Catalonia protesting said judgement -
the politicians were essentially deemed as conspirators against the Spanish
constitution and have been given varying prision sentences. Parts of those
demonstrations have turned violent: clashes with police trying to stop
blockages of streets and railroads, burning of cars and dumpsters, etc...

The Catalonian government's stance on this is difficult: as a pro-independence
government they're trying to promote actions against the veredict but in some
situations it has gotten out of hand and turned violent - something a
government can't really condone.

Tsunami Democratic is an organisation that has been coordinating
demonstrations and developed an app that allows people to know where
demonstrations are happening, etc - whether these demonstrations turn violent
or not is officially out of their control; the Spanish authorities (in this
case, a judge in charge of investigating the circumstances around the more
violent parts of the rioting) obviously believe that the app is aiding in
coordinating violent attacks - whether that's terrorism or just violent
rioting is something I don't know and I'm unsure we'll ever fully know.

That's the context, at the end of the day it's a national government asking
for a repo to be taken down in accordance to the laws of their country, you
might disagree with it happening fundamentally but its nothing new, the Github
repo for takedowns has plenty - although they seem to usually be coming from
China/Russia.

~~~
zozbot234
> developed an app that allows people to know where demonstrations are
> happening

Sounds like a bit of welcomed transparency to me. The Spanish police,
concerned citizenry, etc. can use the app just as much as anyone else, to
prevent things from getting out of hand.

(*Edited for consistency with newly-provided info in this HN thread.)

~~~
iagovar
> The Spanish police, concerned citizenry, etc. can use the app just as much
> as anyone else, to prevent things from getting out of hand

They can't. The app uses some kind of location data to silo information. So
for example if they want to make an action in Tarragona, people from Barcelona
is not going to know about it.

It is likely, seeing some threads of people who have analyzed the application,
that the administrators, or whoever is behind it, will be able to know how
many people are available in a particular location, and isolate that
information in a kind of opsec.

~~~
saagarjha
Can't you spoof location data?

~~~
iagovar
I guess so, I didn't do the analysis, but I'm pretty sure the guys who did the
app already thought about that possibility.

------
davidito
Native speaker of Castillian Spanish here. IMO the most critical sentence in
this judicial order was mistranslated by GitHub, changing our understanding of
the government's request and casting GitHub's response in a more negative
light (if you believe information and communication tools should be free.)

The original language in the last paragraph is "...para solicitar la retención
del contenido y los datos relacionados con la investigación antes mencionada."

The Github English translation of this is (caps are mine) "...in order to
request both WITHHOLDING the content and data related to the aforementioned
investigation."

However, I believe a more accurate translation is "...in order to request
PRESERVATION of the content and data related to the aforementioned
investigation."

If you look up the Spanish verb "retener", it can have, broadly, two
applicable meanings in this case: "withhold" or "preserve".

I don't believe the language in the order should have been interpreted as
"withhold", because they are ordering to perform an action on the content AND
the "data related to the [...] investigation." This would be IP addresses,
access timestamps, GitHub account information, etc., I would presume. It
doesn't make much sense to "withhold" that sort of data. It makes more sense
to "preserve" it.

To me, this appears to be a request to preserve data, not to remove data.

A case can therefore be made that the GitHub decision to remove content went
above and beyond what was expressed in the received written order.

~~~
ETHisso2017
So retener is like retention?

~~~
davidito
It's also used to mean "withhold" or "block", which is why you have to look at
the entire sentence to contextualize.

~~~
te_platt
My (Chileanized) Castilian is pretty rusty but I thought your translation was
in line with how I read it. Instead of "withhold" I would say "hold onto for
myself" ; as in "Retener mis derechos". The broader context seemed to imply
preserve the records as in don't delete anything as we investigate, but I can
see how it could be taken the other way. In the sentence as written what word
would you use in place of retener if you meant to be clear to stop
dissemination or publication of the content?

Edit: In place of "la retención".

------
Schiphol
Some commentators are pointing out, not implausibly imho, that the Spanish
government is pushing the terrorism accusation against the pro-secession
movement as a way to tap into terrorism-related extradition agreements in
Europe. Right now there are a few Catalonian political exiles in Belgium and
other countries.

By the way, Tsunami Democràtic explicitly rejects violent action:
[https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html](https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html)

~~~
GonzaloQuero
Terrorism is also a quick way of instilling fear in Spain, as most people
around 30 years old still remember the times when we had three active
terrorist groups, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're using it just to spark
those feelings in voters. After all, there's another election coming in two
weeks.

------
giancarlostoro
Whats embarassing here is that Spain now joins the likes of China and Russia
_regardless of whom in the government sent the request_ , at least in the
context of government takedowns.

[https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/](https://github.com/github/gov-
takedowns/)

This is quite shameful.

~~~
pmarin
It not the government but the judicial authorities, we have distribution of
power. It's embarrassing that the title is intentionally misleading.

~~~
komarrian
The judiciary is part of the goverment and as you can see in the letters from
China and Russia the Goverment is asking GitHub to takedown repos referencing
laws too. That does not make said laws moral or just.

~~~
Arkhaine_kupo
Yes the analogy is perfectly sound. Spain one of the countries with the
highest score in index of democracy, with a recent constitution, with
separation of power is completely the same as the plutocracy born of the post
soviet collapse of russia and the authoritarian pooh regime of china.

~~~
squiggleblaz
I'm not aware of any index which considers Spain to be in the highest score
(e.g. in the Democracy Index, it gets 8.08).

If you think the age of the constitution means anything at all, then I am
scared. Countries that do well, like Norway or Australia, have old
constitutions — it means they have practice. Some good, safe democracies, like
New Zealand, don't even have a constitution at all. Most of the remainder have
constitutions that are old but have been comparatively recently re-enacted to
make some superficial change here or there. (In the top ten, Iceland, Finnland
and Ireland are probably the countries with the genuinely youngest
constitutions.)

And anyone who has seen the Spanish handling of this situation, who thinks
that Spain has separation of power, deserves the completely abandonment of the
rule of law that is just around the corner.

------
mindB
Github will not be shutdown over any action they do or do not take in Spain.
The worst that can happen to Github is that they are prevented from doing
business in Spain. Given how strongly Spain has come down against freedom of
expression on the Catalonia issue, Github is making it very clear by taking
this action that freedom of expression is not one of their values. Let me
repeat, Spain has come down hard enough against freedom of expression that I
do not believe it is ethical for Github to continue operating in the country.

I highly value freedom of expression, and it is especially important to me
that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that
value as well, and fights to preserve that freedom on their platform. This
will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future.

~~~
reallydontask
> I highly value freedom of expression, and to me it is especially important
> to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds
> to that value as well. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github
> or Microsoft in the future.

Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws?

Most governments ( no doubt, yours too), want companies operating under their
jurisdiction to obey their laws (Things get complicated on the web but the
basic premise holds), to say nothing of the fact that freedom of speech is not
absolute (not condoning or condemning the current action)

~~~
mindB
>Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws?

Absolutely. Companies and the individuals who make up companies should not
comply with unethical laws just as people at large should not comply with
unethical laws. Ethics stands above the law.

~~~
reallydontask
>Ethics stands above the law

This is pretty naive

Who decides what is ethical? I might think it's unethical to finance my
government given its record of military adventures around the world. Does that
mean that I'm off the hook on income tax?

~~~
mindB
>This is pretty naive

I think you may be misunderstanding me. Ethics stands above the law in that if
ethics and law conflict, a person ought to do the ethical thing rather than
the legal thing. It does not mean that people who disobey the law should be
off the hook so long as they were obeying their own personal code of ethics.

If this view is naive, then I believe most all work in moral philosophy is
naive. I don't think there are any major viewpoints that would elevate
obedience to the law as being a concern higher than ethical behavior.

Do you think that the entire field of business ethics is bunk and can be
reduced to the single maxim, "Follow the local law"? Is the code of ethics by
which I would be required to abide[1] if I became a professional engineer an
unnecessary restriction?

[1] [https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-
ethics](https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics)

------
kragen
Governments† burn libraries.

Don't create central points of vulnerability to coercion. That multiplies the
effectiveness of coercive force. Create decentralized systems. Git, not
GitHub. Bitcoin, not Citibank. Email, not Gmail — although we still need to
free email from DNS.

Never forget how the Spanish Inquisition — the origin, in the West, of these
sorts of degraded "laws" against "criminal content" — treated the Jewish
people and the keepers of the quipu. Reaching back further, remember how Qin
Shi Huang treated the Mohists, infinitely his superiors in every respect.

People will say it's justified because the Catalan separatists are fascists,
terrorists, pedophiles, or whatever. It's not justified. The rulers of al-
Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the
genocidal nightmares the Inquisition concealed with its censorship.

Today we are building the systems we will live in tomorrow. Do you want a
future of a thousand Inquisitions or a thousand Miltons and a thousand
Humboldts? Do you want Jefferson's future or Stalin's? A new Dark Age or a new
Enlightenment? Will a thousand schools of thought contend, or will the people
of the world suffer a sanitized environment devoid of "degenerate art" and
"bourgeois ideals"? Will they remember what really happened, teasing the truth
out of biased accounts written from many points of view, or will they only be
able to read history as written by the victors, the version whose "correct
ideology" earns it the censor's _imprimatur_?

It depends on how vulnerable our systems make human rights, and in particular
the right to knowledge.

As a hacker, you decide what tomorrow's books are made of. Will they be
printed on celluloid, which goes up like gunpowder with a spark? Or will they
be etched in bright sheets of stainless steel?

Because governments burn libraries.

But cypherpunks write code.

† That's "states" to you Brits.

[edited extensively]

~~~
dmaldona
> People will say it's justified because the Catalan separatists are fascists,
> terrorists, pedophiles, or whatever. It's not justified. The rulers of al-
> Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the
> genocidal nightmares the Inquisition concealed with its censorship.

Genocidal nightmares? I get that you are attempting to be poetic but do inform
yourself about the historicity of your claims:

> The Inquisition was originally welcomed to bring order to Europe because
> states saw an attack on the state’s faith as an attack on the state as well.

> The Inquisition technically had jurisdiction only over those professing to
> be Christians.

> The courts of the Inquisition were extremely fair compared to their secular
> counterparts at the time.

> The Inquisition was responsible for less than 100 witch-hunt deaths, and was
> the first judicial body to denounce the trials in Europe.

> Though torture was commonly used in all the courts of Europe at the time,
> the Inquisition used torture very infrequently.

> During the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, between 3,000-5,000 people
> were sentenced to death (about 1 per month).

> The Church executed no one.

[https://strangenotions.com/spanish-
inquisition/](https://strangenotions.com/spanish-inquisition/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revision_of_the_Inq...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revision_of_the_Inquisition)

~~~
kragen
While I appreciate your compliment about my prose, it is no less factual for
being "poetic". The Inquisition was established as a genocidal institution
against the Jewish and Muslim populace of Iberia, many of whom fled, and was
later extended to serve the mission of obliterating the native religions and
cultures of the New World; the price of this dominion, for Spain and later
Italy, was the intellectual degradation and descent from greatness into
mediocrity, as learning could only flourish outside the Catholic world. The
burning of the Mayan codices and of the khipu were fruits of the Inquisition,
losses of learning whose depths we will never fathom.

For every Giordano Bruno burned at the stake, a thousand monks prudently
refrained from exploring controversial issues, and a hundred thousand loyal
Catholics remained fettered in an intellectual darkness so profound they could
not even see their chains.

The cost of the Inquisition is not to be measured only in the smoking corpses
of scholars and Jewish and Muslim people, or even those falsely accused of
practicing Judaism, but in the lost memory of entire civilizations, and in the
books that were never written. It is to be weighed by the end of Galileo's
scientific career, in Descartes' cowardly refusal to publish his greatest work
until after his death, and in his inability to learn from the criticisms that
ensued. It is evident in the near absence of Iberian and Italian philosophers
from the birth of physics, chemistry, and the calculus; even Lagrange left
Italy in the end.

That today we fly through the air like birds; that we live in artificial
mountains of glued-together stone; that we walk on the moon; that we use
precious steel where our great-grandparents used wood; that only one in thirty
children die before reaching adulthood, instead of one in five, as through all
human history; that we routinely cure cancer; that I am writing you this note
in letters of lightning playing over the surface of tiny stones from the other
side of the world — these miracles are all thanks to the fact that the
Inquisition did not reach England, or Prussia, or the Low Countries, except
briefly. These miracles are thanks to the noble fruits of free inquiry.

~~~
dmaldona
Yo do write very well! Is not an empty compliment.

About your comments, I can point to some excerpts in the Inquisition wikipedia
article:

> The Inquisition was established as a genocidal institution against the
> Jewish and Muslim populace of Iberia,

"The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among
those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism"

There was no genocidal intention, its a nuance but important. It wasn't
established to "find every Muslim and put it on a stake".

> For every Giordano Bruno burned at the stake, a thousand monks prudently
> refrained from exploring controversial issues, and a hundred thousand loyal
> Catholics remained fettered in an intellectual darkness so profound they
> could not even see their chains.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Censorship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Censorship)

"The censorship of books was actually very ineffective, and prohibited books
circulated in Spain without significant problems. The Spanish Inquisition
never persecuted scientists, and relatively few scientific books were placed
on the Index. On the other hand, Spain was a state with more political freedom
than in other absolute monarchies in the 16th to 18th centuries."

"Despite the repeated publication of the Indexes and a large bureaucracy of
censors, the activities of the Inquisition did not impede the development of
Spanish literature's "Siglo de Oro", although almost all of its major authors
crossed paths with the Holy Office at one point or another."

> The cost of the Inquisition is not to be measured only in the smoking
> corpses of Jewish and Muslim people, or even those falsely accused of
> practicing Judaism, but in the lost memory of entire civilizations, and in
> the books that were never written.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_toll...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_tolls_and_sentenced)

"evertheless, some authors consider that the toll may have been higher,
keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the
tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively, and estimate between 3,000 and
5,000 were executed" [...] "In either case, this is significantly lower than
the number of people executed exclusively for witchcraft in other parts of
Europe during about the same time span as the Spanish Inquisition (estimated
at c. 40,000–60,000)."

~~~
kragen
Indeed, the witch-panic exists everywhere and at every time, though sometimes
it is weaker and sometimes stronger, and the words used vary. Today in Nigeria
and in Evangelical Christian churches there is still persecution of "witches"
and "cultists", while in mainstream America instead the word used is
"hackers". But in England the witch-panic did not dissuade Newton from
publishing his works on natural philosophy, as it had Descartes during his
lifetime; and in Leipzig and Hanover the witch-panic did not dissuade Leibniz.
Spinoza, whose Jewish family had fled the Inquisition, published many of the
fundamental works of rationalism; had his family remained in Spain, only with
great luck would he have escaped the _auto-da-fé_ , and today we could not
debate his ideas.

How many potential Spinozas did we lose to the Inquisition because they had
the misfortune of being born in Spain instead of in the Low Countries?

England and Holland were certainly guilty of atrocities, at home and in their
colonies abroad, but the indigenous peoples of many of their colonies retained
their cultures. The Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee survives today,
and possibly it inspired the revival of democracy in Europe. Hinduism, Islam,
Jainism, and Buddhism survive in India today, as does knowledge of Vedic,
Pali, and Sanskrit, despite centuries of English enslavement and exploitation.
Contrast this with the fate of the cultural legacies of the Inka, the Maya,
the Caribs, and the Quilmes.

Genocide does not require extermination. Cultural obliteration and mass
expulsion — the explicit intent of the Inquisition, and to a very great extent
achieved throughout Iberia and the Spanish colonies in America — are equally
genocidal.

So, I say, do not accept censorship. It is a poisonous remedy, and it kills
what is most precious in human culture before it begins to cure the illness
for which it was prescribed.

------
DangerousPie
It was a warrant issued by a Spanish court that Github legally had to comply
with. You can be angry at the court for issuing such a warrant but you can't
be angry at Github for complying. They are not above the law, even if they may
disagree with it.

~~~
dannyw
US companies have no legal obligation to comply with a Spanish court order. A
MLAT must be arranged and approved before US companies have a legal
obligation.

GitHub's compliance with the court order was voluntarily and discretionary;
just like how if the North Korea courts told me to shut down my site, you have
every right to say no.

~~~
testvox
Wasn't the request sent to Microsoft Spain? And Microsoft Spain is under the
jurisdiction of the Spanish Government.

~~~
superkuh
The unintended but extremely obvious consequences of centralization strike
again.

------
justinclift
Not 100% sure of the repo name, as it's not displayed in the document.

At a guess this is the one, and it still seems to be on GitHub:

[https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu...](https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io)

The GitHub pages hosted website still seems to be online too:

[https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io](https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io)

Perhaps GitHub is publishing the request, but isn't complying with the
takedown?

~~~
philipwhiuk
Anyone in Spain got any context on TD and the current political context?

~~~
enriquto
There's a massive ongoing police operation to suppress the catalan
independence movement. The spanish paramilitary is trying to take down the
source code of an app that people use to coordinate peaceful demonstrations.
They say that this is to "fight terrorism" which is ridiculous, albeit there
are already several people preemptively incarcerated, falsely accused of
terrorism (still waiting for a trial).

~~~
greatpatton
I think that regarding the Catalan independence the Spanish judiciary system
had proven itself to be at the level of the worst dictatorial country. People
taking part in it should be shameful. When most of these cases will go up to
the EU court they will likely get squashed.

~~~
enriquto
Sure, but it takes years. In the meanwhile, several arrested teenagers will
have spent all that time in jail, some of them even incommunicado (!).

------
komarrian
This is outrageous "Tsunami Democratic" has not coordinated any terrorist
attack nor has an attack taken place in Spain... They are abusing
antiterrorist laws to quash peaceful protests and GitHub is complying.

~~~
jarfil
"Peaceful" does not mean destroying the streets, setting cars on fire,
throwing incendiary devices at the cops, or bullying those who don't agree
with you.

~~~
JaumeGreen
There are multiple organizations, each preparing their own mobilizations.
Tsunami has only launched (AFAIK) the airport blockade.

There are the CDRs, PicnicxRepublica, Omnium, ANC,... And probably many more.

In fact there are suspicions about tsunami not being "good enough" by some
independentists.

Don't attribute to one what comes from another.

------
pmarin
The title is intentionally misleading. It's not the government but the
judicial authorities, in Spain we have distribution of power.

From the take down notice:

> In Spain, judicial authorities are responsible for the supervision and
> control of websites in order to prevent the dissemination of criminal
> content as it is specified in the article 35 of our Law 34/2002 and the
> article 13 of our Criminal Procedure Code.

~~~
kolanos
How is a judicial authority not a part of the government?

~~~
kzrdude
Government is often understood to be the executive part, somewhat like
'administration', I don't know if there is a better word to use.

~~~
swebs
Not in the English speaking world at least. "Government" is an umbrella term
which includes the legislature, executive, and judiciary.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
In the UK "government" is generally taken to mean the executive who are also
part of the legislature (parliament), but not judiciary. UK Judiciary
separation _appears_ to be far stronger than in the US viewed from here in the
UK.

~~~
swebs
Ah, I didn't know that. Well both HN and Github are US sites, not UK, so the
title is accurate in this context.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
"English speaking world" is a tad wider than US specific - many of whom stick
with a variation on the Westminster model. ;)

From the context of this subthread seems like the Spanish think of government
as executive and legislature, with judiciary separate too.

------
dasloop
Spanish telecommunications operators also blocked access to the Tsunami
Democràtic website a few days ago.

In both cases due to an ongoing investigation, not based on any conviction.

~~~
gerardvivancos
What's incredible is that a police order is enough to take down an app or
website, without any court intervention.

Not that Spanish courts are to be trusted on matters like this, but still...

~~~
throwaway8756
Well, this is pretty normal I'd say. It happens all the time with many
different crime investigations...

I wouldn't attack a country's justice system that gratuitously.

~~~
gerardvivancos
There’s a whole lot of attack surface on the Spanish justice system, to be
honest

------
demarq
A) A little late now, since as is stated in the letter people are already
mirroring the repo

B) can the app really be spreading that fast, if people are having to download
it from github, and override their devices security settings to install it?

Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some
reason. It sounds like it's right out of some dystopian movie.

~~~
ahje
> can the app really be spreading that fast, if people are having to download
> it from github, and override their devices security settings to install it?

I suspect widespread public dissent does require quite a lot of motivation.
Sending an APK file over Bluetooth or a web link is most likely not that much
of a hassle in that situation.

> Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some
> reason. It sounds like it's right out of some dystopian movie.

Yeah, it's outright scary, and the fact that the local news outlets here
barely mentions it doesn't make that feeling any better. I'm sure there's a
rational explanation but it still feels... disturbing...

~~~
throwawaysea
Do all android phones let you install an app by opening a file or clicking a
link? I would think carriers restrict phones’ capabilities in this regard.

~~~
ahje
I've never encountered an Android device that didn't allow me to install an
APK. Is that an actual thing?

~~~
throwawaysea
I’m not sure. But as I understand it, in the US carriers don’t just allow any
phone to connect to their network, but rather only ones they have whitelisted
(I might be wrong). That’s why I assumed they would also restrict loading apps
on the side somehow.

------
lrmunoz
The title is misleading. Alternative correct title: "Spanish judge orders to
take down Github repository"

~~~
gerardvivancos
Which judge? Can you name the judge?

It's the Guardia Civil (police) requesting the takedown.

~~~
portillo
It was ordered by the "Juzgado Central de Instrucción número 6" of the
"Audiencia Nacional" which is presided by Manuel Maria Garcia-Castellon. The
police cannot request taking-down a website without a judicial order.

~~~
gerardvivancos
Ok, so he's the same one who ordered detentions on 9 Catalan independence
supporters under the accusations that they were preparing terrorist actions,
even though there is no evidence on that?

It seems like he sees terrorism everywhere when he looks at Catalans.

------
oarsinsync
Looks like the app repo is at
[https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami](https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami)

It appears to still be online from UK, dunno about ES

~~~
jarfil
That one seems to be a cloned repo, the blocked one is at
[https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu...](https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io)

It returns a "Repository unavailable in your location" message, which is kind
of ironic since the website itself is still accessible from
[https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io](https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io)

~~~
oarsinsync
[https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami](https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami)
is the repo linked to by the website at
[https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu...](https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io),
and there have been no further commits to the website in the last 12 days,
while the takedown is from the last 24 hours.

Based on your comment, it suggests that the takedown request is for the
website, not the application repo, which is interesting in a way.

------
rehasu
Why would anybody have the "smart idea" to put anti-government source code on
a centralized source code management website? This was probably on purpose to
gain some media attention...

~~~
sigotirandolas
They also have, or used to have, their own domains and servers, but those can
be blocked at the (national) ISP level rather quickly.

On the other hand by mixing their content in centralized websites, they need
to send takedown requests to every single one of them, since they would block
legitimate traffic otherwise[1]. It's basically a workaround for IP and TLS
SNI blocking.

Of course this is all to make it simple for non-techies to access their
website / application. If they required using a VPN/Tor their adoption would
probably plummet.

[1] Actually they blocked an IPFS gateway before so it's more like "well-known
centralized websites".

~~~
rehasu
If I host a web server, and the only access is the ssh port, how should
anybody guess that I use it to host a git repo that you and I work on
together? More is not needed. Might even work on public clouds since you
shouldn't really raise any attention this way.

------
mihemihe
Don't get the wrong message because they use the term Democratic and play
being the victims. Majority of people in Catalonia do not support secession.
Those are the real victims, the 50%-ish which are silent, and suffering every
day not being able to declare in public their love for their country, Spain
and Catalonia, their region.

They used this app to organize violent riots, taking advantage of the pacifist
demonstrations organized by the pro-secession political parties.

The big problem in Catalonia is exactly that the ratio is around 50%-50%, but
the status quo is that Catalonia is part of Spain, so the pro-secession will
keep protesting, and the government shutting them down, and more important,
defending the 50%+ of Spaniards which live in Catalonia and want to remain
part of Spain. No one talk about these ones!

~~~
kuroikyu
> They used this app to organize violent riots, taking advantage of the
> pacifist demonstrations organized by the pro-secession political parties.

They also used this app to organize non-violent protests, but why say that
when you can tell half the truth to tell your story? I'm sure Whatsapp,
Telegram, Messenger good ol' SMS were used to organize violent riots, but we
won't close those right? I'm sorry but your argument is as week or worse than
the one used to take down HK's map.

~~~
mihemihe
Hong Kong and Catalonia are completely different stories, you know that, but
still we like to draw the attention to Hong Kong and find similarities where
there are none.

They closed other sources such as websites, and VPS hosting mirrors. You
cannot simply "close" WhatsApp or Telegram or SMS, that is not how it works,
unless you just cut the service for everybody, or go down the rabbit hole of
chasing hundreds if ad-hoc groups.

Still, the real victims here are the 50%+ of Spaniards who want to remain
being Spaniards. In my opinion, while there are people who want to continue
being part of Spain, the government is doing right protecting the law and
shutting the secessionists down.

~~~
kazagistar
Wouldn't doing right be having a proper referendum, ideally with international
oversight, to get the real answer to the question? Everyone likes to think
they are on the side of a majority, but its talking out of your ass til you
actually do the democracy.

~~~
mihemihe
Is simple majority enough to split a country, change the constitution, and
change the citizenship of millions of citizens? Some people think it would
require a qualified majority for such a change. How big? Maybe a 70%, and 80%?
A referendum when we are in the 50%-50% is a dangerous proposition, and
against the law, and definitely will make the things worse.

~~~
yxhuvud
That is a very reasonable question, and Brexit is also relevant in that
discussion. Perhaps it would be a good idea to require a qualified majority
for cases like this.

~~~
gerardvivancos
Why does not the status quo require some qualified majority?

~~~
yiyus
The status quo was already established by a very qualified majority. Changing
it should require a qualified majority too.

It's the same reason a thermostat is not constantly switching on and off when
you cross the set temperature. Heating will start when you go a couple of
degrees below the desired temperature, and it will only stop when you reach a
couple of degrees more. Else, you have an unstable system (this is not my
opinion, it's very basic control systems theory).

------
brycehamrick
Open source projects at large need to move to decentralized, censor-resistant
Git hosting. Some interesting projects in this area to watch are Ellcrys and
Gitchain.

------
throwaway8756
There are two different issues here (looking at the comments)

\- Github blocking the repo: Not sure if many of you know it, but the App was
involved "directly or indirectly" on organising demonstrations with the
purpose of blocking certain infrastructures, like airports. So I'm not really
surprised that it got blocked.

\- Catalonian independence movement: For those who are not up-to-date, this is
a very complex topic. There are not good or bad people here. Spanish
government is preventing that the country gets dismembered, specially by the
rich regions who prefer not to support the poor ones (originally, they started
the movement with the phrase "Spain steal from us"). Those politicians
incarcerated broke the law in several occasions even after being warned, so
the court decision is understandable (even if I don't agree with it). They are
not the ones who need to solve a political problem, only apply the law.

In regards to solving this conflict, no side is willing to step back, so I'm
afraid that this issue won't be solved on my generation. Spanish citizens
strongly believe that they all (including all regions) should be able to
decide the future of their country. Separatist believe that only them
(Catalans) should be able to decide, so here lies the problem. The situation
is not comparable to Scotland as Catalonia was never a separate entity, it was
part of the Kingdom of Aragon centuries ago. There was not prior agreement
between countries, in contrast with Scotland and England.

------
mirimir
It's clear that Microsoft Spain must comply with Spanish government orders.
That's just reality.

It's also clear that using GitHub for Tsunami Democràtic was a poor choice.
Because GitHub is obviously vulnerable to such takedowns.

Self hosting on a more or less "bulletproof" server would have made far more
sense. If I were doing it, I'd probably use a Tor onion server, with clearnet
gateways via disposable VPS, using domain names that were difficult to revoke.

~~~
FrojoS
> It's also clear that using GitHub for Tsunami Democràtic was a poor choice.

It created publicity for the movement.

~~~
mirimir
Did it really? How?

I mean, how many non geeks have ever heard of GitHub?

However the project got publicity. it could have used a different backend.

------
notlukesky
While currently Catalan separatism is a non-starter there are issues in the
areas that they claim as theirs as the Valencians consider themselves separate
to the Catalans.

It is the nesting doll situation of splinter separatist groups.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_nationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_nationalism)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Countries)

Ultimately reminds me of the Monty Python skit from the Life of Brian - The
People's Front of Judea:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4)

------
RustyBucket
The app has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It is used to coordinate a
thousand or so semi drunk teens who clash with police, burn trash containers,
block airport and highways for fun. Those who wanted to express their
dis-/agreement with gothernment position had several half a million people
peaceful protests.

------
xrd
Is there any technical reason why an APK cannot be hosted on IPFS? I've read
so many discussions where the big problem with IPFS is that content does not
get distributed across the nodes fully and is unavailable. This event seems
like a situation where the usage would support and guarantee availability.

Is Dat another option?

------
knolax
But muh western values! If Russia had done the same exact thing this thread
would be filled with jingoists calling for sanctions or war. Remember that the
next time somebody tries to goad you into tribalism with ideology, the
ideology to them is a means, not an end.

~~~
maze-le
You are correct, but at this point in time, we have to ask: "What ideology?"
\-- Ideologically most systems are the same: Cleptocratic oligarchies. They
might have local flavours here and there -- communist, authoritarian, market-
liberal, social-democratic -- but basically they are the same.

------
gerardnll
Everything now fits as ‘terrorism’ thanks to some changes in the law. Awful.
And accusing Tsunami Democràtic of criminal organization is tremendous. The
Spanish Government has lost its mind. (Ah! Elections coming up in less than
two weeks)

~~~
tassl
After all, they accused some puppeteers of glorifying terrorism for a play
against police manipulating evidence in Spain [1].

[1]
[https://elpais.com/politica/2016/06/28/actualidad/1467119956...](https://elpais.com/politica/2016/06/28/actualidad/1467119956_320215.amp.html)

------
aregue
I wonder if this letter is truly from Guardia Civil or is it from someone else
impersonating it. The content reads amateurish, such as the claim "Tsunami
Democratic's main goal is coordinating these riots and terrorist actions by
using any possible mean" without refearing to any specific actions or events.
The assertion that Tsunami Democratic has been declared a terrorist
organisation by National High Court is simply not true, and no official
communicate would reference the media as a source. I wonder if this is the
reason why the content is still available on Github (at least from Norway)

~~~
gerardvivancos
Honestly, I would not rule out the Guardia Civil from writing amateurish
content.

------
droithomme
I wonder if any people against the Catalan independence revolution were in
favor of the Arab spring movement, which also used mobile apps to coordinate
actions against government. And if so what the distinction is.

------
segmondy
You know what I'll like to see, maybe I'll build it when I get the bandwidth.
A system that let's you mass publish across many places at once.

You can publish to github, bitbucket, gitlabs, netlify, neocities, heroku,
reddit, HN, youtube, blogger, facebook etc, like 100 different places.

Then any govt that wants to orders a take down, has to reach out to all those
places, but the main thing of course is that most of these places shouldn't be
in US, some should be in EU, Russia, China.

The idea being that bureaucracy will get in the way of taking some down.

~~~
jaggirs
Also applies to content uploads from creators. If instead of only uploading to
youtube they automatically did so for a variety of platforms, youtube's
monopolistic position would be reduced somewhat. Also reduces the likelihood
of your content being stolen and profited from on another platform.

------
kimsant
Keyword "Terrorism" is a backdoor used by some to pervert law based democratic
systems.

GitHub should ask further information regarding this statement: '''Tsunami
Democratic has been confirmed as a criminal organization driving people to
commit terrorist attacks. Tsunami Democratic's main goal is coordinating these
riots and terrorist actions by using any possible mean'''

------
berkes
This seems like a good use case for the distributed web.

There's a copy on IPFS already:
[https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUFcAKdPUnZwz5AZA6gANbqVfADXw61znPosMJ...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUFcAKdPUnZwz5AZA6gANbqVfADXw61znPosMJ7qB8uRw/)

------
GrumpyNl
We need hosts who will leave this up.

~~~
Scoundreller
Or just publish the signatures in the newspaper and let various sketchy hosts
do their thing.

------
kd3
We are fortunate enough to be given another example of the dangers of
centralized cloud computing. It is extremely risky to use services like
Github. We saw the same thing recently with Adobe blocking Venezuela.

------
samuel
It's the best it could happen to anyone who wishes to use the app.

People installing binary blobs from anonymous github repos which are
politically charged while granting location permissions... what could possibly
go wrong?

------
mikece
Are there GitLab instances in neutral countries which are only accessible by
Tor? I realize that won't be the most user friendly way of distributing
info/apps but could be a start.

~~~
frenchyatwork
How about just a GitLab instance in a neutral country that is accessible by
Tor? The perfect doesn't haven't to be the enemy of the good.

------
sidewndr46
If this is real, I'm laughing at the fact that they list Microsoft as a
separate entity. They must be completely clueless

------
aatharuv
I'd never heard of Tsunami Democratic. Now I've heard of it thanks to the
Spanish State.

------
AcerbicZero
The drawbacks to multinational corporations are becoming somewhat untenable.

------
JohnFen
This makes me feel even better about my decision to abandon GitHub.

------
akimball
So where is there a fork of the repository?

------
devtul
TBP responses come to mind instantly.

------
rolltiide
who cares where is the mirror?

------
bilekas
This is actually really annoying, it kind of motivates me to help.

