

Court order seeks email of Wikileaks volunteer Jake Appelbaum - goodweeds
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203476804576613284007315072.html

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sage_joch
The US government is becoming increasingly opposed to individual freedom (see:
the DEA, the TSA, the NSA, its response to Wikileaks, its incarceration rates,
its use of torture, etc, etc, etc). I'm glad there are still people like Jacob
who will put up a fight against these infringements. So many people choose the
path of least short-term resistance.

~~~
acabal
Exactly why I'm leaving as soon as I can secure a residency permit in my
country of choice. While every country has its problems and there's no utopia,
I'd rather live in a place that has no illusions about the realities of its
flaws and rights.

You can't fix something if you don't even realize there's a problem.

~~~
udp
Just out of curiosity, what's your country of choice?

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acabal
Germany. My girlfriend lives there, and besides being the powerhouse economy
of the Eurozone at the moment, they seem to have more or less successfully
blended a highly successful capitalist economy with realistic and humane
social initiatives. To broadly generalize, the people here have a strong work
ethic, are highly educated by average US standards, and take pride in what
they do. They have a strong outdoors tradition and have highly progressive
(again, by US standards) green-living initiatives.

While I'm not yet that well educated in Germany politics and policies, my
initial vague impression is that while they're not as big on certain civil
rights as people ostensibly are in the States (open government censorship and
sometimes discriminatory hiring practices, for example), neither do they have
any illusions about those policies. If you do cross the law, punishments
appear reasonable--not $3 million and a lifetime of bankruptcy and lawyers if
you share 5 songs on Kazaa.

Lots of other countries like to poke fun and point out the flaws in many of
Germany's policies, and they certainly may be right, but Germany as viewed
from the lens of a self-employed American engineer unable to get even basic
health insurance is, at times, seemingly a progressive paradise.

~~~
brndnhy
> a self-employed American engineer unable to get even basic health insurance

Why is that?

~~~
acabal
Pre-existing conditions. I discussed this in a different thread long ago, but
the long and short of it is that while I may qualify for a "car-crash
emergency" type plan, it currently makes more financial sense for me to simply
declare medical bankruptcy in case of emergency and pay small incidentals out
of pocket than than pay a high premium/deductible on a plan that won't pay out
unless I need tens/hundreds of thousands in care. Not to mention the risk of
rescission. Meanwhile the COBRA payment from my last "real-job" employer was
in the range of $400/month, which was not affordable for me.

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goodweeds
<https://uloadr.com/u/rA44.png> to get around the wsj paywall.

~~~
aw3c2
Seems like simply not allowing cookies will get you to the text too.

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sneak
It's been true since I first wrote it in January:
<http://sneak.datavibe.net/20110113/wikileaks/>

PS: The PATRIOT Act which perpetuates this kind of idiocy is ten years old
this month. It's time to leave America. I did!

~~~
FrojoS
To where?

~~~
bh42222
Switzerland

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redthrowaway
The headline is a bit sensationalistic, if arguably accurate.

Edit for the downvoters: before it was modified, the headline read something
to the effect of "US Government invades jacob Applebaum's privacy in
continuing Wikileaks witch hunt".

~~~
safeaim
What's untrue about that older headline? Isn't that exactly what's happening
right now?

~~~
redthrowaway
I'm always suspicious of people who put conveying their emotional reaction to
a story above getting the facts across. You see it on reddit all the time, and
submitters hide behind the very justification you just gave. In the end, it
lowers overall quality.

Good journalism is about more than simply truth. It's about professionalism
and the appearance of such. Similarly, on HN I don't want to be browbeaten by
people's moral judgements on any given issue. Give me the facts and I'll make
my own judgements.

I happen to agree that the USG's actions against Wikileaks supporters are, if
not extralegal, then certainly not in keeping with the ideals the US justice
system is based on. That does not, however, mean that having headlines like
that improves my experience on HN.

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yread
Well he would be crazy to use US based email providers for anything important
anyway

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danssig
Amazing how far we've come, eh? Hard for me to reconcile the fact that I have
to put US-based communications in the same mental bucket as China-based
communications.

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RexRollman
Ah, the good old United States, where safety is more important than freedom.

~~~
ddw
Funny thing is I don't even see how this makes us more safe.

