Police raid home of Wikileaks.de domain owner over censorship lists

Police raid home of Wikileaks.de domain owner over censorship lists

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Shortly after 9pm on Tuesday the 24th of March 2009, seven police officers in Dresden and four in Jena searched the homes of Theodor Reppe, who holds the domain registration for "wikileaks.de", the German name for __._. According to police documentation, the reason for the search was "distribution of pornographic material" and "discovery of evidence". Police claim the raid was initiated due to Mr. Reppe's position as the Wikileaks.de domain owner.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The reasons they give don't make sense and are not a probable reason for the raid. Is this what the world is coming to? At this point we have to be afraid of the police raiding our homes for trying to get the truth out. Just wait until something like this happens to Alex Jones or Ron Paul.

Some more from the article:

Police did not want to give any further information to Mr. Reppe and no contact was made with Wikileaks before or after the search. It is therefore not totally clear why the search was made, however Wikileaks, in its role as a defender of press freedoms, has published censorship lists for Australia, Thailand, Denmark and other countries. Included on the lists are references to sites containing pornography and no other material has been released by Wikileaks relating to the subject.

Some details of the search raise questions:

* Wikileaks was not contacted before the search, despite Wikileaks having at least two journalists which are recognized members of the German Press Association (Deutscher Presse Verband).
* The time of at least 11 police detectives was wasted conducting a futile raid on the private home of volunteer assistant to a media organization.
* Police asked for the passwords to the "wikileaks.de" domain and for the entire domain to be disabled.
* Mr Reppe was not informed of his rights; police documentation clearly shows that box to be left unchecked.
* Contrary to what is stated in the police protocol, Mr. Reppe did not agree to "not having a witness" present.

Ultimately, Mr Reppe refused to sign the police documentation due to its inaccuracies.

The raid appears to be related to a recent German social hysteria around child pornography and the controversial battle for a national censorship system by the German family minister Ursula von der Leyen. It comes just a few weeks after a member of parliament, SPD minister Joerg Tauss had his office and private house searched by police. German bloggers discussing the subject were similarly raided.

secure....__._/wiki/Police_raid_home_of_Wikileaks.de_domain_owner_over_censorship_lists

[edit on 25-3-2009 by MSMLies]

reply to post by MSMLies


"Distribution of child pornography" seems to be something that alot of 'police' forces use as a reason to raid/invade/search someone's home.

After all ... it's something that no law abiding citizen can stand ... so it's a readily available 'excuse' to raid/invade/search someone's home. No one will stand up or question a search when it's got "child pornography" behind it.

And I would agree that it doesn't seem that there was any actual reason to believe that this was an honest search. Sounds more like they made it up as a reason to get in and get other info. (whatever that may be)

Uh oh.
Its hard to say if this was just part of the "fervor" of the pedophila outrage going on in Germany at the moment...Or if they were using that as an excuse to get into his house in the first place.

Lets face it, Wikileaks is bad for a government. The more secretive a govt. is, the more of a problem Wikileaks is for you. They do amazing work.

The difference between someone like Alex Jones for example (regardless of your opinion of his validity) and Wikileaks is that Wikileaks provides actual documentation. Documentation cannot be dismissed as fallacy, while "commentators" (as I like to call them) like Alex Jones etc. can be. I wouldn't really class Ron Paul as a commentator either. Thats taking it a bit too far.

Not sure what to make of this one.

There was a thread here just yesterday regarding the Australian Governments banning of certain websites - like most cynical people I investigated into it on Wikilinks and while I never followed any of the links to the sites - many were named in the pedo-centric style (along with some poker type sites and a few others).

Supplying links to (potential) child pornography does seem like a step in the wrong direction for Wikilinks, even the Pirate Bay don't allow for that.

While I'm against being told what to absorb and what to ignore I can imagine there is enough grounds for a legitimate raid on someone if there are grounds that they could be spreading images of abuse.

Just my 1,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars/2 cents.

-m0r