[WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee members granted checkuser tool

[Jack Lynch]

VERY good questions and comments Anthere, thank you.

Jack (Sam Spade)

On 11/14/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Sean Barrett wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Chris Jenkinson stated for the record:
> >
> >
> >>Kelly Martin wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>On 11/13/05, Chris Jenkinson <chris at starglade.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>What would happen if either of you (Kelly or Sean) disclosed private
> >>>>information into the public domain? Aside from ethical concerns, what
> >>>>prevents you from doing this?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>At work or on Wikipedia?
> >>>
> >>>At work, I would risk being fired, sued, and possibly prosecuted.
> >>>
> >>>On Wikipedia?  It would be wrong.  It would also be breaking several
> >>>promises I've made.
> >>
> >>
> >>As both of you would face legal recourse if you were to divulge private
> >>information in your day jobs, what do you think the opposition to having
> >>a comparable legal agreement between the Foundation and people with
> >>checkuser is due to, given that the situation is reasonably similar?
> >
> >
> > The situation is not reasonably similar; it's not even remotely similar.
> >
> > Disclosure of the information I handle at work would immediately and
> > directly endanger lives and damage national security, and I am rather
> > well paid for accepting the responsibility.
> >
> > Disclosure of a Wikipedian's IP address can only lead to harm through
> > tortuous chains of unlikely happenstance, and the privilege of
> > contributing to Wikipedia's success is not sufficient compensation to
> > persuade me to accept the possibility of a prison term.
>
> In case you are not aware of it, Yahoo recently helped the chinese
> government to uncover a chinese "dissident" and this lead the guy to
> prison. Have no doubts that some of our participants, in particular
> those from certain regions, or those participating to wikinews, are at
> the same amount of risk. *You* could yourself directly endanger a life
> in giving private information. I hope that in spite that you do not
> receive a sufficient financial compensation, you will be careful. I
> think feeling less responsability due to the fact you are not paid is
> not a very good approach of the tool.
>
> Aside from this point, the question of what would happen if Sean or
> Kelly or anyone with the tool would release private information to the
> public is a good question.
>
> They would lose access to the tool certainly. Very likely, they would
> lose position at the arbcom. Aside from this, I suppose that anyone
> having private information released by a person without a good reason
> (such as protecting our network) have the opportunity to sue Sean, Kelly
> or whoever on top of suing the Foundation.
>
> Maybe a question to ask a lawyer ?
>
> Ant
>
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