[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Legal obligation to report Wikipedia editor under UCMJ (Mike G weigh in?)

[Robert Rohde]

On Jan 2, 2008 10:18 AM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_employers_in_real_life
>
> This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including
> in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work
> for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to
> report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because
> that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is
> true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
>
> Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
>

In case anyone else on Foundation-l found this summary unclear, it appears
that what is being argued is the following:

Two (or more) individuals who are both enwiki admins and members of the US
military assert that under the US Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
they have an affirmative obligation to report violations of the UCMJ by
other members of the military.

They assert that the actions of another editor, who is believed to be with
the Air Force, violate the UCMJ, both because of personal use of government
computers and other unspecified (at least in what I read) infractions.

By raising the issue of these alleged infractions, and their possible
obligation to report them, these admins have been seen by others as
intimidating/harrassing this user on the basis of off-wiki circumstances.

This case is already moving into arbitration on an expidited basis, largely
because of the perception of harassment.


So the legal question is whether the UCMJ does in fact lead to these sorts
of conflicts of interest and real world consequences.

If it does, the practical question is whether this conflict of interest is
so severe that actions should be taken to limit its impact.  For example, a
draconian approach would be to disallow all editing from .mil addresses
(which is the possibility Nathan suggests above).

-Robert Rohde