[Wikimedia-l] French intelligency agency forces removal of a Wikipedia article

[Fred Bauder]

Typical. They were not willing to tell our legal counsel why or what was
classified; she, of course, has no French security clearance; now it is
spread all over an administrators noticeboard, and restored.

They weren't wrong but neither is our legal counsel or the users; so
"fell between the cracks." Hopefully the matter was not too important;
I'm sure we have enough money to pay for relocating the facility to a
secure location.

Fred

> This is where the discussion is happening on-wiki:
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Bulletin_des_administrateurs#Secret_d.C3.A9fense
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 10:52 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
wrote:
>
>> Hard to know what was involved from the information you provide. The
problem is there is classified information that amounts to nothing and
then there is classified information release of which can cause
serious damage. Defiance will eventually result in serious trouble.
Not that we should knuckle under to nonsense.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>> > Hi there,
>> > I guess you might be interested to hear that Direction Centrale du
Renseignement Intérieur (Central Directorate of Interior
>> Intelligence,
>> > DCRI), a French intelligence agency that reports directly to the
Ministry of the Interior, has apparently forced a French Wikipedia
administrator to delete an article that in their opinion—as I
understand it—revelead classified information deemed very harmful
>> to
>> > the French national defence ("compromission du secret de la Défense
nationale").
>> >
>> > Interestingly, they contacted the WMF legal team with a request to
remove (delete? suppress?) this article a couple of weeks before
>> that,
>> > but were refused after failing to provide further information on why
the article should be removed (in the words of a Foundation legal
counsel).
>> >
>> > Undounted by that, they approached the said administrator — who
operates under his real name, so I guess it was pretty easy to track
him — and asked him to delete this article, a request which he
obliged. (The article has since been restored by a different
>> > administrator). As far as I understand, the version of the article
they wanted to have deleted was
>> > <https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=81104004>.
>> >
>> > I guess that when an intelligence agency asks their citizen to
remove information from Wikipedia citing the penal code (article
413-11 of the French penal code in this case), it is something worth
sharing
>> (no
>> > harm intended).
>> >
>> > Further reading in English:
>> > * <https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=91703508> *
<https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=91705235>
>> >
>> > --
>> > Tomasz W. Kozłowski
>> > a.k.a. [[user:odder]]
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> > Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Matthew Roth
> Global Communications Manager
> Wikimedia Foundation
> +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
> www.wikimediafoundation.org
> *https://donate.wikimedia.org*
>