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

[George Herbert]

This is seeming a little silly; it's just a big communications station.
 It's got huge radio towers and is very visible on the skyline for a
distance.  It's got a civilian radio/TV tower colocated with it.

I can't see what would be sensitive in the article..


On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:12 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:

> 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*
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>



-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com