[Wikimedia-l] PRISM

[Anthony]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 6:33 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> > We know that people's Google searches have been used against them in
> > court.  I'm not aware of any cases where Wikipedia searches have been
> > used.  But I can't imagine why they'd be any different.
>
> Because one is a search engine and the other is an encyclopedia. If someone
> was researching ways to make explosives or looking for child pornography,
> those are grounds to incriminate.


First of all, no there isn't.  Certainly not for "researching ways to make
explosives", anyway.  Perhaps "looking for child pornography" could somehow
be construed as "attempted possession of child pornography", but even that
would be stretching it.

Wikipedia on the other hand is an
> encyclopedia. There is nothing illegal about going in to a library and
> looking at a physical encyclopedia, nor should there be about Wikipedia.
>

That there's nothing illegal about it is the whole point.  Were it illegal
to view certain articles on Wikipedia, that the government would be able to
violate the privacy of those doing so wouldn't even be a question.