[lazide]

Can you be more specific?

How do you propose someone could stop someone from releasing a record they acquired publicly, exactly?

Seize it? Prohibit someone from saying something they found out via a public route on penalty of fine or prison?

[verve_rat]

Um, yes? Courts can issue injunctions to stop people from publishing material they have. If they breach the injunction they can go to jail, or have some other penalties imposed.

Even in the US there are limits on free speech. A judge would weigh 1st amendment rights vs other considerations, but there are limits. Yelling fire in a theatre and all that.

[lazide]

Which works if it is 1 document, or one publisher, so someone can do the paperwork and a judge can handle it.

And does infringe their 1st amendment rights, by the way.

And if it’s a million documents and the publisher is everyone who got a torrent done in the months before the injunction?

[TedDoesntTalk]

No one is talking about the reality of removing a million sources from the internet. We’re talking about the legal consequences and 1st amendment rights of individuals.

You do not have a 1st amendment right to post, for example, classified documents or protected intellectual property. If you post those things, even if 2,000 people posted them before you, the law can still come down on you.

[salawat]

You sbsolutely do have a right topost blassified documents if you come across them, but have not attained a security clearance.

There's definitely a massive "should" aspect there, however, the courts will protect you in that case. The one who got them for you, or if you committed a crime in acquiring them however...

That is a different story.

[alasdair_]

Oddly, classified documents that could theoretically harm real people are legal to share with others but don’t you dare try to share the latest Beyonce track or there will be hell to pay.

Perhaps the RIAA should be in charge of national security from now on?

[vageli]

> No one is talking about the reality of removing a million sources from the internet. We’re talking about the legal consequences and 1st amendment rights of individuals.

> You do not have a 1st amendment right to post, for example, classified documents or protected intellectual property. If you post those things, even if 2,000 people posted them before you, the law can still come down on you.

Did the reporters who broke the pentagon papers see court? Only the source as I recall, which seems contrary to your statement.

[boomboomsubban]

>Did the reporters who broke the pentagon papers see court?

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...

And the ruling was printing classified documents was protected, though the government is trying to reverse this ruling with the Assange case.

[vageli]

As I understand it, the government is not trying to reverse this ruling with the Assange case. The government posits that Assange helped in the acquisition of the documents, which is separate from their dissemination, IIRC.

[fire]

oooh, while reading this thread, it crossed my mind that, well, if this website knows where it got the data from, then it could provide that info to the end-user, so they could actually have the source removed.

It isn't infeasible to see a future where this website could continue to provide the public the benefit of its existence, and also help protect the people who actually do need to have their records protected;

It sort of depends on how anarchistic the maintainers lean, and how much of an appetite courts actually have for fixing record leaks rather than blocking access to the tools or suing...

I guess you could verify a record should be in a sealed state with the file that states the sealing happened, right? I vaguely remember document IDs from the last time I touched anything related to them.

[lazide]

We aren’t talking about any of those things - we’re specifically talking about public records however.