Iceland aims to become an offshore haven for journalists and leakers
On Tuesday, the Icelandic parliament is expected to introduce a measure aimed at making the country an international center for investigative journalism publishing, by passing the strongest combination of source protection, freedom of speech, and libel-tourism prevention laws in the world.
Supporters of the proposal say the move would make Iceland an “offshore publishing center” for free speech, analogous to the offshore financial havens that allow corporations to hide capital from authorities. Could global news organizations with a home office in Reykjavík soon be as common as Delaware corporations or Cayman Islands assets?
“This is a legislative package to create a haven for freedom of expression,” Icelandic member of parliament Birgitta Jónsdóttir confirmed to me, saying that a proposal for comprehensive media law reform will be filed in parliament on Tuesday, and that whistle-blowing specialists Wikileaks has been involved in drafting it. There have been persistent hints of an Icelandic media move in recent weeks, including tweets from Wikileaks and a cryptic message from the newly created @icelandmedia Twitter account.
The text of the proposal, called the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, is not yet public, but the most detailed evidence comes from a video of a talk by Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt of Wikileaks, given at the Chaos Communications Congress hacker conference in Berlin on Dec. 27:
We could just say we’re taking the source protection laws from Sweden, for example…we could take the First Amendment from the United States, we could take Belgian protection laws for journalists, and we could all pack these together in one bundle, and make it fit for the first jurisdiction that offers the necessities of an information society.
Schmitt termed the idea “a Switzerland of bits.” He also mentions that “lawyers in Iceland are working on a bill that will be introduced on the 26th of January,” although it appears the date of introduction has been pushed back to next week. And he cites Iceland as a path to eventually spreading similar laws throughout the EU
A safe haven for leakers and investigators
Jónsdóttir explained that the proposal does not contain final legislation, but would instruct the government to create a package of laws that enhance journalistic freedoms in specific ways. According to an email from Assange (which was then leaked, ironically enough) the amendments would cover source protection, whistleblower protection, immunity for ISPs and other carriers, freedom of information requests, and strong limits on prior restraint. They would also provide protection against libel judgements from other jurisdictions, much as the United States may soon do with the Free Speech Protection Act of 2009.
This package was designed by a working group including representatives from government, civil society, and Wikileaks, which has considerable experience in international media law and censorship issues. The site accepts anonymous submissions of material of public interest, and publishes them without question. Since its its inception in Jan. 2007, Wikileaks has released thousands of sensitive documents, including an investigation of extra-judicial killings in Kenya and more than 500,000 intercepted pager messages from New York on the morning of September 11, 2001. When The Guardian obtained documents alleging the dumping of 400 tons of toxic waste on behalf of global commodities trader Trafigura, they were slapped with a “super-injunction” which prevented them from disclosing not only the contents of the documents, but the existence of the gag order. Wikileaks published the material three days later. Wikileaks is currently down for a fundraising drive but says it will resume operation shortly.
The site intersected with Iceland last summer. The country suffered so severely from the 2008 collapse of its banks that riots in the streets forced the election of a new government in April. Iceland is still crippled with a debt of more than five times yearly GDP, but the banks managed to keep their creditors confidential until August when a national TV broadcaster obtained the list. The newsroom was barred from airing the story at the last minute, but in a stroke of genius, they ran the URL for the Wikileaks disclosure instead. This was “very popular, and very needed, in order for people to understand what was going on inside the banks, because obviously we have to carry the bailout,” Jónsdóttir told me.
A country in the mood for openness
Riding on that popularity, Assange and Schmitt came to Iceland early December and floated their idea for a journalism publishing haven on a talk show, then in a more detailed presentation at Reykjavík University. Jónsdóttir and others were impressed. “The main purpose is to prevent something like our financial crisis from taking place again,” said member of parliament Lilja Mósesdóttir, noting that Iceland’s financiers had great influence over the Icelandic media. “They were manipulating the news.”
Wikileaks has succeeded in bringing sensitive materials to light through a combination of technical and legal means. Submissions are anonymized and routed through countries with comprehensive journalistic source protection laws. Last year, I remarked to Assange that Wikileaks was lucky to have registered its domain name in California, where a 2008 lawsuit brought by an aggrieved Swiss bank against the site’s domain name registrar was likely to be dismissed. (It later was, with legal briefs of support filed by several major American news organizations.) Assange replied that it was no accident, and that Wikileaks has yet to lose a lawsuit.
That legal resiliency is in some ways the reverse of “libel tourism,” where plaintiffs file suit in a jurisdiction likely to give a favorable result. One famous case involves a suit filed in London by a Saudi billionaire against the Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels, for a story originally published in the Wall Street Journal in New York. Some courts have ruled that placing an article online counts as publication if it is accessible from their jurisdiction, which would mean that a web story could be declared libelous anywhere in the world. In an Feb. 7 email, Assange wrote:
We can’t expect everyone to go through the extraordinary efforts [that] we do. Large newspapers are routinely censored by legal costs…It is time this stopped. It is time a country said, enough is enough, justice must be seen, history must be preserved, and we will give shelter from the storm.
Jónsdóttir said that the proposal already has the backing of the leaders of the Left-Green Movement, the Social Democratic Alliance, and the Citizen Movement, which she speaks for. This represents a total of 38 of Iceland’s 63 parliamentary seats, with only a simple majority needed to pass. She said she expects a vote within a month, and that if all goes well the final laws could be drafted and passed within six months. But the situation is fluid — she also said “the government might be on the verge of dissolving,” due to an upcoming referendum on debt restructuring with UK and Dutch banks.
On a purely ironic sidenote: This story was embargoed until Monday. Thank you Mr. Stray
It’s an interesting comparison: Delaware/Ireland to Corporate taxes and Iceland (maybe) to Data. Good to know that in a networked global society all it takes is one hold-out for liberty to change the game.
Well…okay. This could be a good thing, as long as the basis of the free speech is truth. Liable Laws, sadly, do have their place. Words do mean things. And, as long as the truth is illuminated, then it is good, and the fools must suffer under its light. But there is no place for wanton slander or damage done through sloppy research or careless lies, or this freedom of speech becomes worthless.
Of course this can also be seen as Icelanders, in true defiant Viking spirit, sticking the finger to the UK – which is not only the world’s premier destination of libel tourism (in Assange’s words from the video: “the UK is the world’s worst liberal democracy”), but also the country that used anti-terrorism laws against them, to freeze Icelandic bank assets (Assage: “[Iceland] has seen the direct effect of UK bullying”).
What a moronic idea. Just a few months ago UBS was forced by the United States to turn over names of people from the US who have tax haven account in Swiss bank and pay a fine. Is
Iceland ready to be a pariah state? There is always way to circonvent the law either through technology or cunning. Look at china for example. Ihe people with little means end up paying more, while others walk free. Is Iceland ready to take persecuted journalists to its border?
Interesting story. Shame about the embargo breach.
> The Nieman Journalism Lab is a collaborative attempt to figure out how quality journalism can survive and thrive in the Internet age
Top tip: respect embargos. When you screw up, as you have here, make a public apology.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing about the evil.
Jonathan – rereading my comment above it’s a bit churlish and “pre first cup of coffee”. I think the reason I’m a grumpy is I’ve been sitting on the story, but dutifully observing the embargo. Do what you want. Let’s all make a donation to Wikileaks. W
this is ridiculous; the left in europe is freedom of expression’s worst friend. Look at what they are doing to gert wilders for making a movie filled with quotes by muslim terrorists in their own words, or german police breaking into homes to remove israeli flags, or BA firing employees for wearing a small christian cross pendant, etc., etc. iceland welcomes antisemites like bobby fischer but it is the right that is defending freedom of speech in europe today
Hi William: It was my call to publish the post, so I thought I’d let you know what my thinking was.
First, I don’t understand how a private organization like Wikileaks is in any position to declare an embargo on coverage of an act of government. A legislator introducing a piece of legislation is, by definition, a public act, and if a legislator wants to talk about that, I don’t see how some third party is in a position to stop her.
Let’s imagine ExxonMobil worked with a U.S. senator to create a piece of energy legislation. Would ExxonMobil have the right to tell journalists they can’t write about that legislation until ExxonMobil is ready for them to? If an organization wants to embargo information about themselves, fine, but I don’t think it’s okay to say that the thoughts and actions of legislators can’t be reported on because an interested party outside of government said so.
Second, the news was already out there, as we showed in the story. They discussed their project in detail in front of a big crowd in Berlin, and video of that talk has been sitting on YouTube for weeks. The email they sent out had been posted on a public website for days. Wikileaks has been tweeting about this project in quite specific terms.
Third, I guess I’m a traditionalist, but I think that an embargo is an agreement between two parties, the source and the journalist. It’s not someone’s unilateral declaration that a subject can’t be written about. If I do something newsworthy, can I just send an email to a group of journalists ordering them not to write about it — even if they could find out about it through other means, or even if it’s already being written about/discussed elsewhere online?
When companies or organizations want to impose an embargo, it’s generally because they are the only source of information about something. For instance, when USC Annenberg had a new report coming out the other week, they contacted us ahead of time and asked if we wanted an advance copy of it, in exchange for respecting their embargo. I agreed. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Anyway, that’s why we did what we did.
Great idea! I’m all for it – its about time that writers have someplace where they can write their truths without somebody trying to stamp on them.
The propaganda war will intensify. A globalist agenda can only succeed in an environment of ignorance. Citizen awareness is the real enemy of a corrupt elite and a global conspiracy to enslave humanity through a contrived debt. Whether it is a individual or an entity, when they are caught illegally manipulating financial markets the repercussions should be extreme. When Goldman Sachs can make bad bets and then pass those mistakes on to innocent third parties and that fact is made public despite GS’s extraordinary attempts to cover it up, there is still hope for us all. As more people become hungry and homeless, those responsible will ultimately need a place to hide. Let us all make sure that there is no place for them to hide. They should be hunted down and prosecuted. It is imperative that we not let the planet slip into chaos because that is exactly what the globalists want. Any excuse, even a manufactured one will be used to declare martial law. Bloodshed can only follow. The globalists are practiced liars, thieves, and murderers. The livelihood and welfare of the masses is of no concern to them. The love of money is the root of all evil. This fact is proven daily in numerous places.
Richard Zink, you don’t own what other people say or think about you. Libel and slander laws are ridiculous.
If someone libels and slanders, they risk their own reputation. These laws which you consider necessary are used to enable all sorts of censorship. That’s what happens when you assign special rights to one group (those being spoken about) that supersede the rights of the group being punished (those exercising free speech).
We don’t need a state to have freedom or society. Indeed, almost all that is good in society, occurs outside the jurisdiction of the state. Love, learning, friendship, exchange and creation etc.
You can read a bit more about what is being proposed in Iceland (but not any actual detailed draft legislation) , and find the contact details of the people behind it at:
Icelandic Modern Media Initiative – Proposal
Icelandic Modern Media Initiative – Contact
Sceptical discussion about the ethics, technology and legality of the WikiLeakS.org project at the WikiLeak.org blog (no “s”).
Corporate/Nation raiders may have bitten too much too soon. Hope they get terminal indigestion.
Watch out. Iceland will be next to be labeled a ‘rouge nation.’ Israel will call you anti-semitic. US invasion to follow.
Anyone who thinks that ANY collection of tax-feeders is motivated by an instinct to add to liberty, is delusional.
If a ‘data haven’ can be created with the stroke of a legislative pen, it can be ABANDONED by similar means, once all that lovely data becomes interesting to any organism that is able to hold hold hostage the aforementioned tax feeders; it’s hardly rocket science.
The way to ensure data security is to encrypt it properly, not to bung it into nice policially ‘protected’ boxes for perusal at leisure once the US decides to hold a gun to the Althing’s head (the way they did with UBS).
GROW UP, you silly silly children. A politician is not suddenly a moral being simply because he/she is Icelandic: politicans everywhere are rapacious non-symbiotic parasites.
Cheerio
GT
Oh – and while talking about encryption and such, OI should have mentioned FREENET.
All this talk about naitonal firewalls and government control of the internet is HOGWASH… the egg is scrambled (using chained AES/TwoFish/Serpent – or the same thing in some other order) and cannot be unscrambed even if every silicon atom on the planet was employed in the unscrambling.
With gnuPGP for e-mail and data exchange, open source encryption for data storage, mix cascades (JAP/TOR) for source obfuscation… government ddoes not have a chance.
The way we kill government’s prurient obsession with our private data, is by generating SO MUCH uncrypted data that their servers gag. I generate (roughly) 5000 gnuPGP-encrypted e-mails a day (half of which are photos of my cats) as part of an organised group whose aim is to make data-snopping an unbearably inefficient task for the aforementioned tax-feeders, and I enjoin everyone out there to do likewise.
And no, I have not compromised the source or destination of those e-mails (and it’s not ‘cats-data-cats-data’) by telling you this.
Cheerio again
GT
Just think, the USA used to be a haven for freedom. Now people have to run away from it to be free. What happened to my country?
Iceland, “Free Speech Nation”, sounds good! Whistle blower nation, anti corruption nation, we the people nation, will not abide by the systemic corruption of other nations nation. Shine a light on the murderous jackals that run the world nation. I do so hope that you succeed in shinning the light of truth on all that is wrong with the world. Good luck, have courage and persevere.
I’d be more impressed if Iceland and others would be banking and financial haven that would stand up to the US and European gov’ts.
Financial privacy is more important …
I remember when Iceland was the only nation not to have signed the international airline price fixing treaty. That meant that they were the go to nation for cheap trans-Atlantic flights. Yes, you had to fly turboprops, not jets, and you had to stop in Iceland, but it was much cheaper than any other airline. They had an office in the basement of Rockefeller Center, and you had to buy tickets in person.
Who knows? Iceland may have the right idea. We hven’t invaded the Cayman Islands yet, and they’ve done a lot more harm to the US than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Re: Richard Zink (#3 comment above)
Mr Richard Zink displays the fundamental insanity of all authoritarians, telling us that freedom of speech is OK only so long as the speech is “true”. No, Richard, you do not have the right to shut people up by government violence simply because they do not voice your beliefs. What you wrote is untrue in my opinion. Do I now have the right to censor you? At the root of authoritarian censorship is the stupid idea that government-found truth should be mandated and government-found falsehoods prohibited. Lies are harmless if you believe in free will. Slander laws assume listeners are controlled by what they listen to. That assumption is itself a lie.
Would that my country–with its glorious Constitution and its first Amendment–have been the first and foremost haven for journalists, Editors, scientists, and other dealers in information!
Oh well, another place where the government infesting DC has made our country second or third rate!
More’s the pity!
PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
David K. Meller
So what is Iceland going to do about Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties between itself and the USA.
Just as concerningthe infrastructure for this enterprise comes from the USA where CALEA capability is built into the hardware—perfect opportunity for an NSA/FBI partnership.
So, did they pass it or not? And if they did, how do I emigrate to Iceland? :)
http://www.CorruptionMangement.com
What a wonderful, incredible development. The owners of corporations have offshore havens for their nefarious activities. Now perhaps we decent human beings will have Iceland as our own offshore safety zone, one that is about as safe as you can get in this world from corporate predation.
Of course the corporations, which by definition are rabidly opposed to free speech and free thought, will do everything they can to suppress this initiative. If the dark lords can’t suppress this initiative, they will be forced to try to isolate Iceland from the rest of the world, or if that fails try to destroy their economy. You’ll see.
BLESS YOU ICELAND!!!!!
This is what the bloodsuckers fear the most “Free Speech”, they have used the money to shut people up through laws, lawsuits, and monopolies on the media.
How can I support you?
I agree, entirely, with Richard Zink. We in the U.S. are dealing entirely with “news” programs that are not news as we knew them many years ago. I am sorry to say, however, that I actually don’t believe information from these programs is not researched; I believe they are deliberately distorted for political purposes. I, for one, would welcome an investigative journalism haven, and will spread the word!