This is my mail to the US department of Justice, concerning their recent attempts to extract profile information about users of Twitter.
You can send mail here:
http://www.justice.gov/opcl/contact-us.htm
Hello.
I am a Norwegian citizen living in Norway, and as such I have no rights as a judicial subject in your country.
However, recent developments have made me, and many others subjects of your legislation none the less. It has been brought to public attention that the department of justice seeks private information about twitter users who voice their support for WikiLeaks.
While I don't mind you knowing my full name and oppinions it disturbs me a great deal that you feel a need to covertly gather intelligence about political activists using their democratic right to free speech via the internet.
For this reason I feel the need to write to you, and tell you who I am and what I stand for.
My full name is [removed for reasons of google and spam and so forth, disclosed in the mail though], I am a librarian working at the largest public college in Norway where I'm a liason librarian for the department of education (serving 3.500 students and 300 teachers).
I also have a master's degree in contemporary history.
With regards to WikiLeaks I have advocated both on twitter and elsewhere that all citizens have a natural right to know everything their elected officials and their policy making employees are doing on their behalf. It is in fact the foundational principle of republicanism (res publica). Anyone who seeks to stand in the way of this right is an enemy of democracy.
I have participated in a public debate in librarian media in Norway, and supported the Norwegian Library Association in their condemnation of the move by the Library of Congress to block WikiLeaks. You can read summary of my position here: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bokogbibliotek.no%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D1466%3Ademokrati-bibliotek-og-wikeleaks%26catid%3D1%3Aaktuelt(translated from Norwegian by google translate.)
I have also on numerous occassions tweeted my views on WikiLeaks (as well as several other issues of potential interest to you). My tweets can be read at http://twitter.com/gird_09
It frightens me that someone like me, with my belief in freedom of information, right to privacy and free speech can be such a threat to your system that you feel the need to persecute, slander and prosecute us to the full extent of your ability. They only way I, and my brethren pose a threat to your way of life is if you insist on keeping secrets from the public and pursuing policies that are detrimental to your own people's interests. Your nation was after all founded on the principles of democracy, openness and human rights. A far cry from how you are perceived in the world today. Did you ever stop to consider why?
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