→ Continued fromÊÒCaptives of the Cloud: Part IÓ

01/14

Is the future of the world the future of theinternet?

Ð Julian Assange1
The cloud is the informational equivalent to thecontainer terminal. It has a higher degree ofstandardization and scalability than most earlier
forms of networked information andcommunication technology. From social
networking to retail, from financial transactions
to e-mail and telephone, these and many otherservices end up in the cloud. Surely, the internet
already was a wholesale for all types of
information and media formats. As Milton
Mueller notes, these Òused to be delivered
through separate technologies governed byseparate legal and regulatory regimes,Ó while
now having converged on the internet and its
protocols.2 In the cloud, such ÒdigitalconvergenceÓ goes even further: data becomes
more effectively and thoroughly harvested,
analyzed, validated, monetized, looked into, andcontrolled than in the internet; its centralization
is not just one of protocol, but also of location.

Metahavene-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

Captives of the
Cloud: Part II

The Form of the Cloud
Many writers in recent decades have grappledwith a seemingly borderless information societyrooted in physical territories, and finding words
for this condition has been key to most serious
writing about information networks. For example,
the term Òspace of flowsÓ was coined in the
1990s by the Spanish sociologist ManuelCastells. It describes the spatial conditions of
the global movement of goods, information, andmoney. According to Castells, the space of flowsisconstituted by a circuit of electronic
exchanges (micro-electronics-based
devices, telecommunications, computer
processing, broadcasting systems, andhigh-speed transportation Ð also based on
information technologies) that, together,
form the material basis for the processes
we have observed as being strategicallycrucial in the network society.3
Castells adds that this material basis is Òa
spatial form, just as it could be Ôthe cityÕ or ÔtheregionÕ in the organization of the merchantsociety or the industrial society.Ó4 As legal
scholars Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith note in theirstudy Who Controls the Internet?, beneathÒformless cyberspaceÓ rests Òan ugly physicaltransport infrastructure: copper wires, fiberoptic

10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDTÒCypherpunk DreamÓ versus ÒData's Empire.Ó The dichotomy of the internet according to Michael Froomkin.

ÒLikeÓ versus ÒLawÓ: An ÒExtrajudicial DislikeÓ by US Senator Joe Lieberman prompting an industrial embargo against WikiLeaks.

10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

Any power, no matter how supreme,
totalitarian, ubiquitous, high-tech,democratic, and evasive, at the end has toland on the actual ground of the city andleave traces that are difficult to efface. This
is why, unlike the web, the city as the actual
space of our primary perception remains avery strategic site of action andcounteraction. ... But in order to critically
frame the network, we would need to
10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

03/14

propose a radical reification of it. This
would mean its transformation into a finiteÒthingÓ among other finite things, and notalways see the network and its derivatives
like something immaterial and invisible,
without a form we can trace and change.9
In discussion with Aureli, the theorist Boris Groysasserts that the network is situated on (or below)a Òdefined territory, controlled by the military.Ó
On those terms, Groys claims,
the goal of future wars is alreadyestablished: control over the network andthe flows of information running through its
architecture. It seems to me that the quest
for global totalitarian power is not behind
us but is a true promise of the future. If the
network architecture culminates in one
global building then there must be one
power that controls it. The central politicalquestion of our time is the nature of thisfuture power.10

A Renaissance of the StateThe early internet, in the hearts and minds of its
idealists, was something of an anarchic place.
John Perry Barlow prefigured the Òcyber-idealistÓ
position in his manifesto, ÒA Declaration of the
Independence of Cyberspace,Ó published in 1996.
Barlow asserts that the network and its
inhabitants are independent from the oldfashioned rules and regulations of territorialstates, who have Òno sovereignty where wegatherÓ:e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part IIcables, and the specialized routers and switches
that direct information from place to place.Ó5James Gleick describes the networkÕs data
center, the cables, and the switches as Òwheelworks,Ó and the cloud as its Òavatar.Ó6 The cloudpresupposes a geography where data centers
can be built. It presupposes an environment
protected and stable enough for its server farms
to be secure, for its operations to run smoothly
and uninterrupted. It presupposes redundant
power grids, water supplies, high-volume, highspeed fiber-optic connectivity, and otheradvanced infrastructure. It presupposes cheap
energy, as the cloudÕs vast exhaust violates eventhe most lax of environmental rules. While datain the cloud may seem placeless andomnipresent, precisely for this reason, theinfrastructure safeguarding its permanent
availability is monstrous in size and scope.
According to 2012 research by the New YorkTimes, the cloud uses about thirty billion wattsof electricity worldwide, roughly equivalent tothirty nuclear power plantsÕ worth of output.
About one quarter to one third of this energy isconsumed by data centers in the United States.
According to one expert, Òa single data center
can take more power than a medium-size town.Ó7ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA data center is a windowless, large, flatbuilding. Its architecture is foreshadowed by thesuburban big boxes of Walmart and the like.
Unlike megamalls, the precise locations of data
centers are secret. Companies donÕt usually
advertise where data centers are: not the public
image of their operations, but their actual
operations, depend on them.8 To users, the cloudseems almost formless, or transparent Ð always
available, ever-changing, hanging in the air, on
screens, in waves, appearing and disappearing,Òformless cyberspaceÓ indeed. Yet at the core ofthis informational ghost dance lies a rudimentary
physical form Ð steel and concrete
infrastructure. If the enormous, energy-slurping
data factories are the cloudÕs true form, thenthese instances of the Òspace of flowsÓ recall the
medieval castle, the treasure chest, and themilitary base. They recall the political andmilitary conflicts that have dominated geographysince recorded history. As the architect andwriter Pier Vittorio Aureli states,Your legal concepts of property, expression,
identity, movement, and context do not
apply to us. They are all based on matter,and there is no matter here. ... Our
identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, wecannot obtain order by physical coercion.
We believe that from ethics, enlightened
self-interest, and the commonwealth, ourgovernance will emerge. Our identities may
be distributed across many of yourjurisdictions.11
BarlowÕs manifesto declared cyberspace a sociopolitical commons. A space seemingly beyond
gravity, beyond the state Ð Òa world that all may
enter without privilege or prejudiceÓ; Òa world
where anyone, anywhere may express his or her
beliefs.Ó BarlowÕs ideas have somehow
resonated; indeed, Saskia Sassen mentions thatÒa distinct issue concerning the relation between
the state and digital networks is the possibility
for the average citizen, firm, or organization
operating in the internet to escape or override

10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

04/14

of any jurisdiction.20 HavenCo joined the dotcom
boom with angel investment from Joi Ito (among
others), who declared himself, still in 2002, Òa
great fan of the concept.Ó21 SealandÕs fragile
sense of half-tested nationhood would
theoretically raise the bar for any opposing
jurisdiction to physically invade the offshore
host. It would, indeed, demonstrate that cyberlibertarian ideology could take full control of anexperimental country, and reform the internet in
its name. James Grimmelmann, a professor at
New York Law School, is skeptical about Sealandand HavenCoÕs treatment of the law:
HavenCo was selling the end of law. ÔThirdworld regulationÕ was a euphemism forminimal regulation Ð or none at all. In its
search for the lowest common
denominator, HavenCo was willing to divide
by zero.22

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

most conventional jurisdictions.Ó Some of thisthought, according to Sassen, is Òstill rooted in
the earlier emphasis of the internet as adecentralized space where no authority
structures can be instituted.Ó12 Milton Mueller
comments that cyber-libertarianism Ò... wasnever really born. It was more a prophetic vision
than an ideology or ÔismÕ with a political andinstitutional program. It is now clear, however,that in considering the political alternatives andideological dilemmas posed by the global
internet we canÕt really do without it ...Ó13ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊConfusingly and hilariously, one place where
the rhetoric of borderless information freedom ismost pervasive is in the cloud. The worldÕs mostpowerful information companies have inserted
some of the internetÕs foundational optimism intheir mission statements. These tech giants talkabout themselves as heartwarming charities.
Every billionaire CEO is his own private Dalai
Lama. Pseudo-liberal jabberwocky of assumed
universal validity permeates the junkspace of
mission statements, annual reports, and TED
talks, especially when it comes to the cloud.
Microsoft wants to help everyone around theworld Òrealize their full potential.Ó14 Facebook
aims to give Òpeople the power to share andmake the world more open and connected.Ó15
Skype makes it Òsimple to share experienceswith the people that matter to you, wherever theyare.Ó16 And Instagram, bought by Facebook,envisions Òa world more connected throughphotos.Ó17ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊCyber-utopianism never translated into apolicy outlook of sorts. But it is still associatedwith a set of practices and spatial forms: online
anonymity, cryptography, Peer-To-Peer (P2P) filesharing, TOR (The Onion Router) bridges,
bulletproof hosting, and offshore data havens, toname a few examples. Michael Froomkin, aprofessor at the University of Miami School ofLaw, defined the data haven in 1996 as Òtheinformation equivalent to a tax haven.Ó18 ThisÒplace where data that cannot legally be kept
can be stashed for later use; an offshore webhostÓ appears omnipresent in the cyberlibertarian universe of thought, and is indeed an
extreme form of keeping information away fromantagonistically minded states, corporations or
courts.19 The data haven is the spatial form that,at least theoretically, enables the evasion ofsovereign power, while establishing an enclosed
territory on the face of the earth. The data havenonce provided a business model for the
Principality of Sealand, an unrecognized ministate founded by a British family on a former war
platform in the North Sea. A notorious example
in internet law, Sealand was, in the early 2000s,
home to the servers of HavenCo, a startup
providing offshore data hosting beyond the reach

Grimmelmann also questions HavenCoÕs
effectiveness, as Òfor most purposes, cheap
commodity hosting on one side of the Atlantic or
the other could easily outcompete SealandÕs
more expensive boutique product in the middleof the North Sea.Ó23 Grimmelmann rhetoricallycontinues, Òin an age of YouTube, BitTorrent, andthe darknet, who needs HavenCo?Ó24 Sealand
was the flagship store of the internetÕs anarcholibertarian movement. The P2P BitTorrent
platform The Pirate Bay famously tried to buy theailing principality in 2007, offering citizenship.25
Michael Froomkin, in a June 2012 lecture at the
Oxford Internet Institute, sketched out anarresting and slightly dystopian view of thecurrent internet. It looked like a complete
dichotomy Ð a dialectic between two opposing
visions, each serving broadly similar goals bycompletely antithetical means.26 The dialectic
was between ÒCypherpunk DreamÓ and ÒDataÕs
EmpireÓ (see diagram), where most of theanarchic (Barlow-style) stuff would be on thefirst side, and most of the cloud and surveillanceon the other. Oddly, two cloud-based services,
YouTube and Twitter, still appeared under the
Cypherpunk Dream, presumably because of thepivotal role both services play in online activism
and Ògetting the information out.Ó Froomkinconnects DataÕs Empire to a Òrenaissance of thestateÓ Ð a re-emergence of state power over the
network and the networked, perhaps, Froomkinsuggests, in an unwitting reaction to a largely
unrealized spectre of internet utopianism andanarchy. While both the Cypherpunk Dream andDataÕs Empire seem to have a business model,
the first oneÕs is Ayn Rand-style anarchocapitalism, while the latterÕs looks more like adigital form of industrial capitalism. The cloud,with its data factories, Òscalability,ÓThe WikiLeaks blockade: an embargo by a private ÒcloudÓ of companies, impacting the site's key resources. The actual embargo isbelow the timeline; some of the ÒcountermeasuresÓ are displayed above it.

Escape Chess: Julian Assange's jurisdictional cat-and-mouse game with the powers that be.

10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

06/14standardization and centralization, indeed looks
a little like an industrial revolution, yet it is one
largely one without a working class. This
industrial complex actually dislikes most things
that are small. Indeed, many of Silicon ValleyÕs
cloud protagonists practice Òacq-hiringÓ:promising startups are purchased only to gethold of their talented staff, while the product orconcept that staff worked on gets discarded.27
One of the most arresting aspects of FroomkinÕs
scheme however is not in the dialectic as such,
but in the reason he suggests for why it cameabout in the first place.

Since a document can as easily be retrieved
from a server 5,000 miles away as one fivemiles away, geographical proximity andcontent availability are independent ofeach other. If the kingÕs writ reaches only as
far as the kingÕs sword, then much of thecontent on the Net might be presumed tobe free from the regulation of any particularsovereign.29
Even then, Boyle argued, de facto authority canstill be exercised by the state, as
the conceptual structure andjurisprudential assumptions of digital
libertarianism lead its practitioners toignore the ways in which the state canoften use privatized enforcement andstate-backed technologies to evade someof the supposed practical (andconstitutional) restraints on the exercise oflegal power over the Net.30
Boyle stressed that state power doesnÕt need tooperate in ways that confront its constitutional
limits. In a similar vein, Grimmelmann concludes
that Òno matter what a piece of paper labeled
10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

The Legal Void of ÒLikeÓ vs. ÒLawÓ
Cyber-libertarians, in hopes of evading thestateÕs grasp, assumed that its coercive powers
would be constrained by jurisdictional andconstitutional limits. As James Grimmelmann
concisely puts that thought, ÒHavenCo
simultaneously thumbed its nose at national law
and relied on international law to protect
Sealand.Ó28 The possibility of states evading theirown law, or international law, going rogue, subor supra-legal in their handling of disruptive
actors, was not considered. The dream ofoffshore information freedom reflects this vision.
But state power can be deployed in a legal void,as was recognized early on by James Boyle, aprofessor of law at Duke University. In his 1997
text Foucault in Cyberspace, Boyle refuted muchof the legalistic optimism of cyber-utopianism:ÔlawÕ says on it, if it has no correspondence withwhat people do, it is no law at all.Ó31 And indeed,
it isnÕt. A mere thirteen years after Foucault in
Cyberspace, the controversial whistleblowing
web site WikiLeaks found itself to be the living
proof of this, as it became embargoed by US
companies.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWikiLeaks began in 2007 as anÒuncensorableÓ web platform for the release of
leaked documents. Through an anonymous dropbox, users could upload digital files to WikiLeaks.
The material would be published only if it had notbeen published before, and if it were ofhistorical, ethical, or political significance. The
site first used a wiki format, where users andmembers would analyze and comment on on theleaks. The wiki format was since abandoned, but
the name WikiLeaks remained. The site would bepractically uncensorable for any government,
since its hosting was set up in multiple
jurisdictions. Its materials would be stored onservers in multiple countries, and thus beprotected by the laws of these countries Ð a bit
like a distributed version of the Sealand data
haven. On July 29, 2009, as WikiLeaks publishedthe high-exposure loan book of the bankrupt
Kaupthing Bank, the site ran a discouraging notefor its adversaries which demonstrated the legal
firewalls it had constructed for itself against
state and corporate power:
No. We will not assist the remains of
Kaupthing, or its clients, to hide its dirty
laundry from the global community.
Attempts by Kaupthing or its agents todiscover the source of the document inquestion may be a criminal violation of both
Belgium source protection laws and theSwedish constitution.32
Upon receiving a complaint from Kaupthing, aReykjavik court silenced IcelandÕs national
broadcaster RUV, which was planning to breakthe story on television. So instead of airing thestory, the TV host pointed viewers to the
WikiLeaks web site, where they could see thedocuments for themselves Ð to great social andpolitical effects in Iceland. WikiLeaks could
evade the gag order by hosting its information
offshore Ð indeed, multiple times so. It was, asBoyle would say, beyond the power of a particularsovereign. WikiLeaks systematically won its
jurisdictional chess games until, on November
28, 2010, it began releasing its biggest leak ever:a trove of hundreds of thousands of classified
diplomatic communications from US embassies
all over the world, now commonly referred to asÒCablegate.Ó
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWikiLeaksÕ source of income is
crowdfunding; the site relies on public10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

07/14

to deny Domain Name System (DNS) service andcloud-storage facilities, disrupt payment
systems services, and disable an iPhone app
designed to display the siteÕs content.Ó Benkler
asserts that the attack came from multiple
sources, some of which were more clearly anddirectly involved and identified than others. Yet
indirectly and opaquely, Yochai Benkler argues,
the attack came on behalf of the Obamaadministration,
having entailed an extra-legal publicprivate partnership between politicians
gunning to limit access to the site,
functioning in a state constrained by theFirst Amendment, and private firms
offering critical functionalities to the site Ð
DNS, cloud storage, and payments, inparticular Ð that were not similarly
constrained by law from denying service tothe offending site. The mechanism coupleda legally insufficient but publicly salient
insinuation of illegality and dangerousness
with a legal void.38

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

donations, processed by the Wau Holland
Foundation based in Kassel, Germany. Wau
Holland is reported to have collected about one
million euros in donations to WikiLeaks in 2010.
This, according to CBS News, would have paid
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a salary of
about sixty-six thousand euros that year.33 The
crowdfunding went through Òconventional
payment channelsÓ: PayPal, an online payment
system owned by eBay, Western Union, and VISA
and MasterCard, two corporations which
together virtually dominate the credit card
market. One could say that the WikiLeaks
donations relied on a private ÒcloudÓ ofintermediary, US-based companies. According to
WikiLeaksÕ own account, funding after the
release of the first cables peaked at an all-timehigh of 800 thousand individual donations in asingle month.34
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Upon the release of the cables, WikiLeaksÕ
Sweden-based servers were hit by a vast
distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack,which compelled the organization to make themove of hiring cloud space from Amazon Web
Services (AWS). On December 1, 2010, a day after
the siteÕs move to the cloud, Amazon kicked all
WikiLeaks files from its servers, marking theeffective beginning of a pan-industrial, statecorporate embargo.35 AmazonÕs decision wasprompted by an aggressive call to arms from Joe
Lieberman, senior US Senator for Connecticut,
and chairman of the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security. Lieberman urged American
enterprises Ð including Amazon Ð to stop
providing services to the whistleblowing site,even though he had no legal authority to enforce
this.36 His words amounted to nothing more thanan opinion. Lieberman took the position of bothaccuser and judge, stating that Òit sure looks tome that Assange and WikiLeaks have violated the
Espionage Act.Ó37 The result was that WikiLeaksÕ
vital infrastructure fell through, as key
companies withdrew themselves from WikiLeaks
without the check of a court. EveryDNS, a
California-based domain name registry, stopped
providing access to the wikileaks.org domainname server, so that the site would only bereachable if a user entered its IP address in thebrowser bar. MasterCard, PayPal, VISA, andWestern Union ceased to process WikiLeaks
donations. Apple removed a WikiLeaks iPhone
app from its store, as was noted in Part I of thisessay. These operations, together, amounted toan extra-legal embargo for which theorganization was unprepared. Yochai Benkler, aprofessor of law at Harvard University, examines
the embargo in detail in a 2011 article, analyzing
how WikiLeaks became constrained by Òa largescale technical distributed-denial-of-service(DDoS) attack with new patterns of attack aimed

James Boyle asserted that there can be aÒformal language of politics organized aroundrelations between sovereign and citizen,
expressed through rules backed by sanctions,Ó
versus an Òactual experience of power.Ó The
distinction is significant Ð it captures, spot on,
the role of the state in the WikiLeaks embargo.
The Òactual experience of powerÓ operates much
more like a social network Ð Senator Lieberman
occupying a powerful node, capable (or,believably suggesting being capable) of apotentially devastating set of cascading effects
in case his friendly suggestions are not followed
up Ð Don CorleoneÕs offer you canÕt refuse, pureand simple. Power then is to personally govern
the pressing and depressing of ÒLikeÓ buttons,
deciding on life or death, like Romans once
presided over the fate of gladiators. FacebookÕs
ÒLikeÓ symbol Ð a thumbs up Ð has its origins inancient Rome. Arguably, Lieberman clicked theÒDislikeÓ Ð thumbs down Ð on WikiLeaks, causinga wave of consequences resulting from his
private, social, network power, while backed byhis stature as a Senator. James Grimmelmann
comments:
It is not just that Lieberman possesses theusual sovereign power, so that his publicstatements are raw threats. There is apolitical cost to him to pushing legislation;
it will have to be checked by the judicial
system, etc. Rather, he is a actor within anexus of sovereign, economic, and social
power, leveraging some of those in serviceof his goals.39

08/14

The WikiLeaks financial embargo by VISA and
MasterCard was fought in an Icelandic court by
DataCell, the company acting as WikiLeaksÕ local
payment processor. A July, 2012 ruling requiredthat Valitor, VISA and MasterCardÕs payment
handling agent in Iceland, should resume
processing donations to the site as a contractual
obligation to DataCell. The ruling was touted (byWikiLeaks) as Òa significant victory against
WashingtonÕs attempt to silence WikiLeaks.Ó40 It
remains, however, questionable as to whether
the order against Valitor will actually restore
funding to the site. James Grimmelmann doubtsthat US payment links to WikiLeaks areanswerable to the Icelandic ruling. He suggests
thatglobal payment networks still have seams
along national boundaries. Valitor, acompany which can be thought of as
WikileaksÕ Òaccepting bank,Ó will notnecessarily have donation payments toprocess. The ruling does not affect theembargo still in place by VISA and
Mastercard who continue to control themoney flow between the issuing bank (onbehalf of their customers) and Valitor.41

10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

we must see the countries of the world as achess board with light and dark areas inever shifting arrangements depending on
our latest publication.47

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

Sveinn Andri Sveinsson, a lawyer for DataCell, isless pessimistic. Sveinsson was quoted callingthe victory a Ògood day for the freedom of
expression.Ó42 Still, the case was decided as amatter of contractual law rather thanconstitutionality.43
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe situation for WikiLeaks got worsewhenÊthe organization's founder, Julian
Assange,Êwas accusedÊof (but not charged for)sexual misconduct in Sweden. This led Interpol
to issue a Red Notice Ð normally reserved for the
likes of Muammar Gaddafi Ð for Assange's
arrest, and an ensuing two-year standoff
between Assange and UK prosecutors. After
Assange lost his appeal against his extradition to
Sweden at the Supreme Court in May 2012, the
WikiLeaks founder escaped to the Ecuadorian
Embassy in London, applying for (and receiving)
political asylum Ð apparently not to evade
Swedish accusations, but to prevent AssangeÕs
possible extradition to the United States onpresumed charges of espionage.44
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The lines along which AssangeÕs legal teamfought his extradition, followed by his move into
the embassy, are in remarkable consistency with
WikiLeaksÕ multi-jurisdictional hosting model.
The case brought to the surface deep
ambiguities in the treaties regulating
extraditions, prompting theÊCambridge Journal ofInternational and Comparative LawÊto argue that
the UK Supreme CourtÕs decision displayed Òa

fundamental mistakeÓ in its judgment.45 At theembassy, meanwhile, AssangeÕs life seems tohave become fully equivalent to that of
WikiLeaksÕ data. The Ecuadorian outpost here is
like an offshore internet server, beyond the graspof Western powers Ð and indeed, there waswidespread anger when Britain briefly
threatened Ecuador to annul the status of its
London embassyÕs premises.46
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAssange himself frequently deploys
chessboard metaphors when talking about
jurisdiction in a multipolar world. His personal
television show, The World Tomorrow, wasproduced by RT, the Western branch of RussiaÕs
state broadcaster (which, as especially liberalcommentators prefer to add, is ÒKremlinbackedÓ). As Assange explained to the Daily Mailin September 2012, Òif it proceeds to aprosecution then it is a chess game in terms of
my movements. I would be well advised to be in ajurisdiction that is not in an alliance with the US...Ó In AssangeÕs view,

If WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange, are making one
thing clear, it is that the jurisprudential
assumptions of cyber-libertarianism can have avisceral afterlife in the nondigital, material
world. Traditional liberal-constitutional niches
like freedom of expression and civil disobedience
are no longer that convincing; they, in a sense,
exhibit the same weaknesses as Sealand and thePirate Bay in their wide-eyed expectation of state
power curbed by law. The gross inequality inresources between the state and its idealist
critics becomes painfully obvious when statesdeliberately shredÊto pieces,Êlike discarded
paperwork,Êlegally certified limits on their
executive power. It is becoming increasingly
obvious that liberal-democratic conceptions likenetwork neutrality, internet freedom, andfreedom of expression, despite their key
democratic value, donÕt give any actual
protection to those who need them most. In a
global internet under a renaissance of the state,
it is not just the network, but the networked, who
are the ultimate subject of power.
Captives of the Cloud, or: the Dissent of the
Networked
In early 2011, Birgitta J—nsd—ttir, an Icelandic
Member of Parliament, found out that the US
Department of Justice sought information about
her Twitter account. J—nsd—ttir was underinvestigation because of her alleged involvementin the making of a WikiLeaks video calledA foreign government would have a hardtime getting permissions for officials
entering my offline home, same should
apply to online home.49

09/14

Collateral Murder, which was edited andproduced in Iceland in 2010.48 The video
documents the shooting of unarmed civilians in
Baghdad by a US helicopter crew; the scene wasfilmed from the gun turret camera of an Apacheattack helicopter. The video material used in
Collateral Murder was received by WikiLeaks
from a source in the US military, alleged to be
Private First Class Bradley Manning. Manning iscurrently under a court martial pretrial for
charges including Òaiding the enemy.Ó A Grand
Jury investigation into WikiLeaks brought about
the DOJÕs interest in the J—nsd—ttirÕs Twitter
information, along with the account informationof Jacob Appelbaum and Rob Gonggrijp,
computer experts who are also alleged to havehelped with the production of Collateral Murder.
All Twitter user information is stored on servers
in the US, which are accessible to US law
enforcement with or without a court order. The
subpoena was issued so that the receiving party
was forbidden from talking about it; TwitterÕs
lawyer however successfully lifted the gag order,
so that J—nsd—ttir, Gonggrijp and Appelbaum
could be informed about the subpoena. On
November 13, 2011, J—nsd—ttir tweeted:

Her message was retweeted over 100 times. The
problem is that in the cloud, there is noequivalent to a Òhome.Ó Cloud computing may
sometimes mimic or emulate some of the virtuesof the anarcho-libertarian internet, such as
anonymous PGP keys and personalized security
architecture.50 Amazon Web Services Ð acompany which extra-legally censored WikiLeakson the request of Joe Lieberman Ð boasts that it
errs on the side of Òprotecting customer privacy,Ó
and is Òvigilant in determining which law
enforcement requests we must comply with.Ó
Indeed, it heroically says, ÒAWS does not hesitate
to challenge orders from law enforcement if wethink the orders lack a solid basis.Ó51 However, allcyber-anarchic playtime must happen under thegaze of the webÕs digital Walmart, without any
definition of what a Òsolid basisÓ is. In addition,
the possibility of revolving door interests
between business and government canÕt be ruledout either. AmazonÕs current, Washington D.C.based Deputy Chief Information Security Officer
is reported to possess a Òdistinguished career infederal government security and law

Twittertracing in the cloud: the US Department of Justice, in its pursuit of WikiLeaks, subpoenaed Icelandic MP Birgitta J—nsd—ttir's
Twitter account.

10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

10/14enforcement.Ó52 A cloud service providerÕs own
security staff may in various ways Ð socially,geographically, and through expertise Ð bealready intimately connected to the very law
enforcement agencies whose requests it is
supposed to scrutinize. As Rebecca Rosen
explains, the notion of data storage being
handled by a cloud provider already removes
some of the legal constraints on evidencegathering by law enforcement, especially on
subpoenas:

J—nsd—ttir, Appelbaum and Gonggrijp tried tofind out if, and which, other social media
companies had received similar subpoenas. They
had reason to believe this would be the case,because Twitter is known (and often praised) forcollecting relatively little information about its
users; it would seem, as Glenn Greenwald wrote,Òone of the least fruitful avenues to pursueÓ forthe DOJ to rely solely on Twitter information.56
J—nsd—ttirÕs demands for transparency were
flatly refused. US Attorney Neil MacBride wrote
in a court filing that her request demonstrated
an Òoverriding purpose to obtain a roadmap of
the governmentÕs investigation.Ó MacBridefurther stated that

Grand jury subpoenas are used to collectevidence. Unlike warrants, subpoenas canbe issued with less than probable cause.
The reasoning for the lower bar is in partthat if someone does not want to turn over
the requested evidence, he or she cancontest the subpoena in court. Grand juries
can subpoena not only the person who
created a document but any third parties
who might be in possession of that
document. Under the Stored
Communications Act, a grand jury can
subpoena certain types of data from third
parties whose only role is storing that
data.53

all that information―all that information
capacity―looms over us, not quite visible,
not quite tangible, but awfully real;
amorphous, spectral; hovering nearby, yet
not situated in any one place. Heaven must
once have felt this way to the faithful.
10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

the subscribers have no right to notice
regarding any such developments in thisconfidential criminal investigation Ð any
more than they have a right to notice of tax
records requests, wiretap orders, or otherconfidential investigative steps as to which
this CourtÕs approval might be obtained.57

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

This, then, reflects an outdated idea of a third
partyÕs role in a subpoena. At the time the law
developed, it could be assumed that Òany third
party with access to someoneÕs data would havea stake in that data and a relationship with theperson who created it.Ó As Rosen concludes, Òinthe old days of storing information in filingcabinets, subpoena power was constrained
because people didnÕt save everything andinvestigators had to know where to look to findincriminating evidence.Ó54 A cloud provider is a
new kind of third party; it manages and hosts
vast troves of personal data belonging to its
customers. But it is not a stakeholder in suchdata. Neither was the manufacturer of a filingcabinet a stakeholder in the private documents
stored in it. There are many such filing cabinets
in the cloud, storing the online self. Together,
they form the scattered Òonline homeÓ we
inhabit. Information in the cloud perversely
echoes the utopian dream of a weightless andautonomous internet, independent from theconstraints of territory. But this utopian dreamis, in reality, a centrally managed corporation. As
James Gleick writes,

People talk about shifting their lives to thecloud―their informational lives, at least.
You may store photographs in the cloud; email passes to and from the cloud andnever really leaves the cloud. All traditional
ideas of privacy, based on doors and locks,
physical remoteness and invisibility, areupended in the cloud.55

This is a brazenly imperialist thing for MacBrideto say. If the US government wants, for the
purpose of a Òconfidential criminal
investigation,Ó to have the tax records of a nonUS citizen like J—nsd—ttir, it canÕt simply
subpoena them from a US cloud service. It mustfile a case with a foreign government, anddemonstrate probable cause. Apparently, to
MacBride, obtaining information on a non-US
subject from a US server is the same obtaining
such information from foreign territory; smoothcompliance is simply expected, and indeed
presupposed. In a piece for the Guardian,J—nsd—ttir referred to her legal ordeal as an
example of ongoing attempts of the US to silence
the truth as a means of maintaining power. She
wrote that the DOJÕs subpoena constituted aÒhack by legal means.Ó58 Perhaps out of amisunderstanding of the mechanisms of social
media, or out of genuine Orwellian intent, cloudsubpoena procedures can take on grotesquedimensions. For example, in December 2011, theBoston District Attorney subpoenaed Twitter overthe following material:
Guido Fawkes, @p0isonANon,@occupyBoston, #BostonPD, #d0xcak3.59

his aunt Ð returned to prison for heroin
dealing.63

11/14

The subpoena sought not just information on a
specific user, but on all users connected tocertain words and hashtags associated with the
Occupy movementÕs activities in Boston, and the
hacktivist collective Anonymous, at a given point
in time. WikiLeaks, in linking to this story,
tweeted that it was now time for Twitter to moveits servers offshore.60 The Australian journalist
Bernard Keane concluded from the Boston DAÕsbizarre Òfishing expeditionÓ that

Monsegur ... provided an FBI-owned
computer to facilitate the release of 5m
emails taken from US security consultancy
Stratfor and which are now being publishedby WikiLeaks. That suggests the FBI may
have had an inside track on discussions
between Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, andAnonymous, another hacking group, about
the leaking of thousands of confidential
emails and documents.65

On the day that he joined forces with the
hacker collective Anonymous, Hector Xavier
Monsegur walked his two little girls half adozen blocks to their elementary school.
ÒMy girls,Ó he called them, although they
werenÕt actually his children. Monsegur,
then 27, had stepped in after their mother Ð
10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

the only real solution is social media
networks outside the jurisdiction of nationstates. WikiLeaks is currently establishingits own social network, Friends of
WikiLeaks, and Anonymous has established
AnonPlus; there have also been anonymous
microblogging sites such as Youmitter
established, but their lack of critical mass
is a key impediment, as is resilience in theface of surges in traffic, and they remain
vulnerable, to the extent that itÕsenforceable, to authorities claiming to
exercise jurisdiction over whatever servers
are used to host the networks.61
GroysÕs Òfuture powerÓ over the network is
unlikely to pose direct, legal limits on freespeech. Instead, like in the WikiLeaks embargo, it
directly affects the material basis of those who
speak. One is tempted to think of the ways inwhich the FBI pursued hacker collectives
Anonymous and LulzSec after their DDoS attacks
on MasterCard and VISA. The FBI fully exploitedthe real-world frailties and vulnerabilities of thehackers, who presented themselves asinvulnerable superheroes online. But they
werenÕt, in reality. The authorities made noqualms about the question whether or not
Anonymous and LulzSecÕs cyber-conflict entailed
acts of Òcivil disobedience.Ó They were treated as
cyber-terrorists, and the option for theirpractices to constitute a legitimate realm of civic
protest was eclipsed Ð even though some of themost thorough previous analysis of Anonymous
had focused on these possibilities.62 One of thegroupÕs most prominent members, Sabu, wasapprehended by the FBI and turned into an
informant. New York Magazine wrote about Sabu,
using his real name instead of his online
pseudonym:

Ars Technica adds that Òworried about the fate of
two children in his charge, Monsegur has
allegedly been aiding the FBI since his arrest lastsummer Ð aid which culminated in arrests today
of several LulzSec members.Ó64 The Guardiancompletes this story, as

The space of flows is absolutely not smooth. It
looks like a data center, and the coal plant thatpowers it. It looks like Julian AssangeÕs room in
the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. It looks likethe Principality of Sealand. It looks like SabuÕs
social housing unit on Manhattan's Lower East
Side. The landing from the digital onto thematerial is hard; it comes with a cruelty andintensity we havenÕt even begun to properly
understand. Along these lines, we might grasp an
emerging political geography of information,
resources, and infrastructure. In such ageography, the state and the cloud are among themost important layers, but they are not the only
layers by far. Saskia Sassen writes that we needto problematize Òthe seamlessness often
attributed to digital networks. Far from being
seamless, these digital assemblages are Ôlumpy,Õ
partly due to their imbrications with nondigitalconditions.Ó66
Once again, the world indeed is lumpy enough for
us not to draw easy conclusions. This story is notover yet. TomorrowÕs clouds are forming.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ×
'Written by Daniel van der Velden and Vinca Kruk. Research
Assistant: Alysse Kushinski. Design Assistants: Rasmus
Svensson, Allison Kerst and Michael Oswell. All images
courtesy of Metahaven. Metahaven 2012.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTo be continued in ÒCaptives of the Cloud:Part III. TomorrowÕs Clouds.Ó10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

12/14

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1
Julian Assange, in: ÒThe Julian
Assange Show: Cypherpunks
Uncut (p.1)Ó,ÊRT.com, July 29,
2012. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i85fX9-sKYoJohn Perry Barlow, ÒA
Declaration of the Independenceof Cyberspace,ÓÊElectronic
Frontier Foundation, February 8,
1996. See
https://projects.eff.org/~ba
rlow/Declaration-Final.html.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2
Milton Mueller,ÊNetworks andStates. The Global Politics ofInternet Governance. Cambridge(MA): The MIT Press, 2010, 9-10.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12
Saskia Sassen,ÊTerritory Ð
Authority Ð Rights. From
Medieval to Global Assemblages,(Princeton/Oxford: Princeton
University Press, 2006, 2008),
330.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3
Manuel Castells,ÊThe Information
Age: Economy, Society andCulture, Vol I: The Rise of the
Network Society (Malden, MA:
Blackwell 1996 [2000]), 442.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4Ibid.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5
Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu,ÊWho
Controls the Internet?: Illusionsof a Borderless World (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006),
73.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6
James Gleick,ÊThe Information: A
History, a Theory, a Flood, (NewYork: Pantheon Books, 2011),
396.

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

Metahaven is an Amsterdam-based design collectiveon the cutting blade between politics and aesthetics.
Founded by Vinca Kruk and Daniel van der Velden,
Metahaven's work Ð both commissioned and selfdirected Ð reflects political and social issues throughresearch-driven design, and design-driven research.
Research projects included the Sealand Identity
Project, and currently include Facestate, and Icelandas Method. Solo exhibitions include Affiche Fronti•re(CAPC musŽe d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2008)
and Stadtstaat (KŸnstlerhaus Stuttgart/Casco, 2009).
Group exhibitions include Forms of Inquiry (AA London,
2007, cat.), Manifesta8 (Murcia, 2010, cat.), theGwangju Design Biennale 2011 (Gwangju, Korea, cat.),Graphic Design: Now In Production (Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis, 2011, and Cooper-Hewitt National Design
Museum, New York, 2012, cat.) and The New Public(Museion, Bolzano, 2012, cat.). Metahaven's work was
published and discussed in The International Herald
Tribune, The New York Times, Huffington Post, Courrier
International, Icon, Domus, Dazed, The Verge,l'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, and Mute, among otherpublications. Vinca Kruk is a Tutor of Editorial Design
and Design Critique at ArtEZ Academy of Arts in
Arhem. Daniel van der Velden is a Senior Critic at theGraphic Design MFA program at Yale University, and a
Tutor of Design at the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam.
In 2010, Metahaven released Uncorporate Identity, adesign anthology for our dystopian age, published byLars MŸller.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13
Milton Mueller,ÊNetworks andStates, 268.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14ÒAboutMicrosoftÓÊSeeÊhttp://www.microsoft.com/about/en/us/defa
ult.aspx.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15
See Gillian Reagan, ÒTheEvolution of FacebookÕs Mission
Statement.ÓÊNew York Observer,
July 13, 2009. See
http://observer.com/2009/07/
the-evolution-of-facebooks-m
ission-statement/.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ16
See ÒAbout SkypeÓ see
http://about.skype.com/.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7
James Glanz, ÒThe Cloud
Factories: Power, Pollution andÊÊÊÊÊÊ17
the Internet,ÓÊNew York Times,
See Instagram FAQ
September 22, 2012.
http://instagram.com/about/fSeeÊhttp://www.nytimes.com/2
aq/.
012/09/23/technology/data-ce
nters-waste-vast-amounts-ofÊÊÊÊÊÊ18
energy-belying-industry-imag
A. Michael Froomkin, ÒFloode.html?pagewanted=1&ref=technology.
Control on the Information
Ocean: Living With Anonymity,
Digital Cash, and DistributedÊÊÊÊÊÊ8
Databases,ÓUniversity ofWhen, for example Dutch
Pittsburgh Journal of Law andfilmmaker Marije Meerman,
Commerce 395 (1996). See
while working on a documentary
http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~
about the financial crisis and thefroomkin/articles/ocean.htm.
role of high-speed trading,wanted to find data centersÊÊÊÊÊÊ19
servicing the New York Stock
See ÒData Haven by Bruce
Exchange, she found no official
Sterling from Islands in the NetÓ,record of where these were
technovelgy.com.
located. Instead, MeermanSeeÊhttp://www.technovelgy.c
tracked them down by looking
om/ct/content.asp?Bnum=279.
for clues on the web sites of theconstruction companies thatÊÊÊÊÊÊ20
built them, and by flipping
The Principality of Sealand isthrough local files of New Jersey
discussed at length in our
town hall meetings. Eventually,
book,ÊUncorporate Identity. In
she mapped a ring of data
our interview with hacker,
centers around New York City.
cryptographer, and internet
See Marije Meerman, lecture atentrepreneur Sean Hastings, aMediafonds, Amsterdam,
self-styled inventor of SealandÕs
January 12, 2012, anddata haven, Hastings declaredÊhttp://itunes.apple.com/us/that Òthe world needs a frontier.
app/money-speed-inside-black
Every law, for good or ill, is an-box/id424796908?mt=8.
imposition on freedom. The
frontier has always been a placeÊÊÊÊÊÊ9for people who disagree with thePier Vittorio Aureli. In Pier
morality of current law to be
Vittorio Aureli, Boris Groys,
able to get away from it.Ó Sean
Metahaven, and Marina
Hastings, in ÒThe Rise And Fall
Vishmidt, ÒForm.Ó InÊUncorporate
Of The Data Haven, Interview
Identity (Baden: Lars MŸller,
with Sean Hastings,Ó Metahaven2010),Ê262.
and Maria Vishmidt
eds.,ÊUncorporate IdentityÊÊÊÊÊÊ10(Baden: Lars MŸller, 2010),
Boris Groys. In Pier Vittorio
65.ÊLater examples include
Aureli, Boris Groys, Metahaven,
Seasteading, an enterpriseand Marina Vishmidt, ÒForm.Ó
founded by Patri Friedman,InÊUncorporate Identity (Baden:
designed to be a set of sovereign
Lars MŸller, 2010),Ê263.
floating sea vehicles underultraminimal governanceÊÊÊÊÊÊ11
without welfare or taxes. InÊÊÊÊÊÊ21
Joi Ito, ÒHavenco Doing Well
According BBC.Ó Quoted from
Slashdot, July 10, 2002. See
http://joi.ito.com/weblog/20
02/07/10/havenco-doing-w.htm
lÊÊÊÊÊÊ22
James Grimmelmann, ÒSealand,
Havenco, And The Rule Of
Law.ÓIllinois Law Review 405,
2012, 460. See
http://illinoislawreview.org /wpcontent/ilr-content/articles/2012/2/Grimmelmann.pdf
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ23
Grimmelmann, ÒSealand,
Havenco, And The Rule Of Law.Ó
462.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ24
Grimmelmann, ÒSealand,
Havenco, And The Rule Of Law.Ó
463.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ25
Cory Doctorow, ÒPirate Bay
trying to buy Sealand, offering
citizenship.Ó boingboing.net,
January 12, 2007.ÊSee
http://boingboing.net/2007/0
1/12/pirate-bay-trying-to.ht ml.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ26
Michael Froomkin, ÒInternet
Regulation at a Crossroads.Ó
Lecture atÊOxford Internet
Institute, University of Oxford,
June 2012. YouTube.
SeeÊhttp://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=b2aVcdcr4MA.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ27
See Liz Gannes, ÒThe Vanity ofthe ÔAcqhireÕ: Why Do a Deal That
Makes No Sense?ÓÊAllThingsD,
August 10, 2012. See
http://allthingsd.com/201208
10/the-vanity-of-the-acqhire why-do-a-deal-that-makes-no sense/ÊÊÊÊÊÊ28
Grimmelmann, ÒSealand,
Havenco, And The Rule Of Law.Ó
479.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ29
James Boyle,ÊFoucault In
Cyberspace: Surveillance,
Sovereignty, and Hard-Wired
Censors, 1997.
SeeÊhttp://law.duke.edu/boylesite/foucault.htm.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ30
Ibid.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ32ÒIcelandic bank Kaupthing
threat to WikiLeaks overconfidential large exposure
report.ÓÊWikiLeaks.org, July 31,
2009. See
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Ic
elandic_bank_Kaupthing_threa
t_to_WikiLeaks_over_confiden
tial_large_exposure_report,_
31_Jul_2009.

13/14

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ31
Grimmelmann, ÒSealand,
Havenco, And The Rule Of Law.Ó
484.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ33
See Xeni Jardin, ÒWSJ obtains
Wikileaks financial data:
spending up, donations
down.ÓÊBoingboing, December
24, 2010.SeeÊhttp://boingboing.n
et/2010/12/24/wsj-obtains-wi
kileak.html and Joshua Norman,ÒWikiLeaksÕ Julian Assange Now
Making $86k/year.ÓÊCBS News,
December 24, 2010.
SeeÊhttp://www.cbsnews.com/8
301-503543_162-200265975035 43.html.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ35
Ryan Paul, ÒWikileaks kicked outof AmazonÕs cloud.ÓÊArs Technica,
December 1, 2010.ÊSee
http://arstechnica.com/secur
ity/2010/12/wikileaks-kicked out-of-amazons-cloud/.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ36
Alexia Tsotsis, ÒSen. Joe
Lieberman: Amazon Has Pulled
Hosting Services For
WikiLeaks.ÓÊTechcrunch,
December 1, 2010.
SeeÊhttp://techcrunch.com/20
10/12/01/amazon.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ38
Yochai Benkler, ÒWikiLeaks andthe Protect-IP Act: A New
Public-Private Threat to theInternet Commons,ÓÊDaedalus 4(2011), 154Ð55.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ39
James Grimmelmann, e-mail toauthor. July 17, 2012.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ40
Charles Arthur, ÒWikiLeaks
claims court victory against
Visa.ÓÊThe Guardian, July 12,
2012. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/me
dia/2012/jul/12/wikileaks-co
urt-victory-visa.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ41
James Grimmelmann, e-mail toauthor, July 17, 2012.

10.16.12 / 11:23:36 EDT

http://www.newyorker.com/rep
orting/2010/06/07/100607fa_f
act_khatchadourian?currentPa
ge=all.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ49
Twitter.ÊSee
https://twitter.com/ioerror/
statuses/135980031037022208.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ50
See ÒAWS Security andCompliance Center.Ó See
http://aws.amazon.com/security/.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ51
See ÒAmazon Web Services: Risk
and Compliance White Paper
July 2012.Ó See
http://d36cz9buwru1tt.cloudf
ront.net/AWS_Risk_and_Compli
ance_Whitepaper.pdf.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ44
William Neuman and Maggy
Ayala, ÒEcuador Grants Asylum
to Assange, Defying Britain.ÓÊTheNew York Times, August 15,
2012. SeeÊÊÊÊÊÊ52
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
See Malcolm Ross, ÒAppian
08/17/world/americas/ecuador World 2012 Ð Developer
to-let-assange-stay-in-itsTrack.ÓAppian.com, March 16,
embassy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=02012. See
http://www.appian.com/blog/u
ncategorized/appian-world-20
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ45
12-developer-track.
Tiina Pajuste, ÒAssange v
Swedish Prosecution Authority:ÊÊÊÊÊÊ53
the (mis)application of European
Rebecca J. Rosen, ÒHow Yourand international law by the UK
Private Emails Can Be Used
Supreme Court - Part
Against You in Court.ÓÊThe
I.ÓÊCambridge Journal of
Atlantic, July 8, 2011. See
International and Comparative
http://www.theatlantic.com/tLaw, June 20, 2012. See
echnology/archive/2011/07/ho
http://www.cjicl.org.uk/inde
w-your-private-emails-can-be x.php?option=com_easyblog&view=entry
used-against-you-in-court/2&id=22&Itemid=101
41505/

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ34
See ÒBanking
Blockade.ÓÊWikiLeaks.org. See
http://wikileaks.org/Banking Blockade.html.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ37
Paul Owen, Richard Adams,
Ewen MacAskill, ÒWikiLeaks: US
Senator Joe Lieberman suggests
New York Times could be
investigated.ÓÊThe Guardian,December 7, 2010.ÊSee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wo
rld/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-jo elieberman-new-york-times-i
nvestigated.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ42
Omar R. Valdimarsson, ÒIceland
Court Orders Valitor to Process
WikiLeaks
Donations.ÓÊBloomberg, July 12,
2012.ÊSee
http://www.bloomberg.com/new
s/2012-07-12/iceland-court-orders-valitor-to-process-wik
ileaks-donations-1-.html.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ43
Charles Arthur,ÊThe Guardian.
Ibid.ÊSee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/me
dia/2012/jul/12/wikileaks-co
urt-victory-visa.

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part II

2011, Seasteading received
funding from Paypal founderPeter Thiel. This Òlibertarian sea
colonyÓ was directly modeled
after the Principality of Sealand,
mixed with the gatedcommunity, the ranch, and thecruise ship. It is uncertain
whether such physical havens, if
realized in the first place, will
ever escape their founding visionof conservative-libertarian
frontier romanticism.ÊSee
Cooper Smith, ÒPeter Thiel,
PayPal Founder, FundsÔSeasteading,Õ Libertarian Sea
Colony,Ó Huffington Post, August19, 2011, see
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/peter-thiel-sea
steading_n_930595.html.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ46
The British authorities sent a
letter to Ecuador saying thatÒYou need to be aware that there
is a legal base in the UK, theDiplomatic and Consular
Premises Act 1987, that would
allow us to take actions in order
to arrest Mr Assange in thecurrent premises of theembassy. We sincerely hope that
we do not reach that point, but if
you are not capable of resolving
this matter of Mr AssangeÕs
presence in your premises, thisis an open option for us.Ó See
Mark Weisbrot, ÒJulian Assangeasylum: Ecuador is right to standup to the US.ÓÊThe Guardian,August 16, 2012. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/co
mmentisfree/2012/aug/16/juli
an-assange-asylum-ecuadorÊÊÊÊÊÊ47
Sarah Oliver, ÒÔItÕs like living in aspace stationÕ: Julian Assangespeaks out about living in a oneroom embassy refuge with amattress on the floor and a blue
lamp to mimic daylight.ÓÊThe
Daily Mail,September 29, 2012.
See
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/n
ews/article-2210522/Its-like living-space-station-Julian Assange-speaks-living-roomembassy-refuge-mattress-floor-blue-lamp-mimic-daylight.html
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ48
See Raffi Khatchadourian, ÒNoSecrets. Julian assangeÕs
mission for totaltransparency.ÓÊThe New Yorker,
June 7, 2010. SeeÊÊÊÊÊÊ54
Ibid.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ55
James Gleick,ÊThe Information,
395Ð96.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ56
Glenn Greenwald, ÒDOJsubpoenas Twitter records ofseveral WikiLeaks
volunteers.ÓÊSalon.com, January
8, 2011. See
http://www.salon.com/2011/01/08/twitter_2/singleton/.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ57
Kevin Poulsen, ÒFeds: WikiLeaks
Associates Have ÔNo RightÕ To
Know About Demands For Their
Records.ÓÊWired, June 2,
2011.ÊSee
http://www.wired.com/threatl
evel/2011/06/wikileaks-twitt er/ÊÊÊÊÊÊ58
Birgitta J—nsd—ttir, ÒEvidence ofa US judicial vendetta against
WikiLeaks activists mounts.ÓÊThe
Guardian, July 3, 2012.ÊSee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/co
mmentisfree/2012/jul/03/evid
ence-us-judicial-vendetta-wi
kileaks-activists-mounts?INT
CMP=SRCH.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ59
Bernard Keane, ÒThe Boston
fishing party and AustraliansÕ
rights online.ÓÊCrikey, January 17,
2012.ÊSee
http://www.crikey.com.au/201
2/01/17/the-boston-fishing-p
arty-and-australians-rightsonline/.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ60

Twitter. See
http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/159247260121706496

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ62
See Gabriella Coleman,ÊThe
Many Moods Of Anonymous:Transcript. Discussion at NYU
Steinhardt, March 4, 2011. See
http://www.onthemedia.org/20
11/mar/04/the-many-moods-ofanonymous/transcript/

14/14ÊÊÊÊÊÊ61
Bernard Keane, ibid.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ63
Steve Fishman, ÒHello, I Am
Sabu ... ÒÊ New York Magazine,
June 3, 2012. See
http://nymag.com/news/featur
es/lulzsec-sabu-2012-6/
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ64
Nate Anderson, ÒLulzSec leaderÔSabuÕ worked with FBI sincelast summer.ÓÊArs Technica,
March 6, 2012. See
http://arstechnica.com/techpolicy/2012/03/report-lulzse cleader-sabu-worked-with-fb isince-last-summer/ÊÊÊÊÊÊ65
Charles Arthur, Dan Sabbagh
and Sandra Laville, ÒLulzSec
leader Sabu was working for us,
says FBI.ÓÊThe Guardian, March 7,
2012. See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/06/lulzsec sabu-working-for-us-fbi

e-flux journal #38 Ñ october 2012 Ê Metahaven
Captives of the Cloud: Part IIÊÊÊÊÊÊ66
Saskia Sassen, Ibid., 382-3.

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