Wikileaks raided by German police

The owner of whistleblower Web site Wikileaks has been raided by German police days after it controversially published the Australian government's Internet blacklists.

The home of Theodor Reppe, who owns the domain wikileaks.de used by the site, was raided early this week under the guise of a search for pornographic material.

Reppe said neither he nor Wikileaks received notice that the search would be conducted.

German authorities did not say whether the raid was ordered by respective governments of blacklists published by the site, including Australia, Thailand and Denmark. Wikileaks last week rebuked a warning by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy that Australian Federal Police will pursue the source of the leaked lists, and said it will press charges via the German Constitutional Police against those who take action against it.

The wikileaks statement claimed its only association with pornographic material distribution was in the publication of the various blacklists which contain links to Web sites broadly considered illegal.

Conroy has denied the leaked Australian blacklists were those held by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), but today conceded the most recent list obtained by Wikileaks “seems to be close” to the list currently held by the regulator.

Reppe, who also reportedly owns the popular Tor anonymous proxy servers — which can be used to dodge content filters — refused police requests to shut down the site.

The raid follows recent “social hysteria” surrounding child pornography in Germany, according to Wikileaks, spearheaded it claims by the country's family minister Ursula von der Leyen. The statement said the search comes weeks after police raids of the homes of a social democrat minister and German bloggers.

Wikileaks said 11 police detectives were involved in the raid.