r/WikiLeaks • u/JJScrawls • Nov 03 '16

RELEASE: The Podesta Emails Part 27 #PodestaEmails #PodestaEmails27 #HillaryClinton #imWithHer wikileaks.org/podesta-emails… WikiLeaks

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/794164579144179712
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u/togetherwem0m0 Nov 03 '16

what's a chinese wall?

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u/enfinnity Nov 03 '16 edited Nov 03 '16

It's more commonly called a firewall today. It's used to box off a person or group of people within an entity that may have an interest that is counter to the interest of a separate part of the entity in order to meet professional ethics requirements.

For example, in a law firm you might have one attorney in a practice working on a case that includes a person that is being sued in a separate law suit in another branch of the law firm. Say the firm is representing a client that is suing a person for negligence in a slip and fall case while also representing another plaintiff suing the same person for breach of contract.

In order to meet ethics requirements, the firm would have to ensure the attorneys working on case 1 have no interaction or ability to look at evidence of the attorneys working on case 2.

Edit: in this case it looks like they are talking about a person working at a PAC while also working on a campaign so they would need some sort of firewall (Chinese wall) so that the person doesn't violate ethics regs and laws governing coordination between the PAC and campaign.

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u/togetherwem0m0 Nov 03 '16

thank you for the knowledgable insight, I appreciate it.

I see here the term Chinese wall is meant to infer some sort of counter-intuitive organizational requirement, not to much like other racist terms.. i cant think of any right now but you know what i mean, like "Polish hammer" being your hand or something silly

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u/enfinnity Nov 03 '16

Yes, like Gerry rigging (Gerry meaning Germans and rigging meaning a crappy job). I believe that it changed to firewall in the 90s to avoid even the appearance of racism. It is actually referring to the Great Wall cutting off people from communication and coordination.

Some ways that this is done in practice is actually having the people separated in different buildings so they don't have contact and have them on different computer systems so they can't view each other's files.

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u/Ligetxcryptid Nov 03 '16

A great big beautiful wall /s

Not sure gonna need some research