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Wikileaks Vows to Fight Court Shutdown
As we noted Monday, a Swiss bank convinced a California judge to issue an order blocking access to WikiLeaks.org. The New York Times makes clear this morning that it was a ham-handed and probably unconstitutional move.
Ham-handed because even though the injunction was sweeping in its scope (disabling access to the domain name), it will certainly not accomplish its goal, which was to restrict dissemination of the documents. Not only have dozens of mirror sites cropped up to host the documents, but the publicity from the move has also increased scrutiny on the bank, Julius Baer, and heightened WikiLeaks' supporters' resolve. Update: And the site is still available via its IP address. The documents allegedly show the bank's efforts to set up shell entities to hide money. And as for the unconstitutional part:
Judge [Jeffrey] White’s order disabling the entire site “is clearly not constitutional,” said David Ardia, the director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School. “There is no justification under the First Amendment for shutting down an entire Web site.”The narrower order [also issued by the judge], forbidding the dissemination of the disputed documents, is a more classic prior restraint on publication. Such orders are disfavored under the First Amendment and almost never survive appellate scrutiny.
When I asked Julian Assange, a member of WikiLeaks' advisory board and its investigations editor, whether WikiLeaks plans to contest the injunction in court, he replied by email, "Bloody oath we will."
He said that WikiLeaks, which relies on pro bono representation, was currently in talks with a number of lawyers and organizations for possible representation. As Wired reported, the site was caught by surprise late last week, receiving "notice only a few hours before the case went to a judge who accepted the agreement between Dynadot [WikiLeaks' domain registrar] and the bank."
My inquiries to Julius Baer's attorneys about possible future actions were forwarded to a spokesman for the bank in Switzerland, who replied "We have always sought to act in the best interests of our clients and shall continue to do so."
Comments (5)
Remarkable; “a disgruntled ex-employee who has engaged in a harassment and terror campaign”. This may offer insight into the current posture at Justice; anything that questions corrupt ethical or legal judgment must regarded as terrorism and dealt with appropriately. Its mandate; making the world safe for tyranny and eradicating legal obstacles to same.
February 20, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, why not merely change ISPs?
February 20, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
They can change ISPs all they want, but they can't change domain name registrars without the initial registrar's cooperation.
Here's how it works. You want to visit a web page, the first thing your computer needs to do is figure out the IP address. In order to do this, you make a request to a Name Server. If that Name Server doesn't know, it tells your computer where to get it.
Almost everyone in the world uses the same 'family', or hierarchy of name servers. The hierarchy is run by ICANN which contracts out the work to lots of diffrent companies (and different countries which run the two-letter codes like .us)
You can setup your own 'family' of name servers, and lots of people do. However, only people who configure their computers to use that new hierarchy will be able to use it.
You can even add address manually to your own PC by editing what's called the "HOSTS file". If you do that, and add a line for wikileaks.org, you'll be able to see it again.
February 27, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, then, why is everyone upset with the judge? He had the two parties-in-interest (Julius Baer and Dynadot) before him, and they agreed to pull(?) WikiLeaks' address off the name server. What's he supposed to do? Subscribe to Wired?
Seems to me folks ought to be upset with ICANN.
March 6, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Swiss regard disclosing the secrets of their companies, most especially their vaunted and oh, so discrete banks, as state treason. It is or until recently was the law. They treat such disclosures as if it were the same as selling submarine propulsion secrets to the Soviet or Chinese, or outing your own intel operatives to score domestic political points.
Little wonder that Bank Julius Baer was miffed. If the disclosures are accurate, one can only hope that their legal strategy backfires. That a federal judge would act in such a hamfisted fashion, apparently in disregard of the First Amendment - and in favor of a foreign corporation - requires looking into.
As a related matter, any one considering voting in favor of McCain should bear in mind that his favorite judge is Janice Rogers Brown, the hack from Texas who's legislating from the bench nauseated even her former colleague Alberto Gonzales. Bush, of course, appointed her to the federal circuit and a pliant GOP Senate obliged.
February 20, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink