Wikileaks

Swiss Bank Drops WikiLeaks Suit

Paul Kiel | March 5, 2008, 5:35PM

Like a house of cards. From the AP:

A Swiss bank has dropped its lawsuit against Web site Wikileaks.org for posting sensitive customer data.

Lawyers for Bank Julius Baer filed court papers Wednesday in San Francisco that officially ended the case.

Remember that a judge initially went along with the bank's request to block access to the site, an order that was broadly criticized as unconstitutional. And when a bunch of journalism and civil liberties groups got involved, the judge threw up his hands.

Wikileaks

Judge Reverses WikiLeaks Order

Paul Kiel | March 1, 2008, 9:53AM

Yeah, maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all.

From The New York Times:

A federal judge on Friday withdrew his earlier order disabling a Web site that allows the anonymous posting of documents to discourage unethical behavior in governments and corporations....

In reversing himself at a hearing here on Friday, Judge White acknowledged that the bank’s request posed serious First Amendment questions and might constitute unjustified prior restraint. He also appeared visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in information once it had been disclosed online.

“We live in an age,” Judge White said, “when people can do some good things and people can do some terrible things without accountability necessarily in a court of law.”

And voila, WikiLeaks.org lives again. (Not that WikiLeaks, with a number of mirror sites, was ever really dead.) Apparently WikiLeaks never did get counsel, but the ACLU, EFF, and a variety of journalistic organizations stepped into the breach.

The Times piece gives the distinct impression that the judge had no idea what he was getting into when he granted Julius Baer's request to block access to WikiLeaks.org.

Wikileaks

ACLU, EFF Jump into Wikileaks Case

Paul Kiel | February 27, 2008, 10:25AM

Wikileaks just got some legal backup.

The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a motion last night to intervene in the case. The two groups are seeking to roll back a federal California judge's sweeping order earlier this month that blocked access to wikileaks.org. The order came as a result of a Swiss bank's complaint that the site was distributing confidential documents that allegedly show shell accounts used to hide assets.

A lawyer for the ACLU and EFF said that shutting down the site was a case of "burning down the house to roast the pig." It's wrong, the groups argue, that the public has lost access to all of the documents that wikileaks has to offer (well, at least through wikileaks.org -- a number of mirror sites have sprung up to counter the order).

The groups are seeking to intervene in the case on behalf of themselves, the Project on Government Oversight, a D.C. watchdog, and Jordan McCorkle, a student at the University of Texas who uses wikileaks on a regular basis.

Update: Public Citizen and the California First Amendment Coalition have also sought to intervene in the case.

Update: A group of journalism organizations has also sought to file an amicus brief on Wikileaks' behalf. Those organizations are: the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Associated Press, the Citizen Media Law Project, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, The Los Angeles Times, the National Newspaper Association, the Newspaper Association of America, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Wikileaks

Wikileaks Vows to Fight Court Shutdown

Paul Kiel | February 20, 2008, 12:27PM

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."

Wikileaks

U.S. Court Shuts Down Whistleblower Site

Paul Kiel | February 18, 2008, 1:54PM

From the BBC:

Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says. The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.

Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed.

However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site's domain name, should remove all traces of wikileak from its servers.

Wikileaks has been the source for a number of revelatory documents, including the U.S. military's manual for Gitmo and the rules of engagement for U.S. troops in Iraq.

But see it for yourself, wikileaks.org is indeed out of commission. The Belgian wikileaks, however, is still up.

As for why this California judge ordered the whole site taken down over a few documents, that's not clear. As the BBC reports, "The case was brought by lawyers working for the Swiss banking group Julius Baer. It concerned several documents posted on the site which allegedly reveal that the bank was involved with money laundering and tax evasion." Why didn't the judge just didn't order the documents taken down instead of the whole site? We hope to get some expert guidance on the question.

Update: Just spoke with Steve Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy, who offered a clue. "My hunch is that the action was dictated by the practical options. [The judge and Julius Baer] don't know who wikileaks.org is or who the responsible parties are upon whom a court order could be served. What they did know was the U.S. based internet service provider." So they got the ISP to shut the site down. "If they had known who to serve the order to – who represents Wikileaks --, then they might have chosen a more targeted action." Nevertheless, he thought the judge's move was "extraordinary," based as it was on the bank's contention that these were legally protected documents.

A large number of mirror sites have sprung up to counter the judge's move -- sites mirroring not only wikileaks, but also the Julius Baer documents at issue.

"Wikileaks had boasted that they were impervious to censorship," Aftergood told me. "This is the most serious test they've faced in their year-long existence. They may lose their current website, but dozens of mirrors around the world will endure. And I expect they will regroup."

Update: Here's the judge's order. And here's the motion for injunction filed by Julius Baer.

The court documents show that no lawyer has stepped forward to defend Wikileaks in the case, and that Wikileaks did not respond to Julius Baer's legal filings, including the original complaint, which was filed February 8th.

Update: The link to the judge's order has been fixed. Thanks to commenter rincewind below.

Update: Wired has a good tick-tock of the case -- and an explanation for why Wikileaks does not have a lawyer of record in the case and hasn't yet contested the suit in court. Also, Wikileaks has posted some of its correspondence with lawyers for Julius Baer.

Iraq

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | February 4, 2008, 9:40AM

At the very least, if the Bush Administration expires and we are still at war only in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can count ourselves lucky.

The New York Times reports on the latest treasure unearthed by Wikileaks, a 2005 27-page document showing the U.S. military's Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Most worrying of all, the rules allowed for cross-border raids into Iran or Syria:

In a section on crossing international borders, the document said the permission of the American defense secretary was required before American forces could cross into or fly over Iranian or Syrian territory. Such actions, the document suggested, would probably also require the approval of President Bush.

But the document said that there were cases in which such approval was not required: when American forces were in hot pursuit of former members of Mr. Hussein’s government or terrorists....

It stated that the American commander engaged in the pursuit, however, should consult with top commanders in Baghdad, “time permitting.”

The Times notes that it's unknown whether this ever happened or whether the rules are any different now. Hold your breath.

But there are other interesting aspects to the document. Certainly the preoccupation with former members of Saddam Hussein's government, rather than foreign terrorists, was not reflected in the administration's rhetoric at the time.

And then there's this:

Apparently in a carryover from the intelligence failures of the Iraq invasion in early 2003, the document says the United States Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, gave American commanders in Iraq the authority to attack mobile “W.M.D. labs”; such labs for making germ weapons were later determined not to exist.

Torture

2004 G'tmo Manual Restricted Chaplains

Spencer Ackerman | December 4, 2007, 3:07PM

Check out Dan Matthews and Julian Assange's Wikileaks analysis of the difference between the 2003 and 2004 Guantanamo Bay manuals. Matthews and Assange note that the 2004 manual restricts detainees' access to prison chaplains -- most likely in response to the case of James Yee, an Army chaplain then suspected of espionage for al-Qaeda and since cleared of all charges. The result of the Yee Affair was, apparently, a transformation of religious-comfort services into a potential intelligence-collection operation:

In March 2003, the chaplain could access detainee areas unaccompanied, and could “speak freely with detainees”, but by March 2004, the chaplain is “assigned an escort” to visit detainee holding areas – potentially a form of surveillance. And the chaplain can “speak with detainees” - but apparently not so freely as before.

Furthermore, in other parts of the manual, the chaplain is again disempowered – from making announcements on the PA system (sections 16-3 and 16-5), from providing religious items (section 16-13). And guards are no longer encouraged to seek the chaplain's advice on religious matters (section 16-14).

Matthews and Assange also note how the manual expresses hostility for the International Committee of the Red Cross:

Edits to the manual suggest that further hurdles may have been placed in the way of the Red Cross. Sction 17-2 stipulates that the Red Cross “is restricted from all buildings without prior approval... except the Detention Clinic and the Detention Hospital.” Then, the Red Cross is required to be aware of “scheduled guard feeding times” and adjust their schedule accordingly.

The Red Cross is prohibited from passing mail between detainees in both manuals. The 2003 manual stipulates in chapter 13 that “At no time should [Red Cross] reps pass any mail between detainees”.

By 2004, the military saw fit to make the stipulation, if nothing else, louder: “AT NO TIME should ICRC reps pass any mail between detainees.”

Must Read

Today's Must Read

Spencer Ackerman | December 4, 2007, 8:55AM

Score another one for Wikileaks. This morning -- thanks to a source known only as "Peryton" -- the open-source website for whistleblower documents published the 2004 manual for U.S. military detention operations at Guantanamo Bay. You can read it, with commentary, here.

Last month, Wikileaks published the 2003 edition of the manual. Among other controversial provisions, the manual instructed officials to hide certain detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross, a practice that the military repeatedly denied was in existence at Guantanamo. Spokespeople for the U.S. military's Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo Bay, said the manual was outdated and assured that some instructions that violated the Geneva Conventions were no longer in effect.

It's unclear so far what portions of the 2004 manual remain in place. (Maybe Peryton will enlighten us in the future.) The Washington Post's Josh White quotes Guantanamo Bay spokesman as saying that "things have changed dramatically" at the camp since 2004. But Wikileaks finds that, in key areas, the 2004 manual didn't change so much from 2003:

Systematic denial of Red Cross access to prisoners remains. The use of dogs remains. Segregation and isolation are still used routinely and systematically – including an initial period of at least 4 weeks "to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee", only terminated at the behest of interrogators. Both manuals assert that detainees will be treated in accordance with the "spirit" of the Geneva conventions "to the degree consistent with military needs", but never assert that the conventions are actually being followed at Guantanamo. Put into practice, neither manual complies with the Geneva conventions.

So is the past prologue? We'll find out. For now, though, dig into the 2004 manual and let us know in comments what you think is most significant.