First Amendment

ZDNet is reporting that United States District Court Judge Jeffrey White has placed a Swiss Bank, Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. and its Cayman Island subsidiary Julius Baer Bank & Trust request for injunctive relief against WikiLeaks on a standard temporary restraining order (TRO) trajectory¹.

The judge's original order for a permanent injunction—evidently based on misunderstandings or misrepresentations—has been modified to a standard TRO with the hearing scheduled for Friday, February 29, 2008, 09:00 AM.

Additionally the TRO rescinds the original permanent injunction order requiring Dynadot's² seizure and lock-down of the domain WikiLeaks.org; DNS domain delisting; resolution of WikiLeaks.org to a blank index page (evidently prophylactic to DNS domain delisting); and total prior restraint of WikiLeaks.org.

The new TRO simply requires removal of the allegedly offending documents (partial prior restraint) pending the February 29, 2008 hearing and possible trial on the merits of Baer's allegations.

Res: UPDATED 02/21/2008 Google News, Wikileaks

Web:

• UPDATED 02/23/2008 InformationWeek, Wikileaks' Leaked Documents Blocked But Unbowed

  "Wikileaks described itself as "the first intelligence agency of the people. Better principled and less parochial than any governmental intelligence agency, it is able to be more accurate and relevant. It has no commercial or national interests at heart; its only interest is the revelation of the truth. Unlike the covert activities of state intelligence agencies, Wikileaks relies upon the power of overt fact to enable and empower citizens to bring feared and corrupt governments, and corporations to justice.""--Thomas Claburn, Information Week--

• UPDATED 02/21/2008 Time CNN, A Coming Chill Over Internet Freedom?

  "For its part, Wikileaks issued a statement Monday saying that while it anticipated having to dodge suppression attempts by the Chinese government and the "Thai military junta," it "never expected to be using [its] alternative servers to deal with censorship attacks from, of all places, the United States."--Alex Altman, Time CNN--

• UPDATED 02/21/2008 MercuryNews, Misguided judge pulls plug on Wikileaks

  "Whatever one thinks of Wikileaks, it represents a model of information dissemination that, in some variation or another, is here to stay. Repressive governments can't stop it. Nor can federal judges in need of a refresher course on the First Amendment."--Peter Scheer, California First Amendment Coalition--

  Not to mention a refresher course on basic American History, beginning with the anonymous publishing of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison et al.--Lunog-First--

• UPDATED 02/20/2008 SFGate, Whistle-blower Web site ordered shut down
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 AP, Web Site 'Wikileaks' Shuttered Over Post
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 NYT, Judge Orders Wikileaks Web Site Shut
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 eFlux Media, First Amendment Challenged: Wikileaks Shut by Ca. Judge
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 Techtree, Wikileaks: Still Standing
• ZDNet, Judge orders WikiLeaks offline, then backs off

Blog:

• UPDATED 02/21/2008 ZDNet, Bank that censored WikiLeaks was preparing for IPO.
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 ComputerWorld, Privacy, civil rights advocates castigate Wikileaks ruling
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 Dissident Voice, Wikileaks Under Attack: California Court Wipes Wikileaks.org Out of Existence
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 TechWorld, Wikileaks changes everything
• UPDATED 02/20/2008 NYT, Bits, Wikileaks Site Has a Friend in Sweden
• UPDATED 02/19/2008 FAS Secrecy News, Court Issues Injunction Against Wikileaks.org. Copies of both the initial permanent injunction and subsequent amended preliminary injunction are available from this blog post.

-----notes-----

1. Hopefully the judge will subsequently clarify and make public the details that resulted in a total blanket prior restraint of WikiLeaks.org

2. WikiLeaks should consider whether Dynadot’s wimpy behavior stipulating to a permanent injunction and prior restraint on WikiLeaks.org is an ISP capable of asserting and protecting its customer’s rights to the fullest extent of the law?

Certainly, it will not be the last time WikiLeaks will be attacked by opponents of transparency.

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