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Wikileaks.org Is Back, Judge
Dissolves Injunction
by via EFF
Friday Feb 29th, 2008
First Amendment Rights of Internet Users Upheld in Today's
Hearing
San Francisco - A federal district court judge in San Francisco
today rescinded a controversial order that disabled the "wikileaks.org"
domain name which had -- until two weeks ago -- pointed to
Wikileaks, a website designed to give whistleblowers a forum for
posting materials of public concern.
This week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) moved to
intervene in the case, along with the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of
Northern California and the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).
In a hearing in federal court today, EFF and its fellow
intervenors and amici argued that the order infringed on the First
Amendment rights of Internet users who have an interest in
accessing material of public concern on the site. Ruling from the
bench, Judge Jeffrey White cited concerns about the First
Amendment, the effectiveness of disabling the wikileaks.org domain
name, and the court's own jurisdiction over the case as reasons to
dissolve his previous orders.
"We're very pleased that Judge White recognized the serious
constitutional concerns raised by his earlier orders," said EFF
Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Attempting to interfere
with the operation of an entire website because you have a dispute
over some of its content is never the right approach. Disabling
access to an Internet domain in an effort to prevent the world
from accessing a handful of widely-discussed documents is not only
unconstitutional -- it simply won't work."
Wikileaks permits third parties to post corporate and government
documents that they believe expose wrongdoing. For example, in the
past year individuals have posted materials documenting alleged
human rights abuses in China and political corruption in Kenya.
The lawsuit began earlier this month, when Swiss bank Julius Baer
filed suit against Wikileaks for hosting allegedly leaked
documents regarding personal banking transactions of Julius Baer
customers. Also sued was Wikileaks' domain name registrar, Dynadot
LLC. On February 15, following a stipulation between Julius Baer
and Dynadot, the court issued a permanent injunction, disabling
the wikileaks.org domain name and preventing that domain name from
being transferred to any other registrar.
In addition to dissolving the permanent injunction, which permits
the wikileaks.org domain name to be reactivated, the court also
declined to extend a previous temporary restraining order
requiring Wikileaks to disable access to 14 disputed Julius Baer
documents.
Joining the EFF, ACLU, and POGO motion to intervene was Wikileaks
user Jordan McCorkle. The papers were filed in consultation with
and on behalf of the intervenors by Steven Mayer of the law firm
of Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin. Other attorneys on
the case include Christopher Kao and Shaudy Danaye-Elmi of Howard
Rice; Zimmerman, Cindy Cohn, and Kurt Opsahl of EFF; and Aden Fine
and Ann Brick of the ACLU and ACLU-Northern California,
respectively.
For the full order:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/baer_v_wikileaks/wikileaks102.pdf
For more on the Wikileaks case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/bank-julius-baer-co-v-wikileaks
http://www.wikileaks.org
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