Whistleblowing Website Vows to Defy Court Gag (wikileaks)

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/19/7154/

Whistleblowing Website Vows to Defy Court Gag
by Jemima Kiss


An international website that claims to blow the whistle on corporate and governmental fraud vowed yesterday to defy attempts by a US court to close it down. Wikileaks allows whistleblowers to anonymously post documents in an attempt to expose corruption and wrongdoing. Its owners said yesterday that a Californian judge had ordered that the site be taken offline last week, after an injunction from a Swiss bank.0219 07

The bank, Julius Baer, sought the injunction to prevent claims being posted online that it was involved in money laundering and tax evasion in the Cayman Islands. It has indicated that the information was prejudicial to an ongoing court case.

Last night, the version of the site hosted in the US remained unavailable, but duplicate sites hosted in India and Belgium were still accessible.

Information on the Wikileaks site led to a front-page Guardian story in August 2007, exposing money laundering in Kenya by former president Daniel Arap Moi, and in November the site published a confidential briefing memo from Northern Rock that was picked up by the Guardian, the Financial Times and the BBC.

The site published hundreds of pages of information from a former bank employee about the offshore activity of Julius Baer. Several documents allegedly relate to money laundering claims. The bank could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Last week a Californian district court judge, Jeffrey White, accepted the bank’s injunction without amendment and also ordered Dynadot, the site’s domain registry, to delete all record of the address from the central internet domain registry. Wikileaks’ founders said the US court’s move breached the first amendment.

© 2008 The Guardian

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

1. Obviously, there is much more to this situation.

Is this a temporary restraining order?

Was there notice? Has Wikileaks attempted to file anything?

Hell, does Wikileaks even have the complaint in hand?

Is the Kenya money laundering what led the Bank to file or was there more?

[pleah]

2. they should.

They won't be able to stop the flow of information, try as they might.

edit to add: They obviously hit a nerve.

[PSPS]

3. Still available at http://88.80.13.160/

It's still available at http://88.80.13.160/ (the name is just a shortcut translated to this IP address anyway.)

Also, www.wikileaks.cx still works.

However, I read that the site was temporarily down due to a DDOS attack and a UPS fire. However, it's working for me right now.

[The Stranger]

4. This judge has lost his fucking mind.

Has the Supreme Court ever upheld prior restraint? Help me out here.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

5. Mirror site

http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks

[warren pease]

6. More Wikileaks info and background in this thread from yesterday...

US court attacks web freedom; enjoins Wikileaks.org out of existence.


wp

[babylonsister]

7. Thanks for the background, warren pease! nt