wikileaks

Wikileaks gets legal help after domain name deletion

Wikileaks.org, a Web site that specializes in posting leaked documents often provided by whistleblowers, had its domain name yanked by a federal judge in California earlier this month.

Now Wikileaks is receiving some independent legal support from free speech groups, including Public Citizen, the California First Amendment Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They--and some media organizations also expected to file a brief--are asking to intervene on Wikileaks' behalf.

These folks are the .50 caliber rifles (or, perhaps the .818 caliber Solothurns) of the modern free speech movement. If … Read more

wikileaks.org shut down by Federal Judge

The First Amendment of the US Constitution has protected the rights of the press in many legal battles throughout history, but last week, when US District Judge Jeffrey White signed a permanent injunction (PDF) ordering wikileaks.org shut down, it was a disturbing indicator of the uncertain status of press freedoms in the United States.

Wikileaks describes itself as "developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis," and indeed, although the wikileaks.org domain is no longer active, the site continues to be mirrored at various domains around the world. As Bob Egelko at the San Francisco Chronicle points out, the "site was the first to post the confidential Defense Department manual about operations of the U.S. detention camp at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, and has also posted rules of engagement for U.S. forces in Iraq."

But it wasn't the publication of subterranean government documents that eventually triggered the federal government's wrath (though it's possible that may have played a motivating factor). According to the Chronicle, the judge ordered the site to be shut down, "after it posted documents purporting to describe offshore activities of a Swiss bank."… Read more

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Wikileaks domain name yanked in spat over leaked documents

A federal judge in California has pulled the plug on Wikileaks.org, a Web site that specializes in posting leaked documents often provided by whistleblowers.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White on Friday ordered that the domain name be disabled at the behest of a group of Swiss bankers who filed a lawsuit alleging that confidential information appeared on Wikileaks.org.

Read the full story on Declan McCullagh's Iconoclast blog.

Wikileaks domain name yanked in spat over leaked documents

A federal judge in California has pulled the plug on Wikileaks.org, a Web site that specializes in posting leaked documents often provided by whistleblowers.

White's order to Dynadot, the registrar with which Wikileaks appears to have been associated, says:

Dynadot shall immediately lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar, and shall … Read more

Court orders Wikileaks be taken offline

Whistle-blower Web site Wikileaks.org has been effectively ordered offline by a California court. Last week, the court ordered domain name registrar Dynadot to remove all DNS entries for that domain. According to a story by the BBC, Dynadot was also ordered to "prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court." Swiss banking group Julius Baer Bank and documents surrounding its offshore activities are at the center of the controversy. The Wikileaks.org site is still available here. … Read more