A major blow to freedom of speech on the internet? That is what some will undoubtedly argue.
The San Francisco Sentinel is reporting that a judge has ordered the website Wikileaks.com shut down:In a move that legal experts said could present a major test of
First Amendment rights in the Internet era, a federal judge in San
Francisco on Friday ordered the disabling of a Web site devoted to
disclosing confidential information.
The site, Wikileaks.org, invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by corporations and governments.
It has posted documents concerning the rules of engagement for
American troops in Iraq, a military manual concerning the operation of
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other evidence of what it has
called corporate waste and wrongdoing.
The case in San Francisco was brought by a Cayman Islands bank,
Julius Baer Bank and Trust. In court papers, the bank claimed that “a
disgruntled ex-employee who has engaged in a harassment and terror
campaign” provided stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of a
confidentiality agreement and banking laws. According to Wikileaks,
“the documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures
used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.”
On Friday, Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Federal District Court in
San Francisco granted a permanent injunction ordering Dynadot of San
Mateo, California, the site’s domain name registrar, to disable the
Wikileaks.org domain name. The order had the effect of locking the
front door to the Wikileaks.org site - a largely ineffectual action
that kept back doors to the site, and several copies of it, available
to sophisticated Web users who knew where to look.
Full report this way. Interesting to note that only the name has been frozen, and that users can still access the site if they get resourceful.
