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Federal Judge Attempts to Silence Wikileaks
Whistle-blower Web site ordered shut down
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
(02-19) 19:03 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco federal judge has taken the highly unusual step of ordering the shutdown of a Web site devoted to anonymous allegations of high-level wrongdoing after it posted documents purporting to describe offshore activities of a Swiss bank.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued an injunction Friday ordering a Bay Area Internet host to disable the Wikileaks.org site and prevent the organization from transferring to any other server until further notice.
Wikileaks, founded in 2006, describes itself as an enabler of "principled leaking" by government and corporate insiders. Its 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.
Despite the order aimed at its domain name, Wikileaks remained accessible Tuesday through its Internet Protocol or IP address, 88.80.13.160, and through so-called mirror sites in Europe that replicate its contents.
In a news release, the organization called White's order "clearly unconstitutional" and promised to "step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices."
In the San Francisco case, the bank, Julius Baer & Co., requested the shutdown order Feb. 7, saying Wikileaks had wrongfully obtained hundreds of confidential bank documents, some of them altered or forged. Baer indicated that it wanted the site closed until the host, a San Mateo firm called Dynadot, removed all bank-related documents and made sure no others were posted.
The documents contain allegations of improprieties by the bank in the Cayman Islands. Baer, in court papers, attributed the allegations to "a disgruntled ex-employee." The Wikileaks documents contain numerous references to the bank's former vice president in the Caymans, Rudolf Elmer, but Wikileaks has not confirmed that he was the source.
White's ruling was labeled a permanent injunction and did not say it would be lifted when the bank's conditions were met. But Garret Murai, a lawyer for Dynadot, said Tuesday that the shutdown was intended to be temporary. The bank's lawyer could not be reached for comment.
No representative of Wikileaks attended last week's hearing before White or filed any papers in his court before the judge issued his order. But the bank's lawyer told White he had made extensive efforts to inform Wikileaks of the proposed injunction, and the judge found the notification to be adequate.
Advocates for news media and for government whistle-blowers criticized the ruling. Peter Scheer, executive director of the media-backed California First Amendment Coalition, said White's order was like "enjoining all future editions of the Washington Post because of a corporation's complaint about one article."
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy, called the injunction "unusual and highly irregular" but probably futile in light of Wikileaks' alternative outlets for the documents.
Although Wikileaks has disclosed some significant information in the past year, Aftergood said, the reliability of any such anonymous material remains problematic.
"I think they have tried to shift the burden of verification onto their readers, arguing that ... open critique is the best way to establish the validity of particular records," he said. "It's a questionable assumption."
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
(02-19) 19:03 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco federal judge has taken the highly unusual step of ordering the shutdown of a Web site devoted to anonymous allegations of high-level wrongdoing after it posted documents purporting to describe offshore activities of a Swiss bank.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued an injunction Friday ordering a Bay Area Internet host to disable the Wikileaks.org site and prevent the organization from transferring to any other server until further notice.
Wikileaks, founded in 2006, describes itself as an enabler of "principled leaking" by government and corporate insiders. Its 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.
Despite the order aimed at its domain name, Wikileaks remained accessible Tuesday through its Internet Protocol or IP address, 88.80.13.160, and through so-called mirror sites in Europe that replicate its contents.
In a news release, the organization called White's order "clearly unconstitutional" and promised to "step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices."
In the San Francisco case, the bank, Julius Baer & Co., requested the shutdown order Feb. 7, saying Wikileaks had wrongfully obtained hundreds of confidential bank documents, some of them altered or forged. Baer indicated that it wanted the site closed until the host, a San Mateo firm called Dynadot, removed all bank-related documents and made sure no others were posted.
The documents contain allegations of improprieties by the bank in the Cayman Islands. Baer, in court papers, attributed the allegations to "a disgruntled ex-employee." The Wikileaks documents contain numerous references to the bank's former vice president in the Caymans, Rudolf Elmer, but Wikileaks has not confirmed that he was the source.
White's ruling was labeled a permanent injunction and did not say it would be lifted when the bank's conditions were met. But Garret Murai, a lawyer for Dynadot, said Tuesday that the shutdown was intended to be temporary. The bank's lawyer could not be reached for comment.
No representative of Wikileaks attended last week's hearing before White or filed any papers in his court before the judge issued his order. But the bank's lawyer told White he had made extensive efforts to inform Wikileaks of the proposed injunction, and the judge found the notification to be adequate.
Advocates for news media and for government whistle-blowers criticized the ruling. Peter Scheer, executive director of the media-backed California First Amendment Coalition, said White's order was like "enjoining all future editions of the Washington Post because of a corporation's complaint about one article."
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy, called the injunction "unusual and highly irregular" but probably futile in light of Wikileaks' alternative outlets for the documents.
Although Wikileaks has disclosed some significant information in the past year, Aftergood said, the reliability of any such anonymous material remains problematic.
"I think they have tried to shift the burden of verification onto their readers, arguing that ... open critique is the best way to establish the validity of particular records," he said. "It's a questionable assumption."
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page B - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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