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Web Site Shut Down Raises Censorship Questions
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by CDT_Washington | February 20, 2008 at 10:31 pm
747 views | 25 Recommendations | 7 comments
The Feb. 15th order by a Federal judge, which attempted to shut down an entire web site by wiping its name from the Internet Domain Name system, is raising serious censorship questions. The judge issued the order at the request of the Swiss-based Julius Baer Bank, which claimed the web site, Wikileaks.org, had published stolen, confidential bank records. Wikileaks.org exists as a whistleblower site, often publishing information meant to remain secret. The site contains a vast amount of protected speech, wholly unrelated to the bank, notes CDT General Counsel John Morris. "A court order disabling access to an entire web site goes far beyond what the First Amendment permits," Morris said. February 20, 2008
U.S. District Judge Jeffery S. White's Order to Shut Down Wikileaks.org
[PDF]
February 15, 2008
[off-site]
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at 23:23 on February 20th, 2008
CDT_Washington, thanks for this report on such an important matter.
at 04:23 on February 21st, 2008
Not only did wikileaks suffer from legal issues, someone set their datacenter
on fire shortly after a series of denial of service attacks on the site itself. Then a judge steps in and forces an injunction on the domain registration service, because their servers are in sweden and otherwise untouchable.
What right does an american judge have to shut down a site by any means possible? Who is pulling the strings here?
at 05:14 on February 21st, 2008
The outcome of such an action will be important in that it will be a precursor to future actions to cancel a domain ownership or registration.
at 05:43 on February 21st, 2008
Good stuff, CDT_Washington. This and future developments along this line merit close scrutiny by us all.
at 06:48 on February 21st, 2008
Question: has anyone here actually seen the site in question and reviewed it extensively? I haven't. Another question: if the website exposed any confidential data that might violate individual patrons" privacy without their consent, is that OK?
I wish I'd seen the site. Anyone have some cached versions?
I wonder if this was a collision of "free speech" and "privacy." I'd appreciate seeing any other resources on this other than a link to a prior link posting here.
at 07:02 on February 21st, 2008
Yes, I've seen the site in question. And in fact, although the the site has been stricken from the Domain Name system; you can still log into it using its IP address.
And yes, the site is mirrored in several places. Check out www.wikileak.org (the "s" is missing from the original banned site).
The question you ask about violating someone's privacy is a media question, I believe. Say someone is committing a crime, but doing so behind the scenes, like, oh... stuffing money into a Swiss bank account in order to evade paying taxes, if that scheme is uncovered and made public, is that an "invasion of privacy"?
Wrong-doers are exposed everyday by the media.
Now, a debate might be, is wikileaks.org considered "media"?
at 17:40 on August 11th, 2009
At least the judge's action was one made "in the open", as a DNS de-listing is immediately obvious to all those who attempt to communicate with the site, including the owners (of the domain).
This gives the owners of (the domain) wikileaks the ability to:
Unfortunately, domain names and web sites belonging to smaller entities -- those without the populist clout of high volume sites such as wikileaks, are being successfully censored in a clandestine and treacherous way -- one that, via technological bamboozlry "hides" the censorship from the party or parties that maintain an ownership stake in the domain or web presence.
This is often being done in the cases of individual whistle blowers or others who have elicited the ire of our shadow governors ...