Feb

20

Court Orders WikiLeaks Offline

Posted by Keith McMillan

February 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment

A California District Court judge has ordered WikiLeaks to be taken off line in response to a complaint from Swiss bank Julius Baer we find from CSO magazine.  This answers why WikiLeaks disappeared off the internets earlier this week.

The order in the U.S. came after a Swiss bank, Julius Baer, earlier this month filed a complaint against the site and San Mateo, California-based Dynadot, Wikileaks’ domain-name registry, for posting several hundred of the bank’s documents.

Some of those documents allegedly reveal that Julius Baer was involved in offshore money laundering and tax evasion in the Cayman Islands for customers in several countries, including the U.S.

WikiLeaks serves an interesting and controversial role, providing a way for leakers to anonymously post information that they believe should be in the public eye. It’s difficult to argue that the site couldn’t be abused by someone posting confidential company information that really has no business in the public eye. Conversely, with the rampant secrecy shown by the government, even to the extent of refusing to allow citizens to know who is informing public policy (remember the Vice President’s energy policy meetings?) tools like WikiLeaks are essential if we are not to become a police state.

It would be disappointing if the service were to go away for the long term. WikiLeaks sites in other countries are still on line as of this writing.


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