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The Wikileaks website was championing nameless whistle blowers with
renewed vigor Monday after a US judge ruled efforts to shut down the
site violated constitutional rights to free speech.
Wikileaks is striving to be an "uncensorable"
online compendium of "untraceable" documents that expose
wrongdoing but not identities of those providing the information,
its creators said in a website posting.
"Wikileaks.org
is back," the posting said, claiming to have more than 1.2
million documents from dissident communities and anonymous sources.
"Our primary interest is in exposing
oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan
Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance
to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in
their governments and corporations."
Julius Baer & Co. on February 15 convinced
federal judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco to issue an injunction
ordering the website to shut down.
The Swiss bank went after Wikileaks in court
after the website posted copies of internal documents indicating the
company helped customers launder money illegally through the Cayman
Islands.
Julius Baer denies any such accusations and
argued in court that Wikipedia was violating law by displaying its
private paperwork online.
White sided with the bank until a Friday hearing
at which attorneys defending Wikileaks convinced him to lift his
injunction in the name of freedom of expression as upheld in the
First Amendment of the US Constitution.
"We're very pleased that Judge White
recognized the serious constitutional concerns raised by his earlier
orders," said Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff
attorney Matt Zimmerman, who joined in Wikileaks' legal defense.
"Attempting to interfere with the operation
of an entire website because you have a dispute over some of its
content is never the right approach."
The injunction failed to stop Wikileaks from
operating because it uses computer servers outside the country's
borders.
That fact raises legal questions regarding
White's jurisdiction in the case as well as whether an injunction
can be enforced. White cited those points as contributing to his
decision to rescind the injunction.
"Disabling access to an Internet domain in
an effort to prevent the world from accessing a handful of
widely-discussed documents is not only unconstitutional it simply
won't work," Zimmerman said.
Wikileaks is a legitimate and legal outlet for
"third parties" to post leaked documents exposing
suspected wrongdoing, according to Zimmerman.
WikiLeaks' website says the organization was
founded by "Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup
company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and
South Africa."
Wikileaks postings have included material
documenting alleged human rights violations in China and political
corruption in Kenya.
Instead of stifling the barely year-old website,
the legal battle is shining a spotlight on it.
A day before the judge reversed his decision,
Julius Baer issued a statement saying the "matter has nothing
to do whatsoever with censorship."
"It is not and has never been Julius Baer's
intention to stifle anyone's right to free speech," the company
said in the release.
In a seeming contradiction, Julius Baer says
that the documents posted at Wikileaks violate privacy laws because
they are confidential bank records but at the same time says the
paperwork is forged.
"Julius Baer's sole objective has always
been limited to the removal of these private and legally protected
documents from the website," the company said in its statement.
"However, Julius Baer denies the
authenticity of this material and wholly rejects the serious and
defamatory allegations which it contains."
-- AFP
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