Wikileaks Under Attack: California Court Wipes Wikileaks.org Out of Existence
February 18th, 2008
One of the most important web sites in recent months has been Wikileaks.org. Created by several brave journalists committed to transparency, Wikileaks has published important leaked documents, such as the Rules of Engagement for Iraq [see my The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq], the 2003 and 2004 Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, and evidence of major bank fraud in Kenya [see also here] that apparently affected the Kenyan elections. Wikileaks has upset the Chinese government enough that they are attempting to censor it, as is the Thai military junta.
Now censorship has extended to the United States of America, land of the First Amendment. As of Friday, February 15, those going to Wikileaks.org have gotten Server not found messages. Today I received a message explaining that a California court has granted an injunction written and requested by lawyers for the Cayman Island’s Bank Julius Baer. It seems that the bank is trying to keep the public from accessing documents that may reveal shady dealings. Wikileaks was only given a couple of hours notice “by email” and was not even represented at the hearing where a U.S. judge took such a drastic step attempting to totally shut down an important information outlet. The result was this totally unprecedented attempt to totally wipe out the existence of Wikileaks:
“Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.”
There have, of course, been previous attempts by the U.S. Government and others to block publication of particular documents, most famously in 1971 when the Nixon administration attempted to stop publication by the New York Times of excerpts from the Pentagon Papers, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. But trying to close down an entire site in this way is truly unprecedented. Not even the Nixon administration, when they sought to block publication of the Pentagon Papers, considered closing down the New York Times in response.
If this injunction stands, it will set an incredible precedent for all of us who use the web to unveil misbehavior by the rich and powerful. Fortunately, Wikileaks is fighting this unconstitutional attack on press freedom, aided by six pro bono attorneys in San Francisco. While Wikileaks has so far not issued any particular call for support, all who value freedom should stand ready to offer whatever support they need.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks still exists. Its founders, knowing that governments and institutions will go to extreme lengths to censor the truth, have created an extensive network of cover names from which one can access their materials or continue leaking the secrets of governments and the corrupt rich and powerful. Thus, everything is available at Wikileaks.be, among other names. Let the leaks continue!
Entry Filed under: Democracy,Free Speech,Social Issues
14 Comments
1. kraant | February 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Thanks for the heads up,
BTW…
You misspelled “Wikileaks” as “Wikieaks” in the first paragraph. Look for the italics.
No big deal, but I thought you should know.
2. tom veale | February 18th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
shades of hitlers book burnings where is the constituional right group where is america these days beware the word patriotism
3. d-notice.net / Wikileaks.&hellip | February 18th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
[...] Details here Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 3:01 am by barry. Filed in wikileaks. [...]
4. Voice of Freedom | February 19th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Wikileaks is any form is NOT accessible from the U.S.
I’ve not been able to hit ANY site.
5. psps | February 19th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Only the US DNS was taken down. You can still get to it at http://88.80.13.160 or http://www.wikileaks.cx
6. Doretta Collins | February 19th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I just tried the two links in the last paragraph. No luck with either. Someone please keep us posted on where to go, what to do. This is sickening.
7. Don McAvinchey | February 19th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Stephen,
thanks for your courageous efforts for truth. As Gandhi said, “What we must do is expose injustice where ever it happens, and be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.” Thank you.
The Justice Dept. also closed down websites under court injunctions that have opposed and educated US citizens about tax freedom, the income tax as a fraudulent and unconstitutional tax, and what citizens can do to opt out of income tax paying. That has happened several times in the last five years. Agree with their tenets or not, they have been censored off the web.
Thought you should know.
Don
8. Dave Wheeler | February 19th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I’ve been pinging 88.80.13.160 (the ip for wikileaks.cx and wikileaks.be) for about ten minutes now and am not getting any response.
9. Dave Wheeler | February 19th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
According to http://cryptome.org/wikileaks-bjb.htm wikileaks has had a UPS fire as well as “a 500Mbps
distributed denial of service attack”. That’s enough bandwidth for a DDOS to conclude that it’s likely either an organized crime syndicate or a state government.
10. Philip J Dennany | February 20th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Some still think we have a democracy. Maybe some will finally realize what 9-11 was really meant to accomplish. Very many of our liberties have been taken since, and there will be more. Baaaa sheep.
11. Psyche, Science, and Soci&hellip | February 20th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
[...] Monday I wrote about the unprecedented attempt by Bank Julius Baer to censor the Wikileak.org web site by having a San [...]
12. AustinTiffanyLaine | February 22nd, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Please keep up the good work. I live in New Jersey, two writers released a book recently and called it “The Soprano’s State.” I believe the psychological effects of the real show had somehow subconsciously taken on a new levels.
It’s like, if the people watched the show they started acting “as if”
in their real lives, now the state is investigating every which way.
This may be a great thing….???? How ever in the effects of people trying to keep their jobs new ways to undermine the system
are being created….I wish I could explain….
13. Psyche, Science, and Soci&hellip | February 27th, 2008 at 7:34 am
[...] LA Times reports that a broad range of civil liberties groups are asking the court to void its order shutting down the Wikileaks.org web site: Judge is asked to rescind shutdown of [...]
14. Psyche, Science, and Soci&hellip | February 28th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
[...] the battle against the totally unprecedented judicial censorship of the entire Wikileaks.org web site, Wikileaks (still available at Wikileaks.be) has issued an [...]