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Internet Julius Baer Defends WikiLeaks.org Shutdown
Tom Corelis (Blog) - February 28, 2008 6:01 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 24 comment(s) - last by Carter642.. on Mar 3 at 3:59 PM
Bank moves swiftly to protect private documents

Julius Baer, the finance giant that knocked Wikileaks.org offline early last week, defended its actions in a press release [PDF] issued today.

The bank says that the decision to pursue a court order to remove Wikileaks.org from the internet was made after over a month of failed talks with WikiLeaks, in which attempts to discern the site and its operators’ true identities failed. “Julius Baer and its advisors had failed to identify and engage the operators of WikiLeaks in a dialogue regarding the unlawful posting of stolen and forged bank records,” reads the release.

WikiLeaks specializes in the publishing and analysis of secret documents leaked to it by anonymous insiders. Its main web presence, Wikileaks.org, has a plethora of servers scattered around the world under various aliases, and prides itself on being “uncensorable.” The site entered hot water with Julius Baer earlier this year, when it published secret documents linking the bank’s Cayman Islands operations to money laundering, tax evasion, and fraud, among other things.

On February 15, a California District Court granted a permanent injunction [PDF] against WikiLeaks, ordering it to cease operations and ordering its host, DynaDot LLC, to delete the Wikileaks.org domain name. The injunction was in what WikiLeaks says is an unfair ex parte hearing of which it was given little notice. At the time of this writing, WikiLeaks.org is still offline; the site’s offshore backups, however, are still accessible.

WikiLeaks says that Julius Baer’s efforts amount to unconstitutional censorship and an infringement of the site’s first amendment rights, a claim that the bank denies. “The documents [that WikiLeaks hosts] are protected and prohibited from unauthorized publication under U.S., California and foreign consumer banking and privacy protection laws. The posting of confidential bank records by anonymous sources significantly harms the privacy rights of all individuals,” reads the press release. “This matter has nothing whatsoever to do with censorship or The First Amendment. Instead, Julius Baer’s sole objective has always been limited to the removal of these private and legally protected documents from the website.”

The case is currently ongoing, with several civil rights group filing motions to intervene.

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Net Neutrality?
By ImSpartacus on 2/28/2008 8:26:29 PM , Rating: 5
Jesus, that seemed harsh. If you can't get the website itself, just go for their domain provider? Wow. That's borderline illegal. The US should have zero power over possibly oversea websites.




RE: Net Neutrality?
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 2/28/2008 8:42:47 PM , Rating: 5
Welcome to the premise of DMCA takedowns. They keep issuing a takedown to the upstream provider until it ends up in the U.S.


RE: Net Neutrality?
By TomCorelis (blog) on 2/28/2008 8:52:10 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
The US should have zero power over possibly oversea websites.
Which is precisely what they have. The WikiLeaks. org domain was, unfortunately, hosted in the US. WikiLeaks' list of aliases is over a page long on my screen, all out of Uncle Sam's reach.


RE: Net Neutrality?
By ImSpartacus on 2/28/2008 9:16:43 PM , Rating: 2
Then how could a US court order (even if indirectly) the end for a website? It just doesn't make sense to me. Should a government be able to pressure an independent business into carrying out its deeds?

I'm not saying that the website wasn't performing actions that are illegal in the US, but there seems to be a serious jurisdiction problem here. I don't know the laws, and I can't make an educated comment on the subject, but it sounds fishy to me.


RE: Net Neutrality?
By rsmech on 2/28/2008 10:22:09 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Should a government be able to pressure an independent business into carrying out its deeds?


It happens every day. Your employer carries out the deed of collecting what the gov't considers it's share of the money.


RE: Net Neutrality?
By mindless1 on 2/28/2008 10:27:10 PM , Rating: 2
The jurisdiction problem met with a loophole, that the registrar, Dynadot, is located in California as well as being listed as a defendant on the injunction.

Makes one pause and think about not using a US registrar if they're going to post potentially controversial (to a US business) articles, info, etc.


RE: Net Neutrality?
By TomCorelis (blog) on 2/29/2008 4:10:38 AM , Rating: 2
Precisely. Attacking WikiLeaks directly proved to be difficult, so they went after WikiLeaks' US registrar. I think it was Ars who noted that the .org page is still accessible via its IP address.


RE: Net Neutrality?
By tmouse on 2/29/2008 12:20:22 PM , Rating: 2
I'm playing devils advocate here but is it an "attack" to try to get information if you are being set up? I do not know if they were or not mind you, but if I were to fabricate some lies about you or others at daily tech with some fabricated documents with enough real information to look authentic and post it to wikileaks and you could not get any response from them what would you do? I do not know what I would do. If you cannot get them to redact it and they will not even listen to your side and they will not give you the name of your accuser so you might clear your self in court, what do you do? Post you side, ok what if your sponsors and lenders, maybe even your service providers now start to say hey I do not want to do business with you because of these allegations. Now what do you do? Your side of the story must be just made up since the allegations clearly paint you as a liar, thief, sheep molester ect. I do not know maybe they ARE slime and hooray for the brave whistleblower, if its all made up do we say better you than me? That’s the 2 sides of anonymity. The people who host this type of stuff SHOULD be held responsible to verify as best they can BEFOR publication or they SHOULD pay if they are wrong. Its somewhat a noble endeavor BUT you have to accept many will USE it for their own purposes and that’s equally wrong, I do not think wikileaks should be able to just say its not my problem. I applaud the ideal but with it should come some responsibility.


RE: Net Neutrality?
By murphyslabrat on 2/29/2008 12:49:39 PM , Rating: 2
And who are you to say that it wasn't verified?


RE: Net Neutrality?
By tmouse on 3/3/2008 7:37:21 AM , Rating: 2
If they had evidence that they had investigated the story and answered the court the site would have had absolutely no problem avoiding the injunction that lead to their take down. SO they either didn't look into it or they ignored the courts request for information (these types of proceedings are not done in secret, and ignoring such a request is never smart). We only have best guesses here but it seems to me they felt they did not HAVE to answer the court and were shown they were wrong. I hope they did, but if they did not look into it they will have a slim defense, the first amendment does have exceptions well defined by the courts and libel is one of them.


Directly under this headline...
By JonnyDough on 2/28/2008 6:42:18 PM , Rating: 3
Directly under this headline is "U.S. Air Force Censors Blogs." I think it's interesting that people are so patriotic, when our media and internet are constantly being censored. This isn't some sort of new phenomenon, governments have been doing this since the dawn of time - and the United States is no different.

It all starts with what we can and cannot say at home when we're kids. What is right and what is wrong? We are all products of our environment, regardless of how much we try not to be. It is time that more people realize this little fact.

Who here is old enough to remember: "You're a communist! We tapped your phone!" Even google search is automatically set to filter out pornography. Why aren't these filters OFF by default? Why can't we find art that contains nudity when we search the net, and then enable parental filters as we see fit? Why are the powers that be attempting to parent not only our children, but US?

In the spirit of the 1960s, even though I didn't come about until 1980, I'd just like to say: "Stick it to the man, man."




RE: Directly under this headline...
By InternetGeek on 2/28/2008 7:40:05 PM , Rating: 2
I think that we should strike a deal on this sense given that we do not live in an ideal world: Accept that there's people who will use information to harm others.

IMO the choice should be between:

A) Everyone browses the internet completely anonymous and we learn to accept that certain information has to be filtered out
B) Everyone browses the internet using their identity and leaving the proper trails but we will have free access to all information.

I tend to prefer option B because it gives us choice on what to do or not on the internet and makes it a matter of personal responsibility. If you are caught browsing any kind of sensitive material (the whole span from trade secrets to child pornography) then they will know who did it and prosecute them however they like.


RE: Directly under this headline...
By xsilver on 2/28/08, Rating: 0
RE: Directly under this headline...
By eye smite on 2/28/2008 7:53:31 PM , Rating: 3
I see what you're saying, however the US Air Force censorship was like any major coporation saying you cannot play yahoo games on company equipment. They're not saying an Airmen can't go back to his apartment or home and blog on his own personal computer. In the case of these records the bank feels it is their property being distributed on the internet, not something that is within the realm of public domain. I don't agree with the measures they went to, but what's done is done. I'm sure when all this comes to pass there is backups of that info at wikileaks and it will be wallpapered all over the web from .de and .au and other sites all over the world just to rub it in the banks face. lol


RE: Directly under this headline...
By tmouse on 2/29/2008 12:01:08 PM , Rating: 2
I agree in general but; it is possible if the information breaks international banking laws as well it could be banned elsewhere. It will probably spark some sort of investigation, which will cost the bank difficulties which may be what the anonymous poster wanted to do whether there is any truth or not (I may be wrong but I doubt ANYONE here knows any more FACTS but most are assuming guilt). The bank has put an even brighter spot light on themselves by going to the courts. They HAD to provide the courts with something providing convincing evidence that the accusations are false for the injunction. We will probably never know since the original poster will probably stay hidden.


By SavagePotato on 2/29/2008 9:07:44 AM , Rating: 2
In the case of Google my guess is liability.

Aside from being patriotic, Americans like to sue the ass off of things for any reason imaginable. Little billy finding pictures of pee pee's and wee wee's on Google image search would be probably just enough to cause some of that, if Google wasn't making best efforts to filter that as they are now.

But then again, Google's safe search is kind of good to have. Have you ever turned safe search off and tried searching anything with a womans name in it? good luck getting non porn results there.

When it comes to attitudes America is still extremely skittish as a whole about nudity and sexuality. I find it amusing to compare the differences between say America and Germany. So many other countries are the opposite of America but Germany is the perfect example. Sexuality and nudity is just so commonplace there. A friend from Germany showed me some of his junk mail from his mothers house when he got back from a visit, it was all escort services and porn galore, right in the mail. Violence on the other hand, well everyone knows how games are censored in Germany. Jack Thompson would be proud.

America of course, the opposite. Sexuality and nudity, terrified of it. Violence on the other hand, can't get enough of it. Why that is, who knows? Crazy Christian influence maybe? It sure is amusing to observe however.


Self Defeating
By smitty3268 on 2/28/2008 9:57:20 PM , Rating: 5
Like many attempts at censoring information, this one has failed completely. How many people had ever heard of this site a week ago, let alone the bank they were exposing? Now it's become a major story and everyone assumes the bank must be trying to hide something.




RE: Self Defeating
By sweetsauce on 2/29/2008 12:06:56 AM , Rating: 2
I had no clue about this website, but since the first article came out i've done some casual reading of stuff posted there. Im glad the stupid bank made it public.


RE: Self Defeating
By DASQ on 2/29/2008 3:35:21 PM , Rating: 2
That phenomena actually has a name, associated with the way information spreads on the internet. Can't recall the name for some reason.


Should the california district not be thankful?
By Amiga500 on 2/29/2008 5:02:17 AM , Rating: 2
The site entered hot water with Julius Baer earlier this year, when it published secret documents linking the bank’s Cayman Islands operations to money laundering, tax evasion, and fraud , among other things.

Unless money laundering, tax evasion and fraud are now legal in the USA?




By omnicronx on 2/29/2008 10:03:27 AM , Rating: 2
What the hell am I missing here? What law were they breaking? How is it illegal to post documents on a website? Where/when did Julius Baer prove that they received these documents illegally, how can a judge just assume without proof? My final question is do these actions also open these documents up to the public, for use in a trial maybe?


By tmouse on 2/29/2008 11:51:19 AM , Rating: 2
I guess the argument is that some (all?) of the documents were altered, providing enough information to seem real. When you cannot get a hold of anyone to correct it (or they do not care to) and you cannot get the name of the supplier (who may or may not have faked it) what do you do? In the US free speech is a constitutional guarantee but so is a right to privacy (as interpreted by our supreme courts). I guess you have to choose. It may appear free speech trumps all but think about it; I would challenge anyone who feels so to publish their true names and social security numbers here and then I'll believe them. I frankly do not know whose right or wrong here, but it does illustrate that not everything published on the internet is journalism (heck many things published by the press are not even journalism nowadays). Is there any truth to the allegations? If so then it’s wrong to suppress it, BUT if it’s all a pack of crap from an disgruntled employee then that’s just as bad. Get your choice of devils here.


Swings both ways...
By Carter642 on 3/3/2008 3:59:48 PM , Rating: 2
Somehow posting information like that doesn't sound like the best way to go about things. Why not take your documents to a federal prosecutor? We generally agree that the judicial system does a pretty good job of deciding what information pertinant to a case should be made public.

I personally would be pretty pissed if say my gardener stole tax documents from me and posted them on the net so I can see why a company would want their information taken down, regardless of implied wrongdoing.

Like I said before, in the US there are established avenues of action for whistle blowers and generally packs of prosecutors waiting to jump all over something like this example. Airing the laundry by posting it on the net may endanger any criminal case against the firm in question. Personally I'd like to see money launderers, and tax evaders go to jail.




Divided feelings
By phxfreddy on 2/28/08, Rating: 0
"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007











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