A San Francisco judge reversed the injunction against WikiLeaks’ primary domain last Friday, after hearing three hours of arguments from 12 different attorneys.

WikiLeaks specializes in the distribution of leaked, politically sensitive documents, and found itself in hot water at the beginning of this year when it published documents connecting Switzerland-based Bank Julius Baer of fraud and money laundering. Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued a permanent injunction against WikiLeaks’ US domain host, DynaDot, to knock the site offline since it refused demands to remove Julius Baer’s documents.

Observers everywhere feared the ramifications of the court’s decision: WikiLeaks received an overwhelming show of last-minute support from the EFF, ACLU, and others, and a WikiLeaks attorney not involved in the case compared the shutdown to “saying that Time magazine published one page of sensitive material so [someone can] seize the entire magazine and put a lock on their presses.”

The court’s decision to release the injunction against WikiLeaks.org was driven by both constitutional concerns and the ineffectiveness of the court's remedy: “There are serious questions about prior restraint, [and] possible violations of the First Amendment,” said Judge White, of “which the court can make no definitive findings about at this point.” In his written opinion, White notes that “even the broad injunction issued as to DynaDot had exactly the opposite effect as was intended. The private, stolen material was transmitted over the internet via mirror websites which are maintained in different countries all over the world. Further, the press generated by this Court’s action increased public attention to the fact that such information was readily accessible online.”

“The Court is not convinced that Plaintiffs have made an adequate showing that any restraining injunction in this case would serve its intended purpose,” White wrote.

 Julius Baer’s attorneys argued that there was no conflict with the First Amendment, citing a similar Supreme Court case that involving a radio station’s rebroadcast of an intercepted conversation: “We allege, your honor, that Wikileaks has actively solicited the theft of private information ... we're talking about private banking information, account numbers, personal numbers like Social Security numbers...all this is private information that's not newsworthy...None of the publishers here today would want their own banking information posted on the Internet.”

Unfazed by the arguments from Julius Baer’s two attorneys, White told them that “the court has an obligation to get it right … I took an obligation to uphold the Constitution. The court has its own obligation to raise these issues. Contrary to what you say, my obligation is to look down the road and see where this thing is going.”

“Let me play devil's advocate here,” said White. “Is it newsworthy if some prominent citizen is...evading taxes, laundering funds? Wouldn't that be something in the public interest?”