US court attacks web freedom; enjoins Wikileaks.org out of existence

[Ichingcarpenter]

One of the most important web sites in recent months has been Wikileaks.org. Created by several brave journalists committed to transparency, Wikieaks has published important leaked documents, such as the Rules of Engagement for Iraq , the 2003 and 2004 Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, and evidence of major bank fraud in Kenya 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:
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!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__080218_us_court_attacks_web.htm

[originalpckelly]

1. Wonderful thing about the web, the idea of wikileaks is now out there...

people will use it to keep creating new leak sites as they are shut down. :P

You simply cannot stop freedom sometimes!

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. wikileaks was a very good site for revealing the corruption

I couldn't figure out why the site was down and thought it
was a server problem, now we find out a corrupt off shore bank has tried
to stop it from showing their money laundering scheme that
is tied to many of the major players.

[derby378]

5. It's too soon to speak of Wikileaks in the past tense

I'm on the .be site right now, downloading to my little heart's content. Want a Camp Delta PDF? I just grabbed my own copy... :bounce:

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. I know they are back up

You are right the wonderful thing about the internet is
that the 'papers' this time can be copied by the millions.

It has been a great clearing house for researchers and news
that will never be published by the MSM.

[L. Coyote]

3. Can this precedent extend to the NY Times, et.al.? Wikileaks.be = Belgium!

Yeah Belgium.

[wildbilln864]

4. *k&r! nt

[krispos42]

6. To the greatest!

[truedelphi]

13. Ditto! n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. From Wikileaks their statement. A Fire, A DDoS attack and an injunction

February 18, 2008

The website WikiLeaks.org has been taken off line in many parts of the world. Wikileaks is a website dedicated to leaking documents that are "anonymous, untraceable, uncensorable."

Several factors have taken the site off line including DDoS attacks, which was followed by a fire which took out the main servers hosting the site in Sweden, and a restraining order on the domain name 'WikiLeaks.org' issued in the United States.

According to the website HongPong.com, Wikileaks experienced "a 500Mbps distributed denial of service attack" before the fire, but it is not known if the DDoS attack is connected to it.

After the attack, a fire was reported in the Uninterruptible Power Supply of the servers which host the site.

The third and final factor taking the site off line is a permanent injunction granted in the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, California to Bank Julius Baer, a Swiss Bank, which has caused the domain to be taken off line in the U.S.. Wikileaks previously published hundreds of documents obtained from a whistleblower of the Swiss Bank, "purportedly showing offshore tax evasion and money laundering by extremely wealthy and in some cases, politically sensitive, clients from the US, Europe, China and Peru."

According to a Wikileaks press release received by e-mail, the injunction issued by the court states, "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."

"The order was entirely written by Cayman Island's Bank Julius Baer lawyers and was accepted by judge White without amendment, or representations by Wikileaks or amicus. The case is over several Wikileaks articles, public commentary and documents dating prior to 2003. The documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion. The bank alleges the documents were disclosed to Wikileaks by offshore banking whistleblower and former Vice President the Cayman Island's operation, Rudolf Elmer. Unable to lawfully attack Wikileaks servers which are based in several countries, the order was served on Wikileaks's California registrar Dynadot ("the power company"). The order also enjoins every person who has heard about the order from even linking to the documents," said Wikileaks in the release.

Despite the injunction, Wikileaks states that they will "keep on publishing, in-fact, given the level of suppression involved in this case, Wikileaks will step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices."

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/%27Wikileaks.org%27_taken_off_line_in_many_areas_after_fire%2C_court_injunction

[Ghost Dog]

12. Sample docs apparantly

here, eg. this.

http://www.wikileaks.be/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer_vs._Wikileaks

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. Thanks

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. kick and nominated

[warren pease]

10. Update on Wikileaks whistleblower site: domain name killed by US court order: Net censorship arrives

This is a cross-post from this thread:


It's been an interesting week at Wikileaks.org. They survived a UPS fire at their co-location host in Sweden; weathered a well-coordinated denial of service attack; and now, predictably, the feds are going after them with restraining orders, trying to kill or at least impose strict censorship on one of the more blatantly anti-government/corporate-secrecy sites in Internet history. The latter problem may turn out to be the least threatening, since Wikileaks is located outside US jurisdiction. So the site's founders should just be able to thumb their noses at the Bush DoJ as it tries -- and hopefully fails -- to find a legal strategy that could work.

In case you're not familiar with Wikileaks, please see my OP above for part of their mission statement or go to one of the links at the bottom of this post and load the main page.

In brief, Wikileaks was founded by an international group of reporters, web developers and other mass media veterans, partially to counter the worldwide intrusion of corporate media horseshit into formerly independent news rooms. But mainly, Wikileaks wants to shine a bright light on governments, corporations and other institutions that plot in secret to force their agendas -- which invariably center on acquisition and consolidation of ever more money and power -- down the throats of the other 6+ billion people of the world.

They propose to accomplish this by providing whistleblowers from anywhere on the planet a secure, anonymous place to publish secret, sensitive, embarrassing or otherwise revelatory governmental and corporate material -- preferably the kinds that make these swine sweat, squirm, chug Pepto Bismol and reach for the Xanax.

Wikileaks wants to go one step further, though. Not only will they publish this stuff for the world to see, but they want to encourage people who live in the region that's most affected by whatever's being proposed in these formerly secret documents to analyze the material from their perspectives and local knowledge, then post their comments and analysis on Wikileaks.

I've been a member of their reporter/writer/news group for a couple of months now, which gets me their intermittent reports via email. The information below was part of today's briefing:


Wikileaks report

February 18, 2008

Spy Blog: Wikileaks survives a fire, but is under Temporary Restraining Order partial censorship

Link
http://spyblog.org.uk
Country
United Kingdom
Date
2008-02-17

It looks as if the interesting and controversial, Wikileaks website, which promises "anonymous, untraceable, uncensorable" publication of leaked documents from whistleblowers, and which recently published the devastating No2ID Campaign annotated leaked UK National Identity Scheme document , is weathering some technical hitches and legal litigation attacks.

It seems that there has been a fire in an Uninterruptible Power Supply, which took the WikiLeaks web servers offline for much of Saturday, at their Swedish co-location hosting company, PRQ Inet, which has experience of attempts at censorship, through their former hosting of the peer to peer filesharing and political phenomenon, The Pirate Bay.

(editor: shortly before the fire unknown persons launched a 500Mbps distributed denial of service attack. It is not known if or how the attack is related to the other events described in this article.)

More seriously and for the longer term, the brand name of WikiLeaks.org is no longer online, due to a Temporary Restraining Order issued by the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, aimed at a Domain Name Registrar, rather than just the actual publishers of controversial material, who happen to be outside of US legal jurisdiction.

And this article focusing on the court action:

US court attacks web freedom; enjoins Wikileaks.org out of existence

Date
2008-02-18
By
Stephen Soldz

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 , the 2003 and 2004 Guantanamo Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, and evidence of major bank fraud in Kenya 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 an message explaining that a California court has granted an injunction written and requested by Cayman Island’s Bank Julius Baer lawyers. 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.”

The good news is that they're still accessible via servers located in other, less fascist nation-states. See below for a https://s.p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/2008/02/wikileaksorg_dns_problems_partly_censored_by_temporary_restraining_order.html">partial list: of active Wikileaks Cover Name URL links that somebody posted over the weekend. I'm using one of them now and it's running fine. I also tried to load about half of them at random and only got the "server not found" error a couple of times.

And if you load the page linked above, please see the comments at the bottom. Technical people might find that conversation useful and, if so, please translate for us nitwits.

Also, regarding access using the encrypted URLs, Wikileaks says: "Remember to check the Digital Certificate of any "https://" website you connect to (you may not always get a warning pop-up in your browser). ...(there are) pros and cons of accessing WikiLeakS.org via an SSL encrypted page, with or without the use of proxy servers, especially with regard to anonymity and to evading censorship." Again, a translation would be helpful, particularly concerning digital certificates and how to check and validate them.


So here's the partial list:

http://wikileaks.la/
https://secure.wikileaks.la/

http://home.e.co.za/
https://secure.home.e.co.za/

http://joburg.e.co.za/
https://secure.joburg.e.co.za/

http://new.alain.co.za/
https://secure.new.alain.co.za/

http://wikileaks.be/
https://secure.wikileaks.be/

http://stockholm.divx.se/
https://secure.stockholm.divx.se/

http://jwdc.org/
https://secure.jwdc.org/

http://ljsf.org/
https://secure.ljsf.org/

http://freedomsbell.org/
https://secure.freedomsbell.org/

http://freedomspen.org/
https://secure.freedomspen.org/

http://libertypen.org/
https://secure.libertypen.org/

http://sunshinepress.org/
https://secure.sunshinepress.org/

http://new.1.vg/
https://secure.new.1.vg/

http://zurich.base-v.ch/
https://secure.zurich.base-v.ch/

http://bratislava.iypt.sk/
https://secure.bratislava.iypt.sk/

http://new.iypt.sk/
https://secure.new.iypt.sk/

http://wikileaks.org.uk/
https://secure.wikileaks.org.uk/

http://new.ilex.cl/
https://secure.new.ilex.cl/

http://wikileaks.tl/
https://secure.wikileaks.tl/

http://freedomsbell.com/
https://secure.freedomsbell.com/

http://wikileaks.in/
https://secure.wikileaks.in/

http://bucharest.roxi.ro/
https://secure.bucharest.roxi.ro/

http://wikileaks.es/
https://secure.wikileaks.es/

http://wikileaks.ws/
https://secure.wikileaks.ws/

http://riga.ax.lt/
https://secure.riga.ax.lt/

http://special.k.vu/
https://secure.special.k.vu/

http://wikileaks.cx/
https://secure.wikileaks.cx/

http://new.it.cx/
https://secure.new.it.cx/


So why should anybody care about this stuff? Well, looking at the big picture, Wikileaks is the spiritual descendant of Daniel Ellsberg and "deep throat" and exactly the kind of subversive, alternative information distribution system that's needed to keep these secretive, conniving bastards from just stealing anything that's not bolted down and then squawking endlessly about "national security" and "fighting the terrorists" -- like a talking Myna with severe brain damage.

So they try to keep this stuff under wraps because we're either treated as naive and clueless children bumbling around out here in the wasteland beyond the beltway, or we're dangerous subversives and potential violent revolutionaries who must be contained and controlled by any means necessary. Either way, for these vampires to succeed, they need us to remain ignorant, marginalized, alienated and disengaged -- which is to say, the ideal domestic population for governments and their corporate paymasters to fuck over as often as necessary.

The only effective response to institutionalized secrecy is a 15,000-watt spotlight shining directly into the lying, felonious little eyes of those who would presume to run the world, revealing them for the roaches they are as they scurry for cover back into the walls and cabinets and floorboards and resume plotting world conquest outside the glare of citizen oversight.

So it's a hell of a battle; in this corner, the power structure and moneyed elites defending their secrecy psychosis. In the other, nearly 6.5 billion angry people from around the world who are tired of getting fucked over by the swine in the first corner.

It's a little crowded over there, but they've come to demolish the walls the elites hide behind when they're plotting the "recycling" of anyone or group that's no longer useful to the cause of corporate imperialism -- or at least capable of running to the corner deli to get some Gucci-draped blue blood investment banker with a name like F. Eustace Piebald (Bud) Overtopbottomly IV, a pastrami and swiss on rye (pickle on the side).

Incredibly, even outnumbered roughly 6.5 billion to about 100 (Blackwater's very best), the elites have time, money, military power, propaganda, hardwired social control systems and a cowed and easily diverted peasantry on their side. Vegas says pick-em.

Wikileaks, and any similar sites or distribution systems that may emerge, shift the odds substantially toward the peasants and away from the overlords. When facts and the truth successfully navigate the arcane system of quasi-legal barriers the massuhs use to hide their actions and make it into the public narrative, people are initially shocked and furious, then eventually get pissed off enough to evict the vermin from federal buildings and corner offices and boardrooms all across America.

This kind of public disclosure is effectively impossible in today's controlled mass media environment and only achievable via the Internet. Which is why I think the Internet is due for some alterations in the name of "homeland security." Which is why I wrote this article, "The Internet Must Die."

That's why I think Wikileaks and any similar undertakings are critical and indispensable to give people the tools and forums they need to expose the war of attrition the elites wage on those of us who don't happen to belong to the hedge fund caste. They must survive and thrive, because we're rapidly running out of weapons in the class war.

If we're ever going to throw off the yoke that keeps us in thrall to these black-hearted vultures, exposing the rot that feeds on the shriveled souls of the overlord classes is the first step toward understanding how we allowed ourselves to get so thoroughly screwed by a system that's ostensibly of, by and for the people but has been perverted by the oligarchy into a country that serves primarily as world's largest outdoor theme park for the rich -- with a sullen-eyed underclass of tens of millions whose sole function is serving the theme park's patrons.

So best of luck and please keep this kicked at least for a little while. I'm curious if other people are able to connect and, if so, does everything seem to be working? Links active? No performance issues? Other?



Thanks a lot,

wp

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Great Post .....lets keep this thread alive

and add info as it comes in!



:) :thumbsup: :hi: :yourock:

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. From the BBC

Whistle-blower site taken offline

The case was brought by lawyers working for a Swiss bank
A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US.
Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.

The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.

Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed.
However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site's domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7250916.stm

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. Please keep this kicked

there is tons of great info on what is happening in this thread.

[Ichingcarpenter]

17. New mirror site is up

http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Main_Page

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. kick

[laststeamtrain]

19. K & R. n/t

[L. Coyote]

22. Ditto that. K&R

[warren pease]

20. Kick because...

I'd rather be impaled on the tusks of a feral pig and dragged a thousand yards into a blackberry patch infested with large, hungry and pissed off wasps (the insect type), stung to within an inch of my life, then set upon by fire ants attracted to the blackberry puree all over what's left of my body after the pig goring and the wasp sting fest, and the ants start inflicting the death by a thousand cuts drill even as a large brown bear picks up the sweet scent of crushed blackberry slurry and ambles on over, one gigantic fore-paw raised, gray-black claws extended about five inches past the paw pad, splitting his attention between the blackberries and my carotid artery...

Yes, JEEEEEEEEzus, though I will meet my creator this very day, I won't go happily into paradise until I'm satisfied that Wikileaks.org is back up and running and doing the work of the angels -- while flipping off the feds and corporate skells at every opportunity and pissing them off so bad that thousands of them die of apoplexy within the first three days Wikileaks is back from the penalty box. The rest resign to spend more time with their families or start a new career as a pin-setter at the old bowling alley.

Yeah... that about sums it up.


wp

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. LOL.....that would work for me!!

[NaturalHigh]

23. I've never heard of Wikileaks...

but it infuriates me that a court (supposedly made up of judges that understand and value the Constitution) would sign off on such blatant censorship.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

24. Has the order been published, yet? Did the bank assert national secrets?

:rofl:

It's not funny, I know. It's outrageous but we all know damn well that whatever shady dealings exist include notable powers-that-be.

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. More info coming in

The day is now here, where Corporations have completely taken over the US Government.

Below is a link to wikileaks that has the story:
http://wikileaks.org.uk/wiki/Wikileaks.org_under_i ...

However, given that our government Corporatocrats will likely block this site as well, I'll post the entire article here (The injunction itself is in graphic format, so I'll try to copy it and upload a link to the copy in a subsequent post.)

I'd urge everyone to go to the above link and copy down the information, before this link is also removed by our Corporate-controlled government.

Here's the text from the link: ( http://wikileaks.org.uk/wiki/Wikileaks.org_under_i ...

"The Cayman Islands is located between Cuba and Honduras. In July 2000, the United States Department of the Treasure Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory states stating that there were "serious deficiencies in the counter-money laundering systems of the Cayman Islands", "Cayman Islands law makes it impossible for the supervisory and regulatory authority to obtain information held by financial institutions regarding their client's identity", "Failure of financial institutions in the Cayman Islands to report suspicious transactions is not subject to penalty" and that "These deficiencies, among others, have caused the Cayman Islands to be identified by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (The 'FATF') as non-cooperative in the fight against money laundering". As of 2006 the U.S. State Department listed the Cayman Islands in its money laundering "Countries of Primary Concern".

The Cayman's case is not the first time Wikileaks has tackled bad banks. In the second half of last year Wikileaks exposed over $4,500,000,000's worth of money laundering including by the former president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi (see http://wikileaks.be/wiki/The_looting_of_Kenya_unde ... which became the Guardian's front page story in September 2007 and swung the Kenyan vote by 10% leading into the December 2007 election and http://wikileaks.be/wiki/A_Charter_House_of_horror ... reported in the Nairobi paper The Standard and now the subject of a High Court Case in Kenya).

To find an injunction similar to the Cayman's case, we need to go back to Monday June 15, 1971 when the New York Times published excepts of of Daniel Ellsberg's leaked "Pentagon Papers" and found itself enjoined the following day. The Wikileaks injunction is the equivalent of forcing the Times' printers to print blank pages and its power company to turn off press power. The supreme court found the Times censorship injunction unconstitutional in a 6-3 decision.

The Wikileaks.org injunction is ex-parte, engages in prior restraint and is clearly unconstitutional. It was granted on Thursday afternoon by California district court judge White, Bush appointee and former prosecutor.

The order was written by Cayman Island's Bank Julius Baer lawyers and was accepted by judge White without amendment, or representations by Wikileaks or amicus. The case is over several Wikileaks articles, public commentary and documents dating prior to 2003. The documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion. The bank alleges the documents were disclosed to Wikileaks by offshore banking whistleblower and former Vice President the Cayman Island's operation, Rudolf Elmer. Unable to lawfully attack Wikileaks servers which are based in several countries, the order was served on the intermediary Wikileaks purchased the 'Wikileaks.org' name through -- California registrar Dynadot, who then used its access to the internet website name registration system to delete the records for 'Wikileaks.org'. The order also enjoins every person who has heard about the order from from even linking to the documents.

In order to deal with Chinese censorship, Wikileaks has many backup sites such as wikileaks.be (Belgium) and wikileaks.de (Germany) which remain active. Wikileaks never expected to be using the alternative servers to deal with censorship attacks, from, of all places, the United States.

The order is clearly unconstitutional and exceeds its jurisdiction.

Wikileaks will keep on publishing, in-fact, given the level of suppression involved in this case, Wikileaks will step up publication of documents pertaining to illegal or unethical banking practices.

Wikileaks has six pro-bono attorney's in S.F on roster to deal with a legal assault, however Wikileaks was given only hours notice "by email" prior to the hearing. Wikileaks was NOT represented. Wikileaks pre-litigation California council Julie Turner attended the start of hearing in a personal capacity but was then asked to leave the court room.

White signed the order, drafted by the Cayman Islands bank's lawyers without a single amendment.

The injunction claims to be permanent, although the case is only preliminary.

Wikileaks remains available publishing from non-US, non-Chinese jurisdictions including http://wikileaks.cx/ and http://wikileaks.be/. See http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Wikileaks:Cover_Names for more.

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer_vs._Wiki ...

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/images/Dynadot-injunction ...

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Die_Akten_des_Hurricane_M ...

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Clouds_on_the_Cayman_tax_ ..."

[Ichingcarpenter]

26. Here's the injunction itself:

Here's the injunction itself:

"
BANK JULIUS BAER & CO. LTD, a
Swiss entity; and JULIUS BAER BANK
AND TRUST CO. LTD, a Cayman Island ORDER GRANTING
entity, PERMANENT INJUNCTION

WIKILEAKS, an entity of unknown form;
WIKILEAKS.ORG, an entity of unknown
form; DYNADOT, LLC, a California
limited liability company; and DOES 1
through 10, inclusive,
<..>

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
<..>

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."

It's certainly nice to see the government protecting "privacy" so fervently.

It's too bad their privacy protection only extends to the rich, and those that contribute heavily to election campaigns.

http://www.unlawflcombatnt.proboards84.com/

[Ichingcarpenter]

27. kick