Bank Case Proves Information Wants to Be Free

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"In a move that legal experts said could present a major test of First Amendment rights in the Internet area, a federal judge in San Francisco ... ordered the disabling of a Web site devoted to disclosing confidential information." The site, Wikileaks, allows people to anonymously post documents and other information. The judge's order disabled the site's U.S. domain name, Wikileaks.org, though the site can still be reached through other addresses. The case was brought by Julius Baer Bank and Trust in the Cayman Islands, after documents allegedly linking the bank to "asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion" were posted on Wikileaks. A later ruling by the same judge "ordered Wikileaks to stop distributing the bank documents." But, in an "overwhelming response" to the case, "'mirror' copies of the website sprouted like weeds" and "bloggers and other fans of the site gave new life to [the] leaked documents the bank was working to suppress," reports the Guardian. "Clearly, the court and Bank Julius Baer underestimated the ingenuity of the web development community," reads a post on the Project on Government Oversight's blog.