The war against TRUTH: Criminal bank trying to shut down WikiLeaks

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A war against TRUTH. The website WikiLeaks.org had the potential of making lots of enemies: A website that dares to expose the TRUTH that others want suppressed, especially if that TRUTH hurts their profits or power structure. But nobody expected an American judge to make an attempt to censor or shut down WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks posted some documents showing a Swiss banking group, Bank Julius Baer, was engaged in criminal activities, specifically money laundering and tax evasion. The group asked the documents be removed “because they could affect the outcome of a separate legal case in Switzerland.” (Web Pro News) You would think that would be enough, but California judge Jeffery White, a Duh’bya appointee nonetheless, decided to go further. Here’s the original “permanent injunction” the dumb fuck granted Bank Julius Baer against Dynadot, WikiLeaks’ domain registrar:

1. Dynadot shall immediately lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar, and shall immediately disable the wikileaks.org domain name and account to prevent access to and any changes from being made to the domain name and account information, until further order of this Court.

2. Dynadot shall immediately disable the wikileaks.org domain name and account such that the optional privacy who-is service for the domain name and account remains turned off, until further order of this Court.

3. Dynadot shall preserve a true and correct copy of both current and any and all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account.

4. 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.

5. Dynadot shall immediately produce both current and any all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account, including, but not limited to, all data for the registrant; billing, technical and administrative
contacts; all account and payment records and associated data; and IP addresses and associated data used by any person, other than Dynadot, who accessed the account for the domain name, to the extent such information is maintained by Dynadot.

6. Plaintiffs shall immediately upon entry of this order file a dismissal with prejudice in favor of Dynadot. Notwithstanding the foregoing, plaintiffs and Dynadot stipulate and agree that the Court shall retain jurisdiction to enforce this order.

Dated: February , 2008
Jeffrey S. White
United States District Judge
Case 3:08-cv-00824-JSW Document 47-2 Filed 02/14/2008 Page 2 of 2

Translation: Dumb fuck judge Jeffey wants WikiLeaks shut down, most likely because he’s afraid of somebody leaking information on how much in kickbacks he’s getting from Bank Julius Baer for being so compliant.

Can’t keep a good website down. WikiLeaks has to be a tough mofo with what they have to deal with at times, such as a recent DDoS attack on their servers, a fire in an Uninterruptible Power Supply, and threats from governments. Some over-glorified shark asswipe in a little black dress with no clue to what the Internet is about isn’t going to stop WikiLeaks’ mission of exposing the TRUTH. Already, they have several alternate URLs to lead you there, or you can just use their IP address of 88.80.13.160.

What started the fight. The Cryptome website has the damning documents Bank Julius Baer want deleted, along with other docs being lobbed at Dynadot and WikiLeaks. They also have links to mirrors of WikiLeaks’ archives in case the sharks succeed in shutting them down… not that that’s likely to happen.

UPDATE (19-Feb-08): Judge backs down on shutdown order. Looks like Judge Jeffey came to his senses. ZDNet’s Richard Komen reports that the permanent injunction has been amended; Reducing it to a temporary restraining order and removing the orders that the site be disabled. The order to remove the “offending” documents remains, but don’t expect WikiLeaks to comply anytime soon. According to correspondence between BJB and WikiLeaks, BJB’s shysters have been vague and evasive in their demands, going so far as conducting a sneak-attack ex-parte hearing by notifying WikiLeaks only hours in advance.

From ZDNet’s Richard Komen:

It seems that WikiLeaks lawyers were able to convince the judge that something was amiss here, because the second order, a TRO, provides WikiLeaks an opportunity to answer (by Feb. 20) and JB to respond to that answer (by Feb. 26.) One question is whether JB lied about there being a stipulation for WikiLeaks to go offline, since WL compained so vociferously about it and the order was so quickly amended.

A hearing on the injunction is scheduled for Feb. 29 at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

UPDATE (20-Feb-08): Syndicate was looking to go public:

Bank that censored WikiLeaks was preparing for IPO by ZDNet’s Richard Koman — I just received this press statment from WikiLeaks: Wikileaks has discovered Bank Julius Baer was preparing to take their US operation public via an a billion dollar IPO. They filed the prospectus with the SEC on Feb 12, a mere three days before convincing Federal court Judge Jeffery White to order total censorship of the transparency […]

The prospectus can be viewed online here. Of course the SEC wouldn’t want to be accused of aiding a criminal enterprise… right? So many potential millions of US dollars being funneled into a criminal organization now in jeopardy because of the TRUTH being leaked out… SOMETHING has to be done to suppress the TRUTH.

Harsh lessons about the TRUTH. Take notes, BJB, there will be a pop quiz later.

You silence the TRUTH, it will become louder.
You blind the TRUTH, it will become brighter and clearer.
You suppress the TRUTH, it will oppress you.
You close the door on the TRUTH, it will open the windows.
You imprison the TRUTH, it will escape.
You devalue the TRUTH, it will become more valuable than you can afford.
You claim the TRUTH is a lie, it will prove YOU are the lie.
You strangle the TRUTH, it will slip through your iron fist like so much sand.
You declare the TRUTH is dead, it will live longer and stronger.

Perhaps the best description of what is happening comes from ZDNet’s Dana Blankenhorn:

Censorship just makes the news bigger, and making it harder to get makes it more attractive. Successful censorship isolates entire countries, economy and all.
…
Julius Baer, the bank which tried to keep its secrets, and Judge Jeffrey S. White, the Bush appointee who tried to help it do so, are going to learn the hard way what the rest of us have known for over a decade.

While the year-old Wikileaks has just made its bones.

UPDATE: 2-Mar-2008. Judge Jeffrey White got a clue; He has reversed his injunctions against WikiLeaks (dot-org) and the site is now available via WikiLeaks.org.

A couple of quotes from Judge White’s decision:

Wired:

The judge conceded the futility of attempts to censor information, in this instance private banking records, after it has been posted to the internet.

“When this genie gets out of the bottle, it’s out for all purposes,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said after a more than 3-hour-long hearing here. Earlier, White said he had “an obligation to get it right” and that “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”

News.com:

One attorney for BJB said there were no First Amendment problems, invoking a U.S. Supreme Court precedent dealing with an intercepted conversation played by a radio station because, “We allege, your honor, that Wikileaks has actively solicited the theft of private information…they are participants in the illegality.”

BJB also said, “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.”

The judge’s preruling reply: “Let me play devil’s advocate here. Is it newsworthy if some prominent citizen is…evading taxes, laundering funds? Wouldn’t that be something in the public interest?”

Another hearing is scheduled for May 16.