Is WikiLeaks Judge Having Second Thoughts?
By David Kravets
February 28, 2008
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued a document late Thursday suggesting he might have erred last week when he signed an order that took down the WikiLeaks site and also locked "the WikiLeaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar."
...As fellow THREAT LEVEL scribe Kim Zetter has been reporting, Dynadot -- WikiLeaks' U.S. hosting company and domain registrar based in San Mateo, California -- agreed to take down and lock the site at the behest of Julius Baer Bank and Trust.
Judge White signed the accord without hearing from WikiLeaks -- an accord that broaches a myriad of First Amendment issues.
In a three-page order issued hours ahead of Friday's hearing, White, appointed by the second President Bush, wondered whether last week's order went too far. "Without WikiLeaks making an appearance, was there any more narrowly tailored remedy for protecting private information from stolen documents from the web site beside locking and disabling the web site until such time as the disputed documents were removed or redacted?"
White also asked whether the accord trumps the First Amendment. He demanded responses concerning a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, in which the high court generally found that it was wrong to be "punishing disclosures of lawfully obtained information of public interest by one not involved in the initial illegality."
White wondered whether the bank's remedy is against Rudolf Elmer, the bank's former vice president of its Cayman Islands' operation. The bank claims Elmer stole and leaked the bank's private documents that purport to show the institution assists its clients in hiding assets from the tax man...
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/is-wikileaks-ju.html
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