Talk:'Wikileaks.org' taken offline in many areas after fire, court injunction

Contacting

Cannot find a way to get a hold of anyone from Wikileaks. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 23:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[1]? Adambro - (talk) 23:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry...not used to traveling on off shore sites :-P DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 00:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

What? The `contact us' link is right there on the front page. --Realist - (talk) 15:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Publish

I am gonna try an e-mail those contacts. I want to wait on publishing until we talk to someone, or at least tried to. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 00:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Press Release

Links don't work in the e-mail I got the release in...so here it is:

Quote

---

Wikileaks Emergency Press Release

WIKILEAKS.ORG DELETED AFTER EX-PARTE LEGAL ATTACK BY CAYMAN ISLANDS BANK

http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks.org_under_injunction

Contacts: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Contact

Mon Feb 18 00:00:00 GMT 2008

The following release has not been proofed due to time constraints.

Transparency group Wikileaks forcibly censored at ex-parte Californian hearing -- ordered to print blank pages -- 'wikileaks.org' name forcibly deleted from Californian domain registrar -- the best justice Cayman Islands money launderers can buy?

When the transparency group Wikileaks was censored in China last year, no-one was too surprised. After all, the Chinese government also censors the Paris based Reporters Sans Frontiers and New York Based Human Rights Watch. And when Wikileaks and published the secret Internet censorship lists of Thailand's military Junta, no-one was too surprised when people in that country had to go to extra lengths to read the site. But on Friday the 15th, February 2008, in the land of the brave, home of the free and a constitution which proudly states "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press", the power was forcibly turned off on the main Wikileaks press -- permanently:

                    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.

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".

Wikileaks had previously exposed $4,500,000,000 worth of money laundering and tax evasion, including by the former president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moi (see http://wikileaks.be/wiki/The_looting_of_Kenya_under_President_moi 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_horrors reported in the Nairobi paper The Standard and now the subject of a High Court Case in Kenya).

On Monday June 15, 1971 the New York Times published excepts of of Daniel Ellsberg's leaked "Pentagon Papers" and was injuncted 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 the power. The supreme court found the Times censorship injunction unconstitutional some six weeks later in a 6-3 decision.

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

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 from even linking to the documents.

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

Wikileaks states the order is 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 notice "by email" hours before the case. Wikileaks was NOT represented. Wikileaks pre-litigation California council Julie Turner attended the start of hearing in a personal capacity but was then "excused".

White signed the Cayman Islands bank censorship order without a single amendment.

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

WL

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

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

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Die_Akten_des_Hurricane_Man

http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Clouds_on_the_Cayman_tax_heaven

DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 05:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Injuncted isn't a word. Enjoined, or 'was under injunction', etc. Not injuncted. It really is not a word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.49.8.228 (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Should we mention that the site is actually really still up

Given the injunction the site itself is still up, one needs to go http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks and just not wikileaks.org. Also, it might make sense to mention the other mirrors such as http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks. JoshuaZ - (talk) 19:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)