'Wikileaks' Case Gets EFF, ACLU Backing
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Project on Government Oversight on Tuesday filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit where a federal judge ordered the disabling of a domain name associated with "Wikileaks," a Web site that gives whistleblowers a public online forum for posting materials of concern.
In early February, Swiss bank Julius Baer filed suit against Wikileaks for hosting 14 allegedly leaked documents regarding personal banking transactions of the company's customers. Wikileaks' domain name registrar Dynadot was also sued. Later in the month, the court issued a permanent injunction, disabling wikileaks.org.
"Dynadot's private agreement to disable access to its customer's domain name -- and the court's endorsement of that agreement -- raise serious First Amendment concerns," EFF's Matt Zimmerman said in a press release. The injunction "should remind everyone who hosts critical information on the Web that such information may only remain accessible as long as your service provider or registrar is willing to stand up for you."
The EFF, ACLU, POGO, and a Wikileaks user asked the court for permission to intervene in order to dissolve the injunction disabling the wikileaks.org domain name. A San Francisco judge will hear arguments Friday regarding a related issue: whether to extend a temporary restraining order aimed at preventing the distribution of the disputed Julius Baer documents.
The Center for Democracy and Technology, Public Citizen and the California First Amendment Coalition also weighed in on the case. "A court order disabling access to an entire Web site goes far beyond what the First Amendment permits," CDT General Counsel John Morris said.
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