US Judge Supressing Wikileaks - right or wrong?

[vmanes]

A US Federal judge in California has taken drastic steps in "removing Wikileaks.org from the DNS system". It's complicated - a Swiss bank wants documents about its alleged money laundering in the Cayman Islands suppressed on a site registered to a person in Kenya, with the domain registrar in California, and the actual site hosted or mirrored in multiple countries. Looks like the bank looked for the only foot it could get into the door.

See stories and more here

-Added- The primary site host is in Sweden, or at least the IP address traces to a Swedish ISP

[Dave Sinkula]

Other info:
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2008/02/two_strange_orders_in_the_wikileaks_case.html

[GrimJack]

Well, at least they only removed them from the DN S db and you can still get there using their actual IP address (//88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks). I think that this will actually get way more attention and free advertising than just letting the web-site alone. I just donated to their defense fund.

Thanks for bringing this forward vmanes

[jwenting]

No reasons to keep criminal organisations supplied in websites and other communications channels.
This is no different than shutting down the telephone numbers of known criminal gangs in order to make it harder for them to talk to each other.

[vmanes]

No reasons to keep criminal organizations supplied in websites and other communications channels.
This is no different than shutting down the telephone numbers of known criminal gangs in order to make it harder for them to talk to each other.

I didn't notice where Wikileaks had been convicted of a crime. Reference, please?

[jwenting]

no need for a conviction, block them until one can be attained (so for the duration of the investigation). It's what's done to everyone else, so why not to crackers?
They're criminals, conviction or no.

[sneekula]

no need for a conviction, block them until one can be attained (so for the duration of the investigation). It's what's done to everyone else, so why not to crackers?
They're criminals, conviction or no.

"Guilty unless proven innocent", what a concept. You should run for the Supreme Court. To make room, we simply accuse one of the present judges of a crime and remove him. They did that in Pakistan.

[vmanes]

no need for a conviction, block them until one can be attained (so for the duration of the investigation). It's what's done to everyone else, so why not to crackers?
They're criminals, conviction or no.

But who is the alleged criminal? The registrar? No. Wikileaks web host? No. Wikileaks.org registrant? No.

Wait, there is no criminal per se. And definitely not one under the jurisdiction of the court in California. The Swiss bank has an intellectual property dispute with some particular individual who is alleged to have posted the documents on the website, which is hosted in Sweden.

The only criminal acts in the whole fracas are the alleged money laundering of .... the Swiss Bank.

Just my 2 Swiss francs.

ps. IF there was some illegal book (not sure what that really means) sold at Amazon.com, would it be right to shut down the whole site? Kill all their business?

[Lardmeister]

Swiss banks are notorious for laundrying dirty criminal money. I wish more of their employees would come foreward and spill the beans.

[vegaseat]

Swiss banks are notorious for laundrying dirty criminal money. I wish more of their employees would come foreward and spill the beans.

Hmm, I thought only the Lichtenstein bankers did that sort of stuff. I will have to check it out.

[jwenting]

no, the Swiss too. That included laundering millions upon millions of Franks in gold taken by the Nazis from concentration camp victims, and serving as gobetweens between the German government and Swedish steelmills.

[jbennet]

because the swiss were "neutural"

[bumsfeld]

I would stick with the Lichtenstein bankers, they are more secretive.

They administer hundreds of tax deductable foundations that you can donate money to, but in reallity is simply your own account. Just imagine, you donate and later can get your money back with a nice gain. It's the perfect tax heaven for thousands of the richest folks in Europe.

[Lardmeister]

I would stick with the Lichtenstein bankers, they are more secretive.

They administer hundreds of tax deductable foundations that you can donate money to, but in reallity is simply your own account. Just imagine, you donate and later can get your money back with a nice gain. It's the perfect tax heaven for thousands of the richest folks in Europe.

Wonder if those folks use something like Wikileaks to do their business?