Judge Reverses Order, Allows Wikileaks To Live Again

from the well-that-was-productive dept

Fri, Feb 29th 2008 2:34pm — Mike Masnick

A couple weeks after trying to shut down Wikileaks a federal judge in California, after hearing the various first amendment concerns realized that perhaps he was a bit hasty. He has now reversed the order, allowing the site to have its domain name back. So, after all of this, the site still remains up and millions more people now know that the Swiss bank Julius Baer tried to shut it down to hide various documents. The end result: not only is the disputed content still available, many more people have seen it. I assume that this was not quite how the bank's lawyers expected this situation to turn out.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: streisand effect, wikileaks

7 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Overcast, 29 Feb 2008 @ 3:06pm

Yep, didn't know a thing about the site until this frenzy ensued.

Thanks Julius for bringing it to the attention of the masses!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Feb 2008 @ 3:49pm

Ditto.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
john, 29 Feb 2008 @ 3:51pm

Here's a leak that someone was trying to suppress
Cary Burch is an executive in the financial services industry. He tried to suppress the public record about his house have just received a NOD (Notice of Default). When one site remove the posting under threat of lawsuit, another site picked up where the other one left off. 14160 BRYCE POINT, Poway, CA 92064 4 beds, 5.5 baths, 7,716 sq ft on 1.3 acres 05/2005: purchased for $3.42 million 06/2007: listed on MLS for $3.295 million Price Reduced: 08/23/07 — $3,295,000 to $2,995,000 Price Reduced: 01/08/08 — $2,995,000 to $2,895,000 Price Increased: 01/10/08 — $2,895,000 to $2,995,000 Price Reduced: 01/10/08 — $2,995,000 to $2,895,000 02/04/2008: NOD filed. 02/21/2008: 247 days on market and over $500,000 discount from almost 3 years ago and still no sale. http://www.socalbubble.com/2008/02/speech-may-not-be-free-but-the-truth-will-set-you.html
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Killswitch, 29 Feb 2008 @ 3:51pm

thanks are needed to julius
Yep il second that lol

THANK YOU JULIUS WITHOUT YOU ID NEVER KNOW ABOUT WIKILEAKS

:D
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ed, 29 Feb 2008 @ 6:55pm

You can't stop the internet. >.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
promethean, 1 Mar 2008 @ 2:10pm

yay, victory!
Hah! Now Baer's Doesnt even have a pyrrhic vctory
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Criminal, 3 Mar 2008 @ 11:28am

At lest I know now
What bank will help me clean all this dirty money!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]