For Immediate Release
2/26/2008

Contact:
Clint Brewer, President, (615) 301-9229, cbrewer@spj.org
Joe Skeel, Editor, (317) 927-8000, ext. 214 or jskeel@spj.org

Society of Professional Journalists signs amicus brief in support of Web site

INDIANAPOLIS — The Society of Professional Journalists has joined several media organizations in an amicus brief in support of Wikileaks, a Web site that invites people to post leaked material in order to discourage unethical behavior by corporations and governments.

The case, which many experts believe presents a major test to First Amendment rights in the Internet era, was brought to the federal court in San Francisco by Julius Baier Bank and Trust. The bank, which is based in the Cayman Islands, alleges that an ex-employee provided stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of a confidentiality agreement and banking laws.
Last week, the judge in the case granted a permanent injunction ordering Dynadot, the Web site’s domain name registrar, to disable the Wikileaks.org domain name. The judge also ordered the site to take down the bank records. However, the judge’s order was ineffective in many ways: shutting down the domain name allowed the material to remain on the Internet accessible to all who have the IP address where the material is located. The site is also mirrored on other Web sites around the world.
“Obviously, the idea that someone outraged by speech on a Web site can get an order telling a registrar to disable a domain name is troubling,” SPJ President Clint Brewer said. “And the judge’s order to take down the bank documents is even more disturbing.”

Brewer and other SPJ Leaders are concerned about what amounts to prior restraint against a Web site that disseminates information submitted by whistleblowers. In this particular case, an anonymous source reportedly submitted papers that showed money laundering and tax evasion schemes at the bank’s Cayman Islands branch.

Other media groups signing the amicus brief include: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Scripps Howard, Associated Press, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Gannett and the Newspaper Association of America.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists — the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization — promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. For further information about SPJ, please visit www.spj.org.

Monday, March 3, 2008
For Immediate Release:

Contact:
Clint Brewer, President, (615) 301-9229, cbrewer@spj.org
Beth King, Communications Manager, (317) 927-8000, ext. 211 or bking@spj.org

Society of Professional Journalists pleased over judge’s ruling in WikiLeaks case

INDIANAPOLIS — Leaders of the Society of Professional Journalists are pleased with a district court’s decision to dissolve a permanent injunction against WikiLeaks host Dynadot, and to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction against Wikileaks — a Web site that invites people to post leaked material to discourage unethical behavior by corporations and governments.

Last week, SPJ joined several media organizations in an amicus brief in support of Wikileaks. The case, which many experts believe presents a major test to First Amendment rights in the Internet era, was brought to the federal court in San Francisco by Julius Baier Bank and Trust. The bank, which is based in the Cayman Islands, alleges that an ex-employee provided stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of a confidentiality agreement and banking laws.

Following a four-hour hearing on Friday, Judge Jeffrey S. White considered the First Amendment, correctly noting that, “in all but the most exceptional circumstances, an injunction restricting speech pending final resolution of the constitutional concerns is impermissible.”

“This ruling is correct that these types of injunctions should be impermissible,” SPJ President Clint Brewer said. “Free speech is paramount to a democracy and whistleblowers should not be punished for bringing forth valuable information that serves the public’s right to know.”

Brewer and other SPJ Leaders argued that the judge’s previous order amounted to prior restraint against a Web site that disseminates information submitted by whistleblowers. In this particular case, a source reportedly submitted papers that showed money laundering and tax evasion schemes at the bank’s Cayman Islands branch.

Other media groups signing the amicus brief included: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Scripps Howard, Associated Press, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Gannett and the Newspaper Association of America.

Founded in 1909 as Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists — the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization — promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry; works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists; and protects First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. For further information about SPJ, please visit www.spj.org.

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008
A Coming Chill Over Internet Freedom?
By Alex Altman/New York
LINK

With its massive, daily interplay of ideas and information, the Internet always seemed overdue for a pitched battle over free speech. That fight may have arrived. Its combatants are an unlikely duo: the Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank, and a shadowy whistle-blowing Web site dedicated to exposing what it believes to be corporate and government fraud. And, even though both sides have little prominence, their legal warfare is already casting a deep shadow on what kinds of content have constitutional and legal protection online — and what can get you in a lot trouble.

The Web site, Wikileaks, is a venue for anonymous whistle-blowers to post documents alleging misbehavior without fear of recrimination. Wikileaks claims to have been founded by "Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists" hailing from around the world. Since debuting last year, the site has earned notoriety for leaking documents said to reveal the code of conduct for American troops serving in Iraq and the operations protocol for the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It reveled in its role as the Net's self-styled ethical gadfly, trumpeting a January 2007 ban by the Chinese government as "a sign that we can do good work."

Despite its relative obscurity, Wikileaks is embroiled in a legal dispute that experts say could shape the landscape for free speech rights in Cyberspace. On Feb. 6, the Swiss-based Julius Baer Bank and Trust filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claiming that an ex-employee provided stolen documents to the Web site. Wikileaks says the documents detail the bank's methods of money laundering and tax evasion. Last Friday, at the bank's request, Judge Jeffrey White issued an injunction shuttering the site and barring it from transferring its contents to another domain. An upcoming hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 29. (White was also the judge who, in 2006, ordered two reporters of the San Francisco Chronicle to start serving prison time for refusing to divulge their sources in the BALCO steroid scandal. They avoided jail only because the leaker went public.)

Updates:

Internet experts have denounced the ruling as an unconstitutional "prior restraint," the legal term for limiting freedom of the press by preventing publication. The Wikileaks case is "prior restraint of the most extreme nature," says David Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School, because the ruling suppressed not only the document in question, but what Wikileaks says is a trove of more than 1.2 million others. "There is a strong presumption under U.S. constitutional law that any prior restraint is unconstitutional," Ardia told TIME. For that reason, judges tend to issue narrower checks on publication. This particular ruling, he says, is "so over-broad it struck me as beyond belief."

Yet even if the injunction is vacated on appeal, Ardia warns the case could deter would-be Internet publishers who fear being subjected to similar lawsuits. In legal circles, this is known as a "chilling effect." If they are emboldened by the Wikileaks case, corporations could go after other amateur publishing sites showcasing material that portrays them in a negative light. Ardia suggested YouTube could be a potential target, while Jack Balkin, director of Yale Law School's Information Society Project, said companies could attempt to remove offending material from search engines like Google. The upshot, Ardia says, is Web users could "have access to less information. They have less of an opportunity to understand their world."
Balkin calls the skirmish between Julius Baer and Wikileaks a "kind of high-tech whack-a-mole, in which you have an arms race between people trying to find access to publication and people trying to shut it down." He predicts Wikileaks will sidestep efforts to suppress its documents, noting that despite the injunction, the site's contents could be viewed at "mirror" locations registered around the world — including addresses in Belgium, the Christmas Islands and Germany — and at its numerical IP address. But even if Wikileaks is savvy enough to stay a step ahead of its pursuers, "the average citizen may not be able to figure out" how to access the materials, Balkin says. Adds Ardia: "Society suffers as a whole when the landscape for speech is curtailed like this."

For its part, Wikileaks issued a statement Monday saying that while it anticipated having to dodge suppression attempts by the Chinese government and the "Thai military junta," it "never expected to be using (its) alternative servers to deal with censorship attacks from, of all places, the United States."

A Disquieting Victory for Wikileaks
TIME, March 3, 2008
LINK

In a reversal that free speech advocates called a pivotal victory for First Amendment rights, the federal judge who shuttered the muckraking website Wikileaks last month ruled Friday that it could reclaim its Web address in the United States. The decision, however, raises another question: did a band of tech-savvy Internet mavericks manage to outmaneuver the law?
Early last month, a Zurich-based bank, Julius Baer, filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claiming a disgruntled ex-employee had passed stolen internal documents to Wikileaks, a venue for anonymous whistle-blowers to post allegations of corporate or government misconduct. The site says those materials detail money laundering and tax evasion at Julius Baer's Cayman Islands branch. At the bank's request, Judge Jeffrey White issued an injunction sealing Wikileaks' U.S. address.

Since issuing the Feb. 15 ruling, White had weathered a hailstorm of criticism from public interest and media organizations, who denounced the order as an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech and warned it could have a "chilling effect" on other organizations, who might become wary of facing similar suits if they chose to publish or host controversial material. Those critics also said the ruling could set a dangerous precedent for the Internet, a new frontier in the battle over free speech whose terrain remains largely uncharted. Of particular concern to free speech advocates was the scope of the injunction. "The initial order was the Cyberspace equivalent of shutting down a newspaper" because of one story, says Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It was unconstitutional and unenforceable."

On Friday White mainly agreed, and dissolved the injunction, effectively rebooting the site. The prior order "raises issues regarding possible infringement of protections afforded to the public by the First Amendment," he said. Beyond those issues, the judge expressed doubt that a Bay Area court held jurisdiction over a squabble between the Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank and a global confederation of whistle-blowers whose Net domain is owned by John Shipton, an Australian national residing in Kenya.

He also sounded notes of frustration with officiating a high-stakes contest in which one team's players are essentially invisible. Wikileaks' founders — an international cadre of "Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists" who are themselves anonymous — were a moving target for White. Despite his order, the site's cache of more than 1.2 million documents — among them, a U.S. operations manual for its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba facility — had been readily available at several mirror locations around the world, including domains registered in Belgium, the Christmas Islands and Germany, and at its numerical IP address. "The cat is out of the bag," White conceded. He also acknowledged the injunction had backfired, kindling publicity for Wikileaks and driving traffic to its mirror sites.

While the case remains open, Friday's ruling should "discourage other potential litigants from trying to use tactics like this," says Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Zimmerman notes that Dynadot, the site's San Mateo, Calif.-based domain registrar and a target of the injunction, is shielded from liability by the Communications Decency Act of 1996. William Briggs, an attorney representing Julius Baer, says the bank's only goal was to safeguard confidential information. Censorship, Briggs says, was never an objective. "The judge's ruling may herald the end of privacy rights as we know it," he told TIME. "The federal court has abdicated its role as a protector of individual rights by saying it can't protect those rights if, somehow, that information gets out on the Internet."

Paul Alan Levy, an attorney for Public Citizen, called Friday's ruling a "great victory for the First Amendment." But it also highlights a fact that might unsettle others in his line of work: wielded deftly, technology is a weapon powerful enough to beat the law.

Amicus Curiae