Can publication of confidential and allegedly forged bank records justify shutting down an entire website? Apparently not - thanks to EFF and other public interest groups.Yesterday, Judge Jeffrey S. White dissolved an injunction that locked the wikileaks.org domain name and disabled the WikiLeaks website. Among the most interesting aspects of this decision:
- EFF and other public interest organizations intervened as the sole champions of users' First Amendment rights (and did so on a very tight schedule) - one of the defendants (Dynadot) had stipulated to the injunction, and neither defendant briefed this issue;
- The judge's decision was based, in large part, on his recognition that shutting down WikiLeaks could not, in this day and age, prevent dissemination of the challenged documents - and, in fact, had increased their visibility (p.6); and
- The judge recognized that, if any order were appropriate, it would be the far more narrow order of requiring the documents to be redacted (p.6).
[More information about this case is available at: JD Supra; WikiLeaks, and EFF]
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