Federal Judge Reverses Wikileaks Decision
In reversing a ruling on Februrary 15th that shut down Wikileaks.org, Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco expressed concerns that technology is making it difficult for courts to control the release of information potentially in violation of the law.
“We live in an age,” Judge White said, “when people can do some good things and people can do some terrible things without accountability necessarily in a court of law.”
Bank Julius Baer and Company had won a ruling to have Wikileaks shut down after they released damaging internal documents. The ruling was pretty much useless, however, as many mirror sites of Wikilieaks were still operational and still containing the documents Julius Baer wanted confidential.
Judge White reversed the ruling citing fears about First Amendment violations, and that it may constitute “unjustified prior restraint.”
No representative for Wikileaks spoke officially for the website. The ACLU and lawyers for the site’s domain, Dynadot, argued on behalf of the site.
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