THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

This is the actual site, hosted in Sweden:
http://88.80.13.160

What was removed was the DNS entry for WikiLeaks.org

Basically, it works like this: you have a phone number and a name.  You go to the phone book, look up a name, and out comes a phone number.

What the judge did was remove the LISTING, but the phone number itself is still active.  So, as long as you know the phone number, you can still contact the person.

Dynadot (the “phone book") responds:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080220005582&newsLang=en

It sounds like they can’t believe the judge would do this, but act as if they are powerless in front of him.  Basically, the judge says “scr-w wikileaks up the a$$”, and they have to do it.

Really good analogy about the name and number.

Do you think it was just a lack of understanding on the judge’s part, and he truly doesn’t understand websites well enough to know the minimum he needs to do to stop the confidential leak?  Or could it be a punitive measure?

WSJ probably makes a fair amount of money off of their website.  If the judge was shutting down the entire site to send a message, I’m guessing they got the message.

The judge has amended his order, making it more reasonable (wikileaks.org should now exist… but doesn’t), but also far more reaching, to the extent that if someone from wikileaks posts on InsideTheBook.com, that my blog be barred too!  That’s how I read it:
https://s.p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/2008/02/second_restraining_order_against_wikileaks_does_this_also_ban_bank_julius_baers.html

Mike: just to be clear, I used Wall Street Journal to make the point.  But, the site affected is not WSJ at all, but WikiLeaks.org.

This story is getting zero play simply because it is not the WSJ, NYT, or the Post.

How about a station in Alabama shutting down a 60 minutes broadcast that involved a jailed Alabama Governor, who had sparred with Karl Rove:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/media-blackout-update-pakistan-and-alabama/?hp

I’ll reserve judgment on the judge’s order until reading it and his legal justifications.  It is unfair to judge virtually anything on its face, without at least knowing SOME of the facts. In this case, we know NONE of the facts without reading the judge’s order.  Even then, I don’t know how many times (most of them on The O’Reilly Factor) I’ve heard someone without any legal background (or WITH a legal background, Harvard no less, as is the case with the nincompoop Lis Wiehl) incorrectly criticize a legal decision.  Legal decisions are not necessarily about being “fair” on their face.  They often involve complex situations and complex legal doctrines.  Correct legal decisions are not always popular or even sensible.

You WOULD think, though, that an online newspaper (Mercury News) would at least not have typos in a sub-headline:

HISTORY PROVES TRUTH WILL OUT, WHETHER ON THIS SITE OR ANOTHER

Do they have ANY editors?  You would think that ONE person would have written them and told them that they are missing a word in one of their headlines!

There’s not really much to understand.

Turning off a domain’s DNS entries is less taking a number out of the phone book, and more like shuttering a newspaper’s delivery service.  Sure, if you happen to remember the one newsie who picks his papers up directly from the press, you can get your paper.  If you don’t, and be honest, nobody memorizes URLs, you can’t.

Prior restraint is prior restraint.

Prior restrain is presumptively unconstitutional.

Wikileaks has thousands (millions?) of leaked documents affecting thousands of companies.  The judge in one case, for one company, asked Dynabot to erase the pointer to WikiLeaks, without WikiLeaks even being so advised! 

In any case, it’s a ridiculous decision that makes no sense.  They could have simply pulled the documents from the site.  There is NOTHING that WikiLeaks could have done for the judge to make such a ruling.

This story is getting zero play simply because it is not the WSJ, NYT, or the Post.

Which of course raises the question of whether anyone has attempted to push the story, to pass the apparently infringing documents to the NYT or WaPo or even a place like The Smoking Gun.  Say “here’s the stuff that got our site shut down; not national security stuff, not imminent danger stuff, but shady banking documents” and push both the original story—since the suit cries out that there’s something there—and the shutdown story.

The Pentagon Papers this isn’t.  I can’t imagine Bill Bastone would pass up the chance to champion this kind of thing.

I read the first and second order, and it looks like the judge realized he screwed up or acted somewhat hastily the first time. The second order seems reasonable to me.  Again, without at least knowing the underlying issue, it is hard to comment on any of this.

LA Times finally picked up the story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/scotus/la-me-wikileaks27feb27,1,1176492.story

MGL/11: I believe the second order still prevents any documents from being uploaded to WikiLeaks, whether they deal with the bank in question or not.  WikiLeaks has over a million documents on their site, with just a sliver related to the bank in question.  I don’t see how you can padlock a building, when simply putting a lock on a door is sufficient.

I’m not even sure Dynabot was authorized to comply with the court order anymore than the judge could order a locksmith to lockup a building.  The files are sitting a server in Sweden.  That’s where they exist.  Why does the judge even have jurisdiction here?

In any case, that site has been mirrored (copied) all over the world.  It’s as if every file in the Empire State Building is also available at the Sears Building, Big Ben, The Chinese Wall, and the CN Tower.  Putting a padlock on the Empire State Building accomplishes nothing.

The IP address to that Sweden site is still active.  The judge told Dynabot to put a second lock on the door, but with the same key to that lock as the first lock.  Most people will think it’s a different key, and won’t bother opening the door with the same key.

This is a joke when it happens in China or Thailand.  But America?

Tom, I now noticed that the NYT had this on their website on the 21st. So, the story got a little play in the msm, I’d say.
Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/opinion/21thu3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=login

And I just read that the that the EEF and the ACLU will appeal this order.

Very cool on the link.  Thanks.

Yes, the LA times story I linked shows that other organizations are on board defending WikiLeaks.

Standard liberal judicial activism of censorship. Nothing new.

The latest:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/more-twists-and-turns-in-wikileaks-case/?ref=technology

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/is-wikileaks-ju.html

The judge’s latest questions:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/whites_questions.pdf

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/judge-says-wikileaks-can-have-its-web-address-back/?ref=technology

“Big Brother is watching you.... but Bigger Nerdier Brother kicked Big Brother’s ass”
-- Judge implies, as the government backed down in the face of onslaught from technological advances that trumps judicial oversight

***

How fast before Wikileaks transfer to a different registrar other than Dynadot?

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http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/post.html

Evan Spiegel, one of the banks two attorneys at the hearing, said the bank “wanted nothing more” than for WikiLeaks to take down the documents in question. “That’s been the point of the bank all along,” he said.

He’s kiddig right?

Lawyer: “Sir, we want all bank files removed from the server in Sweden.”

Judge: “Those darn Swedes again, eh?  Ok, how about we… watchamacallit… we get the DNS entry removed, so that no one can find the street without a street sign?”

Lawyer: “Sir, if you do that, there will be such an outcry from the tech world, and their site has been mirrored anyway, that it will bring unwanted attention.  Indeed, too much attention.  We just want the files removed.”

Judge: “Ok, let’s remove the DNS entry.”

Lawyer: “Yes, sounds good.”

I mean, is this conversation even plausible?  But, that’s pretty much what the bank’s lawyer intends for us to believe happened.

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Judge’s ruling:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/whitewiki.pdf