WikiLeaks.org is back. In a blow to Bank Julius Baer’s censorship attempts, Judge White has now denied the bank’s request to silence WikiLeaks. Judge White also denied the bank’s request to require that WikiLeaks remove the bank documents that had been revealed by Wikileaks to draw attention to alleged tax evasion and money laundering in the Cayman Islands.
In his new order, Judge White had the maturity to reverse his earlier rulings, having realized that those rulings trampled the First Amendment.
The ‘wikileaks.org’ domain was ably represented by attorneys James Chadwick, Roger Myers, Guylyn Cummins with Joshua Koltun representing Wikileaks writer and human rights activist Daniel Mathews. The First Amendment was further represented by all of those entities that filed amicus briefs, including the Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press and eleven other media organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Citizen, the California First Amendment Coalition and the Project on Government Oversight. We give thanks to these extraordinary efforts.
Louis Brandeis, one of the greatest Justices to ever sit on the United States Supreme Court, wrote that: “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” (Other People’s Money, and How the Bankers Use It, 1933). Those words ring even truer today.
WikiLeaks will not be cowed by those who would silence the truth. It shall continue to be a forum for the citizens of the world to disclose issues of social, moral and ethical concern.
WikiLeaks encourages everyone who believes in shining that disinfecting sunlight on wrongdoing to Support its mission.
The case continues next month, although Baer has received a stern warning from Justice White that the case may be dismissed entirely.