Sunday, March 2, 2008

Wikileaks allowed to operate in the US

Via the Huffington Post:

On Friday, the judge dropped the injunction that took the site offline, citing First Amendment concerns and questions about legal jurisdiction.

At a court hearing in San Francisco, White said he had "serious questions" about whether the legal measures sought by the bank "would be constitutionally approriate" and whether they constituted prior restraint by the government. He also cited "possible violations of the First Amendment."

In addition, White said he questioned the "effectiveness" of blocking the site, an apparent reference to the fact that other Web sites quickly obtained and disseminated the information about the bank.

The judge recognized that "the genie is out of the bottle," said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of several organizations that filed briefs on the case. The Associated Press and the ACLU were also among them.

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