SAN FRANCISCO - In a First Amendment-based decision by a federal judge on Friday, Wikileaks.org was allowed to reopen in the United States after having been shut down.
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White issued an injunction against Wikileaks in mid-February after the Zurich-based Bank Julius Baer accused the site of posting sensitive account information stolen by a disgruntled former employee.
Protests by free-speech advocates and media organizations followed after White ordered the entire site to be disabled instead of ordering the removal of the bank's documents.
On Friday, White showed concerns related to the First Amendment and questions about legal jurisdiction and dropped the injunction that took the site offline.
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 appropriate" and whether they constituted prior restraint by the government. He also cited "possible violations of the First Amendment."
White also said he questioned the "effectiveness" of blocking the site, apparently referring to the fact that other websites 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 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the organizations that filed briefs on the case. The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union also were among those organizations.
"The reality of the Internet makes it difficult for him to issue an order that will have any impact, given the fact that all the material is already out there," Zimmerman said.
Bank Julius Baer sued Wikileaks and the San Mateo company Dynadot, which provided the website's U.S. domain name after client information was posted.
Dynadot agreed to shut down Wikileaks in exchange for being removed from the lawsuit.
Wikileaks claims to have posted 1.2 million leaked government and corporate documents that it says expose unethical behavior, including a 2003 operation manual for the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
It wasn't clear whether the site would resume its operations.
