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Bank Julius Baer Issues Statement On WikiLeaks
dtwood writes "The bank that got WikiLeaks.org erased from DNS finally hired a PR agency and issued a press release filled with half truths and non-statements. Tynan on Tech has it, along with some brief commentary. Worth a look."
Can someone please tell Mr Baer that anything he says will be used against him in the court of public opinion?
Sounds like his lawyers are getting nervous.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Are there any US institutions that are associated with this bank that I should be considering boycotting?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
"The posting of confidential bank records by anonymous sources significantly harms the privacy rights of all individuals." Especially individuals engaged in tax fraud.
Non-truths and half-statements?
What the hell is that??
If you're going to chide a company for putting out a shitty document, at least have the balls to use some real language when you do it.
Is it a lie? then call it a lie! "half truths" my ass.
And what's a "half-statement"??? An incomplete sentence? A run-on sentence?
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Sigh.
I was hoping this story wouldn't get big. I was really hoping that I'd found a bank through which I could launder and stash various... shall we say... "unreported monies". Like a stack of $100 bills the size of a small room. Homeland Security can be really unforgiving about that sort of thing, you know?
So, it is more like for private people than institutions.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Seem like lawyers all own us and the system is unbalanced against the average person.
The lawyers OWN congress.
Quote: "And the statement "Julius Baer's sole objective has always been limited to the removal of these private and legally protected documents from the website" means either that a) they're lying, b) they really did think that wiping WikiLeaks.org from the DNS records of the Net would only remove those 'inauthentic' documents they're so concerned about, or c) they're lying."
I'd interpret it as meaning they tried everything else and then had to resort to these means to get these documents offline. In a way, I can understand the Bank. If the documents are true, it's confidential information that shouldn't be published. If they're forged, it's obviously defamatory and shouldn't be published, either. I'm not sure if exposing some tax fraud is a goal high enough to disregard legal standards. WIkileaks is obviously doing good work, as with last years documents about african dictators. Not sure if this is among that good work,
Fleur de Sel
I'd hardly describe that press release as being filled with half truths. Only point that's really debatable is the dialogue part but there's nothing especially wrong with asking for dialogue between lawyers, especially given the potentially legally complex nature of the post.
Yes but I'm sure theres more than a couple people out there who have been watching this very closely and have most likely mirrored the content (if not the whole site) and would easily be able to identify and provide the 'non-forged' documents.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
So, if the New York Times publishes a report on tax evasion, one should bulldoze the city of New York?
Pulling the DNS is an option to be done *when all others have been exhausted*, and fact is, this was the first option the courts pulled, which is akin to my above statement. An initial order had to be for Wikilinks to pull the documents off of the site by a set date, and if they didn't, hold the executives in contempt. That is how the rule of law works.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
actually, yes you can. the bank's efforts at defending itself are certainly vile, but this doesn't mean the leaker has virtuous motivations either. if you think it is impossible to leak and lie at the same time, you've never encountered a disgruntled ex-employee or ex-client before
it's sort of like some of the problems surrounding allegations of rape. most charges of rape are indeed cases about a real rape, that needs to be punished harshly. but a handful of charges of rape are made by women who's motivations are completely false. the horrible tragedy is that the real damage such women do is not to the man they want to hurt, but to the 100 other cases of genuine rape their false rape charges now put into doubt
so let us hope this wikileaks case does not involve a maliciously intended disgruntled ex-employee or ex-client. not that the bank's actions are defensible in any way, regardless of the leaker's motivations, but if the motivations of the leaker aren't squeeky clean, on such a high profile affair, then this entire wikileaks first amendment situation gets poisoned in a way it would be viewed on the street in a way no one who cares about the first amendment wants to see happen
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
DNS is for the week ;)
Any one have the IP address from cache?
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
a bag of walnuts!
So if the material was not authentic, then why all the fuss? Apparently, all is not as they claim.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
What difference does the motives of the person who revealed the information make? Either the allegations are true and the bank is guilty, or they're false and the bank is innocent. The whole thing can be cleared up rather easily by providing proof that the "leaked" documents are fake. Either way the motives of the person are irrelevant. This isn't like a rape case because in a rape case the actions and motivations of both parties determine the legality of the situation (that is, who consented to what), where as in this case both parties are either guilty or innocent, and motivations don't factor in to it at all.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Actually I laughed, since it's too true.
PS: I do not remember being taught to use ALL CAPS in grammar to signify shouting..
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
On February 18, 2008, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a permanent injunction against Dynadot forcing it to "lock the wikileaks.org domain name
Whereas what wikileak did was to release the illegal activities of asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.
So U.S. District Court, where is the justice?
1. According to the correspondence shown by wikileaks, Bear's lawyers did not attempt to discuss what they wanted. They only tried to contact them to serve legal papers. You'd be evasive too.
2. Bear is asserting that the documents are 1) fake, and 2) violations of banking privacy law. One of those two is the truth and the other is a lie. If they are fake, then there is no violation of banking privacy, so #2 is a lie. If they are real, #1 is a lie.
Also, it makes sense for a company not to comment on the authenticity of leaked documents - and the bank could argue that wikileaks should remove the documents if they are fake (assuming wikileaks purports to be a factual site); and should remove them if they are illegal; and therefore should remove the documents without the bank specifying if they are authentic or not.
That said, hosting fictional information probably isn't a crime (unless you could work slander or libel into it); and hosting private/secret documents against the rights holders' wishes is kind of wikileaks' raison d'etre.
Just my $0.02
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Yeah? And who would you serve that order on, since Wikileaks won't tell you who their lawyer is or how/where to serve them?
This was pretty predictable. If the defendant won't divulge who or where they are, you go to the defendant's ISP or domain provider.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
It's quite right that private banking information should remain private. It's also quite correct that JB should take great pains to avoid confirming that the data is genuine. As such, whether the data is legitimate or forged, they should behave in exactly the same way.
And that's about it for my sympathy. JB could have asked wikileaks to take down specific pages (wikileaks most likely would not have done but it's a matter of courtesy). They could have specified a jurisdiction for their demands, or given a reason that they could not specify a jurisdiction. By demanding the wiping of the DNS records, they have advertised the existence of the leak and even made the mainstream press in at least one country.
i'm talking about the public perception of the high profile case if the leaker turns out to be ill-intentioned. a fake allegation of rape casts a cloud on 100 other valid charges of rape in the mind of the public. that's unfortunate, but real. likewise, if the leaker turns out to be a saboteur instead, 100 other whistleblower cases have a pall cast over them
what you are talking about is a totally different comparison i didn't even make. try to pay attention before responding next time please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wait, the judiciary has been privatized now? It no longer is a part of the government?
That's new to me. Even using the silly "censorship isn't done by private entities" definition, this is censorship: the government was asked to shut down Wikileaks, and it did just that: it ordered Wikileaks shut down.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The funny thing is, though, pulling the DNS record for wikileaks.org is more akin to covering up a crate of teapots with a tarp to hide the address on the crate.
Sure, for some people it hides it. But anyone who walks up to the tarp and lifts it up can see the address (the analogy of course, referring to the fact that wikileaks is registered on several different international registrars).
I'm not discounting that it's a severe example of governmental prior restraint: simply pointing out the fact that JB believes it was a "nuclear" option when in fact, well..
IT'S A TARP.
Are the relevant documents on Freenet yet? If so, what's the link?
If not, is there a convenient mirror package somewhere? I'd be happy to post it, but I'd rather not deal with converting the hyperlinks and removing the Wikileaks formatting from the html -- I'd rather have just the documents themselves. Wikileaks doesn't seem to have such available, or if they do I haven't found it.
They tried to serve Wikileaks with a notice [...] pulling the DNS was about all they had available to them.
That's bullshit. Over the years, I've been on the receiving end of a variety of notices, requests, and demands from lawyers, cops, and federal agents. Wikileaks was mildly jerky, but the lawyers were even more so. If they had a problem with particular documents and intended to sue in the US, they could have just said which documents and where they were planning to sue.
This isn't censorship, as the government isn't doing it. Nor ir it prior restraint on publication.
You did notice that it was shut down by a court, right? I know some think that courts are naturally occurring mineral formations, but I swear, this one is part of the federal government.
What's the big deal? Do the haters think people have the right to publish anything on the 'net, no matter how false or scurrilous, without any repercussions whatsoever??
I'm not sure if you're trolling here or just clueless, but I'll run with the latter. If the documents were actually false, then BJB should just say, "yet more Internet" and ignore them. Obviously, the problem is that the documents are actually valid but put them in a bad light.
We grant limited legal protection to information for reasons like "advancing the sciences and the useful arts" or running a legal business. Although it's a little amazing given our congressmen, those valid reasons to not include malfeasance, corruption, and skulduggery. In fact, just the opposite: whistleblowing is frequently protected by law because it helps us nab people up to things not in the public interest. Like, it appears, Bank Julius Baer and some of their clients.
start -> run -> notepad c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
...
Make host file look like
127.0.0.1 localhost
88.80.13.60 wikileaks.org
Problem solved
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
it is an important issue
it always is
we have cases of murder, and we have cases of manslaughter. both result in a dead body. but they are very different subject matter because of intent
intent is a large part of legal and moral opinion. it always matters. and it matters here in this case too, it really does. if you respond to me that it doesn't matter in your mind, then i only have to say that your mind is not functioning how most people's minds process the situation
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I once worked at a place where a lot of people had security clearances. A coworker enjoyed scuba diving, and bought a condo in Grand Cayman. That security clearance whooshed away faster than a bottle of vodka in Britney Spear's glove compartment.
Eventually the coworker was reinstated, so there are bind fide reasons for transacting business in the Caymans. Scuba diving, nig game fishing, genocide, drug dealing, weapons smuggling, corporate espionage come to mind, in addition to plain old tax fraud.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I don't see the half-truths or the lies, and of course BJB isn't going to affirm/deny the validity of the documents in question, as that would just disclose more info on their client's business.
FTA: "Julius Baer denies the authenticity of this material"...
and "The documents in question are protected and prohibited from unauthorized publication".
These exist as mutually exclusive concepts. If someone posted fake documents, those documents have no legal protection; if someone posted real documents, then they count as authentic. BJB has no authority, however, to "protect" privacy rights concerning records that don't exist except as works of 3rd party fiction.
Of course, the very fact that BJB had standing to file suit in the first place more-or-less makes the authenticity of the documents a slam-dunk. But either way, they've basically said "you stole our data, and made it all up to boot!", of which exactly half (at most) can count as the truth.
Hmm. This claim is plausible, if improbable coming from a user ID under 50K.
However, because I'm just that kind of guy, I'll step in for you.
In modern times, the use of all capital letters in electronic messaging has come to signify emphasis, or a raised voice. As more and more internet communication is conducted on forums with internal markup, instead of the flat 7-bit ASCII NNTP favored, this convention's technical justification has begun to fade.
There is a strong reaction against using all-capital letters in a message for this reason; uppercase letters are more difficult to read than lower-case letters, and anyone willing to type in all upppercase is frequently unwilling to use punctuation or paragraphing, adding to the headache of potential viewers.
Use uppercase letters sparingly, like a strong seasoning, to give your words flavor and tone.
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
FBI says 9 percent of rape accusations are unfounded. That's a not insignificant minority when you consider the "guilty until proven innocent" approach taken in rape cases, the lingering suspicion even after an acquittal, and the willingness of political entities to prosecute obviously false charges out of some kind of vindictiveness (witness the Duke case, and not just the prosecutor; look at all the concerned organizations that piled on).
All charges, rape or otherwise, should be in doubt. In case you forgot, that's the foundation of our court system. And you can be sympathetic to a victim, even interact with her on the assumption she's being truthful, without automatically assuming the suspect is guilty.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
When you have a federal court ordering the takedown, it's the government doing it. It isn't a prior restraint on this particular document, but the takedown of the whole site is a prior restraint on additional documents that Wikileaks might have planned to publish.
Do the haters think people have the right to publish anything on the 'net, no matter how false or scurrilous, without any repercussions whatsoever??
If false or scurrilous documents are published on the 'net, then the remedy is a suit for the damages caused to the subject of the publication, not muzzling the site before it makes the publication.
Did anyone see the Associated Press coverage? link.
"An effort at damage control has snowballed into a public relations disaster for a Swiss bank seeking to crack down on a renegade Web site for posting classified information about some of its wealthy clients."
Apparently, company information is "classified information", and WikiLeaks is a "renegade" website. I guess it is compared to the Associated Press. Here's a high school example of propaganda. Perhaps it was written by a high school student.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Wikileaks lawyers were at the court, IIRC, but were asked to leave. So the court could easily have server the notice to them. Unfortunately, the bank's lawyers took advantage of the fact that few judges have much technical know-how to cause as much damage as they could. Probably just to send a message. Thankfully their strategy didn't work and has in fact backfired.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi
Anyone who needs a refresher on the free-speech implications can find it here (although digg found it first, so the whole article is temporarily posted static on the main page):
Vying for Control of the Internet: is Wikileaks Unstoppable?
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
That's bullshit. Over the years, I've been on the receiving end of a variety of notices, requests, and demands from lawyers, cops, and federal agents. Wikileaks was mildly jerky, but the lawyers were even more so. If they had a problem with particular documents and intended to sue in the US, they could have just said which documents and where they were planning to sue.
The lawyers started off by asking nicely (please, thank you, sincerely) for a service address. When they didn't get one, they reminded wikileaks of its obligation under the DMCA, and got more runaround. With that trail of emails, any judge is going to be sympathetic to BJB ("We tried to serve him, but he just climbed out the bathroom window and ran away, your honour!")
Wikileaks sums up by saying "Wikileaks received no further demands from BJB until the surprise ex-parte hearing." Well, when you refuse to provide a service address, any hearing involving you is going to be ex-parte, isn't it? If WL wanted to get SERVED with NOTICE, it knew what it needed to do. Apparently its legal strategy was to hope the plaintiff would go away.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Transfer all your money to them, then take it out as cash. Actual physical paper and metal.
Because of the fractional reserve multiplier it has a currently 10 fold (in the USA, 30 fold in the UK and 50 fold in the EU) effect on their ability to generate further loans.
Deleted
Looking at the archive of correspondence, it looks to me like both sides were evasive, rude and snotty. Both sides, no doubt, had their reasons. Given the nature of the web site, and the history of this kind of fight, were I the bank's lawyers, I'd be very concerned that they would zip it all up and send it off to a hundred other web sites as soon as they got file names, especially if they could so do legally (and they could, since they wouldn't have gotten the C&D yet). Given the history of such C&D efforts, I can see why the web site wouldn't want to give out any freebies to the other side's lawyers.
However, in the end, the only thing Wikileaks made available to the bank to deal with was their domain name. I can't imagine how else they thought this would go, when the bank had no other path to follow.
Wikileaks' response made perfect sense to me -- effectively, they said that they're a multi-national organization (note the presence of the domain name in
When this bank can talk to a court which has some jurisdiction over the offending site then they might have more luck. Apparently, the site is hosted in Kenya (according to the whois lookup). In the event that wikileaks wasn't breaking any laws in Kenya, I can imagine they have a very nice civil suit against the ISP who dropped the DNS entry.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
WikiLeaks emails made it very clear that they have several legal representatives, and they needed to know
1) what documents were at issue, and
2) who the other party actually was,
so that the appropriate counsel could be selected. Despite repeated requests from WikiLeaks, that information was not provided by BJB's lawyer. It is quite clear that BJB's lawyers were not acting in good faith. I hope there are sanctions against them at the end of this, as they clearly abused process.
Ahh the irony. The way wikileaks facilitates the distribution of stolen,illegal and/or highly sensitive information in broadly very similar mechanisms that banks like BRB facilitates the hiding and laundering of stolen,illegal and/or highly taxable amounts of money.
Keep the information about where it came from tightly secured. Distribute and flow it through a number of international sites, ideally with favourable political/legal/tax climates. Fight tooth and nail against any attempts to force divulging or removal of information when requested by various national legal jurisdictions.
I'm far more annoyed by stupidity than all caps.
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Pakistani government didn't mess with anything. They told the ISP to block access to YouTube. The ISP didn't mess with DNS (although it may have been less problematic but people can easy specify an alternate DNS server or run their own) the ISP sent out false BGP routes. That's why Pakistan was dropped from the net by their upstream provider for a while to clear out the false route propagation. Messing with DNS records wouldn't be like demolishing their house. More like removing the name from the mailbox so people could only get there by the address.
You mean you take your tinfoil hat off? I find it gets great reception!
Did you miss the memo? The US Govt has been privatized. The primary shareholders are Haliburton, Exxon-Mobile, and Saudi Arabia.
Exactly. Remember kids, if you constantly abuse your freedoms they can and will be taken away from you. Let's cherish the fact that we don't have an oppressive government in power.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
As you can see, when one party tries to get cute by delaying or flat out refusing to provide a service address, the result may well be an ex-parte order. A normal response would be "Send it to world headquarters, and we'll see that it gets to the right place, and let you know who'll be handling our litigation once we get it."
If you're not cooperative with the other side in a litigation, don't be surprised when you're painted as an obstructionist scofflaw in court.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Did you miss the bit where BJB provided three jurisdictions ("California, the UK and Switzerland") and, rather than provide service info, Wikileaks continued to stall? This would've been brilliant legal strategy if Wikileaks was litigation-averse and trying to avoid service, or if it was judgment proof. However, given that their domain name was provided through a US based, (presumably) litigation-averse registrar, it was a dumb strategy indeed. Plaintiff now moves against the registrar, with documentation that attempts to serve the domain owner were met with several days of runaround and stalling.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
No, Baer's lawyers were rude and evasive. They started out with a demand to "immediately" send information on notices with respect to Wikileaks's wrongdoing, which is rude. When asked for jurisdiction and the identity of their client, they responded "California, the UK, and Switzerland" -- that's evasive, as California comprises many jurisdictions (both State and Federal), and I'm sure the UK and Switzerland have different jurisdictions as well. And they refused to disclose the identity of their client.
They went on to claim that Wikileaks was legally obliged to provide DMCA contact information, which is simply a lie; if you don't claim shelter under the DMCA, you need not provide such information.
Baer's lawyers then threatened to sue Wikileaks in California, a threat they made good on. They still didn't name the jurisdiction, though at least they said it was Federal. Only after that threat did Wikileaks get snippy with them.
This is all on the Wikileaks site.
Not which URL, but which jurisdiction(s) the C&D would pertain to.
Per this link from TFA, BJB gave a partial answer ("The jurisdictions at issue include California, the UK and Switzerland") followed by some allusions to US federal copyright law (including the DMCA).
If we'd switch away from income tax to a national sales tax, all these tax evasion issues would go away instantly. Money, no matter how it was gotten and where it came from, eventually will be spent. Tax it then and profit!
Of course, there would still be loopholes, but I expect far fewer and harder to exploit.
National sales tax would also force banks such as Julius Baer into much cleaner business practices. A nice little side effect. Spoken as a Swiss citizen who has walked past Julius Baer HQ many times, but never been impressed by what they stand for.
This very much reminds me of the scene in Firefly where River reads the town elder's mind and correctly implies that he killed the previous elder. His response? "The witch reads minds and spins falsehoods!" Gotta get that second part in there for deniability...
Yeah, but this way is free*. * minimum deposit $10,000. Cash handling fee of 5%. penalty for rapid closure $500. manual transaction fee 2% of transfer. large cash deposit fee $500. account opening fee $5. Teller socializing fee - 12 years school tuition for the child.
If this were a story about someone calling up AOL to cancel, and AOL making it very clear that there's a lot of hassle and runaround involved, you'd probably be arguing the other way.
Yes. Here, the power differential runs the other way. People tend to support the underdog, partly based on the intuition that the just outcome shouldn't depend on how much money you have.
Bank Julius Baer has approximately infinite money, and a strong financial incentive to harass anybody who makes them look dodgy, even (and perhaps especially) when they are being dodgy. Wikileaks, on the other hand, has no money, is making no profit, and is providing a public service. It's not surprising that the public would side with people working for the public good.
A normal response would be "Send it to world headquarters[...]"
I look forward to the day they have a world headquarters. Would you care to fund it?
Until then, what they have is a bunch of volunteers scattered around the world. Saying that you need to know which lawyer will handle the case seems like a pretty reasonable request. I understand that the court system is mainly adapted to corporations and pre-internet notions of how things happen. Given the vast variety of people that have gotten involved in the case, this looks like a fine opportunity for a little institutional learning.
A complete lack of capitalization is the latest craze, but it and block-caps typing are often each a very rapid indicator of the intelligence of the typer in my experience.
:-)
My user ID's not under 50k though, so who am I to say?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I suspect that a more accurate comparison would be someone calling up AOL to cancel, refusing to give AOL their account details, then suing AOL for not cancelling the account.
The question is, why did the DNS provider roll over instead of fighting. IANAL but my understanding is that the Communications Decency Act section 230 means that the DNS provider was not liable for the content provided by WikiLeaks.
Why then did the DNS provider not claim said immunity under section 230 and (per my understanding of the law) direct BJB to go after WikiLeaks instead.
Personally, anyone with user ID over 13k is a nooblet.
7bit ascii can show caps and uppercase just fine, no markup needed
http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks
It works
Thanks to The Guardian
I knew as I was typing it I wasn't being completely clear -- historically, any venue that uses 7-bit ASCII hasn't been very friendly towards markup. (Although some of you may remember using board-specific ANSI escapes in your messages, I remind you that those boards allowed *eight*-bit high ASCII. So nyah.)
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
Damn... so close
hmm. this claim is plausible, if improbable coming from a user id under 70k.
however, because i'm just that kind of guy, i'll step in for you.
in modern *nix times, the use of all lower-case letters in electronic messaging has come to signify one is a 37337 4ax0r, or at least an individual with pretensions rooted in nerdness, and a resulting interest in preserving bandwidth due to the inherently greater compressibility that results from encoding messages with a smaller character set. as more and more internet communication is conducted on higher-bandwidth connections, from clients equipped with utf-* capability, instead of the flat 7-bit ascii nntp favored, this convention's technical justification has begun to fade.
there is a strong reaction against using all-lower-case letters in a message for this reason; sentences are more difficult to read without capital letters to signify starting points, and anyone willing to type in all lower-case is frequently unwilling to use punctuation or paragraphing, adding to the headache of potential viewers.
use all-lower-case letters sparingly, like a weak miso broth, and allow your writing steep time, thereby flavoring the word soup.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.