alt.lawyers

"Jeff Strickland" wrote in
news:$@trnddc08:

>
> wrote in message
> news:a8ca9ada-164d-4adc-bce5-b5daf60da771@.
> ..
>> Judge Reverses His Order Disabling Web Site
>>
>> By JONATHAN D. GLATER
>> New York Times
>> Published: March 1, 2008
>>
>> SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge on Friday withdrew his earlier order
>> disabling a Web site that allows the anonymous posting of documents
>> to discourage unethical behavior in governments and corporations.
>>
>> On Feb. 15, the judge, Jeffrey S. White
>> jeffrey_white@ of Federal District Court in San
>> Francisco, ordered the American address of the site, ,
>> to be disabled at the request of Bank Julius Baer & Company, a Swiss
>> banking company, and its Cayman Islands subsidiary. They charged that
>> Wikileaks had posted confidential, personally identifiable account
>> information on some of the bank's customers.
>>
>
> Allow me to ask a rhetorical question,
>
> What free speech right do YOU have to disclose MY bank account
> information?

The same free speech right that I have to speak about just about
anything.

> How come I have no right to privacy that should be protected?

You do.

> Surely my financial and medical information is without
> exception the most private of information I might have,

If you say so. Not everybody thinks like you.

> and public disclosure could be very harmful.

That's why you may recover damages in civil court.

> Why is your right to discuss my private matters protected,

Because we don't like the state to have the power over what we say.

> while my right to keep my private matters private are not protected?

It's called living in a free society. If I harm you, then I'm liable,
but I don't trust the state to tell me what's harmful. You shouln't
either.

> I get that the bank asked the US court to shut down the American site
> that discloses my information, but other sites still carry it. But,
> what is not clear in the story is if the bank is also asking those
> other sites to stop disclosing private information. Assuming the bank
> is seeking to close the other sites but they have not yet complied
> with the request, isn't the USA leaving a giant gap in the privacy
> laws by reversing its course?

No, the USA has little control over foreign sites, no matter what it does
here.

>> The judge's action drew criticism -- and court filings -- from
>> numerous organizations concerned that the order violated the First
>> Amendment protection of free speech. Because Wikileaks operates
>> sites, like , in other countries, the documents were and
>> are still widely available, both in the United States and elsewhere.
>>
>> In reversing himself at a hearing here on Friday, Judge White
>> acknowledged that the bank's request posed serious First Amendment
>> questions and might constitute unjustified prior restraint. He also
>> appeared visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law
>> and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in
>> information once it had been disclosed online.
>>
>
>
> the judge cites "prior restraint," then laments the fact that without
> prior restraint, the court might not be able to remedy a problem that
> arises out of the disclosure of information. It seems to me that
> without the ability to remedy the damage done once the horse escapes
> the barn, the only logical thing to do is close the barn door before
> the horse gets out.

Well, stated, Comarade. Your zeal will be favorably reported to the
Central Committee.

> Well, one could shoot the horse so it can't get
> out but that does not seem to be a viable remedy in the grand scheme
> of things.

More's the pity. But the Subcommittee on Safety of the Central Committee
is working on it.

> Sometimes the doctrine of prior restraint should be
> observed, then elect to allow a horse or two to pass through the gate
> on a case by case basis.

In a free society, it's the other way around.

> It should be assumed that private information
> should remain private, and have a challenge to just how private it
> should remain be heard, as opposed to allow private information be
> public and hear challenges after the damage has been done.

Let's just trust the state. That's just so adorable. How about we keep
arrest records "private"? That way the state can arrest you and keep it
secret.

> The judge, in his lamenting the inability to rein in information after
> it has been disclosed, seems to have a similar view as I, yet he
> allows illogic to prevail.

There's a difference. The judge swore an oath to uphold the
Constitution, and you're an ignoramus. See the difference?

>> "We live in an age," Judge White said, "when people can do some good
>> things and people can do some terrible things without accountability
>> necessarily in a court of law."
>>
>
> And when people can do bad things, the court should take steps to
> limit the bad things people can do.

Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in a more, er, totalitarian society?

> I can't dial the odometer
> backwards in my car to make it more attractive to a buyer -- this
> pre-emptively restricts what I can say because the result of my speech
> is harmful to you

Backing out your odometer isn't speech; it's fraudulent action.

-- but you can say anything you want about my
> banking habits which is decidely harmful to me and the court takes the
> view that pre-emption is ill advised!

Yes, tyranny is ill advised. Your point?

> To make matters worse, there is
> a remedy for my dialing back the odometer, but there is no remedy for
> the disclosure of my banking habits.

It's called a civil suit for damages.

> Wikileak -- the site that was closed down -- did not even object to
> the judge's action. The objections came from the ACLU, and others,
> that haven't even been harmed by the judges order to close the site.
> Basically, the ACLU went before the judge with the polar opposite
> rhetorical question I just posed, and the judge went with it.

Darn that oath of office.

> His inital instinct was right, and he should have stuck with it until
> somebody came along and demonstrated the harm he caused.

You're cute when you're irrational. Study some history. Perhaps some
Constitutional law wouldn't hurt either.