Why Shutting Down Wikileaks Will Backfire

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A federal judge in California has ordered the whistleblower website Wikileaks to go dark. But the site wasn’t taken out by the Feds— who have good reason to be upset with it for posting sensitive information about Gitmo and rendition flights—but rather a Swiss Bank that filed suit after the site posted documents suggesting that it was up to some financial hanky-panky in the Caymans. The bank may have won round one, but Wikileaks and its friends are already winning round two. The site is being mirrored in several places (see list here) and the bank’s docs are readily available as a download. I suspect that this instance of judicial overreach will be overturned and the main Wikileaks site will be back. And in the meantime, some Swiss bankers are about to get a lesson on how hard it is to stuff digital genies back into their bottles.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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