Bank That Suppressed WikiLeaks Gives It Up 145
Is It Obvious writes "Bank Julius Baer has moved to withdraw suit against Wikileaks. We've discussed this story a few times, most recently when the judge lifted his injunction against WikiLeaks' registrar. The Baer story reflects an issue that will only grow worse over time: the gap between technology and the legal system's understanding of said technologies and their application to established legal principle. Given the rapid rate of technological change, is there a more practical way to interface emergent technology with our legal system while retaining civil rights over corporate rights?"
I wonder if... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder if... (Score:5, Informative)
I think the laws that the statement refers to are California's anti-SLAPP [wikipedia.org] (SLAPP = strategic lawsuit against public participation) statutes. However, it seems like the defendents must file anti-SLAPP motions, and we haven't heard of any that have been filed (though I may be wrong).
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Not entirely accurate as to how it transpired. But in any case, the key words in your quote are: The reason for the injunction in the first place...
Clearly as the case progressed there where legal expenses. In the end, it turns out Baer had no case, at least to where they filed their legal action. So it was "frivolous", yes? Therefore they should pay the legal expenses.
IANAL.
Short answer (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Longer answer: We don't need more knowlegable judges, we need more intelligent ones.
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It must be worth a good laugh
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The legal system is a joke, to anyone outside it.
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Ummm, kill all the lawyers?
There are good lawyers (Although I have to admit my salary comes partly from the local law foundation so I have a bias.) Lawyers get a bad rap because there are some exceptionally scummy ones (Jack Thompson) but I'd prefer a country with lots a lawyers to a country with none. Look at any where the lawyers are few, non existent, or powerless and you'll find places where the rule of law is weak or non existent. the Rule of law is necessary for the management of large groups of people because there is always
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So in this case the bank wanted to temporarily silence it critic whilst it own public relations and marketing teams created a lie to cover it over and via mass media define their l
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In this case, I think they're fighting a losing battle. I mean, seriously... who's going to believe that an offshore bank isn't involved in helping its clients evade tax?
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A better question is: why would they want anyone believe that ? Don't they have more to gain if word gets out that being a client of Julius Baer helps you evade taxes ? It's free advertizing.
After all, it's not like it's possible to have a good reputation when you're a banker: sooner or later someone can't pay back a debt, at which po
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As I understand the situation, tax haven banks are allowed to participate in international banking systems on the condition that they do not actively assist tax evasion; that is, they need to avoid the perception that they do so (as much as is possible), or see their access to (for example) automatic international fund transfers withdrawn.
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It's often quicker and better to come up with tools and systems that augment the intelligence of their users and help prevent mistakes. It's easier for one group of programmers to write tools that make all
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Plenty of intelligent people want corporate rights over civil rights, often to protect their profits
That's not stupid, that's dishonest. There's no cure AFAIK for dishonesty, either.
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We don't need more knowlegable judges, we need more intelligent ones.
Pulling out my geek card a little bit, this reminds me of the Bene Geserit in the Dune series. No formal system of laws, simply judges/jury that look at each individual case and rule as fairly as they can.
Of course, you were refering to their knowledge of technology, not of the law. The point is, our laws should be simple. Why do we need a law that says "don't steal over the internet" and another that says "don't mug people on the streets" and another that says "don't break into people's homes and steal
Re:Short answer (Score:4, Insightful)
If only we could require judges to undergo rigorous mental training and prove their humanity (on pain of death) before they get to sit in judgement of others. Legislators even more so.
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So, what, you want to start testing judges with the gom jabbar?
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It could be argued that a criminal court judge will preside over cases where people who may have been in fear for their lives are now on trial for their actions. The judge should be intimately familiar with the fear of death in order to understand what the defendant faced.
The judge may also preside over trials where the death penelty is an option. He should have himself been in a position where another literally held the power of life or death over him so he can understand the magnitude of the responsabil
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Interface (Score:4, Funny)
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Great idea, accept to have any effect on this class of scum you'd have to have at least a 480V 3 phase circuit.
Wrong approach (Score:4, Insightful)
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There is no good answer in any system designed to cover so many eventualities.
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For example, let's say the First Amendment said, in plain language, "The government may not, in any way, prevent any citizen or group of citizens from expressing a fact or opinion, or from publishing a creative work that is represented as such. This applies to all expression or publication, whether verbal or non-verbal. The government is not
Sure we can. (Score:4, Insightful)
We should have an independent group of people who ACTUALLY know what they're talking about that can be called upon by judges who don't understand what's going on. Judges can't be expected to have a grasp of every field of knowledge that may come up in their cases.
I don't see it actually happening, but that's life.
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This is the problem with the current Expert Witness system (which works vaguely like you suggest). You can get expert witnesses to say all sorts of stuff and people will believe them.
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Their fee.
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What does their fee have to do with their expertise; do you think the snowjob artist who depends on his fee for making his mortgage payment is going to charge less that the real expert who will have to take time out of productive work to be deposed?
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Four words. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can do that in four words.
Peer review and publication.
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If you can't tell the difference between 1 bullshit artist and 1 expert, what makes you think that you can tell the difference between 100 bullshit artists and 100 experts or 100 bullshit publications and 100 expert publications?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Corporations don't have rights. (Score:4, Informative)
From wikipedia: "A corporation [wikipedia.org]is legally a citizen of the state (or other jurisdiction) in which it is incorporated (except when circumstances direct the corporation be classified as a citizen of the state in which it has its head office, or the state in which it does the majority of its business)."
Corporations are protected under the Bill of Rights in the U.S., the same bill of rights that protects U.S. citizens.
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Unless corporations have gained the right to vote and to hold public office while I wasn't looking?
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"What is the benefit to The People of this arrangement?"
The answer is simple. In exchange for the benefits of incorporation, the ALE agrees to obey not just the Law, but Regulations promulgated by The People.
The Individual Rights of the owners, have been EXCHANGED for the privilege of Incorporation.
And if they don't like the Regulations, they don't have to Incorporate, do they?
T
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Under Incorporation, the primary effect is that The State gains Regulatory Control of the Artificial Legal Entity (ALE). Your own example points out the Business Continuity benefits to Employees provided by that Regulation.
In the traditional sense, "Rights" are given us by "Our Creator". In that context, an ALE has only the "Rights" which The State ( its creator ) decide to give it. If they ca
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So a foreigner living in your country isn't a person?
In french a company is "une personne morale" a "moral person". I always found that one so funny
As a human being you are a "private person", "une personne privée".
It has rights and properties, and these rights can even protect it from me its unique shareholder.
Various international treaties guarantee these rights abroad (for example: copyrights)
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That's right, it's not really a person. It's all based on a pun, the fact that they used to be called "corporate persons", and since that's the same word used in the 14th Amendment (though not the same sense of the word), it was argued that corporations should have equal protection under the laws as actual persons. A really bad pun is what caused all this mess.
Fun Fact: The 14th Amendment language regarding "persons" w
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Fun Fact: The 14th Amendment language regarding "persons" was applied to corporations (not people) before it was applied to women (people) and homose
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like a zombie slave (Score:2)
Interesting aside (Score:2)
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1. Quoting Wikipedia as a source on a legal question.
2. Ignoring Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, which happened about 100 years after the Bill of Rights was created.
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Corporations are not people. Therefore, corporations do not have rights.
In law, corporations have rights (as a tool of defining injustices). Morally, neither corporations nor people have rights, but obligations. Eg: not to steal, to help the vulnerable of society, etc. Rights are implicit but not absolute, despite what the U.N. charter says, rights have always been merely a human construct and as such are not part of any religious code and traditionally not considered part of the natural order.
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True, they aren't religious in nature. But they correspond to some degree with ma
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The issue of corporations having rights is really a legal fiction, done mainly as a legal matter of convenience, not out of moral or ethical principles. Morally, corporations should have no rights other than that possessed by the conglomeration of its stockholders.
If that became the case, most modern corporations would have to shut down or would collapse.
IBM (just to take an arbitrary name) as a corporation for example have a vast number of rights that are necessary for it to function as a business that NONE of it's shareholders have, or where their shareholders are not the right party to exercise that right. Just to give some examples:
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So, that corporations have rights granted by the state I understand, but to speak of them as tho they are on the same level as a human being and inalienable rights does baffle my mind and sicken my stomach.
But in law, no right is inalienable really. I mean, look at killing, for example. It's off the statue books in many countries (death penalty), but they don't have any problem with their armies killing people, and the law upholds this. So much for inalienable! Is a right infringed upon every time a person dies? That's the point I'm making. Rights are used for law, where you have to describe what a legal entity is entitled to and what it can and can't do. It's no big deal if a person or a company or a fami
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If, as you say, corporations are not people, how can we pass laws about what a corporation can do? Only people can do things.
(People can make objects do things, but legally the person did it...)
Or are you saying that sometimes it is convenient to think of corporations as being similar to people?
Powerful Lesson? (Score:2, Insightful)
While I hope this will be the case, the various courts handling RIAA cases haven't seemed to know anything
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Just a thought (Score:5, Insightful)
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The idea of a "science court [upenn.edu]" [PDF] has been batted around for a few decades now.
In answer to the question... (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Codify into Law (Score:2)
What about slandering a company? Or libel against a company? Simple -- the company must prove the individual wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The real problem is the domain registrar (Score:5, Informative)
The legal system worked. As soon as Wikileaks got involved in the case, the judge reversed himself almost immediately.
The real problem here is with Dynadot, the domain registrar. Like most domain registrars, Dynadot tries to wriggle out of the concept that domains are the property of the registrant, substituting one-sided terms of service [dynadot.com] which give them discretionary power over the domain. That's the problem.
They made a deal with Bank Julius Baer to shut down the site, and got the court to sign off on the deal, without even notifying the registrant. That was Dynadot's doing. That's where the problem started.
Interestingly, Dynadot has one of those indemnification clauses in their agreement that everyone ignores. This time, it matters. It reads: You agree to release, indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Dynadot ... against any losses, liabilities, claims, damages or costs, ... relating to or arising out of Your registration, application, transaction request, resale, or use of services provided by Dynadot and Your account with Dynadot ....
Should Dynadot be threatened with a lawsuit or receive notice of a filed or pending lawsuit by a third party, Dynadot may seek written assurances from You concerning Your promise to indemnify Dynadot. Your failure to provide such written assurances may be considered a material breach of this Agreement.
One could argue that Dynadot's insertion of such a clause created an obligation on Dynadot to promptly notify the registrant of any threatened litigation. Dynadot has claimed in their contract that the registrant has responsibility for claims against Dynadot by third parties. Yet Dynadot did not properly notify the registrant of such a claim. Instead, they apparently went to court before notifying the registrant. That's usually considered negligence or worse.
are all registrars the same? (Score:2)
emergent technology (Score:2)
Yes. Make sure the troublemakers get Focused. Oh wait, civil rights?
Legal System Break Down. (Score:2)
Corporations have no rights over civilians rights. In fact, corporations have no rights except as defined by their corporate charter in the city, state, nation that holds their articles of incorporation. In fact, I'd even suggest that corporations are ONLY legal entities, artificially constructed, that serve the members of tha
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However, I doubt many Right and Left Wingers would be in support of government propaganda programs.
Backwards (Score:2)
In 50 years everyone will know HTML and BBCode (or the equivalent popular format of the day) because it will be used daily.
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Yeah, its pretty simple. (Score:4, Interesting)
The things that we citizens of the Internet (if there is such a thing), nearly universally, seem to agree on is that we want to be left alone from the "powerful". Spammers? Leave us alone. Advertisers? By and large, leave us alone. Eavesdropping, corporate or governmental, leave us alone.
We reserve the right to poke, prod, and change the world around us by using the Internet, but we do not appreciate, nor do we seem to stand for, the reverse to hold true.
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Sorry, today I have the right to find out anything I can about you, photograph you in any way whatsoever - including ways that you may believe are wrong using infrared and other non-visible techniques and publish anything I want.
Have a wife? With sufficient motivation I bet I can make her life hell on earth. And I can do it completely on the I
In this particular case ... (Score:2)
Shouldn't the answer be obvious? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course that may not work since very often the venue for many cases involving technology and patents are selected simply for its lack of expertise and knowledge perhaps to win through bullshit misconceptions. (Consider the pactice of jury selection where they always choose people who have the least understanding of law or legal procedure.)
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Yea, great.. until one day.. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a lack of understanding on the part of these banks. They hire people like us all the time and are in many cases more versed with security and the realities of the Internet than 99% of us. It's a concern that, without adequate controls or cooperation from online presences and technologies, one day real damage will be done and there'll be nothing that can stop it.
They're not worried about injustices. Those are just their legal departments trying to build precedent for future legal actions. They're worried about real, actual damage when private, secret, or sensitive data is released through the same channels and nobody cooperates in removing it or halting its spread.
You idealistic types can gnash your teeth about the curtailing of your online freedoms, but what you're failing to grasp is the simple fact that Your Opinion Is Not Perfect. Your idea of what deserves to be free isn't the same as your neighbour's idea, and when pictures stolen from your webcam of you and your wife engaging in something that you think should be legal but isn't, are circulated to every major visitor-supported voyeur pornsite, you'll be sitting there thinking that maybe, just maybe, being forced to trust anonymous individuals on the Internet who are well beyond the reach of any punishment you can effect, isn't the utopia you thought it would be.
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Those are just their legal departments trying to build precedent for future legal actions. They're worried about real, actual damage when private, secret, or sensitive data is released through the same channels and nobody cooperates in removing it or halting its spread.
I'd rather have real data spread around than silence someone because of what they might say.
You idealistic types can gnash your teeth about the curtailing of your online freedoms, but what you're failing to grasp is the simple fact that
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Only if it's true.
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Why cant law (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a Big Shock (Score:3, Insightful)
In this case, however, the injunction vanished, and the lawsuit was threatening to become a liability to the company. Making the lawsuit disappear minimizes the liability (but may not eliminate it).
(( IANAL. Wanna pay for my law school? ))
Sue More (Score:2)
Given the rapid rate of technological change, is there a more practical way to interface emergent technology with our legal system while retaining civil rights over corporate rights?"
File more suits, refuse more settlements, roll out appeals.
The courts are informed by precedence more than experts. Experts will alert a single judge -- who will be limited by his understanding of the material, the talent for communication in the expert, and the persuasive abilities of a the lawyers before the court. Judges prefer case law - nice simple black and white text that tells them what to do. Building case law takes appellate decisions. So... we have to take it on the chin and eat more appeals
Swiss bank --- yet no news in Switzerland (Score:2, Interesting)
We are rather touchy about our banks and normally a leak of this magnitude would be considered top news. Yet, the topic was given no news coverage in Switzerland. After all, an internal document leaked which pointed towards illegal activities of the bank!
And before all the trolls have a party: no, this is not a normal business practice of a Swiss bank.
Disclaimer: Working for a Swiss bank, I am biased.
Foreign entities and American registrars (Score:3, Interesting)
This situation gives American courts jurisdiction over foreign entities who would otherwise be outside the American legal system. So, why hasn't someone in a place like Antigua set up a domain registration service for these TLDs? I realize that ultimately all roads lead back to Verisign (not a healthy thing either, in my opinion, but that's for another day). Still these cases have been directed against the registrars (eNom and Dynadot), not Verisign. I'm not up on all my ICANN politics and policies these days, so I'm asking for some help here. Is there some provision in how jurisdiction over com/net/org is set up so all the registrars must be in the US, or could there be off-shore registrars for these TLDs immune from American jurisprudence?
(Please don't reply just to say, "Let them register in their ISO domains." The visibility of
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