It is worrying that the WikiLeakS.org project did not manage to file, even electronically, any counter arguments to the exaggerated and misleading claims by their opponents in the California Northern District Federal Court.
See the (.pdf) copies of the Court Orders and Submissions at the
Citizen Media Law Project's Julius Baer Bank and Trust v. Wikileaks archive.
The TRO and OSC set Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 12:00 p.m. as the deadline for Defendants and anyone else to file and serve any opposition to the issuance of the Preliminary Injunction
However, the Bank Julius Baer and ther lawyers Lavely & Singer have gleefully filed another document, trying to make out that because WikiLeakS.org have not filed anything in writing, that this somehow justifies the Plaintiffs' claims.
See Banks' Notice of Non-Opposition (02-22-2008) (.pdf)
Bank Julius Baer and their lawyers Lavely & Singer are happy to quote Swiss Federal criminal laws about banking secrecy, and the laws of the Cayman Islands in their submissions to the California Northern District Federal Court
They deliberately make no mention of any Swedish laws, or the Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights, or European Union privacy and freedom of expression laws, which are equally applicable, and which one would have expected the WikiLeakS.org legal team to have brought to the attention of the US Federal Court.
If Swiss criminal law penalties, including the threat of prison, are not enough to prevent the leaking of the alleged confidential documents to newspapers and to national tax investigation authorities, then why should the US Federal Court seek to impose civil penalties on people and computer systems outside of the United States of America ?
Nowhere in the Lavely & Singer penned documents, is there any mention of the fact that the Dynadot LLC Domain Name Registrars or even the EasyDNS Domain Name Servers are not the actual webservers which hold electronic copies , which are not the original documents which Lavely & Singer claim are the Property of Bank Julius Baer.
Nowhere do they dare to mention that these webservers are not physically hosted in California or even in the United States of America, but in Stockholm, Sweden, which is a very pertinent fact which should have been brought before the US Federal Court, and which WikiLeakS.org are allowing to be glossed over, through their legal silence.
Since the Plaintiffs appear to have either found a Judge who is actually ignorant about how exactly the internet works, or, more likely, one who is being professionally ignorant unless formally presented with submissions which contradict the exaggerated claims of the Plaintiffs, they are trying it on again, with even more specious claims.
3. This matter relates primarily to the protection and enforcement of privacy and property rights. The spread of stolen private bank records, account numbers and information, tax documents and other protected consumer records, significantly harms privacy rights of every single individual in the United States and world-wide, and could have a harmful impact on confidence in the banking industry as a whole. The leak of confidential bank records, including altered and semi-forged documents, by the anonymous Wikileaks Defendants, unchecked, will likely have a devastating impact on financial institutions and the authorities ability to combat credit and identity fraud.
These claims are utter nonsense - the international banking industry has not collapsed, even after breaches of confidence which are orders of magnitude greater than those alleged in this court case e.g.
- The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) scandal, whereby the US Treasury and intelligence agencies have had unfettered, unmonitored access to the entire computer network for international bank transfers of money. All of these highly encrypted transactions were handed over at source, in bulk, without any judicial warrants or oversight for several years after the September 2001 terrorist attacks - See Privacy International for more details.
- The purchase by the German BND intelligence agency and by the United Kingdom's HM Revenue and Customs, of thousands of stolen bank details of very rich tax avoiding or tax evading or money laundering clients, of one or more secretive Banks in Liechtenstein, some of whose clients and transactions are very likely also involve Bank Julius Baer, directly or indirectly.- see the German Tax Affair 2008 Wikipedia article.
There has been no " harmful impact on confidence in the banking industry as a whole" and neither have these revelations impeded "the authorities ability to combat credit and identity fraud", quite the reverse.
This may perhaps be the real reason why Bank Julius Baer are trying this litigation against WikiLeakS.org.
It would be immensely valuable to Bank Julius Baer to be able to bamboozle a US Federal Court into creating a legal precedent, which could be used to hinder the US Government if they attempt to use such stolen confidential data, which neither originates, nor resides physically within the USA, in current or future administrative or civil tax avoidance settlements, or in criminal tax evasion or money laundering court cases involving their clients or potential clients.
It is hard to believe that a US Federal Court Judge is actually really so ignorant of both the way in which the internet actually works, or of how the international tax avoidance (legal in some countries) or evasion or money laundering (illegal in most countries) works.
Will the US Treasury end up filing an amicus brief, (probably on appeal, and not by this Friday), opposing Bank Julius Baer and their lawyers Lavely & Singer's attempts to set such a legal preceden, which would hinder the wider public interest of US Government tax collection and and anti-organised crime and anti-terrorism money laundering and terrorist finance investigations ?
Are WikiLeakS.org actually going to be legally represented by counsel at the hearing at 9am this Friday 29th February 2008 in San Francisco, or will they simply be ruled against, by default ?
