In February 2008, the wikileaks.org
domain name was taken offline after the Swiss bank
Julius Baer Group sued
WikiLeaks and Dynadot, the wikileaks.org
domain registrar, in a court in
California, United States, and obtained a permanent
injunction ordering the shutdown. WikiLeaks had hosted allegations of illegal activities at the bank's
Cayman Islands branch. The
American Civil Liberties Union and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a motion protesting the action taken against WikiLeaks. The
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press assembled a coalition of media and press that filed an
amicus curiae brief on WikiLeaks' behalf. The coalition included major U.S. newspaper publishers and press organizations, such as the
American Society of News Editors, the
Associated Press, the
Citizen Media Law Project, the
E. W. Scripps Company, the
Gannett Company, the
Hearst Corporation, the
Los Angeles Times, the
National Newspaper Publishers Association, the
Newspaper Association of America and the
Society of Professional Journalists. The coalition requested to be heard as a friend of the court to call attention to relevant points of law that it believed the court had overlooked (on the grounds that WikiLeaks had not appeared in court to defend itself, and that no First Amendment issues had yet been raised before the court). Amongst other things, the coalition argued that:WikiLeaks provides a forum for dissidents and whistleblowers across the globe to post documents, but the Dynadot injunction imposes a prior restraint that drastically curtails access to Wikileaks from the Internet based on a limited number of postings challenged by Plaintiffs. The Dynadot injunction therefore violates the bedrock principle that an injunction cannot enjoin all communication by a publisher or other speaker. Judge Jeffrey White, who initially issued the injunction, vacated it on 29 February 2008, citing
First Amendment concerns and questions about legal
jurisdiction. WikiLeaks was thus able to bring its site
online again. The bank dropped the case on 5 March 2008.{{cite web == Indian IT Ministry legal dispute ==