CENSORSHIP ALERT UPDATE: Heavy legal guns ask judge to reverse Wikileaks shutdown

Last week, a California judge ordered the DNS entry for wikileaks.org to be removed because of a dispute over the release of what may be sensitive or proprietary materials between a Cayman Island bank and Dynadot, the latter of which is the hosting company that owns the servers on which wikileaks.org is hosted.

The case has drawn much attention from free speech groups, and action is forthcoming:

A hearing on the renewal of the restraining order is scheduled for Friday, and the EFF, ACLU, and Project on Government Oversight have joined forces to file a request to intervene in the case. Their argument is that it violates the constitutional rights of a broad swath of the public. "The public has a right to receive information and ideas, especially ones concerning the public interest," stated Aden Fine of the ACLU. "This injunction ignores that vital First Amendment principle."

Further arguments focused on the fact that taking down an entire site to protect a small fraction of the material it hosted was a gross overreaction. In a statement, EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman noted, "The First Amendment rights of readers who have a legitimate interest in the materials posted on the website simply cannot be treated as acceptable collateral damage to the bank's claims."