Wikileaks.org is taken offline

Whistleblower website, Wikileaks.org, is a place where one can go and read anonymously posted, leaked government documents. Wikileaks recently made news after leaking documents detailing prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Well, Wikileaks.org is no more.

The site has been taken offline by it’s U.S. host after a Cayman Island’s Bank threatened legal action.

Basically, an “unknown” whistleblower put documents on Wikileaks which claimed that the bank in question, Julius Baer Bank and Trust, was involved in some shady dealings. Hiding assets, washing funds, your typical money laundering activities.

Swiss bank, Julius Baer, believe that former Vice President of the bank’s Cayman Island’s operations was the one who posted the documents on the site, however this has yet to be proven.

The court ruled that host, Dynadot, immediately lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar, and immediately disable the wikileaks.org domain name and account to prevent access to and any changes from being made to the domain name and account information.

Other branches of the site outside the U.S. can still be accessed (along with a whole ream of “cover-sites”) and, in true whistleblower fashion, the whole messy, legal story (including legal correspondence between Wikileaks and the bank) can be found on Wikileaks.org.uk