Bank Julius Baer Issues Statement On WikiLeaks 187
dtwood writes "The bank that got WikiLeaks.org erased from DNS finally hired a PR agency and issued a press release filled with half truths and non-statements. Tynan on Tech has it, along with some brief commentary. Worth a look."
Um... ok (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like his lawyers are getting nervous.
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heh.
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However, because I'm just that kind of guy, I'll step in for you.
In modern times, the use of all capital letters in electronic messaging has come to signify emphasis, or a raised voice. As more and more internet communication is conducted on forums with internal markup, instead of the flat 7-bit ASCII NNTP favored, this convention's technical justification has begun to fade.
There is a strong reaction against using all-capital letter
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Other banks associated? (Score:4, Insightful)
it is used for tax evading and money laundering (Score:3, Informative)
Re:it is used for tax evading and money laundering (Score:5, Informative)
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Dude, this is a major Swiss private bank, with subsidiaries in other countries with bank secrecy laws and no taxes (like the Cayman Islands).
The bank specializes in wealthy clients, helping them avoid/evade taxation in their home countries.
They do not deal with little people like you (or me).
Re:Other banks associated? (Score:5, Insightful)
If so, then they must be investing in something. That's who you boycott.
If you don't deposit money, they just make less money. If their investments fail to profit, they lose money.
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Want to know how to kill a bank? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because of the fractional reserve multiplier it has a currently 10 fold (in the USA, 30 fold in the UK and 50 fold in the EU) effect on their ability to generate further loans.
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Incidentally, when the Fed announces it's changing interest rates, they're changing the rate they charge banks for these types of loans. The Fed then buys or sells treasury bills to make sure all the other interest rates follow the change.
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they make a good point: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:they make a good point: (Score:5, Funny)
Actually (Score:5, Interesting)
Eventually the coworker was reinstated, so there are bind fide reasons for transacting business in the Caymans. Scuba diving, nig game fishing, genocide, drug dealing, weapons smuggling, corporate espionage come to mind, in addition to plain old tax fraud.
Re:they make a good point: (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:they make a good point: (Score:5, Informative)
Non-truths? (Score:2)
What the hell is that??
If you're going to chide a company for putting out a shitty document, at least have the balls to use some real language when you do it.
Is it a lie? then call it a lie! "half truths" my ass.
And what's a "half-statement"??? An incomplete sentence? A run-on sentence?
Re:Non-truths? (Score:5, Funny)
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I apologize.
Re:Non-truths? (Score:5, Insightful)
> If you're going to chide a company for putting out a shitty document, at least have the balls to use some real language when you do it.
> Is it a lie? then call it a lie! "half truths" my ass.
You mean like this?
Looks to me like the article accuses Bank Julius Baer of... lying.
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Re:Non-truths? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but, um, forged documents aren't private or confidential unless they contain some degree of accurate information, I suppose...but then they're not subject to banking laws because they're fake documents, right?
So, which is it, Julius Baer? Are these documents forgeries, or are they real documents and therefore subject to banking privacy laws? You don't get to have your cake and eat it, too.
If JB lawyers really had the aim to stop the publication of the documents, they could have just sent WikiLeaks a C&D, who maybe would have even taken it down. But instead, they call up WikiLeaks asking them who their lawyer is and refuse to identify themselves. Who do these people think they are? The fscking Mafia? Wait, don't answer that
Re:Non-truths? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Non-truths? (Score:5, Funny)
Is that when the plaintiff gets to be on top, or is it the other way around?
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So, which is it, Julius Baer? Are these documents forgeries, or are they real documents and therefore subject to banking privacy laws? You don't get to have your cake and eat it, too.
Have you not heard of superposition? It's a matter of quantum legal entanglement.
In law you can have "conflicting" statements via alternative arguments. For instance:
It may seem to logically conflict, but each argument stands by itself. You could think of each alternative argument as a root to an individual tree
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In law you can have "conflicting" statements via alternative arguments. For instance:
* I was not at the scene of the crime.
* alternatively, I was at the scene of the crime but was not involved and did not see the crime take place from my vantage point.
* in the further alternative, I was there, saw it happen but was unable to intervene or identify the culprits
It may seem to logically conflict, but each argument stands by itself. You could think of each alternative argument as a root to an individual tree (i.e. you can have multiple starting points for your arguments, they don't all have to start from one premise).
Yeah, but I think that, if I was on a jury and heard a lawyer make a set of arguments like that, I would have to assume he or she was lying. Any of the three could be true, but it is impossible for all three to be true simultaneously.
If the facts seem to show that I am guilty, I think the way a truly innocent person would counter that would be to say "No, here is the real story, and here's the explanation for the suspicious facts." To come up with alternate, inconsistent explanations is practically ADMIT
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Any of the three could be true, but it is impossible for all three to be true simultaneously.
Very true, but you are thinking like a programmer. Each argument is exclusive to itself and is not to have any bearing on other arguments.
In the contract example (trying to show contract between X and Z possibly using y as a contracting agent) it should make sense why this is allowed. The point to prove (or disprove) the existence of a contract. Depending on the facts it may be easier to prove the contract existed via one method (which should be your first argument), though if it is possible to prove i
Re:Non-truths? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Non-truths? (Score:5, Funny)
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My kids just accuse me of "making up facts again".
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"Did you sleep with her?"
"NO!, I didn't sleep with her!"
Clearly the person posing the first question means "have sex"
The person answering knows this, but uses the word sleep, since he didn't actually sleep.
Re:Example (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like my dreams have been canceled (Score:4, Funny)
I was hoping this story wouldn't get big. I was really hoping that I'd found a bank through which I could launder and stash various... shall we say... "unreported monies". Like a stack of $100 bills the size of a small room. Homeland Security can be really unforgiving about that sort of thing, you know?
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Re:Looks like my dreams have been canceled (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK there used to an agency called "Customs and Excise". They - unlike the police - carried guns on operations, they didn't trust or liaise with the police, and they normally didn't need a search warrant to carry out raids. The government decided that they weren't powerful enough, and merged them with...
drumroll...
the Inland Revenue!
Re:Looks like my dreams have been canceled (Score:5, Funny)
I am prepared to offer a BUSINESS deal to great advantage for you in monetary security terms for the storage of your FINANCIAL difficulties for very reasonable rate. Please to send to me your
name
date of birth
bank routing number
social security number
mother's name
and i will PROVIDE for YOU a small room for the storage of your MONETARY. For this service you may keep 10% of the AMOUNT GIVEN in good health as thanks for your ASSISTANCE.
In good health and honesty,
Fow Ern Ineteen, Esq.
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No doubt. The IRS brought down Al Capone for christ sakes. No other law enforcement agency could come close to bringing him down.
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-- Paul Bremer
Do we have free speech in the USA? (Score:2)
The lawyers OWN congress.
Re:Do we have free speech in the USA? (Score:4, Insightful)
Opinions, Opinions (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd interpret it as meaning they tried everything else and then had to resort to these means to get these documents offline. In a way, I can understand the Bank. If the documents are true, it's confidential information that shouldn't be published. If they're forged, it's obviously defamatory and shouldn't be published, either. I'm not sure if exposing some tax fraud is a goal high enough to disregard legal standards. WIkileaks is obviously doing good work, as with last years documents about african dictators. Not sure if this is among that good work,
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We all know that at least a fraction of that activity is done with a disregard for legal standards.
At what point do we expect privacy, and at what point should shady acts be exposed to the light of day.
It seems that many get their panties an a wad when the privacy issue hits close to home but love it when someone
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Of course they don't want them published, they're evidence of wrongdoing, yesno? They very likely have no legal basis on which to get them removed. Trying to exercise prior restraint on publishing documents like these usually doesn't survive an appeal to the first amendment.
Re:Opinions, Opinions (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know to what extent this has been legally codified, but the consensus has grown to be that whistle-blowing should be somehow allowed, or even encouraged and protected. This is why we consider it reasonable for a reporter to "not disclose a source" and why Wikileaks should be protected.
If the information can be shown to be false, then yes it should be removed. But unauthorized publication of data which unequivocally proves that some bigger crime has occurred has to be allowed and protected if we are going to fight big crimes. This protection has to extend to the original whistle-blower, and the reporting agents (journalists, wikileaks, etc.), even though they may be technically breaking certain laws (e.g. disclosure of private data).
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Which makes me question the legality of such confidentiality agreements.
If I remain silent because of a confidentiality agreement, then am I an accomplice in the crime I have discovered? Under these circumstances, can I be legally be bound to remain silent? If I am forced to testify in court, does this still violate the agreement and make me liable? If polic
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1. All the documents are authentic and expose illegal activity.
In which case, claiming forged documents would solve to PR problem.
2. All the documents are forged.
In which case, claiming forged documents would solve the Pr problem.
3. Some of the documents or document information is real s
inaccurate (Score:3)
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As long as kdawson [slashdot.org] jr. gets a kickback, it doesn't really matter, now, does it?
"You cant be a leaker and a liar at the same time" (Score:5, Insightful)
it's sort of like some of the problems surrounding allegations of rape. most charges of rape are indeed cases about a real rape, that needs to be punished harshly. but a handful of charges of rape are made by women who's motivations are completely false. the horrible tragedy is that the real damage such women do is not to the man they want to hurt, but to the 100 other cases of genuine rape their false rape charges now put into doubt
so let us hope this wikileaks case does not involve a maliciously intended disgruntled ex-employee or ex-client. not that the bank's actions are defensible in any way, regardless of the leaker's motivations, but if the motivations of the leaker aren't squeeky clean, on such a high profile affair, then this entire wikileaks first amendment situation gets poisoned in a way it would be viewed on the street in a way no one who cares about the first amendment wants to see happen
Re:"You cant be a leaker and a liar at the same ti (Score:2)
uh, what? (Score:2)
what you are talking about is a totally different comparison i didn't even make. try to pay attention before responding next time please
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Re:"You cant be a leaker and a liar at the same ti (Score:2)
FBI says 9 percent of rape accusations are unfounded. That's a not insignificant minority when you consider the "guilty until proven innocent" approach taken in rape cases, the lingering suspicion even after an acquittal, and the willingness of political entities to prosecute obviously false charges out of some kind of vindictiveness (witness the Duke case, and not just the prosecutor; look at all the concerned organizations that piled on).
All charges,
intent (Score:2)
it always is
we have cases of murder, and we have cases of manslaughter. both result in a dead body. but they are very different subject matter because of intent
intent is a large part of legal and moral opinion. it always matters. and it matters here in this case too, it really does. if you respond to me that it doesn't matter in your mind, then i only have to say that your mind is not functioning how most people's minds process the situation
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Who needs DNS? (Score:2)
Any one have the IP address from cache?
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zone "wikileaks.org" {
type master;
file "master/db.org.wikileaks";
}
to your named.conf, then enter the following master/db.org.wikileaks:
$ORIGIN wikileaks.org.
$TTL 3h
@ IN SOA your
Anyone see the irony here? (Score:3, Interesting)
Whereas what wikileak did was to release the illegal activities of asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.
So U.S. District Court, where is the justice?
Liar and a leaker... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, it makes sense for a company not to comment on the authenticity of leaked documents - and the bank could argue that wikileaks should remove the documents if they are fake (assuming wikileaks purports to be a factual site); and should remove them if they are illegal; and therefore should remove the documents without the bank specifying if they are authentic or not.
That said, hosting fictional information probably isn't a crime (unless you could work slander or libel into it); and hosting private/secret documents against the rights holders' wishes is kind of wikileaks' raison d'etre.
Just my $0.02
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It seems to me that a lot of people are trying to read something into the bank's statement that just isn't there.
I have some (very limitted) sympathy with JB (Score:2, Insightful)
And that's about it for my sympathy. JB could have asked wikileaks to take down specific pages (wikileaks most likely would not have done but it's a matter of courtesy). They could have specified a jurisdiction for their demands, or giv
Freenet (Score:2)
Are the relevant documents on Freenet yet? If so, what's the link?
If not, is there a convenient mirror package somewhere? I'd be happy to post it, but I'd rather not deal with converting the hyperlinks and removing the Wikileaks formatting from the html -- I'd rather have just the documents themselves. Wikileaks doesn't seem to have such available, or if they do I haven't found it.
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No doubt you'd need to be a CPA to figure out if the content has any real value. But I look at this like Watergate - what if the next Bob Woodward a
DNS is for the weak .... (Score:2)
Make host file look like
127.0.0.1 localhost
88.80.13.60 wikileaks.org
Problem solved
News coverage (Score:5, Insightful)
"An effort at damage control has snowballed into a public relations disaster for a Swiss bank seeking to crack down on a renegade Web site for posting classified information about some of its wealthy clients."
Apparently, company information is "classified information", and WikiLeaks is a "renegade" website. I guess it is compared to the Associated Press. Here's a high school example of propaganda. Perhaps it was written by a high school student.
Plenty of blame for both sides (Score:4, Informative)
However, in the end, the only thing Wikileaks made available to the bank to deal with was their domain name. I can't imagine how else they thought this would go, when the bank had no other path to follow.
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If Wikileaks is smart, they're already zipping up all their files and sending them off to some other web sites on a regular basis. If BJB's lawyers were smart, they would realize this.
BJB's lawyers claimed the following (emphasis added) - anyone know whether the emphasized part is true?
Irony of the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep the information about where it came from tightly secured. Distribute and flow it through a number of international sites, ideally with favourable political/legal/tax climates. Fight tooth and nail against any attempts to force divulging or removal of information when requested by various national legal jurisdictions.
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Re:Go BJ Baer! (Score:4, Insightful)
Pulling the DNS is an option to be done *when all others have been exhausted*, and fact is, this was the first option the courts pulled, which is akin to my above statement. An initial order had to be for Wikilinks to pull the documents off of the site by a set date, and if they didn't, hold the executives in contempt. That is how the rule of law works.
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Yeah? And who would you serve that order on, since Wikileaks won't tell you who their lawyer is or how/where to serve them?
This was pretty predictable. If the defendant won't divulge who or where they are, you go to the defendant's ISP or domain provider.
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Wikileaks' response made perfect sense to me -- effectively, they said that they're a multi-national organization (note the presence of the domain name in .be, .uk, .au, .cn, and .in, to name a few), so they need to know which URL was a problem in order to give you the contact info for the appropriate legal organization. BJB never responded. I'd call that acting without good faith.
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Not which URL, but which jurisdiction(s) the C&D would pertain to.
Per this link [wikileaks.be] from TFA, BJB gave a partial answer ("The jurisdictions at issue include California, the UK and Switzerland") followed by some allusions to US federal copyright law (including the DMCA).
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Re:Go BJ Baer! (Score:4, Insightful)
1. According to the correspondence shown by wikileaks, Bear's lawyers did not attempt to discuss what they wanted. They only tried to contact them to serve legal papers. You'd be evasive too.
2. Bear is asserting that the documents are 1) fake, and 2) violations of banking privacy law. One of those two is the truth and the other is a lie. If they are fake, then there is no violation of banking privacy, so #2 is a lie. If they are real, #1 is a lie.
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Sure, for some people it hides it. But anyone who walks up to the tarp and lifts it up can see the address (the analogy of course, referring to the fact that wikileaks is registered on several different international registrars).
I'm not discounting that it's a severe example of governmental prior restraint: simply pointing out the fact that JB belie
Re:Go BJ Baer! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's bullshit. Over the years, I've been on the receiving end of a variety of notices, requests, and demands from lawyers, cops, and federal agents. Wikileaks was mildly jerky, but the lawyers were even more so. If they had a problem with particular documents and intended to sue in the US, they could have just said which documents and where they were planning to sue.
This isn't censorship, as the government isn't doing it. Nor ir it prior restraint on publication.
You did notice that it was shut down by a court, right? I know some think that courts are naturally occurring mineral formations, but I swear, this one is part of the federal government.
What's the big deal? Do the haters think people have the right to publish anything on the 'net, no matter how false or scurrilous, without any repercussions whatsoever??
I'm not sure if you're trolling here or just clueless, but I'll run with the latter. If the documents were actually false, then BJB should just say, "yet more Internet" and ignore them. Obviously, the problem is that the documents are actually valid but put them in a bad light.
We grant limited legal protection to information for reasons like "advancing the sciences and the useful arts" or running a legal business. Although it's a little amazing given our congressmen, those valid reasons to not include malfeasance, corruption, and skulduggery. In fact, just the opposite: whistleblowing is frequently protected by law because it helps us nab people up to things not in the public interest. Like, it appears, Bank Julius Baer and some of their clients.
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Vying for Control of the Internet: is Wikileaks Unstoppable? [thelegality.com]
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They tried to serve Wikileaks with a notice [...] pulling the DNS was about all they had available to them.
That's bullshit. Over the years, I've been on the receiving end of a variety of notices, requests, and demands from lawyers, cops, and federal agents. Wikileaks was mildly jerky, but the lawyers were even more so. If they had a problem with particular documents and intended to sue in the US, they could have just said which documents and where they were planning to sue.
The lawyers started off by asking nicely (please, thank you, sincerely) for a service address. When they didn't get one, they reminded wikileaks of its obligation under the DMCA, and got more runaround. With that trail of emails, any judge is going to be sympathetic to BJB ("We tried to serve him, but he just climbed out the bathroom window and ran away, your honour!")
Wikileaks sums up by saying "Wikileaks received no further demands from BJB until the surprise ex-parte hearing." Well, when you refuse to
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1) what documents were at issue, and
2) who the other party actually was,
so that the appropriate counsel could be selected. Despite repeated requests from WikiLeaks, that information was not provided by BJB's lawyer. It is quite clear that BJB's lawyers were not acting in good faith. I hope there are sanctions against them at the end of this, as they clearly abused process.
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As you can see, when one party tries to get cute by delaying or flat out refusing to provide a service address, the result may well be an ex-parte order. A normal response would be "Send it to world headquarters, and we'll see that it gets to the right place, and let you know who'll be handling our litigation once we get it."
If
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FTA: "Julius Baer denies the authenticity of this material"...
and "The documents in question are protected and prohibited from unauthorized publication".
These exist as mutually exclusive concepts. If someone posted fake documents, those documents have no legal protection; if someone posted real documents, the
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When you have a federal court ordering the takedown, it's the government doing it. It isn't a prior restraint on this particular document, but the takedown of the whole site is a prior restraint on additional documents that Wikileaks might have planned to publish.
Do the haters think people have the right to publish anything on the 'net, no matter how false or scurrilous, without any repercussions whatsoev
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No, Baer's lawyers were rude and evasive. They started out with a demand to "immediately" send information on notices with respect to Wikileaks's wrongdoing, which is rude. When asked for jurisdiction and the identity of their client, they responded "California, the UK, and Switzerland" -- that's evasive, as California comprises many jurisdictions (both State and Federal), and I'm sure the UK and Switzerland have different ju
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