German Wikileaks Suspension Not Related To Police Raid

An anonymous reader writes "Contrary to what we discussed four days ago, Germany's registration authority, DeNIC, did not suspend access to wikileaks.de. After some investigation, Heise found out that the ISP ended the contract (in German, Babelfish translation) with Theodor Reppe back in December 2008, with the mandatory three-month notice giving him enough time to move wikileaks.de elsewhere — which he did not do. At the end of March, the domain wikileaks.de was released back to DeNIC."

YES IT WAS

[James Hardine]

The dispute with the registrar stems over a series of exposes last year by WikiLeaks on the BND--Germany's equiv of the CIA. Why the registrar picked this moment to "finalize" the dispute, no-one knows, but it's not hard to guess...

BND involved?

[Krupuk]

On November 5th and December 8th, Wikileaks leaked some BND information. On Devember 8th, the ISP ended the contract. Coincidence? I think not.

Re:BND involved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably related.

What is odd is wikileaks.de losing their domain name in difference to having their ISP cancel a contract. I would suspect the entire set of facts has yet to be laid on the table and would tend to discount the possibility of this being a clerical error on the part of wikileaks.

Nevertheless, we see the homes of wikileaks domain owner being raided among allegations of suspicion over illegal pornography including child pornography, the surrender of the domain name and now an ISP contractual matter, all points indicating a 'full court press' upon wikileaks by the agencies and offices of the German government. Most notably, the BND and perhaps aided by outside influence.

Given documentation that wikileaks hosts pertaining to the BND, none of this should come as surprise nor anything that might happen subsequent.

Re:Update: Why the contract was terminated

[tmk]

I guess he just misinterpreted the phone conversation. It wouldn't make much sense to put the termination in writing and say something else. It makes much sense that the hosting company assured him that he had three months time to transfer his domains.