Swiss bank backs down from muzzling "leaks" site

Score one for freedom of speech advocates.

A controversial lawsuit in the US between Swiss bank Julius Baer and the whistle-blower website Wikileaks.org appears to be coming to an end with the web start-up emerging victorious. Julius Baer last month tried to muzzle Wikileaks for allowing an insider to publish hundreds of classified documents about the bank's dealings with one of its off-shore operations. The leak may have gone unnoticed except that Julius Baer took the site to court to get the documents expunged from the web. In a move that stunned First Amendment watchers, a California judge sided with the bank in round one, incredibly ordering the site operator, Dynadot, to not only disable the URL, but to wipe any copy of the site off its servers.

This being the web, sympathetic mirror sites appeared everywhere and the matter of Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks.org became a cause célèbre for free speech online, painting Julius Baer as a villain.

But one by one, the case began to unravel. As the New York Times reports, the judge withdrew last week his original decision and then this week moved to withdraw the case entirely.

In the fickle realm of web controversies, the case will be no doubt forgotten in a matter of days, but Wikileaks no doubt will emerge the big winner here. A site few people had heard of has fought the law, and won. For a site that deals in discrete leaks, there is no greater promotion.