WIKILEAKS, a website where whistleblowers can untraceably leak documents, has had its chief internet domain, wikileaks.org, shut down by a US district court.
Since its launch in early 2007, Wikileaks has anonymously posted documents revealing, for instance, that agents of the former East German secret police, the Stasi, had infiltrated the commission investigating their organisation. And it uncovered massive corruption in Kenya.
Yet whistleblowing can be risky. On 15 February, a Swiss bank alleged in a California district court that an ex-employee had unlawfully leaked documents to Wikileaks. The judge agreed and ordered an internet registrar to remove the wikileaks.org domain.
Wikileaks spokesman Julian Assange says Wikileaks remains available, however, via its Belgian and Australian mirror sites.
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