Bank Julius Baer emerges from hibernation, issues official statement
dan tynan on Feb 28 2008 at 9:42 am | Filed under: Da Web, Privacy
This just landed in my inbox. Bank Julius Baer would like to clear up some “misconceptions” regarding the WikiLeaks debacle. Here’s their statement, with commentary to follow. — D. T.
ZURICH / NEW YORK, February 28, 2008 — Julius Baer wishes to address certain misconceptions relating to a recent court decision to take the Wikileaks.org website off line.
This decision was arrived at only after a month long effort on the part of Julius Baer and its advisors had failed to identify and engage the operators of Wikileaks in a dialogue regarding the unlawful posting of stolen and forged bank records. This matter has nothing whatsoever to do with censorship or The First Amendment. Instead, Julius Baer’s sole objective has always been limited to the removal of these private and legally protected documents from the website.
The documents in question are protected and prohibited from unauthorized publication under U.S., California and foreign consumer banking and privacy protection laws. The posting of confidential bank records by anonymous sources significantly harms the privacy rights of all individuals.
It is not and has never been Julius Baer’s intention to stifle anyone’s right to free speech. Indeed, Julius Baer has specifically made no attempt to remove material on the website which refers to the organization but which does not include information personal to its customers. However, Julius Baer denies the authenticity of this material and wholly rejects the serious and defamatory allegations which it contains.
Took them long enough to come up with this piece of pablum, didn’t it? But it doesn’t exactly hold together.
First, this statement: “This decision was arrived at only after a month long effort on the part of Julius Baer and its advisors had failed to identify and engage the operators of Wikileaks in a dialogue regarding the unlawful posting of stolen and forged bank records.”
Looking at the correspondence posted on WikiLeaks, this isn’t exactly what happened. Baer’s attorneys attempted to obtain the address of WikiLeaks’ lawyers, so they could slap them with a C&D letter. For its part, WikiLeaks appeared to be deliberately evasive. But at no point did the attorneys identify their client or the documents in question. That’s not exactly a “dialogue” regarding stolen and forged bank records.
Then these two statements: “The posting of confidential bank records by anonymous sources significantly harms the privacy rights of all individuals” and “However, Julius Baer denies the authenticity of this material and wholly rejects the serious and defamatory allegations which it contains.”
The first is arguably true. Nobody wants their personal financial information on display. But if the documents are “forged,” then WikiLeaks didn’t really post confidential bank records, did it? You can’t be a leaker and a liar at the same time. In fact, it’s really unclear what Baer claims is legit (but stolen) and what it claims is false or forged.
And the statement “Julius Baer’s sole objective has always been limited to the removal of these private and legally protected documents from the website” means either that a) they’re lying, b) they really did think that wiping WikiLeaks.org from the DNS records of the Net would only remove those ‘inauthentic’ documents they’re so concerned about, or c) they’re lying.
I’m betting on a and c. How about you?
The hearing on this is scheduled for tomorrow. Both the ACLU and the EFF have filed briefs on behalf of WikiLeaks. Ought to be an interesting show.
Not to defend anyone, but… they said “Julius Baer has specifically made no attempt to remove material on the website which refers to the organization but which does not include information personal to its customers. However, Julius Baer denies the authenticity of this material and wholly rejects the serious and defamatory allegations which it contains.”
In other words, “we aren’t trying to stop some of the documents even though we wholly reject them as defamatory lies.”
As for the “can’t be a leaker and liar at the same time”, that’s just silly. The best lies have elements of truth. You take take real events, real images, real items, and provide a context that spins them in a different direction.
Their statement is, “Wikileaks is publishing a mixture of stolen material and lies mixed together to defame us. We want the stolen material taken down and we reject the lies as defamatory nonsenese. We tried to talk to the people at Wikileaks but they didn’t work with us so we went to the courts.”
Is it true? I don’t know… but it isn’t out of line.
“You can’t be a leaker and a liar at the same time. ”
What? Of course you can. It’s amazing how people confuse the validity of a truth with it’s model of presentation. This is commonly referred to as ‘you fooled yourself, sucka’.
I also only see one blatant or black lie - The last one. Everything else just looks like any other press release…trying to sell something.
Not that what I’m saying should make them any more truthful.
I’m not defending them either, but this makes no sense:
Baer says: “This decision was arrived at only after a month long effort on the part of Julius Baer and its advisors had failed to identify and engage the operators of Wikileaks in a dialogue regarding the unlawful posting of stolen and forged bank records.”
Then you say: “But at no point did the attorneys identify their client or the documents in question. That’s not exactly a “dialogue” regarding stolen and forged bank records.”
Aren’t those really saying the same thing? They tried to talk to the guys to start this “dialog” but were unable to identify them. Therefore such a dialog was not possible.
At that point they should have stopped and moved on, but instead they manipulated an ignorant judge to give them what they wanted. Baer’s (or their lawyers’) own ignorance of the internet’s resilience to this type of attack then led to the current situation.
Not to defend the bank, but a set of documents CAN be both legitimate and forged at the same time. Some can be real and some can be false. The problem that the bank could be in (if they aren’t totally lying) is that only demanding the take down of the real documents in the C&D will expose which records are real, and as such need to be kept confidential. The ONLY thing the bank could do in that case is to BOTH deny any of the documents are true and demand that they all must be taken down.
amos:
I think your summary is accurate. perhaps julius baer should hire you, since you do a better job of summarizing their case than they do.
of course, you’re right, a leaker may also lie. a better way for me to put it would be “if it’s a lie, it can’t be a leak.” that’s my real meaning. if the docs are untrue, then they can’t belong to julius baer.
I do still believe they are being disingenuous about what they did and didn’t attempt to do to the site. and their attorneys could have been much more upfront about who they were representing and what documents they objected to.
(on wikileaks’ part, someone should have redacted personal information on those accounts. we don’t need the individuals names to make the case for tax evasion or money laundering.)
dt
For all those who want to access wikileaks
http://www.wikileaks.be
for more links, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#External_links
Looks to me like there’s plenty of blame for both sides. They were both very evasive, and uncooperative, and rude.
I’m all in favour of openness and preventing censorship, but I don’t see much wrong with their letter and the arguments put against it in this article don’t make sense. They could be lying - I have no way to know, but I see no reason to take on illogical criticisms of them without evidence.
This doesn’t make sense:
“The first is arguably true. Nobody wants their personal financial information on display. But if the documents are “forged,” then WikiLeaks didn’t really post confidential bank records, did it? You can’t be a leaker and a liar at the same time. In fact, it’s really unclear what Baer claims is legit (but stolen) and what it claims is false or forged.”
If someone forges a bank note with my name and bank number then I wouldn’t want it posted. It has my name and bank number - and it is forged.
If the bank accused Wikileaks of leaking but not lying, the bank would be admitting the accuracy of the records of its customers’ crimes.
(Anybody want code to read from a CueCat, a photo of Barbra Streisand’s house, an article about Chiquita banana plantations, some memos from Diebold about voting machines, or a Scientology “Operating Thetan” document?)
While the swiss value their privacy, it is also entirely possible that the records leaked (or published) contain evidence of crimes (money laundering, tax evasion). Banks that build their business on privacy often are profiting from the lawbreaking of its clients.
The fact is that these documents are public. One cannot make them un-public, regardless of legal actions.
The only thing that legal actions can do is to stifle debate and discussion of the underlying issues by the media. The (lack of)coverage of the data uncovered by these links shows that the aggressive legal strategy is successful.
The part where they are lying is when they claim they are not censoring. They are certainly attempting to censor.
Kudos to Wikileaks for its resistance to censorship. Good first round, guys.
I don’t think that WikiLeaks has any duty to be forthcoming (they advertise anonymous release of documents, why should they help in either censoring, or negating anonymity?), or cooperative.
Even if WL were to commit suicide and take down documents that offended this party (and there are better arguments for the removal of sensitive military materials), this material would still be online, never to go away.
Apparently there are people here comfortable with lawyers for Swiss banks censoring US websites. Would they have similar comfort if it were China wishing to silence dissidents, or North Korea who wanted a website to ‘go away’?
Anon.
Wow. It’s difficult to envisage a more wilful misreading of a perfectly consistent and reasonable statement. Two points worth repeating: (1) the statement says they failed, after repeated attempts, to engage in a meaningful dialogue with WikiLeaks, and not that they engaged in one, and (2) the documents the authenticity of which is denied are not the documents that contain confidential customer information. I’m not sure how any reasonable person reading the statement could come to any other conclusion.
BBB
“The part where they are lying is when they claim they are not censoring. They are certainly attempting to censor.”
If… and it’s a big if…. they are correct and the documents are forged, it’s got nothing to do with censorship. They’re protecting themselves or their clients from defamation. People scream this term “censorship” without really understanding what it means. Censorship is denying access to information that people should rightfully know. Legal protection to stop someone from just making up whatever shit they want and posting it, benefits all of us.
Again, as many people have already cautioned, I’m not defending either them or WikiLeaks, but this whole issue is starting to look like neither side acted entirely properly.
The best defense to defamation is truth. A defamatory statement then which Baer is stating these documents are… would constitute a civil action, which they did. In addition, crime… These documents do not actually contain criminal offences, it is not illegal to evade tax in Switzerland, and there are strong banking privacy laws that protect banking records. This is why Switzerland has been a banking vanguard for many years. I am in support of the bank. They have exercised their rights, and the leaker, should be sued for the damages. Wiki leaks should have been more diligent in their conduct.
whoah
bbb:
so you think this is “perfectly consistent and reasonable statement.” I gotta disagree.
yes, there may be three classes of documents being discussed here — authentic “stolen” documents, “forged” documents, and “defamatory allegations.” it’s hard to know from this rather terse statement if these are the categories the bank is talking about. but let’s assume they are, and that the bank sincerely desired to remove the first two.
but it did so by effectively removing ALL documents from WikiLeaks.org (at least, until people figured out they could still get at them). I think it’s reasonable to assume that the bank thought it was shutting wikileaks.org down entirely.
so I’m not really buying the statement “Julius Baer has specifically made no attempt to remove material on the website which refers to the organization but which does not include information personal to its customers.” that just doesn’t fly with me. I wouldn’t consider that a reasonable response or consistent with the facts. sorry.
dt
fyi, Wikileaks posted its own response to the press release here: http://www.wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks_blasts_Cayman_Islands_bank
worth a look.
dt
I don’t know why they bothered the site is still near the top of a google search and only a moron would give up due to a DNS block, without first running a search for the site name.
I guess if Julius Baer and their clients were (are) committing criminal acts and a whistleblower exposed them,that would purposefully defamatory(duh). Criminals should be defamed.
Who cares if a Swiss banks client’s are defamed other than the bank and the client. The client is a criminal anyway. No one but criminals use Swiss banks. We treat these banks as though they are legitimate concerns and not the money laundering, and arms and drug dealers safe havens to park their money, or rogue government agencies hide the largesse that they’ve stolen from their respective countries.
These firms hide behind fancy names and granite facades with tasteful brass plaques and facilitate the shady deals of the most evil people in the world.
They then come in and pay off a judge to censor a website that is trying to expose their corruption. The judge and Bank should be prosecuted.
after reading all of the summaries at wikileaks … there does appear to be several JB documents that are “updated” to reflect the suspicion of falsehood.OK!
That tells me that there are some fakes and some truths. big deal! now the whole world knows all about how nasty JB really is.
I sure hope that all those federal tax auditors really do in JB. ‘cuz if the documents that aren’t updated to reflect falsehoods are real, then JB deserves to be blown …
reverse pun intended:)
[...] that the controversial documents in question need to be taken offline both because they’re forged and also because they reveal confidential info. While it is possible that a forged document would also have some legitimate confidential info, it [...]
In the correspondence posted on Wikileaks, Spiegel (JB Lawyer) was extraordinarily rude, and never really gave Wikileaks a chance. They responded with a question, and Spiegel basically said “aha! You didn’t give me what I wanted in your first email! I can use that against you in court!” And apparently he did. All the same, Wikileaks should have been a bit more cooperative, I guess — but I wasn’t there.
The big-name companies who send warnings to Pirate Bay are much more polite, though I’ll note that Pirate Bay’s response letters are very rude and immature.
The Wikileaks response to the press release is very well done, IMO.
Siggy
[...] Update (29/02/2008): story goes on. [...]
[...] Tynan on Technology » Bank Julius Baer emerges from hibernation, issues official statement [...]
[...] that the controversial documents in question need to be taken offline both because they’re forged and also because they reveal confidential info. While it is possible that a forged document would also have some legitimate confidential info, it [...]
[...] to force Wikileaks off the web has finally issued a press-release to try and justify their actions. Tynan on Techology (via) has the full statement, along with some [...]
[...] that the controversial documents in question need to be taken offline both because they’re forged and also because they reveal confidential info. While it is possible that a forged document would also have some legitimate confidential info, it [...]