Is technology outrunning the ability of the courts to regulate it? A judge who last week reinstated the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks certainly thinks so.
Wikileaks uses a series of encrypted servers to allow people to post documents anonymously. On 15 February, judge Jeffrey White of the Federal District Court in San Francisco ordered the closure of , the site鈥檚 US domain. But this led to an outcry from pressure groups who said the shutdown restricted free speech. Though the judge reversed his order on 29 February, he said that technology was letting some people 鈥渄o some terrible things without accountability鈥�.
Julius Baer, a Swiss bank, had asked for Wikileaks鈥檚 domain to be disabled after a former employee leaked information to it about its offshore banking practices.
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