Crackdown on leaked papers backfires

Associated Press: Crackdown backfires. Leaked papers spread on Web after bank's bid to block them. Excerpt:

In federal court in San Francisco, the bank asked a judge to take down the site. Much to the outrage of free-speech advocates and others, the judge did.

But instead of the information disappearing, it rocketed through cyberspace, landing on other Web sites and Wikileaks' own "mirror" sites outside the United States. The digerati call the online phenomenon of a censorship attempt backfiring into more unwanted publicity the "Streisand effect."

Techdirt Chief Executive Mike Masnick coined the term on his popular technology blog after actress Barbra Streisand's 2003 lawsuit seeking to remove satellite photos of her Malibu house. Those photos are now easily accessible, just like the bank documents.

Masnick said the bank's lawsuit demonstrates the ineffectiveness of such legal actions in the Internet age, when anyone with a computer and online connection can thumb his nose at a judge's ruling and resurrect the "banned" information elsewhere.

"It's a perfect example of the Streisand effect," Masnick said. "This was a really small thing that no one heard about and now it's everywhere and everyone's talking about it."

The case has also become the latest anti-censorship cause celebre, drawing legal filings from the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several media organizations. Those arguments will be heard Friday when the bank presses on with its efforts to have Wikileaks permanently barred from posting the documents. ...

Sometimes, justice takes place outside the courtroom.