TWO human rights groups are backing the whistleblowing website Wikileaks.org, reports the Grauniad.

The site was shut down by a court after a Swiss bank, named on Wikileaks, claimed that the information would harm customer privacy.

The American civil liberties union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a legal motion on behalf of Wikileaks users, defending their right to access the website without censorship.

An alliance of American reporters, which includes Associated Press, has also filed a motion to the court saying that the website's closure violates the freedom of speech guaranteed in the Constitution.

It is all looking like a particularly bad PR disaster for the bank Julius Baer which appeared to be exposed on Wikileaks.org for money laundering in the Cayman Islands.

The company claims that the employee named and shamed in the documents was cleared by the FBI in 2005 and it had to protect him.

It asked US District Judge Jeffrey White to order the take down the site, which he did.

However once the news got out, techies started posting the material on other sites and mirroring the material on other sites.

However the bank also has a lot to lose if the material gets out there and damages its 100 year old reputation for dealing with the world's super wealthy.

It argues that the action has brought solely to prevent the unlawful dissemination of stolen bank records and personal account information of its customers.

It claims many of the documents on Wikilinks are forged or have been altered. µ

L'Inq
Manchester Grauniad