Zimmerman, whose organization filed a motion seeking to intervene in the case, said he was disappointed in Dynadot's action. He said that a specific provision of the Communications Decency Act providing immunity for an "interactive computer service" protects the company against the bank's claims.
On a broader level, attorney Thomas Burke and colleagues Handman and Kelli Sager, representing 12 media groups that filed a friend-of-the-court brief, cited the 1971 Supreme Court decision in the Pentagon Papers dispute as authority for their position.
In that case, the Supreme Court rejected the Nixon administration's bid to bar publication of a secret government history of the Vietnam War.
"The 1st Amendment prohibits prior restraints in nearly every circumstance, even where national security may be at risk and even when the source unlawfully obtained the documents," said the attorneys, whose clients include the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, The Times, Gannett Co. and Hearst.
Public Citizen and the California First Amendment Coalition filed a separate brief contending that the case did not come under U.S. jurisdiction because the parties include subjects of foreign states -- the Swiss bank and Wikileaks, many of whose members are abroad.
"In shutting down this website through an unlawful prior restraint, the court has muzzled a very important voice in the fight against corporate and government misdeeds," said Paul Levy, an attorney with Public Citizen.
Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen's health policy wing, filed a declaration saying that the organization frequently uses leaked government documents to bring attention to important public issues, such as the Food and Drug Administration's consideration of "a drug company plan to conduct research on its new drug in Latin America using a design that the agency acknowledged would be unacceptable in the United States." After the plan was exposed, the company redesigned its study, Lurie said.
"If Wikileaks is shut down," Lurie said, "the ability of Public Citizen and its members to access" information from whistle-blowers "will be significantly impaired."
Attorney William Briggs, who represents Julius Baer, said his firm was preparing a response to the briefs lodged Tuesday. "This is a case that presents a conflict between an individual's right of privacy versus the press' ability to publish private information about private individuals," he said.
"I think the individual privacy rights outweigh the right of the press to report that information because of reasons of identity theft. If financial industry customers do not think their information is protected, those institutions could go out of business."
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henry.weinstein@latimes.com
