cognitive dissident

What is WikiLeaks? Their "About" page explains things succinctly:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact. Our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by all types of people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.

We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies. All governments can benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information. Historically that information has been costly - in terms of human life and human rights. But with technological advances - the internet, and cryptography - the risks of conveying important information can be lowered.

Obviously, it would only be a matter of time before WikiLeaks tread upon the wrong toes, as articles in The Guardian and BBC News describe. Surfers trying to visit the Wikileaks website now receive a browser error, because a US court has demanded that WikiLeaks' webhost delete the DNS record that resolves requests for "wikileaks.org" into the webserver's IP address. Barefoot Bum, among others, has helpfully pointed out that WikiLeaks is still available (at least for now) by bypassing DNS name resolution.

Stephen Sodz's AlterNet article provides the legal background

Wikileaks has upset the Chinese government enough that they are attempting to censor it, as is the Thai military junta.

Now censorship has extended to the United States of America, land of the First Amendment. As of Friday, February 15, those going to Wikileaks.org have gotten "Server not found" messages. Today I received a message explaining that a California court has granted an injunction written and requested by lawyers for the Cayman Island's Bank Julius Baer. It seems that the bank is trying to keep the public from accessing documents that may reveal shady dealings. Wikileaks was only given a couple of hours notice "by email" and was not even represented at the hearing where a U.S. judge took such a drastic step attempting to totally shut down an important information outlet. The result was this totally unprecedented attempt to totally wipe out the existence of Wikileaks.

and draws the proper historical parallel to the Pentagon Papers. Today's Daniel Ellsbergs use email and our Ben Bagdikians run servers instead of newspapers, proving the theorem of EFF founder Dan Gilmore that "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Kim Zetter mentions at Wired that not only are the Julius Baer Bank documents still available from WikiLeaks, they are also in a helpful single file courtesy of Cryptome. (The entire WikiLeaks site has been mirrored in Belgium and Christmas Island.)

update (2/29 @ 8:07pm):
US District Judge Jeffrey White has reconsidered his original decision, and WikiLeaks is back online: ""There are serious questions of prior restraint, possible violations of the First Amendment." It only took 10 days for him to figure that out!