Nobody doubts that. Insisting on due process (wait for an official subpoena form a court) would be the legally and ethically correct thing, especially if you want to avoid bad reputation. But wikileaks is pissing off an incredible amount of people, and it's probably a bad idea to stand in the crossfire, so their reaction to try getting out of the story is understandable.

IMO the argumentation of PayPal is pathetic. They did not even have the balls to admit that they just wanted to stay out of trouble and trying to shift the blame to someone else.

On the other hand, from what I know they don't have much reputation left anyway, so it's a bit of a moot point.

"You don't want to piss off the State Department. They can make things very difficult you in the future."

That is the real problem here. Even though the SD can't, or hasn't yet figured out how to charge Wikileaks with a criminal offense, they wield their power as a bullying tactic to get what they want.

"Comply, or else ..." is an abuse of power and is exactly what wikileaks was set up to expose in the first place. Even if the SD does succeed in trouncing wikileaks into oblivion, that very act serves to expose how corrupt governments can be.

Happens everywhere. We were told by one government customer that they weren't happy about the ethnicity/religion of our receptionist.

Not telling us to fire them of course - just a 'friendly briefing' of their 'security concerns'