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Comment by tc | Hacker News Reader

I'm reminded of the country song whose chorus goes:

"I've got friends in low places."

[1] I agree, as noted by Nathan below, that this isn't helping Wikileaks' reputation any (despite, of course, WL having nothing to do with this). That's the problem with (and sometimes, benefit of) friends in low places -- no one ever accused them of being sophisticated.

[2] A related thought.... The system consisting of [ Person who leaks info + Wikileaks ] seems to be a modern instance of the Robin Hood archetype. Instead of "robbing from the rich to give to the poor," this system takes information from the powerful and gives it to the (relatively) powerless. Just as with Robin Hood, there's room for debate about the moral characteristics of this approach (particularly on the taking side). And just as with every Robin Hood reincarnation, this system is despised by modern aristocrats.

As I believe pg noted in an essay, during the time-setting of Robin Hood, wealth was nearly a zero-sum game. Today, wealth is not zero-sum, but power still is -- making this archetype all the more fitting.

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Sadly those friends aren't helping the reputation of Wikileaks. I definitely support freedom and information and the press, but organizing a DDOS doesn't help Wikileaks, it just associates Wikileaks even more with illegal activity.

I'm not under the impression 'Anonymous' helps anyone beside itself.

Cats.

cnn pageviews?

Personally, I thank whatever higher power there is for those people and their actions.

Their actions raise the "censorship costs" those private enterprises (seem to have to) pay from now on upon deciding it is in their best business interest to discontinue customer relations with customers who engage in allegedly illegal activities without investigating the supposed illegality of their customers' actions themselves.

No, what it does is make companies refuse to do business with such customers in the first place.

You do anything not mainstream? Sorry, we won't accept your business.

For companies who provide basic functionalities (hosting, payments, etc.) it's just not feasible to check out a potential customer ex ante - they have far too many customers for up-front checks.

"Censorship costs" refer to ex-post checks on customers on which businesses have received complaints or inquiries from Governmental entities.

I work for a payment company and that simply isn't true. We do in-depth checks on every customer. Risk assessment is a major part of our business.

With payment companies, yes. I think ars is talking about Amazon and Paypal, which don't.

They don't now...but they could easily do it in the future. There is no gray area here. What they did was idiotic.

They have no way of identifying which customers are ddosing them :D

The customer ars was referring to was Wikileaks and potential future customers who engage in non-mainstream political/commercial action. The resulting backlash from the Wikileaks affair will encourage the decision makers at Amazon or Paypal to avoid doing business with non-mainstream customers in the future if there is an even insignificant chance that in the future some non-mainstream customer will offend those in power.

It does help Wikileaks in that other companies not as powerful as Visa and Mastercard might think twice before screwing with Wikileaks. Who would want to be ddos like that and lose business?

Essentially what you're saying is that WikiLeaks should adopt or would even benefit from a policy of strong-arming people into compliance so that it can further the cause against evil governments that strong-arm people into compliance.

These companies have already indicated their policy can be strong-armed (ie. "The Justice Department threatened us."). This does show, at the very least symbolically, that their willingest to cave will bring an arm coming the other way.

I feel the same way.

WikiLeaks (truth and openness in general) has the potential to create trust. But breaking trust to protest doesn't help. Illegality is probably less important if the act of protest is "right".

WikiLeaks denies engaging in civil disobedience - but there is a contrast between non-violent WikiLeaks and "violent" retaliation. WikiLeaks is the underdog, and they will not win by suppression or coercion. Even if these DDOS attacks are only meant as a protest, there has to be a better way to gain attention for the important issues.

At best, it's a distraction, at worst it plays into being labeled as terrorists.

At what point is it OK to use a DDOS attack as a form of protest?

I mean, do we have to wait until they grope us at checkpoints? Checked.

Until they take websites down without trial? Checked.

Until they start accusing journalist of espionage? Checked.

Until they illegally tape the Internet? Checked.

Is there a limit or DDOS is wrong no matter what?

do we have to wait until they...

Who is the "they" that you refer to? I don't think that it's MasterCard nor Visa that did those things.

They is obviously the Government, but with the help of unethical companies: AT&T for taping the Internet, Amazon/Paypal/Visa/Mastercard for suppressing free press, etc.

I have a hard time linking "getting out of the crossfire" with "unethical". Spineless? Perhaps. Failing to stand up for some principle? Probably.

But unethical?

Failing to stand up for some principle? Probably.

But unethical?

Do you doublethink so?

This is the internal inconsistency that troubles me about this whole WikiLeaks thing. We've railed on companies constantly in the past for being political, and now we're railing on them for not being sufficiently political in our favor.

So which will it be?

This is Amazon, PayPal, VISA, MC, etc, saying "woah hey a dangerously hot potato, not touching that", which strikes me as a more or less neutral stance.

To expect more than that would be expecting a company to make a political stand on one side or another - something we've consistently fought against in the past.

So which is it? Do we want companies to remain politically neutral and leave the democratic process up to real people (as opposed to corporate persons)?

Or do we want them to fight for our cause, and make open political stands? If so, we also have to accept that often they will not be fighting on our side, and each punch they throw will be worth a lot of real people's punches.

When confronted with the situation, neutrality isn't possible: you either stand up for your users or you help the Government to censor.

There's only so much you can avoid taking sides on.

Not all users are created equal. We know this, just as we know that the customer is not always right. None of this is black and white, there is gray across the board.

These are complex decisions being made by complex businesses...why does no single company deserve the benefit of the doubt?

They all do. Everyone deserves it, and it has been given many times. But many companies have broken that trust, repeatedly and gotten away with murder.

I don't think its about the benefit of doubt anymore. I think we have to recognize that the groups on the other side of the power equation are implacable and do not have constraints stopping them from harming you. They have the power to take over your life and do not have any oversight.

Heck I would say that they have evolved to game the system and learnt how to be the best at it.

The original system was not about "the constitution" or freedom, liberty, fraternity or whatever ideal we can point to. It was about distributing power evenly and having checks and balances in the most enlightened way possible.

That power equation IS out of whack, and it needs to be brought back into balance.

At what point do you stop staring at the minute details and say - Crap things are messed up.

When was the last time you heard a company take the long view about society? If corporations don't care because they have a need to make money, if the rule makers have been corrupted and the average user is irrelevant, if the impartiality of the referees/judges is being removed, then who is there to ensure the system works?

As someone pointed out - "I mean, do we have to wait until they grope us at checkpoints? Checked. Until they take websites down without trial? Checked. Until they start accusing journalist of espionage? Checked. Until they illegally tape the Internet? Checked."

Heck you have to get pissed off at some point before you do something about it. Its likely that the point has been passed.

"We've railed on companies constantly in the past for being political"

I have no problem with companies being political, my only problem is when they use their disproportionate power to rewrite the laws in a way that screws all other stakeholders. Would Amazon hosting WikiLeaks be a case of a big company using their political influence to rewrite the laws to favor themselves while screwing everyone else? I don't think so, and I don't see any inconsistency.

IMHO, "not touching that" is not being neutral - is taking a position against WikiLeaks.

Being neutral would be more like "I'll let they keep doing their thing, like any other business."

It's a lot easier to classify what wikileaks does as "exercising first amendment rights" than to classify campaign donations as free speech.

The government shouldn't interfere with private transactions without proper cause and due process. When a big business complies with a "polite request" from the government, and that request is the sort that would be illegal and justification for armed rebellion if it were phrased as an order, that business is unethical and colluding with corrupt government.

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Not doing commerce with someone is not suppression. It's a peaceful activity. They were never responsible for helping wikileaks or anyone else do anything, so they are not violating an obligation by failing to help. (OK they do have obligations to their customers, but those are governed by contracts which let them cancel service and which they no doubt followed).

Whether you agree with Amazon/Visa/etc or not, it's important to keep clear the difference between their actions (no force involved) and the Government's actions (force involved). It's not all the same thing even if they help accomplish some similar ends.

Good point. The problem with this is that this is exactly the reason why the Government is using companies as proxies for suppressing freedom, because it leaves nobody to blame: (1) the Government didn't really forbid donations to WikiLeaks and (2) the companies can always blame the Government or the law for what they were forced to do.

I don't have the right answer for this and it just makes me sad that our freedom is being eroded incrementally.

It's tricky b/c Amazon (for example) denies that they acted b/c the Govt wanted them to. Are they lying? I don't know. It's really hard to tell. They said Wikileaks violated their terms of service which is no doubt technically true; but I don't know if they would have been happy to overlook it without any Govt pressure.

So even if I wanted to get mad at companies that do the Govt's bidding without being compelled, I don't really know if Amazon is such a company or not.

[Amazon] said Wikileaks violated their terms of service which is no doubt technically true

It's technically wrong since leaked documents, like the Pentagon Papers, are in the public domain, so WikiLeaks does have the right to publish them, contrary to what Amazon said.

The Pentagon Papers were manually put into the public domain when Sen. Mike Gravel (yes, that one) entered them into the Congressional Record.

this is far from peaceful and force is very much involved:

"Not being able to receive money from the public for a week can cost Wikileaks 7 digit figures in losses, and DataCell as well, as it is unable to process any cards," Fink said.

The suit will be filed in the UK against Visa Europe. The company will file a court case with a request for an immediate injunction "to limit further damage," Fink said.

Wikileaks donations can still be made via wire transfer, but that MasterCard and Visa handle small donations, which make up the majority, according to Fink.

"Wire transfers are good if you want to transfer €10,000, but if you want to pay €10, the costs of the transfer eat up the donation," said Fink. "Visa and MasterCard are vital for the small amount donations, and that's around 99.9 percent of the donations."

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/security-bullet-in-10000166/leg...

Ugh. The person conflates not gaining money with losing money, the same rhetorical trick that the record companies make when talking about piracy.

Not necessarily. If they are consistently pulling in $X per month, then it is reasonable to state that depriving them of service for a month is depriving them of $X (i.e. a good estimate of what they would have made that month).

absolutely. donations = 100% income.

No. You assume that those that would be donating today will never come back. But it's reasonable to believe that many/most of those people will try again next week.

If Visa cut off service with Apple, no one would say Visa was using force against Apple unless they violated a contract. If Apple didn't have a contract with Visa with some guarantees in it (for transition time or whatever) that was their own fault.

Everyone making 7 digits or more has lawyers, or should, to deal with such contracts.

Not doing commerce would be, for example, rejecting a new sale or a renewal or such. Cutting existing service is a pretty direct motion.

The trouble is that there is a duopoly in the financial services industry, especially in credit card processing. Cardholders want to pay Wikileaks, Wikileaks wants to receive the money, but they are being restrained by the actions of the duopoly members, and Wikileaks is left with no alternative.

The US has anti-trust laws (15USC1 - see http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_0...) which cover similar conduct: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal".

It sounds like the companies have not admitted a conspiracy with Joe Lieberman to stop Wikileaks from receiving donations - the companies seem to claim to have all come to the conclusion independently - but if such a conspiracy did exist, and was considered unreasonable by the courts, it could be illegal.

Choosing to not do business with an organization for political reasons is a pretty good example of suppression.

It's hardly peaceful. At best, it is passive-aggressive. At worst, an outright attack on that organization. It can especially be considered such when the company in question is part of one of the world's biggest anti-competitive conglomerations.

They clearly did this in response to government pressure, which means they are acting as proxies for intimidation and force. They have a unique power to protect the freedom of humanity, but the people running these corporations have abdicated their responsibility toward their fellow man. They have revealed themselves to be cowardly and complicit, and deserve a lot worse than a few ddos attacks for their actions.

> At what point is it OK to use a DDOS attack as a form of protest?

The DDoS may be the net analog to a street protest that provokes a traffic-jam.

I think you make the mistake of thinking that all protest activity should be about making friends or increasing your reputation and good standing.

Often it's just as much about hitting back as hard as you can. Now you can argue the merits of that, but we have crossed a major threshold here: The internet has taken down the websites of two of the largest credit providers in the world, two weeks before Christmas.

If that isn't an exertion of grassroots power in the internet age, I don't know what is. The implications are boundless. Visa, and Mastercard probably didn't think twice about canceling Wikileak's payments. I doubt their risk assessment would have been the same if they had known this would result.

Ironically, this will be a major boost to Amazon's Christmas sales, since they don't rely on securecode.

Internet? Grassroots?

The Internet hasn't taken down anything. A small group of geeks have taken upon themselves to take down a few targeted websites. No due process, no rule book, no accountability, just naked use of force.

If I'm following correctly, I'm supposed to believe that a staff member of an elected official asking about the activities of a private company is an abuse of power but a small group of unelected geeks representing no one but themselves are to be commended for actively disrupting the activities of a private business.

I'm not aware of previous grassroots movements being democratically elected. Nobody elected the suffragists, for instance. That's not really how movements work.

OK. But I didn't intend to conflate my questioning of the use of 'grassroots' with my point about accountability.

I think the term 'grassroots' suggests a much more widespread and visible 'movement' than the tiny number of Anonymous members taking part in the DDOS attacks.

Usually a movement is 99% supporters of the cause and 1% activists. You don't think radical actions for transparency is a widely supported movement or widely known?

I think WikiLeaks may hurt some supporters, but I think amongst those sympathetic to the cause - it can only help them increase in numbers, awareness and influence. Hats off to them.

Are we talking about Wikileaks' disclosures or are we talking about the DDOS attacks?

There is certainly an argument to be made for government transparency but I fail to see how MasterCard, Visa, and Paypal, and so on are the organizations that should be pressured in order to bring about improved government transparency.

And no, I don't think that 'radical actions for transparency' is a widely supported movement and regardless of our disagreement on the term 'widely' I don't think DDOS activities are effective, appropriate, or justified in the furtherance of better government transparency.

I wasn't talking about orgs - but the ethos at the intersection of transparency, internet culture, etc. - which I think must be admitted to have quite an overlap.

I'm using widely to mean between 5% to even 20% of people - perhaps if you briefly talked with them about it. It's not a subject like religion where people are hard fast - I've already talked to many in their 60's who think WikiLeaks is overall doing good things and likes to see "the man" take a hit. Unless you're right-winger who already overuses "treason" in your political discourse - I think there's room for debate on this issue with WikiLeaks gaining some legitimacy.

Small note; Wikileaks is not anonymous. The DDOS-en have nothing to do with Wikileaks, the organization.

I'm hesitant to liken Anonymous to revolutionaries but to be honest, almost all revolutions were started in a "small group" that was relatively insignificant (that was unelected), and then grew in size and gathered acceptance.

Again with the due process and rules: do you think when the French people stormed the Bastille during the French Revolution, there was any semblance of rules or accountability? Hell no. It was the "naked use of force". Did it have bad consequences? Some. Did it have good consequences? I think you know the answer.

You've stripped away all the particulars in order to equate the overthrow of a multi-century monarchy with disruption of a few websites.

Yes, we've got two examples of 'disputes'. But that doesn't get us very far. Can you finish the analogy for me?

You are suggesting that the DDOS activities are indicative of an attempt to overthrow what in favor of what?

My point was that the properties of this small scale protest (or tantrum depending on however you look at it) that you deride are actually pretty similar to most other protests.

You suggested that it was similar to the French Revolution. In what way is it similar other than they both involved 'protest'? And if that is the similarity you were trying to make, then why confuse the issue by bringing in the concept of revolutionary war?

Is there a French Revolution version of Godwin's Law?

This is the third time in a short period I've seen Godwin's Law used as a way to discount serious discussion online. Are we really so uncomfortable with the concept of metaphor or the importance of remembering and analyzing serious events? We're discussing censorship, freedom, etc and 20th-century history is off limits?

I'm not trying to 'discount' serious discussion, I'm suggesting that comparing DDOS attacks on commercial websites to the French Revolution is not serious discussion.

Reaching for a Nazi analogy or a French Revolution analogy should be done sparingly and with careful consideration.

Now you are suggesting that I'm arguing that 20th-century history is off limits. This sort of wild over-generalization is the antithesis of 'serious discussion'.

Perhaps you think comparisons to something like the French Revolution are unjustified merely because the scope of the current turmoil is nowhere near as wide (yet), but all revolutions have to start somewhere. If the US goes for another two or three presidential elections without significantly affecting the patterns of increasing corporate control over politics and the post-9/11 erosion of civil liberties, we may find it easier to draw such comparisons.

One thing I think we can all agree on: if the next revolution comes any time soon (ie. next few decades), it will start online.

There seems to be a lot of confusion between the Wilkileaks disclosure and the DDOS attacks.

The disclosures can be debated within the terms of government transparency and public policy, but the DDOS attacks were all about a small group of private individuals attacking private companies because they disagreed with how they ran their business.

The two issues are related by a common party, Wikileaks, but other than that they aren't even in the same ballpark. My comments were about the DDOS attacks and not the Wikileaks disclosures. You seem to be talking about the disclosures.

What Wikileaks is doing is called journalism. I wouldn't compare that to revolution, even if they are both rare these days.

What Anonymous is doing is an attack, and its only justification so far is the attempted suppression of Wikileaks' journalism. Suppression of rights like the freedom of the press are among the best justifications for revolution. So, while the current DDOS probably isn't the start of a revolution, it is the kind of thing you would expect to see in the opening stages of a modern revolt in an industrialized society, before things get to the physical violence.

Freedom of the press is about protecting the press from the government. It is not about forcing private companies to run their businesses according to the diktats of small group of anonymous geeks.

Well wikileaks would not have the problems it does if the government would not have interfered.

The government stepped in and `advised` the private companies that it wouldn't be in their best interest to continue doing business with wikileaks. Even though nothing illegal on the part of wikileaks has been proved.

Taking away the freedom of press doesn't mean shoot the leader in the head and imprison all the rest.

If they manage to isolate you enough , they've succeeded in taking away your freedom.

Visa and MasterCard cannot act in isolation from the government: They form a duopoly that requires regulation, and they are subject to quite a bit of it. As felixmar pointed out elsewhere in the thread [1], they have gotten favors from the government that have been exposed by the very leaks at issue. It doesn't take actual evidence of a specific request from the government to establish that the government influenced their decision to change their minds about doing business with Wikileaks.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985128

I should have been clearer on the "20th-century" part, I meant that Godwin's law is used to question analogies to something which happened during the 20th century i.e. not too long ago.

The parallels aren't that far-fetched. During the early days of the French Revolution, everybody was pissed but no one could agree at what. Everyone wanted change, but no one could agree what that change should look like.

More pointedly, it was a time of great cultural upheaval. A slough of philosophers emerged, each advocating a worldview distinct from, but related to, the other. New ideas began to take hold, and a populace that was previously insulated against the spread of information began to be exposed to new ideas. Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot and Montesquieu brought new ideas to the national dialogue, while dissatisfaction with the Three Estate system (monarchy, church, everyone else - government, corporations, everyone else) led to widespread unrest. All of this happened during an economic crisis where the irresponsible spending of the French Crown had all but bankrupted the nation.

Have a read for yourself. The parallels are there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#Pre-revolutio...

Also, people were literally starving to death. In the words of my awesome European History teacher, "Happy meals were 18 dollars."

I think that makes a big difference. Nobody is going to start a revolution if they have enough to eat and a place to live.

Are you serious? "No due process, no rule book, no accountability, just naked use of force." You defined the terms, and were supplied with the French Revolution as an example.

You were the one who ran that horse into the ground, trying to insert gravitas that was never intended, so stop with the "Godwin's Law" rolling-of-the-eyes.

Gravitas? My 'terms' could be used to describe a bar brawl. There was no attempt to insert gravitas.

The French Revolution wasn't exactly an orderly process aimed at any coherent attempt to overthrow any particular thing in favor of any other particular thing. In fact, it was a huge mess. Much of the early French Revolution seemed a lot like an attempt to force a constitutional monarchy (like the English Magna Carta did), and a lot of the late French Revolution consisted of self-appointed dictators having people summarily executed, or trying to conquer Europe.

Agreed, but I'd say an even better analogy is the Boston Tea Party. It was politically-motivated act of vandalism by a small group against a corporation.

History is written by the victors. All this fuss around payment systems and Amazon can remain as act of vandalism by pile of 4channers. I personally think they've chosen the wrong methods.

like trowing tea in the sea is super responsibly and grown up. I also bet it affected more the small businessman than the British gov

bye-bye karma :)

This is how lots of protests work, and they get the same criticism.

If one hundred thousand people decide to stop traffic in new york or disrupt the air port in London these are a tiny fraction of citizens (they don't have to be citizens), unelected with no rules. They all might have different ideas about why they are there and it may be impossible for anyone to lead them to stop.

There may be some inherently bad things about mobs, but there is nothing inherently good about them. You could have hundreds of thousands take to the street in support of fascism just as easily as freedom of information.

Worrisome as they are though, chaotic mass protests seem to be an important part of the democratic process.

There is a difference between "peaceful assembly" and targeted disruption of private businesses.

You can't just slap the word 'protest' on any activity in order to justify it.

There is a difference, but not all protest is peaceful assembly. Some of it is disruption of private business.

The Boston Tea Party, for instance, was hardly a peaceful assembly.

The Boston Tea Party was also an attack on private property not just the government.

> No due process

There is some poetic justice in the symbols of American finance the world over being taken down without 'due process' after America has done lots of things without 'due process' the world over.

That said I feel sorry for those that depend on VISA/Mastercard for a living.

For every person that has been killed in Illegal wars, been subjected to torture, extradited without so much as a hearing or simply snatched off the street in Europe or other places in the world 'due process' would have mattered a lot, and that's people we're talking about, whose lives were utterly ruined at the call of a 'small group of politicians' not websites.

That is how protests work.

A small group of elected aristocrats single handedly took sites off of the Internet because they didn't like it, even though the content was not illegal and was protected under the First Amendent. "just naked use of force". The difference is, were supposed to be holding the government accountable.

I have no problems. I'd love to see this hurt Visa and Mastercard. Get them and Paypal and Amazon to grow a pair and tell the government that WL isn't doing anything illegal. Is it classy? Is it in the best interest of proper discourse? No. But come on, we're past that point.

A small group of geeks have taken it upon themselves to defend a website through the only means they have.

Assange is rapidly becoming a persona non grata in most of the first world countries because he challenges their authority and methods. Wikileaks is being strangled by a DoS on its resources both human and material.

We should all be doing whatever we can with whatever resources we have to prevent Wikileaks from dying. Yes, you can contact your congressman, but honestly, is that really going to do any good? You can speak out and hold protests, but the media will only continue to marginalize your cause or worse, ignore you entirely.

The methods being employed for these DoS attacks are obviously not legal, but what other recourse is there? And as for them being unelected, I will put my voice behind them right now. The people I actually took the time to elect don't give a shit.

There is what is legal and what is right. I will always fight for what is right; legality be damned.

"We should all be doing whatever we can with whatever resources we have to prevent Wikileaks from dying."

It is never right to do wrong for a chance to do right. The ends do not justify the means in this case. Your argument is fallacious in that you can apply that reasoning to everything in life.

No due process, no rule book, no accountability, just naked use of force.

That's a neat description of the actions taken against wikileaks. The USG and its allies have declared war on wikileaks using means both fair and foul, the friends of wikileaks are simply fighting fire with fire.

Do you or the gp have any information that is not into the article ?

I didn't read the "friends" word, only "supporters" and "backers". In what world are supporters friends, and in what world are people responsible for their "supporters" actions ?

It's indeed a dangerous implication, but the original article isn't doing it. You and op are. Why ?

If people, supporters, were to riot about the imprisonment of somebody, would you say that he is responsible ? If no, in what is this case different ?

If you have any information i don't about any direct links between wikileaks and the DDOS attack, it would be nice to share. Otherwise, i fear you are solely spreading your own preconceptions about the situation.

I don't think mass declassification of government documents is a good idea, but...

The government is going after Wikileaks in a similar way that they would go against a terrorist organization (cutting off funding and detaining them without due process). Are the government's actions legal? Are they ethical?

Cutting off funding is an interesting move on the government's behalf, because it seems that any funding would have gone to Wikileaks' legal defense, once someone found something to charge them with (looks like it will be rape).

As far as I know, distributing already leaked classified information is not illegal. (If it is, why aren't Robert Novak and other members of the media in jail?) How would detaining Assange make us any better than China detaining a dissident like Liu Xiaobo?

As an aside: I know Assange is being detained for 'rape,' but the crime we know that he has actually committed, (and presumably the crime for which his funds have been frozen), bears a striking resemblance to "inciting subversion of state power;" which Xiaobo is charged with.

It feels like the government's decision to exercise its power in this way is kind of a desperation move, trying to hold on to its rapidly evaporating secrecy.

And the question is, is this really between the government and Wikileaks anymore, or is it between the government and its citizens?

  > (and presumably the crime for which his funds
  > have been frozen)

Last I checked, they don't freeze your assets when you are accused of rape.

The stuff in parentheses that you cite refers to a crime like the crime of inciting subversion. Why ohyes says "we know he actually committed" such a crime, I don't know.

Should have been 'we know that he committed in the eyes of the government.'

Sorry for being cryptic.

Who is DOSing Wikileaks?

Who besides you is saying that Wikileaks organized the ddos?

This is probably not representative, but my facebook feed is full of people posting links to news about this with comments that mostly semi-applaud those actions. The interesting thing is that my facebook acquaintances are mostly neither hackers nor Americans.

Can we consider it as Civil disobedience of the modern age?

Garth Brooks for those who were wondering... take a listen here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1063893612084739337...

I would not agree power is a zero sum game. Defining it is squishier than defining wealth, and even giving you broad latitude in the definition, I don't think you could come up with much of a proof of that assertion.

Damn you! I avoid piano bars so that I can pretend that song doesn’t exist! ;)

That isn't a piano bar song ... Garth Brooks is more likely heard in some little country bar. The kind of place where it's hard to find a decent chardonnay.

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