Not too sure where to turn to here. On one hand hacking/spamming-type behaviors are despicable to me, but I think that is because I mostly on the receiving end of that.

Yet there is something terribly wrong with our "system" if we depend on the whim of corporations and other groups, that decide when to allow our service to get delivered or not or when to process our requests or not.

Basically, if tomorrow pay pal refuses to serve your own website who do you have to turn to?

Really absolutely no one; you can just negotiate with the provider until they take you back.

This is what is broken, there is no control or mechanism of dealing with all these new services.

That's why I am kind of amused and even pleased at Anonymus and their actions. Don't get me wrong, I think their reasons for doing this are very shaky, and the truth is that they are probably doing this just for personal fun and recognition.

Which makes me smile even more.

But isn't that the definition of freedom?

A private corporation has the freedom to set its own policies and terms of service. A totalitarian system would eliminate that freedom. Nature abhors a vacuum and seeks to fill the vaccum. So, if a corporation's policies alienate its customer base, another provider steps in. Problem solved.

The Wikileaks case is unique because the content is stolen and these legitimate businesses like Visa, Mastercard, Paypal have policies in dealing with individuals and groups that violate the law via their service.

MasterCard spokesman Chris Monteiro said on Tuesday that the company's rules 'prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal'.

Anyway, the public opinion is hardening on the issue.

Poll: Most in U.S. Feel WikiLeaks Harmed Public

Washington Post: Majority Supports the Arrest of Julian Assange for Releasing Diplomatic Cables

More than two-thirds of Americans say WikiLeaks hurt the public interest by releasing classified diplomatic cables, a Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates.

Results released Tuesday indicate nearly six in 10 Americans think WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should face criminal charges over the leaked material.

[cbsnews.com...]

The Wikileaks case is unique because the content is stolen and these legitimate businesses like Visa, Mastercard, Paypal have policies in dealing with individuals and groups that violate the law via their service.

So far nobody was able to come up with a law wikileaks has violated. Besides the content was not stolen but copied. The US government is still in posession of the original data. Thats actually part of the problem in finding a law wikileaks might have violated.

More than two-thirds of Americans say WikiLeaks hurt the public interest by releasing classified diplomatic cables, a Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates.

Since wikileaks is not a US organization, I guess US public interest is not what wikileaks has in mind.

So far nobody was able to come up with a law wikileaks has violated.

Sure they have. They are posting private, stolen content. The US government asked them not to post it nor reproduce it which was ignored.

Amazon summed it up best:

"For example, our terms of service state that “you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.” It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy. Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments."

Smith noted that State Department general counsel Harold H. Koh had sent a letter to Assange on Saturday urging him not to release the cables, to return all classified material and to destroy all classified records from WikiLeaks databases.

"That language is not only the right thing to do policy-wise but puts the government in a position to prosecute him," Smith said. Under the Espionage Act, anyone who has "unauthorized possession to information relating to the national defense" and has reason to believe it could harm the United States may be prosecuted if he publishes it or "willfully" retains it when the government has demanded its return, Smith said.

Sure they have. They are posting private, stolen content. The US government asked them not to post it nor reproduce it which was ignored.

As I said before, the data was not "stolen". That's part of the problem of the US government to come up with a law that was violated. The guy who copied the data was legally bound to keep the data secret since he was a US governement employee. Wikileaks is not bound by any law to keep US government secrets secret. So what is the charge? Copyright violation? I doubt that those cables qualify for copyright protection.

As for the statement of Amazon: It only shows how ridiculous their decision is. Wikileaks has not published 250,000 documents. They have only published about 1532.
[wikileaks.ch...]
(see box on the left)

Because they actually do check if there is data in the documents that could put any innocent people in jeopardy instead of simply bulk uploading the whole material.

We're starting to repeat ourselves.

1)

Because they actually do check if there is data in the documents that could put any innocent people in jeopardy instead of simply bulk uploading the whole material.

Wikileaks has already been documented in endangering people by not redacting personal information.

How many sources has WikiLeaks put at risk?


[turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com...]

The Obama administration has told whistle-blower WikiLeaks that its expected imminent release of classified State Department cables will put "countless" lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize U.S. relations with its allies.

Obama and the US State Department state it was illegal. It's not PC to question Obama.

In the letter, State Department legal adviser Harold Koh said the publication of some 250,000 secret diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, which is expected on Sunday, will "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals," "place at risk on-going military operations," and "place at risk on-going cooperation between countries."

"They were provided in violation of U.S. law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action," he said. Koh said WikiLeaks should not publish the documents, return them to the U.S. government and destroy any copies it may have in its possession or in computer databases.

2) Spin it however you want, the information Wikileaks obtained was stolen. Wikileaks then knowingly and against the wishes of the owners of the data communicated it, distributed it, and sought to seek funds to perpetuate the spreading of the stolen data.

3)

Wikileaks has not published 250,000 documents. They have only published about 1532.

Wikileaks transmitted the 250,000 cables to multiple sources which is considered 'transmission' by the Espionage Act and that includes foreigners.

This will end badly for Wikileaks and Assange given what is coming down the pike.

If you go that line of argument, frontpage, you could also argue that everybody in the country should be put under house arrest after 7pm, because it would for sure make life saver.

You cannot give up freedom of the press only because of some errors made. You would give up a lot more.

Wikileaks has pointed out quite a few things that urgently needed to be addressed. Especially in the 00-years, a lot of things went wrong within the US government foreign affairs. I hope the US public is strong enough to address them.

I like to compare Wikileaks with the Treaty Deposition Mechanism of the UN that was introduced by the US government to the Leage of Nations after WW1. It was done to stop the habbit of "secret treaties". If Wikileaks could help to stop too much secrecy in diplomacy it would actually be very positive for the world. I hope some other countries' "secrets" will get leaked as well over the coming years.

Secrecy of course is sometimes necessary, but if there is no Checks and Balances, governments start to put a "classified" mark on everything they want. That is not good.

Scotland Yard today said that for several months it has been examining a number of alleged criminal offences by Anonymous, the loose-knit group committed to bringing down sites perceived to be acting against WikiLeaks.

[guardian.co.uk...]

Gawker Hack Prompts Password Resets for LinkedIn, Yahoo, More

Those Wikileak fan hacks keep causing more trouble for innocent third parties.

A hack of Gawker's commentor boards has trickled down to several sites across the Web, including LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Blizzard's "World of Warcraft.

Meanwhile non-Gawker companies are reaching out to those who may have been affected by the hack. This morning Amazon sent a number of its users the following e-mail:

At Amazon we take your security and privacy very seriously. As part of our routine monitoring, we discovered a list of email address and password sets posted online. While the list was not Amazon-related, we know that many customers reuse their passwords on several websites. We believe your email address and password set was on that list. So we have taken the precaution of resetting your Amazon.com password. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused but felt that it was necessary to help protect you and your Amazon account.

[pcmag.com...]

Gawker was not a "Wikileaks fans hack".

They where not affiliated wth Wikileaks nor was it in any way in support of Wikileaks. It was totally unrelated.

LOL.

At 3:29 p.m. on Saturday, Gawker posted a one-line link to President Obama calling WikiLeaks "deplorable."

Minutes later, someone purporting to be from the 4chan-affiliated hacker group Anonymous started tweeting from the Twitter account of Gawker Media's tech site Gizmodo, claiming to have stolen 1.5 million email addresses and passwords from Gawker.com, Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.

Three follow-up tweets came minutes after, one reading simply "#wikileaks" and another "SUPPORT WIKILEAKS."

[blogs.villagevoice.com...]

At the end, Gnosis signs off with the following message in readme.txt file in the Gawker data torrent file they posted at Pirate Bay:

Shouts to all the crew at #gnosis! Hello to everyone at 4chan and #operationpayback

So "Support Wikileaks" and Operation Pay Back means ?

Hmmm.. Pirate Bay? Operation Payback uses the Pirate Bay logo.

What's the connection between Wikileaks and Pirate Bay?

Part servers Wikileaks, after moving from France and an unsuccessful attempt is hosted by Amazon, located on floors Swedish provadera PRQ, where they were again attacked. ISP is known that the host site Pirate Bay and the “Kavkaz-Center”.

During his visit to the the Swedish capital Stockholm, Wikileaks spokesman Julian Assange struck a deal with the local Pirate Party. The Party, which participates in the national elections next month, will host several new Wikileaks servers

“I’m delighted that we’re able to help WikiLeaks,” Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak in a response to the news that was made public today.

[torrentfreak.com...]

Assange may have been involved in theft of secret documents.

Justice Department officials are trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped the analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning, to extract classified military and State Department files from a government computer system. If he did so, they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.

Among materials prosecutors are studying is an online chat log in which Private Manning is said to claim that he had been directly communicating with Mr. Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service as the soldier was downloading government files. Private Manning is also said to have claimed that Mr. Assange gave him access to a dedicated server for uploading some of them to WikiLeaks.

[nytimes.com...]

Assange may have been involved in theft of secret documents.

Well he may have been or he may have been not. They are investigating it, because it's the last straw for any legal recourse the US government might have - because so far they got nothing.

You may have the feeling that what wikileaks has done is wrong and somehow must be illegal - but that does not mean it is. Nulla poena sine lege.

Assange may have been involved...

LOL! Everybody "may have been" involved, frontpage! And everybody "may have not been" involved.

They are posting private, stolen content.

So you think the freedom of the press should be abolished? Because that's just what newspapers do.

In the USA there is a great system called "Checks and Balances" that procures the government does things in the interest of the people. But that works only if the public knows, what's going on.

Its like your boss checking your work from time to time (remember that in a democracy, the people is the boss of the gevernment, not the other way around!). That's why the people need to check the stuff the government is doing from time to time. And this time it was very necessary indeed!

@ yaix2. You don't understand what 'Freedom of the Press" actually is by your description.

Here is the actual law.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

To date, the US Congress has not made any law in regard to Wikileaks nor passed any resolution to close it down.

No where it that law states that the US government does not have the right to keep certain information secret.

Most Americans agree with me according to a new poll on the issue.

On the philosophical question of whether the federal government has the right to keep classified national security information secret, almost four in five American voters (78 percent) think the government does have that right.

The US government though is investigating Assange for actively participating the theft of private, classified content not merely publishing it as a media outlet.

Anyway, Assange has now publicly admitted that the US government has had no role in attacking Wikileaks. So, more paranoia from the left is exposed as not fact based.

“We have been attacked, primarily, not by government, primarily, in fact, not by the US government, but by banks—banks from Dubai, banks from Switzerland, banks from the United States, banks from the UK, so, yes, of course, we are continuing to release material about banks,” said Assange, who is out on bail from a Swedish court in relation to sexual assault charges.

Bank of America cuts off WikiLeaks payments

Bank of America Corp said on Saturday it will not process payments intended for WikiLeaks, which has angered U.S. authorities with the mass release of U.S. diplomatic cables.

"This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments," the bank said in a statement obtained by Reuters.

How does Wikileaks respond?

It advises supporters to remove money from the bank and to close their accounts.

# Does your business do business with Bank of America? Our advise is to place your funds somewhere safer. 8:13 PM Dec 17th via web

# We ask that all people who love freedom close out their accounts at Bank of America.

the people is the boss of the government, not the other way around!

the only really relevant sentence in the thread. And I'm so glad someone said it so clearly and eloquently because reading some of the posts in this thread, I was hearing some very Orwellian music.

we elect our officials to represent us, then are supposed to go cowering when they turn the tables round, break the law, move the goalposts.

hell, I'm just going to post it again because it's the only important thing in this thread:

the people is the boss of the government, not the other way around!

the people is the boss of the government, not the other way around!

Very true.

But the public wants the government to keeps secrets to protect our national interests, the public want's Assange prosecuted, and finally the public believes Wikileaks violated the public trust.

So if the people are the boss, Assange is in very big trouble.

1)

When voters were asked whether “the owner of the website” who received and leaked the classified government information should be arrested and put on trial, two-thirds (66 percent) think he should,

2)

On the philosophical question of whether the federal government has the right to keep classified national security information secret, almost four in five American voters (78 percent) think the government does have that right.

3)

Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe the WikiLeaks exposure of thousands of secret US cables went too far, and most support the arrest and trial of its founder Julian Assange, a poll showed Tuesday.

4)

Sixty-eight percent of respondents in the Washington Post-ABC News poll said the documents dump "harms the public interest"

Most Americans critical of WikiLeaks dump: poll

[google.com...]