The campaign to avenge WikiLeaks against those who have obstructed its operations, calling itself Operation Payback, has already temporarily brought down the websites of credit-card giants Visa and MasterCard, and of the Swedish government.
Some of the motivation for the cyber campaign appears to stem from anger at the arrest in Britain of Julian Assange , WikiLeaks co-owner, over alleged sex crimes committed in Sweden. He is in jail in London, awaiting an extradition hearing.
Assange said last week he had expected clampdowns in countries such as the United States that championed free speech, and had deliberately picked providers like Amazon to host its data to test that theory.
Assange may have orchestrated these circumstances just to throw off the prosecution because he couldn't bribe his accusers. I don't see how attacking the public at large does much more than discredit Assange whose "free speech" issues are being worked through the courts. By attacking civil institutions and the public at large it would underline that Assange is the advocate not hero of criminal behaviour and anti-free speech and commerce.
People who think this is a war over 'freedom of speech' have it wrong. Freedom of speech is about one's right to articulate their thinking without the fear of persecution or prosecution.
Stealing classified information and publishing it on the Internet is not an example of freedom of speech. It is an example of an individual or individuals self-centered goals to be destructive.
Bear in mind that our freedoms are not inherent; freedom requires that some background information is kept out of the hands of the public. Irrespective of your beliefs in what the government does clandestinely, you and I enjoy a freedom that many others do not. It is not the best scenario, but given what goes on in other countries, we have it better than most.
The bigger issue is how do we turn this country around and fix the economic issues. Without a strong economic base, the USA is nothing. Just look at how in the past 20 years China has lifted hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty and into the middle class. And yet, their citizens DO NOT enjoy freedom of speech.
People like Assange and his loser fanboys are an annoyance to our country. They would see the USA brought down with the things they do. Maybe they need to spend a year in China or worse in Iran. Then maybe they would be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem.
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