AmericanTerrorism: An Analysis

[labelwench]

A new term to me, Cyber Civil Disobedience, refers to the kind of operations being conducted by various organizations such as Pirate Parties and Operation Payback, an organization that is apparently recruiting by the offer of software that allows the owner's computer to be used remotely as one of the attacking entities. In the past, many persons have had their computer hijacked for purposes without their knowledge or consent by means of malware.

This recruiting on-line is a new take, as it exposes the perpetrator to less physical risk than demonstrating in the street. Support for a cause can come from a much wider geographical base, possibly global? It's a whole new battleground out there, or is that in here? Where exactly is the battle and who are the soldiers?

The irony of the following just begs to be posted; Hubby found and forwarded the link to me, lol, my executive assistant.

The United States, which is currently engaged in a complete war against some weird guy with a website, is going to host “World Press Freedom Day,” the Department of State announced today.

http://wonkette.com/431902/u-s-state...ss-freedom-day

[labelwench]

In attempting to go to Mastercards main website, I received a message that the site could not be reached. I will find out later today if the credit cards themselves are being accepted or if the whole system is down.

– 1 hr 52 mins ago
LONDON (Reuters) – Hackers have crashed the website of credit card firm MasterCard in apparent retaliation for its blocking of donations to the Wikileaks website, the BBC and other media reported on Wednesday.

MasterCard was not immediately available to comment. The website did not appear to be available online.

Web activists calling themselves Anonymous threatened earlier this week to launch denial of service attacks against businesses such as online payment firm PayPal that had blocked Wikileaks. It is described attempts to censor Wikileaks as part of the first global infowar.

Another article relating to Mastercard. They claim that transactions are not affected (though they may be slower than usual, based on northern experience).


http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/20...-16469506.html

[labelwench]

To date, I have not read a single of the documents that has been released by the now infamous Wikileaks. For myself, the interesting story remains how the interested parties are reacting to the release of classified documents, what laws have been broken and by whom.

It is the opinion of the following report that the internet has enabled a completely new public forum that because of it's speed, coverage and ability to torrent files and set up mirror sites, can never be completely stopped or eliminated, once set in motion. LW

Block All Media?
Meanwhile, news organizations and blogs all over the world are reporting on the cables. This is another example of how the material is never going to be somehow stuffed back into the magic bottle. Is the US State Department going to prevent any news organization from reporting on the material? Can it quote some of the material but not all of it? Is any hint of reporting what’s being alleged enough to cause the First Amendment to be set aside?

The dissemination, of course, is also a weakness in the argument by Wikileaks that material has been redacted so that no individuals will be harmed. That’s true, if Wikileaks has redacted material perfectly. But if it makes a mistake, the documents that have been fired out upon the web can’t be retracted. You can put out fresh documents with some material edited out, but the old ones remain.

Debates rage, of course, on whether any individuals really have been harmed by these documents. That goes well beyond me. But what I do know is that these documents being out there are a fact of life, a reality that the US government isn’t going to correct. The proverbial horse is out of the stable. Shutting the doors now won’t help.

http://searchengineland.com/why-wiki...e-closed-58226

[labelwench]

At what point does freedom of speech and journalism become espionage?

An interesting article which outlines the history of the seldom used Espionage Act, and raises the question of why the U.S. has been enquiring into the extradition of Mr. Assange when he has not been charged as yet.

A prosecution of Assange, if the U.S. terror war courts allow the case to come to trial, could be the John Peter Zenger case of the digital age. It will define government transparency and free speech for the initial decades of the 21st Century and therefore is of great import to all Americans and, in particular, to the media.


WikiLeaks sharpens the battle between corporate-government and the people. The United States enlisted Visa, MasterCard, Pay Pal (eBay which owns it) and Amazon to help prevent WikiLeaks from having the funds needed to fight back. Big corporations are joining with the United States to prevent the exposure of the misdeeds of U.S. foreign policy. Julian Assange said that among its next disclosures will be abuses by the big banks.


Citizens are getting organized. Hacktivists working under the name Anonymous and others are attacking financial institutions that refuse to take WikiLeak donations as well as the prosecutor’s office in Sweden and Sarah Palin through cyber attacks. The attack on WikiLeaks is going to create more on-line cyper resistance and cyper disobedience that will present new challenges for government.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=72796