Grassroots actions defends the right to expose imperialist crimes

The U.S. government’s attempts to shut down WikiLeaks after the group’s release of a quarter-million secret military and U.S. State Department documents, which have exposed and embarrassed Washington and other governments around the world, have aroused a strong and widespread resistance. People around the world are standing up for the right to expose government and corporate crimes.

Executives at the credit card giant Visa were stunned to discover on Dec. 8 that its website was under cyber attack. Unable to cope with the onslaught, the website went down, to be followed by the MasterCard website. Hours earlier a Swiss bank was attacked and taken down, while another vigorous attack slowed the PayPal.com site, which handles eBay’s transactions.

The methods used were simple but effective. According to Barrett Lyon, CEO of 3Crowd and an expert on this type of attack, the organization used DDoS (distributed denial of service) techniques in which thousands of computers from around the world make simultaneous demands for information from a website until it collapses.

Lyon told Wired.com that the attacks were “historic,” given how well-organized the attackers were. He estimated that as many as 5,000 people may have been involved and noted that the organizing site includes frequently asked questions, a propaganda operation, and a radio station. (Dec. 9)

The resistance is in response to U.S. officials and politicians, who have pressured corporations such as Amazon.com, Visa, MasterCard and PayPal to stop doing business with WikiLeaks, hoping to cut off contributions and funding. Swiss Post Finance was also attacked because it had frozen the account of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.

Anonymous, an online organization, took credit for the attacks, which they call “Operation Payback.” An Anonymous member wrote to Wired.com to announce the attacks, passing along this statement from the chat channel being used to organize the attack:

“We are the clear logic used to unveil wrongdoing. The general public, clouded by misleading information mostly by the media with a political agenda, fails to see and understand this wrongdoing. Because of this, those who do the wrongdoing escape unpunished. Anonymous is here to ensure punishment does not go unserved to those who deserve it.” (Dec. 10)

Some U.S. politicians have been very vocal in condemning Wikileaks and Assange. Many have pressured U.S. companies like Amazon.com and PayPal to stop cooperating with WikiLeaks. The U.S. Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, which they hope to bring against Assange, including violation of the 1917 Espionage Act, which could bring a life sentence.

Not surprisingly, government officials did not escape the attacks by Anonymous. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Lieberman, who are among Wiki- Leaks’ loudest critics, as well as the Swedish prosecutor and lawyers who have pressed for Assange’s extradition from London, all found their respective websites under attack. Palin’s website was completely disabled for an indefinite period of time.

In its rush to attack WikiLeaks, the U.S. government and its big-business allies have exposed both inconsistency and weakness. While condemning WikiLeaks and its founder, they have been careful not to attack big-business media like the New York Times and The Guardian, which have published many of the documents in question. Amazon.com, which made headlines by dumping WikiLeaks, even carried a special edition that carried some of the released documents on its Kindle reader.

The U.S. government and corporate allies have also tried desperately to steer discussion of the WikiLeaks issue away from what the videos and documents have revealed: U.S. soldiers massacring unarmed civilians in Iraq; NATO and Afghan forces torturing and murdering civilians and prisoners of war; and systematic lying, spying, intimidating and extorting by U.S. embassies and their allies in governments around the world.

Worst of all, from the viewpoint of the capitalist class, this latest episode shows that struggle can break out literally anywhere, even online. They have tried their mightiest to crush WikiLeaks, but not only have their efforts proved to be ineffective, but they have added fury to the fires of the online resistance movement.

A look at the numbers tells the story. As of Dec. 12, WikiLeaks.ch reports that 1,885 “mirror sites” had sprung up to host the WikiLeaks site. This broad support makes it extremely difficult to suppress the release of the cables.