[LINK] The Infowar has started

[Tom Koltai]

Sorry for all the links folks.
I thought this was important enough to post in toto.  
Those with little time, should jump to the last paragraph.

Quote/ http://www.wlcentral.org/node/506

2010-12-05: Cablegate: News from the infowar front [Update 1] 

Submitted by admin on Sun, 12/05/2010 - 16:02 

"The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is
WikiLeaks. You are the troops," wrote John Perry Barlow on Twitter
<http://twitter.com/#%21/JPBarlow/status/10627544017534976> .

The censorship vs. free speech battle is escalating. This week has seen
Amazon <http://www.wlcentral.org/node/420> , Tableau
<http://www.wlcentral.org/node/459> , EveryDNS
<http://www.wlcentral.org/node/463>  and PayPal
<http://www.wlcentral.org/node/482>  dropping WikiLeaks services in
quick succession, DDoS attacks that caused the site to go offline
multiple times, and mounting political pressure from the US
<http://www.wlcentral.org/node/420>  (2
<http://www.wlcentral.org/node/459> ), Australian
<http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/australia-to-help-us-over
-assange-20101204-18k3w.html>  and French
<http://www.wlcentral.org/node/469>  governments. 

The US government went so far as to warn Switzerland against granting
Julian Assange political asylum, reports 20 Minuten
<http://www.20min.ch/news/dossier/wikileaks/story/28862559> . In an open
letter in Der Sonntag, the US ambassador to Switzerland, Donald Beyer,
wrote that "Switzerland will have to consider very carefully whether to
provide shelter to someone who is a fugitive from justice." However
Swiss politicians including Cédric Wermuth, president of the Young
Socialist Party, Bastien Girod, president of the Greens National
Council, and the Swiss Pirate Party have reiterated their support for
Assange and willingness to grant him asylum.

The onslaught is creating growing resistance. "American pressure to
dissuade companies in the US from supporting the WikiLeaks website has
led to an online backlash in which individuals are redirecting parts of
their own sites to its Swedish internet host," writes The Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-internet-backlash
-us-pressure?CMP=twt_fd> . "At the same time, scores of sites
"mirroring" WikiLeaks have sprung up – by lunchtime today, the list was
74-strong and contained sites that have the same content as WikiLeaks
and – crucially – link to the downloads of its leaks of 250,000 US
diplomatic cables." The mirror list counts now hundreds
<http://savewikileaks.net/another-wikileaks-address/>  of domains.

WikiLeaks' Swiss host, Switch, said that there was "no reason" why the
site should be forced offline, despite demands from France and the US,
in a statement
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/04/wikileaks-site-swiss-host-s
witch>  released by the Swiss Pirate Party. French host OVH declared
<http://www.wlcentral.org/node/469>  that it was up to judges, and "not
up to the politicians or OVH to request or decide the closure of the
site," in a response to the French government.

John Karlung, the CEO of WikiLeaks's Swedish host, Bahnhof, told The
Daily Beast
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-03/wikileaks-how
-godaddy-and-other-webhosting-firms-would-handle-the-controversy/full/>
that "The service is provided in Sweden — where Swedish law applies. We
are not subject to American law, Chinese laws or Iranian laws either,
for that matter. WikiLeaks is just a normal business client. We do not
treat them any different than any other client." He said that the US had
not contacted the company to ask it to cancel hosting for WikiLeaks, and
when asked whether Bahnhof would comply if such a request were made, he
answered "Of course not."

Evgeny Morozov has cautioned in The Financial Times
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3dd7c40-ff15-11df-956b-00144feab49a.html>
that the US backlash against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange may have
unintended consequences: "WikiLeaks could be transformed from a handful
of volunteers to a global movement of politicised geeks clamouring for
revenge. Today’s WikiLeaks talks the language of transparency, but it
could quickly develop a new code of explicit anti-Americanism,
anti-imperialism and anti-globalisation.[...] An aggressive attempt to
go after WikiLeaks – by blocking its web access, for instance, or by
harassing its members – could install Mr Assange (or whoever succeeds
him) at the helm of a powerful new global movement able to paralyse the
work of governments and corporations around the world."
/Quote