US Case Against Wikileaks Losing Steam?

Anonymous arrests shine a light on some (much) bigger issues | Crikey

The DDOS attacks were undertaken by Anonymous in early December in response to Visa, Mastercard and PayPal cutting off the flow of public donations to Wikileaks, as part of a US Government-inspired wave of corporate hostility toward Wikileaks.

First, apart from the continuing detention without trial of PFC Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker of the cables, at a Marine base in Virginia, this is the first law enforcement action US authorities have been able to take that is even faintly connected to Wikileaks. This is despite some very strong initial claims about Wikileaks: the allegations that the organisation had endangered lives and damaged US interests – claims since acknowledged to be false; the description of Julian Assange as a “high tech terrorist” by Vice President Biden, chiming with the claim of some right-wing figures that Assange should be hunted down or killed; leaders of US vassal states like Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard declaring Wikileaks “illegal”, and the convening of a secret grand jury in Virginia for the purposes of establishing what charges could be brought against Wikileaks.

At this rate, some Anon teens – erroneously described in some outlets as “Wikileaks hackers” when in fact they’re very likely to be neither – may well be all that authorities can muster. Last week, NBC reported that US military investigators had admitted they couldn’t manage the first step in establishing a criminal case against Wikileaks – linking Assange directly to PFC Manning when he allegedly leaked the cables.
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