WikiLeaks, the non-profit new media organization that has recently gained mainstream press coverage for releasing US State Department diplomatic cables, has found itself blacklisted from the support of corporations which once enabled the group’s web operations. The future of WikiLeaks was beginning to look dim as more organizations cut their ties, however newfound support from Pirate Parties in multiple countries as well as from Operation Payback may give the controversial site a much longer life.
After EveryDNS, the nameserver provider for WikiLeaks, cut ties with the organization last week, the Swiss Pirate Party stepped up and allowed them to move onto one of their registered domains. This action prompted additional Pirate Parties from the Czech Republic, Austria, Australia, Germany, Luxembourg, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to band together and support the efforts to keep WikiLeaks online.
“Pirate Parties from around the world, including the Pirate Party UK, today reaffirmed their commitment to whistleblowing worldwide. Concerned about freedom of information, opinion and press, the Pirate Parties have decided in a joint resolution to make WikiLeaks available on a worldwide mirroring infrastructure,” the UK Pirate Party told TorrentFreak. “The mirrors will guarantee that the release of US diplomatic cables can continue and previous publications will stay online.”
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks has had their financial ties cut by PayPal and the Swiss bank where Julian Assange housed his organizations donations. The anonymous organizers behind Operation Payback have taken notice and launched one of their trademark DDoS attacks against both of the financial institutions’ websites.
“While we don’t have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same: we want transparency (in our case in copyright) and we counter censorship,” an Operation Payback representative posted on the group’s website. “The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we cannot say what we think and not express how we feel. We ca not let this happen, that is why we will find out who is attacking WikiLeaks and with that find out who tries to control our world. What we are going to do when we found them? Except for the usual DDoSing, word will be spread that whoever tries to silence or discourage WikiLeaks, favors world domination rather than freedom and democracy.”
These developments are surely a thorn in the side of the United States government, whose numerous efforts to silence WikiLeaks have proved unsuccessful. Now that the organization has the top players in the war against censorship on their side, it looks like it won’t be going away any time soon.
