MasterCard and Visa go downtime: revenge for Julian Assange, stop the gaff!

Wednesday the websites of the giant credit card networks MasterCard and Visa came under intense cyber attack by supporters of WikiLeaks in revenge for the massive international move against Julian Assange after he released U.S. diplomatic cables that angered and embarrassed Washington.

Earlier the Swedish prosecution authority issued arrest order for Assange over accusations of sexual offenses which led a British court to remand the 39-year-old WikiLeaks website founder in custody. Assange's online supporters hit the corporate website of credit card firm MasterCard in apparent retaliation for its blocking of donations to the WikiLeaks website.

"We are glad to tell you that www.mastercard.com/ is down and it's confirmed!" said an entry on the Twitter feed of a group calling itself AnonOps, which says it fights against censorship and "copywrong."

The responsibility for the similar attack on Visa was also taken by the same group.

Visa spokesman Paul Cohen said its processing network "is functioning normally and cardholders can continue to use their cards as they routinely would. Account data is not at risk."

Mark Stephens, Assange's principal lawyer in London, denied the WikiLeaks founder had ordered the cyber strikes, which appeared to target companies seen as cooperating with efforts to rein in WikiLeaks.

Assange "did not give instructions to hack" the company websites, Stephens told Reuters.

MasterCard, calling the attack "a concentrated effort to flood our corporate website with traffic and slow access," said all its services had been restored and that account data was not at risk.

Meantime, Assange is defending its name from the vile accusations brough forth by two female Swedish WikiLeaks volunteers. The pair's lawyer said their claims were not a politically motivated plot against Assange.

"It has nothing to do with WikiLeaks or the CIA," said lawyer Claes Borgstrom, whose website also came under cyber attack, according to officials.

Well, it is hard to believe these words because it is more than evident Washington has fabricated this very “plot” and either paid or threatened those two perjurer women to find any reason for Assange’s arrest inasmuch as America who roars across the whole world about the freedoms of people cannot judge a person for his right for free speech.

It looks too cynical and hypocritical that the United States along with the European countries who have always been denouncing Asian nations for their barbarous conduct towards free speech to prosecute a man on false allegations and there can be little doubt in their mendacity. Interestingly, it is America and Europe who have always been giving refuge for journalists from China-like authoritative states who were persecuted by the national governments on the same false sexual misconduct allegations.

ABC News reported that the website and personal credit card information of Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, were also attacked, disrupting her accounts.

Palin, a darling of the conservative U.S. Tea Party movement, has criticized Assange in the past, calling him "anti-American."

"This is what happens when you exercise the First Amendment and speak against his sick, un-American espionage efforts," she said in an e-mail to ABC.

How pathetic! Just listen to this: “un-American espionage efforts”! State-level spies are always disguised on a top professional level and after years of surveillance by intelligence agencies these spies are arrested without any need for false accusations and courts sentence such people for years of imprisonment.

It is unsurprising that Europe supports this Fibonacci theater because it may be another target of Assange-like people who would prospectively dare to print some secret cables from their own classified diplomatic archives.

These actions are a worrying sign of that there is no longer any place on the planet where a person can refuge from free speech enemies. US and Europe thus prompt to everyone: “You can speak anything about anyone if we don’t care about it”.