Maybe PayPal were in the wrong, but Visa and MasterCard had every right to pull support.

I haven't read much about this part of the debacle, but I suspect you're right about that. They can pull merchant accounts for almost any reason.

I will agree to the first half of your second para, but change that to "everybody loses' :p

Ways not being able to use your debit card can instill "terror":
I know from experience (when I first learned that if I screw up my pin 3 times in a row they lock my card) that it is a pretty alarming experience to be told your card is declined. Makes thoughts of "Oh crap, did someone steal my identity or account" flash through your head. So why should Becky the Soccer Mom suffer because a bunch of pedophiles wanted to defend the rights of an accused rapist?
Plus, imagine if it is people buying groceries for the week. My sister only really has time to go food shopping once a week, so if she had her card declined for that duration, she would be screwed and have to shuffle everything else around.

Or, to put it even simpler: Was the ending of Fight Club (where Tyler Durden blows up Wilmington, DE) terrorism? By your standards (attacking the computers of a financial organization), it isn't. But giant explosions tend to not be peaceful protest.

I think this is a bit different than blowing up large buildings that may have people inside. Also I do not get the bit about pedos defending a rapist? I will admit I haven't been keeping up with all the news on this but where did that come from?

Actually, Fight Club (the movie, at least) made it perfectly clear that no people were inside the buildings :p. Pure anarchy with soap-bombs.

And I tend to call people from 4chan pedos (since the place is known for child-porn). Anon is a spinoff of 4chan, right?
And Assange (the figurehead of Wikileaks) is an accused rapist. Going by his standards, that means he raped and murdered a bunch of people and doesn't deserve a trial. But the news media (and various international organizations) seem to be taking the higher ground and just restricting things to perp-walks and innuendo, not outright condemnation.

OK, I will give on the fight club movie, but I have always had a problem with that part of the story. Its just impossible to blow up buildings in a major city without all kinds of nasty effects that usually hurt the people that have little to no involvement in the situation. Janitors, rescue workers, the old asthmatic lady that lives a few blocks away and suffocates from the fumes....

As for the other part, I was not aware of that. Thanks for the info. I will have to do a bit more research when I am done with my papers for the semester.

Actually as far as I can tell, Assange is accused of having sex without a condom. I'm not sure that qualifies as rape.

Woman: "We need a condom."

Guy: "Don't worry, it'll be fine baby."

Trailer starts rocking.

Woman (one week later): Gee I wish we'd used a condom last week.

Yeah, I'm just not going to be willing to call that rape for anyone, even my most hated enemy.

Actually your fight club analogy is a straw man, but I'll bite. Yeah, I wouldn't care, they had their people get everyone out. More money is stolen from the economy daily by high frequency trading leaches than the cost of a couple of buildings. Incidentally, all that data is backed up, it wouldn't "reset the world to zero". Fanciful thought though.

And if Becky the soccer mom is inconvenienced because a debit card gets declined I'm going to generally say I don't give a flying F. There's real problems in the world and while it's inconvenient it hardly rates up there on the horror scale.

And quit calling it identity theft, the crime already had a name and it was fraud. Coming up with a new name is simply the banking institution's way of making their problem your problem. It's not your problem, the fact it inconveniences you at all indicates the need for legislation to protect you from banks, insurance companies, and credit rating bureaus.

You like to call a lot of things things as long as it's provocative.
Forum debates; in the end only the most polarized views are left standing, while the sensible people have moved on. What´s to be gained?

First off, stating this as 'progress for themselves' in terms of 4Chan is nothing short of disgusting. You don't affect people's financial well being because you're having a bit of a pout and get that called progress for ANYONE. How the Hell can causing major problems in the banking industry that affect people's money be called progress?

And second, how did this help Wikileaks? You think any user of that European bank, Visa, Mastercard or Paypal (yes, they did take it down as well) who was affected by this is going to have a response other than "These guys did this in support of Wikileaks? Fuck them too!"? I doubt it. And who can blame them? These people had nothing to do with any of this, but they're the ones who take the hit. Hmmm...targeting innocents to try to get your way...I believe that is basically the definition of terrorism. And this counts. Beyond that, financial institutions are completely within their rights to not allow donations to any group tat they see fit, the same way that a store can refuse service to someone. This is a PR disaster for Wikileaks, even though they had nothing to do with it.

And frankly, I find it hilarious that you, the guy who keeps talking about things being good for the people, is totally cheering on this sort of action that adversely affects the same people. Ever been without your bank account for any meaningful period of time? I have. It's awful. It's scary. You don't know when your account will be fixed (in my case, it was 3-4 days as the entire bank computer system when tits up). You can't withdraw more than $20 a day because the system doesn't know what your balance is. You get to explain to your landlord that you really can't pay him on time and hope that he understands.

Anyone who would support that and call it progress needs to grow up.

To be fair, his version of good for the people involves some people being denied access (for less than a day, I believe) to their accounts, while the US governments version is a huge number of civilian casualties. Perspective is the key here.

I'll call it progress and here's why: the people (of almost any country) have less voice each year. I'm not necessarily for the goals of Anonymous but they accomplished their goal, i.e. getting heard and a meaningful response, without killing anyone. I'm pretty sure that's better than most governments have managed in years.

No, the people didn't get their voice heard. A few people with an axe to grind forced everyone's hand, with a large number of other people as temporary financial 'collateral damage' while they did so. Engaging in financial terrorism isn't anything close to a better way to do anything.

If the people (the ACTUAL 'the people' as a whole, not a subset) want their voice heard, they simply need to use it as a group. Don't try to throw the ills of the world at the feet of 'unresponsive government', because that's nonsense...they don't listen because we don't care. We as a people are too busy with voting for reality TV contestants and other unimportant garbage to even notice what's going on. The blame for us not being heard lies squarely at our own feet.

Umm, this was an actual group of mostly like-minded folks. That's exactly what you're suggesting by "people" in your second paragraph. Also, it's not terrorism, they targeted the actual entities that they thought were in the wrong. It's like calling the attack on The Pentagon a terrorist attack, The Pentagon is a valid military target (not that I wish it to be attacked, I'm just stating facts). That's not terrorism. Collateral damage happens and is often excused when it's governments causing it (and their collateral damage is usually dead people) and when they cause it it's not financial.

No individual "lost" money in their bank account. Presumably most lost sales were made after service was restored. The only people who lost real money were big financial institutions which is why they caved so quickly.

No, it is like targeting an American while they are on vacation because you don't like Bush (because clearly, he is responsible for all future problems too :p). You are directly targetting the American people (people you don't like, and that you feel were in the wrong, for having elected a white texan pothead almost a decade ago).

And again, have you ever had a card declined when you were trying to buy something? It is a scary experience. You sit there and are afraid that your identity has been stolen. If it is a debit card, you worry that you are going to have to fight with the banks to get your money back. If it is a credit card, you worry that you are going to have to jump through a year of hurdles to get non-crappy credit again. And all because a bunch of idiots were angry that a privately owned company denied someone service?

THAT is terrorism. If you want to "make up a new word" to make yourself feel better about it, call it cyber-terrorism.

It IS financial terrorism...they're using fear and innocent people as targets to push through their own aims. You don't get to target groups you feel are in the wrong and have it magically justified because you think it is...that's ridiculous. These financial institutions are not 'legitimate targets'. They are within their rights to disallow donations to a political organization. Do I think they caved to government pressure? Yes. Does that bother me? Yes. Does that somehow give 4Chan the right to take them down? NO.

And no, nobody permanently lost their money, but for the entire time that they lost access to their money it was the exact same thing since they couldn't actually use it. Cutting people off from their money, even temporarily, cannot be justified, certainly not by anything as stupid as the usual crop of cowards at 4Chan deciding to launch their latest assault of idiocy.

So, why then is it unacceptable to you when the government causes collateral damage but perfectly peachy and okay for a bunch of hacker cowards to do the same? You seem to feel that while one is wrong, the other is okay...I think that BOTH are wrong, and you can't support one and be against the other without being a hypocrite.

I have had my card declined and it was not scary. I'm not sure what your life is like that you consider it scary. Thinking you're having a heart attack is scary, almost getting stabbed is scary, having a gun accidentally discharge near you is scary, getting mugged is scary. Having my card declined is something I might classify as annoying, not scary.

You can call being annoyed cyber-terrorism if it makes you feel better about who's the good guys and who's the bad guys if you like. I think it's intellectually dishonest and an attempt to spiritually Godwin an argument but I can't say it's uncommon for people to do.

I don't even know what you're talking about with the American on vacation thing. I find it nonsensical so have no useful response.