PHOTO
AP
PHOTO/GREG
OR ILLUSTRATION
BOWKER,CREDIT
NEW ZEALAND
TK
HERALD
VIRTUAL
DISOBEDIENCE
broker, a military veteran, a massage therapist and a single mother
with two children.
Some knew each other before
the indictment, but only by online
nicknames such as “Anthrophobic” and “Reaper.” They had never
met in person until Sept. 1, 2011,
when they made their initial court
appearance together.
One defendant, Tracy Ann Valenzuela, a single mother and
massage therapist, told a local ABC station in 2011 that she
got involved in the PayPal attack
while reading the news online.
“I saw something about PayPal shutting down payments to
WikiLeaks, and I clicked on some
other site and joined a protest,” she
HUFFINGTON
06.30-07.07.13
said. “And next thing I knew, my
house was surrounded by guns.”
Although 14 people were
charged, PayPal collected about
1,000 IP addresses of computers
involved in the attack, according
to an FBI affidavit. Some observers have questioned whether those
arrested in the case were highlevel members of Anonymous or
merely unsophisticated activists
who wanted to be associated with
the group and were unaware of the
consequences of their actions.
“There were a handful who were
core participants and a handful
who were there because they were
outraged that day and didn’t know
the consequences,” said Coleman,
the McGill professor.
She said the nature of the PayPal attack made it seem innocent
to the untrained eye. “They were
From left
to right:
Megaupload.
com
employees
Bram van
der Kolk,
Finn Batato,
Mathias
Ortmann and
Kim Dotcom
appear in
court in
Auckland,
New Zealand,
after the
site was
linked to a
U.S. criminal
investigation.