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Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer
A federal grand jury in California is considering evidence against a group of activist hackers that supports the efforts of WikiLeaks to expose official wrongdoing by release of secret documents.
Anonymous Operation Want (AOW) was the target of a multi-state FBI raid on January 27, reports Bloomberg. The group has responded with a video that spotlights the role of GOP political strategist Karl Rove and the wealthy Wallenberg family of Sweden as key players in an effort to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on sex-related charges in Europe.
The FBI reportedly is investigating AOW attacks on the Web sites of four companies that had blocked contributions to WikiLeaks. Reports Bloomberg:
Among the evidence seized by the FBI during multistate raids on Jan. 27 was data taken from an individual who controls one of Anonymous's primary servers, identified by the organization only by his cyber-handle "Owen,' Brown said.
"The FBI is breaking down people's doors with guns drawn," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a member of the board of the National Lawyers Guild, which has talked with Anonymous organizers about their legal defense. "A group of people are engaged in a modern day electronic sit-in, and the FBI wants to treat that like it's terrorist activity."
AOW has a tendency to retaliate against those who try to shut it down. In fact, the group uses a mask-wearing character from the film V for Vendetta in its literature and videos:
Anonymous responded on Feb. 6 by hacking a California-based security firm that it said was aiding the probe, hijacking 60,000 company e-mails and making them public on one of the organization's servers. The e-mails included a proposal by the company to develop a malware tracking program for the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), among other confidential documents. . . .
Several cyber-security experts declined to speak about the group or its activities on the record because of its history of retaliating against critics, such as the Feb. 6 attack on a cyber security firm HBGary Federal, which Anonymous accused of aiding the government's investigation.
AOW says in its new video that Rove used his "dirty tricks" expertise to launch a bogus prosecution against Assange--to the benefit of a Swedish family with strong ties to war-making machinery. The Wallenberg family, through its company Investor AB, controls about 40 percent of the value of companies listed on the Swedish stock exchange. How do the Wallenbergs make their money? AOW explains:
What is not widely understood, outside of Sweden, is that INVESTORS AB http://www.abb.com industrial sector is creating some of the world's most deadly war machines, e.g., Saab's Gripen NG fighter jet with AESA radar. The Gripen was the subject of leaked U.S. Embassy-Stockholm cables, which revealed that the U.S., while pretending to help Saab get AESA radar capabilities to sell Gripen fighter jets to Norway, was actually helping Boeing get the contracts. While costing the Wallenbergs'/Investor's Saab a great deal of money, the U.S. did eventually facilitate General Electric and Honeywell entering into a partnership to equip the Gripen with AESA radar.
AOW points to a company called ABB as a driving force behind the Assange prosecution:
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