Good point about how Anonymous and the boycotts are attempting to introduce a tax in the other direction.
As to how new this is ... on the one hand I don't think anything about Wikileaks is fundamentally new; we've been talking about it in the civil liberties community since the early 90s. On the other hand it certainly highlights the realities dramatically. The Internet lets anybody speak ... if you can survive DDOS attacks and afford the network infrastructure, and if the services that you rely on don't decide to boot you off. I don't think it had really sunk in to a lot of people.
As to how new this is ... on the one hand I don't think anything about Wikileaks is fundamentally new; we've been talking about it in the civil liberties community since the early 90s. On the other hand it certainly highlights the realities dramatically. The Internet lets anybody speak ... if you can survive DDOS attacks and afford the network infrastructure, and if the services that you rely on don't decide to boot you off. I don't think it had really sunk in to a lot of people.
BTW The author is a she.