I don't see a 1st amendment issue here personally. Not remotely. If I do not agree with how a store is doing business ethically, may I walk up to the front door, padlock it, and close it down for as long as I like or until the owner manages to find a pair of steel-cutters to break it off? Do I have the right to padlock the doors of companies that merely do business with said store? Of course not, yet this is precisely what this DOS was doing, except lets not forget that even the weapon itself is comprised of computing power often stolen from other people without their consent. Whatever point was being made could have been expressed with valid 1st amendment protection. Would it have been as effective? Depends on many things like the strength of the speaker's network, their communication skill, how effectively they crafted their message and supporting arguments, how well they were able to get their audience to engage, etc. But the bottom line is that they knew that by using the methods they did they'd get the easy publicity and exposure they wanted. Obviously illegal, obviously not constitutionally protected, and obviously effective, so they were fine with it. That was the calculation as I see it. Nothing wrong with that, some of the best civil disobedience leverages breaking the law in order to amplify your point, but please, -let's not pretend that this is protected speech.
I'm not sure I see it to be so clear cut. I agree with Omidyar on this point: As social structures and spaces move online, protest should be able to meaningfully exist in these new spaces. If not, we risk extracting tools that are critical to a free society. I am not saying that DoS with a botnet ought to be legal, but the degree of its illegality is a very important matter. Our internet is largely defined by private institutions with incredible power, power that often exceeds that of states. The DoS might seem asymmetric, but so is the effect of PayPal deciding not to transact Wikileak donations.As a society, our notions of free speech and protest must evolve since much of the public sphere is now online.
I agree with this 100%, I just do not see deciding to close a company for business along with that companies customers as protected speech, nor do I think the constitution should evolve to protect this. Of course, yes. I'm not saying throw the book at them. A lot of digital crimes have unbalanced, draconian punishments as it is. That is as wrongheaded as arguing that shutting a business down online is protected under the first amendment as long as you're doing it to make a point. Eh, I don't see the correlation there. Paypal choosing its customers in the manner it did is not close to illegal. Them getting DoSed was. And that's fine, btw. It was an illegal, asymmetrically powerful response to a legal and powerful asymmetrical action, hence civil disobedience. I'm all about it. My only point is that it's silly to warp the meaning of what constitutionally protected speech is in order to make your civil disobedience not disobedient anymore. I'm just not sure how you get from financially harming people that had nothing to do with Paypal's decision to saying that not only is that not illegal, but that it is constitutionally protected. A bridge too far for me. Edit: As an aside, if the DoS affected non-critical portions of PP's online presence, the issue would instantly become a lot more murky for me. It would be a lot more like speech countering speech than speech causing tangible harm to others not related to the target. Where Omidyar suggests "evolution" in the online sphere, I could see it taking shape more quickly here or in the laws surrounding the punishment of these attacks (specifically making them less draconian and the punishment more evenly distributed as he suggested). I still see the evolution making more sense as a reshaping of punitive measures...at least at first.As social structures and spaces move online, protest should be able to meaningfully exist in these new spaces.
but the degree of its illegality is a very important matter.
The DoS might seem asymmetric, but so is the effect of PayPal deciding not to transact Wikileak donations.