Let's get one thing straight - I am not a human rights lawyer, public or private international law lawyer nor a criminal lawyer and this blog is only tangentially related to law.
What was it in the BBC's article that made me blog? It was this:
So far the DDoS attacks have failed to take any sites offline although that is not the point of the attack, according to Coldblood.
"The idea is not to wipe them off but to give the companies a wake-up call," he said. "Companies will notice the increase in traffic and an increase in traffic means increase in costs associated with running a website."
Coldblood admitted that such attacks "may hurt people trying to get to these sites" but said it was "the only effective way to tell these companies that us, the people, are displeased".
Coldblood are guilty of a crime which, if and when perpetrated by the governments they so clearly detest, they would denounce - that crime is claiming to speak with "the people". That is rubbish; "the people" are not represented by the vocal minority on Twitter and Facebook.
Julian Assange and Wikileaks has been a topic of conversation all over the country. But rather than the majority of people being delighted with the information being leaked and disgusted at the arrest of Mr Assange the reaction has been quite the opposite amongst many to whom I have spoken.
On the subject of the leaks, the reactions that I seem to hear range from "I don't really care" to "How bloody stupid". The point is that none of the disclosures have been earth shattering in terms of the information. What they have done is potentially destabilised the world and made it a lot harder for countries to manage their diplomatic affairs in a sensible manner. We all know (or at least anyone who is interested knows) that Saudi Arabia is more afraid of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon than it is of Israel. Iran knew it as well. But because nothing had been said publicly all could carry on acting like friends. Now that the feelings are public the risk is that Iran will feel compelled to be more openly aggressive towards Saudi Arabia and the Saudis may feel less able to be supportive of the West; how is this in anyone's best interests?
In terms of Mr Assange himself, his lawyer Mark Stephens was very quick to claim that Julian had been trying for some time to address the charges against him and to meet with the Swedish prosecutor. If that is the case then why has he been in hiding in England? The fact is that he has been charged with a number of rather serious crimes. It would make a mockery of our system of justice if we bowed to pressure from the internet not to force him to face those charges in the country in which he has been accussed. It is for the prosecution to prove him guilty and not for him to prove his innocence but allowing him to escape the charges on the basis that it could be some conspiracy by governments is an insult to the justice system of Sweden. In any event, as Wikileaks has made quite clear, it is a lot larger than Julian Assange and the disclosures will continue with or without him.
So I remain unconvinced that the charges against Mr Assange are just a ruse to try and shut down Wikileaks although I do not suggest that he is guilty; that is for the criminal justice system to decide. I do not think that Wikileaks has acted in my best interests in releasing the information it has into the public domain and, most importantly at all, I think Coldblood is wrong in claiming it is speaking for "the people" when in fact it is speaking for a tiny minority when the rest of the world would frankly rather get on with their lives without unnecessary episodes such as this.
