Sarah Palin on Wednesday said her PAC’s website and her personal credit card information were the targets of cyber sabotauge by hackers who support the Wikileaks project. The hacking was first reported by ABC News.Hackers operating under the banner “Operation Payback” claimed via Twitter on Wednesday that their efforts were responsible for temporarily disabling the websites of credit card giants Visa and MasterCard . The two companies were targeted after they took steps this week to block customers from using their networks to transfer funds to Wikileaks.
Palin presumably drew Wikileaks supporters’ ire after she strongly criticized the group for releasing hundreds of secret U.S. diplomatic cables, a leak the Obama administration characterized as doing major damage to the country’s national security. Last week, Palin took to Twitter to blast Obama for not doing more to stop the leaks and to demand that Congress act to “defeat WikiLeaks.”
A Palin aide did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, SarahPAC aide Rebecca Mansour posted a Twitter message today after the ABC report was published, saying: “Supposed WikiLeaks ‘champions of free speech’ attack Palin simple because she exercised hers. They’re total frauds.”
And Palin told ABC News via e-mail, “This is what happens when you exercise the First Amendment and speak against his [Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s] sick, un-American espionage efforts.”
Operation Payback used Twitter to galvanize support for the attacks on Visa and Mastercard, prompting Twitter to suspend an anonymously authored account tied to the group.
{Politico/Matzav.com}
