Right Wing Violence Goes Cyber as Progressive Blog Politicususa.com Is DDoS Attacked

Our friend Sarah Jones has sent us the following press release:

For Immediate Release

The right wing has gone from threatening physical violence to carrying out actual cyber attacks on liberal and progressive websites.

The latest victim of this behavior is the progressive liberal blog PoliticusUSA.com, which has been under a major DDoS* assault for the past ten days in retaliation for several stories about the Tea Party movement, right wing violence, and Sarah Palin.

PoliticusUSA is a growing website, founded in 2008. It has doubled in size every year for the past the past two years and has in fact grown 600% over the previous year due to the strength of its unique political opinion and progressive point of view.

DDoS attacks deliberately target a victim website in order to disable it and are a violation of:

1. National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996
2. United States Code Title 18 Section 1030 (Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers)
3. The US Patriot Act of 2001 (which amends United States Code Title 18 Section 1030)

Our host provider has been working around the clock to combat the attack and return PoliticusUSA to full, protected online status. We are committed to continuing to serve our readers and appreciate their support though this attack. We have been in contact with law enforcement and are exploring the possibility of prosecuting the perpetrators to the full extent of the law.

PoliticusUSA owner/administrator Jason Easley said, “These politically motivated attacks are just a temporary delay. These malicious attacks will not deter us from providing the best quality coverage of both progressive politics and the extremist behavior of the right wing, the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin and the GOP. Our first amendment rights will not be deterred by illegal attempts to intimidate us or silence our criticisms. ”

PoliticusUSA writer Sarah Jones, who has been the victim of previous attempts to censor her writing on Sarah Palin, emphatically added, “It is Un-American to the core to resort to intimidation and violence in the face of dissenting political opinion and lost elections, this violation of our freedoms is further evidence of the far right’s desperation and declining influence. As Sarah Palin recently said, ‘We’re not going to sit down and shut up.’ At PoliticusUSA, we’re going to stand up for our freedoms.”

PoliticusUSA is honored to join the ever-growing progressive websites being targeted by the right wing.

For quotes, interviews, or further information, please contact Jason Easley at:

PoliticusUSA@gmail.com

***

According to Wikipedia: A DDoS attack is a denial of service attack. Wiki defines it as “A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person or people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks, credit card payment gateways, and even root nameservers.”

***

Palingates comment: We think these people make a mockery of the First Amendment. They rant about their precious Constitution, but apparently it doesn't apply to progressive bloggers.

Why are we not surprised?

(The site is not accessible, the host provider is still working to restore the service)
.