Tunisia Cyber-Special: "Anonymous" Takes Down the Government

In an operation which has received surprisingly little attention, Anonymous --- the collective which defended WikiLeaks last month by attacking sites of institutions such as Visa, MasterCard, and the bank Swiss Post Finance --- has taken down the on-line presence of the Government of Tunisia.

On Monday, in a general protest supporting Tunisian demonstrations over the economy and in a specific response to the Government's censorship and surveillance of websites and social media (see separate entry), Anonymous attacked six sites of the Government, including those of the Prime Minister and its Ministries, and the site of a private bank. 

Anonymous wrote in an open letter to The People of Tunisia, "You are Anonymous. You will not forgive. You will not forget. You will not be denied your right to Free Speech, Free Press, and Free Association, and your right to an uncensored world of information provided by the Internet."

In late December, Anonymous also succeeded in knocking the sites of the Government of Zimbabwe off the Internet. The group was responding to a threat by the wife of the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, to sue WikiLeaks over a released cable which implicated her in the sale of illegal diamonds.