After Wikileaks began releasing classified US State Department diplomatic cables, Paypal rescinded their account, claiming the organization had violated their terms-of-service.

14 members of Anonymous, a loosely defined group of hacktivists, protested PayPal’s actions by launching a distributed denial of service attack, temporarily shutting down Paypal’s site by sending an influx of traffic and overwhelming their servers. Paypal has estimated that the attack resulted in approximately $5.5 million in damages.

The event was discussed in the film “We are Legion: Story of the Activists,” a documentary I viewed in class that takes a look at the development and inside workings on Anonymous. I wanted to take a closer look at whether DDoS attacks should be considered free speech, and thus protected in the United States.

Eleven members of the “PayPal 14,” pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy and one misdemeanor count in December last year. According to the terms of the plea settlement, defense attorney Stanley Cohen says the felony will be dismissed and the defendants will be left with a misdemeanor.

In an op-ed published by Huffington Post, Pierre Omidyar, a Chairman of Paypal’s parent company, eBay Inc., raised the question over whether the members of Anonymous were simply exercising their freedom of expression.

Another commentary piece published in the Guardian argued this, saying that DDoS attacks are a form of protest, a useful tool for people to bring attention to their grievances and make a statement. The author points out that there have been no DDoS protests at the same scale as the PayPal attack since the defendants were charged.

I think that is a very good point. Not only does charging the “Paypal 14,” punish them for making a political statement, it has a chilling effect on future speech. The Internet is an important tool for people to use as a form of expression. Finding new methods of expression is an important aspect for us to grow as a nation, and the threat of criminal charges may discourage future innovations in protest.

But Omidyar points out that protests like the attack on Paypal result in much greater damages than traditional protests, and the attack impacted the users of Paypal much more than the company itself.

I think the question of how the government should treat DDoS attacks, as a legitimate form of protest or a criminal act, is a part of a larger dilemma the country is facing in the digital age, over how the First Amendment should be applied to the internet.