U.S. and British government officials have begun a global crackdown against pro-WikiLeaks "hacktivists" who briefly shut down Mastercard, Visa, Paypal and Amazon.com December 9. The loose group of hacktivists began a global cyber-attack called "Operation Payback" against the companies that earlier had caved-in to what was likely a U.S. federal government pressure campaign and similar electronic attack against the WikiLeaks website earlier in the year. Five British citizens were arrested on January 27 in the anti-WikiLeaks government probe, and the U.S. government issued 40 search warrants the same day in a related move. The Britisharrests all involved young men aged 15 to 26. ABC News reported that many of the U.S. searches were "conducted in the San Francisco Bay area and the Boston area as part of an ongoing investigation that involved 26 FBI field offices executing search warrants."One of the search warrants issued in the United States was served against Georgia Tech freshman Zhiwei Chen on January 27. According to the college newspaper, Technique, Chen wrote: "I was a passive admin for Operation Payback and quit early to avoid complications with the law, but it seems the FBI has gotten the better of me."
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