WikiLeaks 'cyber-war' concerns UN official

LONDON - Skirmishes raged across cyberspace Thursday between WikiLeaks supporters and the companies they accuse of trying to stifle the group, with websites on both sides of the battle line taken out of service or choked off by attacks.

The UN's top human rights official raised the alarm over officials' and corporations' moves to cut off WikiLeaks' funding and starve it of server space, which she said was "potentially violating WikiLeaks' right to freedom of expression."

Navi Pillay also expressed surprise at the scale of the online attacks that have targeted major American financial players - in some cases denying access to their websites for hours at a time.

"It's truly what media would call a cyber-war," Pillay told reporters in Geneva.

WikiLeaks has been under intense pressure since it began publishing some 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables, with attacks on its websites and threats against its founder, Julian Assange, who is in a British jail fighting extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations.

In Washington, Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman-elect of the Committee on Homeland Security, introduced legislation that would give the Justice Department additional tools to prosecute future disclosures of the protected names of American intelligence sources who collaborate with the U.S military or intelligence community.

Some world leaders questioned the arrest of Assange. "Why was Mr. Assange hidden in prison?" Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked at a news conference. "Is this democracy?" - AP