It looks like Assange may have found a way to generate the capital he so desperately needs to continue his fight against conspiracy in government. He would have lost completely without someone in big media with serious cash on his side. Now it looks like he might actually have a fighting chance of having some success with his goals, and staying out of prison.

Likely because:

1. The federal reserve bank may have been testing a new system which would allow financial institutions to access a list of stolen credit cards via a web or network interface for electronic transactions in order to safeguard them.
2. FedComp is (likely) already a subscription service which is accessible via the internet for employees of said federal credit unions.

I don't think there's anything to see here. The guy stole "already stolen" credit cards and tried to sell them for a profit. He's a con artist, nothing more. There's been a lot of drum-up about US cyber security in the media lately (see: Stuxnet) and methinks its all just a lot of FUD in order to ply the citizenry into allowing "greater government oversight" of the internet and private networks.

Cost is generally not the biggest issue. Your boss is probably against FOSS because most Pay-For-Play software generally comes with support & maintenance contracts issued from the people who wrote the software, which are extremely important to management types, while software like Plone requires a support or maintenance contract through a third-party provider (i found this: http://plone.net/providers )

If you can convince him that the best way for him to handle this situation and all potential future ones is purchasing a third-party support contract which can also be supported by you if need be since the software is open source, then you might have a shot. Otherwise, I'm not sure. I've seen a lot of good software packages turned down as solutions to business problems simply because there was no support contract.

What gives him the idea that all of the lawyers for all of those companies would even *fit into a single courtroom?* They would need to take it to the local auditorium.

Correct. It would be much easier for a foreign government (lets say the U.S), to pressure ISPs within its borders to prevent access to the website and/or persecute those who host leaked information within their borders. That's not necessarily easy or without political repercussion, however, and would probably draw some negative press coverage. Given the sometimes inexorable spread of information, if the Pirate Party were to become elected within the Swedish Parliament, then it would ensure that most of the information on Wikileaks would be available in some form or another, even if foreign governments succeeded in the aforementioned pressure efforts - as long as they remained elected.

Not necessarily - the argument of "passing on the tax to the consumer" doesn't really hold up in a free market. If a good or manufactured product faces many competitors in the same market, and the prices are competitive, then the company will be more reluctant to raise the price, especially if there is little else differentiating it from its competitors. Companies act individually. They don't always act in concert.

Lets say, for instance, you have companies A, B, and C. All companies perform the same amount of work offshore, which translates into roughly the same amount of cost savings. Lets say that we now tax all three companies along the same lines of the first scenario which you have described above. Company A is the first to "pass" its tax to the consumer, and is quickly followed suit by Company B, which also "passes" its tax to the consumer, but only passes about half of the tax.

Company C is now in an interesting position. Assuming the goods of all three companies are the same, Company C now has the cheapest product on the market. It may be making less net profit per item sold, but there is a good chance that the sales for its product will increase, because it is now the cheapest alternative. It can now choose to hold its price instead of "passing the tax" to make the difference on the loss in profit from the tax, banking on higher sales because the competition has increased the price of their products.

Disregarding the companies themselves, as far as the government is concerned, it is probably more interested in getting citizens off unemployment and collecting off their income taxes than making money from corporate taxes incurred from offshoring, so analyzing how much the government would benefit from tax revenue pursues the wrong path of inquiry. The national and state governments make far more money off of income tax.

Lastly, a tax such as this would serve as a deterrent for future offshoring, which is a real concern. If a company notices that after construction, moving, and re-organizational costs, that it will also be subject to a tax that may easily be raised, then it will think more carefully about offshoring. We have lost a great many jobs, but we absolutely cannot afford to shed them in similar numbers in the future. Not all of it was due to offshoring, but a lot of the jobs that we have lost that will be difficult to replace were. Preventing that from happening again is a good idea.