From my understanding, it is not extreme tactics that delegitimize a cause, it is collateral damage.

[howard112211]

We are hearing people claim that "These attacks on large companies, as a revenge for boycotting Wikileaks are hurting the cause of Wikileaks and delegitimizing it in the eyes of the public."

No they are not. Even if Wikileaks was responsible for those attacks, which they are not, there is one crucial property of these attacks which make them unfit for being a source of delegitimzation: They are on target and no unrelated parties are harmed by them.

Actually, my observation is that "the public" has quite a high tolerance for "extreme tactics", more so when the target is someone unpopular. And right now, big credit companies rank among the lowest, on a popularity scale. Even the teabaggers hate them.

What "the public" has no tolerance for is being a potential target themselves as, for instance, when the RAF highjacked a plane. However, in this particular case, the only thing happening is a bunch of rich assholes are losing money. I doubt that Joe Sixpack gives a damn about that.

Say what you will about "Operation Payback". Call it illegal and a futile effort. But one thing it is not doing is delegitimizing the effort to undermine shadow government.