WikiLeaks Continues To Fund Itself Via Flattr

novenator writes "Since the corporations MasterCard, PayPal, and Visa have been trying to shut down the cash flow to the Wikileaks project, those who wish to donate have been having trouble finding a way to help out. The social media/micropayment site Flattr (run from Sweden) continues to leave the channels open."

Re:News For Nerds

[h00manist]

Can we stop posting every bit wikileaks minutiae and get back to real news for nerds?

wikileaks almost has nothing to do with tech anyways, and this tidbit is almost certainly not stuff that matters.

Can we report on more ways to help Wikileaks please? It is arguably the most influence technology, hacking and open-source thinking has had this year, and for a while, and I'd like to see it gather much more support.

Re:donate to what exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we're bandying unfounded speculative rumour about - I heard you were a paedophile ... uh ... and a terrorist. And you hate puppies.

Re:But Of Course

[bluefoxlucid]

That's what I'm leaning from this. The whole US government classified bullshit is interesting and controversial; moreso, however, is the idea that businesses can basically kill off anyone they don't like by shutting their doors to them. Paypal goes down, BAC goes down, Visa/Mastercard goes down, and your business dies. Wal-Mart has threatened to stop selling CDs and DVDs because, frankly, they make 2% of their money from the merchandise and could use the space for something more profitable; while the labels make a vast portion of their CD sales from Wal-Mart, something like a third.

Legal clauses please.

[h00manist]

Let's deny you all credit cards, bank accounts, airline flights, all major store purchases, all corporate relations, because, well, just because the government said so, no arguments given, and see if you still call that a right any company has, and not a restriction of your freedoms, based on discrimination of some sort. Nobody has yet even accuse wikileaks of breaking any law. The data they publish was not acquired by them, and could have been published anywhere, in zillions of methods, including leaflets on street light poles, involving no computer or network of any kind.

Re:News For Nerds

[mcvos]

Can we report on more ways to help Wikileaks please?

What I'd like to see is an open, international credit card system that's not at the mercy of two semi-monopolists. It's practically impossible to do reliable payments online without the approval of MasterCard and Visa, and clearly they don't always approve. That's a problem, and it needs to be fixed. We've become too dependent on these two companies, and it turns out they're not the neutral infrastructure that we expected them to be.

We need neutral payment infrastructure. Preferably one where the recipient doesn't need a separate contract with every single credit card company, but only with a single bank. And then everybody with a credit card can automatically pay money to that bank. You can have multiple banks, multiple credit cards, etc, all on the same universal, open system. And if a single bank decides not to do business with you, then you can simply switch to another. If your credit card provider decides not to let you send money to someone, you can just get a different credit card that's on the same system. It's the only good way of handling this, I think.

Now only to get some international banks and credit cards on board with this idea.

Wikileaks is innocent I say

[troll -1]

Understand that Wikileaks hasn't leaked anything. They just published what was already leaked and which is what the New York Times and others have published in part so I wonder why MasterCard et al aren't doing the same thing to all the other media outlets that publish leaked info.

Maybe they all got a call from Lieberman's office or something.

Governments take down Website

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I think the more interesting point here, is that governments can strong-arm credit card companies to cut the funding for a Website that they don't like.

What happens if an influential large software company decides that it doesn't like an open source software site?

This is indeed news for nerds, and stuff that matters.

Re:Oh they've learned something alright ...

[Jaysyn]

Oh , and ssshhh! We won't mention Assanges mind bogglingly hypocritical whinge about his case details being leaked...

Oh look, another idiot that can't understand the difference between a government's inherent right to privacy & an individual's inherent right to privacy.

Re:Hey, this news is only 1.5 weeks late

[caluml]

So can you point us at your submission on the subject then?

Re:News For Nerds

[contrapunctus]

i seem to remember the US keeps track of swift "for terrorism" reasons
who is to say i won't get flagged if i use swift to help wikileaks?...

if the goal is oppression by fear, then it's working.

Re:News For Nerds

[aaaaaaargh!]

Naive as I sometimes am I used to believe that major credit card companies like Visa or Mastercard are obliged to process transactions, unless there is no well-defined court ruling against it, and cannot just refuse to deliver their services whenever they feel like it or are under political pressure. Personally, I don't give a damn about the cables and don't understand why the US government makes such a fuzz about them -- most of what they contain is known by everyone, and besides, personal assessments by diplomats are not facts anyway.

But it is astonishing and came as quite a surprise to me that essential economic services like money transfers and payment processing sites are apparently allowed to be operated by private companies in an arbitrary and unreliable way and can easily be influenced by governments to their will without legal consequences. I'd say there is an urgent need for neutrality rules in the form of laws and binding international treaties.

Re:Legal clauses please.

[Schadrach]

So, we need to cut off all payment to the New York Times et al, as they are equally connected to the documents in question, yes? Oh, wait, that was tried against the times wrt the Pentagon Papers. Here's the real question -- other than being a smaller and potentially squelchable organization who is almost certainly not in bed with any of the organizations that would be made to look bad, how does Wikileaks differ from the Times? Remember, you are about to set a clear line about what point something is or is not considered journalism, and it will come back to bite you in the most horrible manner possible.