WikiLeaks Donations By Visa Ruled OK In Iceland 55
angry tapir writes "The three-year blockade against donations to WikiLeaks may have just been chiseled away, in Iceland, by a ruling handed down by the European country's Supreme Court. The verdict says that the Visa subcontractor Valitor had unlawfully terminated its contract with WikiLeaks' donation processor, DataCell, and must re-open the processing of donations to the whistle-blowing site within 15 days or else face a fine of ISK800,000, or US$6,830, per day."
Damage is done (Score:5, Interesting)
But the damage is already largely done. When the service was terminated, there was a lot of publicity around Wikileaks, and a lot of people wanting to donate. By preventing them from donating at that time, Visa & Mastercard (etc.) basically prevented this money from ever reaching Wikileaks. Even if now, Valitor will process Visa donations, most of the people who were going to donate, probably won't. Without the media, people won't think about Wikileaks. They won't realize that they can now donate (because this court decision will not be widely publicized). Etc.
The article says that 95% of Wikileaks' income was cut by the actions of Visa, Mastercard, Paypal etc. Maybe Wikileaks should also sue for lost income, arguing that the percentage of Visa donations would have remained at the same level from 2010 through to now. They probably wouldn't win, but it would be funny.
Bitcoins (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet, in my mind, part of the rise of a pure virtual currency like Bitcoin is directly related to the action the US took.
It seems we need a payment method that doesn't involve SWIFT (EU handed Swift data to USA for data mining) and credit cards (US data mining our credit card transactions), and Western Union (US leaned on them, they handed over the transaction data).
Bitcoin is it, and the game of closing a bank account trying to stop conversions from Bitcoin to dollars will only slow it slightly.
Can they say no? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ISK is the Icelandic currency? (Score:5, Interesting)
I am an idiot.
Should I mod that as informative or as insightful?