WikiLeaks Continues To Fund Itself Via Flattr 194
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."
donate to what exactly? (Score:2)
OR
Assange's legal fund?
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Since we're bandying unfounded speculative rumour about - I heard you were a paedophile ... uh ... and a terrorist. And you hate puppies.
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You hate Uhmerica an yoo luv duh terrorists cauze demz is Arabs an Mohammadads like Obmama iffen youze com bah mah place ahm gunna shoot!
USA, USA, USA!
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[citation needed]
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I'm not sure who they are, but if you search for Wikileaks was paid off by Israel, you will find a lot of discussion on this very topic.
obl: link. (Score:5, Informative)
As opposed to posting a link to another board that has am IMAGE of the url; (madness!!)
here ya go:
https://flattr.com/profile/wikileaks [flattr.com]
Really editors, was that so hard? My new-years resolution? Find a site that is as good as Slashdot used to be.
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I heard Fark was pretty good, and the community is awesome.
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https://flattr.com/profile/wikileaks [flattr.com]
Really editors, was that so hard?
Holy Crap, how did you do that?
I imagine you probably had to open the page, take a screenshot of it, paste it in a word document, attach it to an email and send it to some link extraction service!
That's a lot of work just to post the link man, you expect editors to just find this kind of time?
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Hacker News is my current favourite alternative.
http://news.ycombinator.com/ [ycombinator.com]
I hear ya (Score:2, Offtopic)
This looks pretty good? [archive.org]
But Of Course (Score:2)
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I was under the impression that classified was the lowest level
I was under the impression that "classified" meant that someone had bothered to review it or just classify it as to security status. Thus any restricted/sensitive document is classified which covers a lot of ground. No?
Re:But Of Course (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, a document is either Classified or it is not.
There are different levels inside Classified, such as 2, 3, NATO, ATOMAL, etc, but that's not terribly important. The vast, vast, vast majority of documents are Unclassified. That's because it is a FUCKING PAIN IN THE ASS to get your hands on anything Classified. You can't copy it, you can't email it, you have to use secure networks, work in pairs, etc. You'd be surprised at how much stuff is Unclassified. For example, the layouts of warships are Unclassified so the contractors can work on them. Only the tiny little bits that are really important (like the [REDACTED] or the [REDACTED]) are Classified. You can go about your day, working on military equipment, without ever having to use your security clearance. That's a good thing because you also have to go through a lengthy debriefing once you've worked on the drawings. Careless talk like "Oh yeah, I had to order part XYZ a year ago. A good vendor is ABC." Who-oops! Part XYZ, being of dimensions X, Y, and Z, now gives out a starting point for some first principles work, and then presto, the same info that's in a Classified spec.
You have to have three things to read a Classified document:
1. The appropriate clearance level. That's where the levels above come into play.
2. The need-to-know. If you have a clearance it doesn't mean you can just look up any document you feel like. You have to have a reason.
3. The appropriate environment. Computers and networks are assumed to be non-secure and you can't make copies.
So the interesting thing about this is the guy who leaked the documents isn't entirely responsible for what happened. Where was his supervisor? How did he breach security? I can't just walk into a secure room and download [REDACTED] on a thumb drive.
If you mark something as Classified when it's not supposed to be then it's a violation of those same Acts. There's a completely separate classification system for things that are personally embarrassing and can cause damage to a person. Classified is only for things that are damaging to the country. Damaging, NOT EMBARRASSING!
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your impression is wrong. classified is not a de
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One possibility is that Wikileaks and Assange are losing public support. Interfering with a war is one thing, interfering with diplomacy- the attempt to settle issues without military action- is harder to justify. Reports that Wikileaks released the names of Afghan informants hasn't helped, and even setting aside the controversial charges against him, profiles of Assange (su
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One possibility is that Wikileaks and Assange are losing public support. Interfering with a war is one thing, interfering with diplomacy- the attempt to settle issues without military action- is harder to justify.
Diplomacy does not have to be in the PUBLIC interest. It can be a huge rouse to help solidify government control by supporting counter-antigovernment actions and removing international tensions that draw focus away from controlling the sheep populous.
At times I think the UN might be the worst thing to ever happen, and the end of classic wars and attempts to expand territory and take over the world has marked the end of civilization and the beginning of a giant puppet show.
Reports that Wikileaks released the names of Afghan informants hasn't helped, and even setting aside the controversial charges against him, profiles of Assange (such as the one in the New York Times) don't paint him in a very flattering light.
Regardless of what opinions y
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What I wonder is, why is the reaction so different this time around?
Just before the cables began to be published, he threatened to go after the banks.
You can mess with the puppets, but you do not mess with the puppet masters.
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One possibility is that Wikileaks and Assange are losing public support.
They are.
WikiLeaks: A Document Dump Too Far [abcnews.com]
WikiLeaks Comes Under Fire from Rights Groups [time.com]
Reports that Wikileaks released the names of Afghan informants hasn't helped
Sad, but true. Hopefully none are killed. We need as many informants against the Taliban as we can, both to protect the Afghans, and to protect the US from more terrorist attacks [washingtonpost.com].
WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants [cbsnews.com]
profiles of Assange (such as the one in the
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"So this raise the question, why the hell he is being targeted like that "
Surely you can't be so naive? He's being made an example of. Sure , someone else could stick their head above the parapet but if they know they'll get theirs blown off too they might not be so keen to do it.
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Take Jaclyn Friedman, who vociferously is pursuing Assange, and anyone who supports him or Wikileaks, and is one of those avowed pseudo-feminists, who has books published by Seal Press, part of the Perseus Books Group, known for pu
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Re:Oh they've learned something alright ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
All at once you want to debate the inherence and existence of any right, and the need for privacy in terms of governments and individuals? Are you sure?
As privacy relates to physical security, EVERYONE _needs_ it. Inherence is a matter of philosophy and not grounds for calling another person an idiot. Supposing I have copies of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights in my lap, which parts should I start reading to find these rights? Maybe you're from a different country than I am, so who grants these
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Sounds like a great start.
How is it funding itself? (Score:4, Funny)
How is it funding itself? Do they have $20 and continually re-donate it to their organization?
Wikileaks is innocent I say (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they all got a call from Lieberman's office or something.
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They've leaked it in the sense that they're responsible for making it public.
They're not responsible for initially acquiring the classified information. At least with regards to laws and regulations about handling that information, they are innocent. They're also not being arrested or prosecuted as such. They're just finding that business is becoming hard to do, which shouldn't be a surprise to an organization that's doing something legal but not particularly popular.
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Just publishing documents and files is one thing.
Editing them into questionably accurate videos with misleading titles while their founder flexes his e-peen about how he's "busy ending two wars" is another.
Direct bank transfer (Score:5, Informative)
Based on http://wikileaks.nl/support.html [wikileaks.nl] it is still possible to transfer money directly to two bank accounts (to fund Wikileaks itself, there is also information there if you want to fund Assange's defense):
Bank Transfer - Option 1: via Sunshine Press Productions ehf:
Skulagötu 19, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
Landsbanki Islands Account number 0111-26-611010
BANK/SWIFT:NBIIISRE
ACCOUNT/IBAN:IS97 0111 2661 1010 6110 1002 80
Bank Transfer - Option 2: via the not-for-profit Wau Holland Stiftung Foundation:
This support is tax deductible in Germany
Bank Account: 2772812-04
IBAN: DE46 5204 0021 0277 2812 04
BIC Code: COBADEFF520
Bank: Commerzbank Kassel
German BLZ: 52040021
Subject: WIKILEAKS / WHS Projekt 04
The page also states that some European banks can transfer directly to Datacell, the collection agent for Wikileaks:
Using:
See URLs http://www.datacell.com/news.php [datacell.com] and https://payments.datacell.com/ [datacell.com] for more info about that last option
Please consider donating... (Score:2)
Just a few more dollars and the Flattr team can afford to buy that ever-desirable Second Vowel!
Don't pass-up the opportunity to help a bunch of great guys escape the Web 2.0 trap.
How do Wikileaks get "their" funds out of Flattr? (Score:2)
How do I get money in and out of the Flattr system?
- Currently, Flattr supports most credit cards and direct banking. We're using Moneybookers and PayPal to achieve this. To get money out of the system, we currently support PayPal only.
A dollars worth... (Score:2)
If everyone who did "like" on facebook Wikileaks, also sent them a dollar..... fold it in a piece of paper, stick it in an envelope, address it to the given address, put a stamp on it and mail it...
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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:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't that what the various inter-bank electronic transfer systems do? I can transfer money to any UK account for free, and any account worldwide for a fee. The fee (£10 or so) is so high I've never used it though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT [wikipedia.org]
Of course, these aren't anonymous, and as I understand it most banks charge for transactions in a different currency and/or country.
Using the online form linked from here [wikileaks.ch] ("Online Transfer via selected European and UK banks") should use this system, but doesn't work with either of my accounts -- I think because they're both in £ but the destination account is in €.
The Assange Defence Fund is held in a UK £ account (details at the top of the Support page), so I can donate to that easily (the same way I pay my rent, etc). But I'd rather donate to Wikileaks.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
This was my thought, too. They'll just classify it as a "terrorist organization," so it doesn't matter how you send money to them, you'll still be arrestable.
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I think the story was that SWIFT is in Belgium and the US liked to track it, but the EU parliament then forbade banks to trace transactions through the US for privacy reasons.
Ironically apropos I did not know the US was later allowed to track the SWIFT data anyway until it was revealed by WikiLeaks, though I am not sure if it was really a secret, for some reason the turn-about fo the EU parliament to allow it anyway, just wasn't reported on.
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Isn't that what the various inter-bank electronic transfer systems do? I can transfer money to any UK account for free, and any account worldwide for a fee. The fee (£10 or so) is so high I've never used it though.
That's exactly the problem. It's expensive and inconvenient. It's in no way a competitor to credit cards. We need something that's at least as cheap, practical and convenient as credit card transactions, but more reliable.
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Wikileaks isn't the first case of VISA/MC refusing to process transactions without a court order to such effect. Particularly "unusual" parts of the porn industry have had to deal with that at one point or another. I'd be willing to bet there are at least a few instances of that going on right now, if you get weird/disturbing enough with your porn. Enough for "gross factor" (whether their own or that of another, larger customer) to outpace "income from this customer", to be specific.
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This is exactly what I mean. I expected Visa and MasterCard to have some sort of common carrier status, but it turns out they can use their business as a political weapon. And that's wrong for something that's fundamental infrastructure. The lesson is that we cannot rely on them.
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Because we know politicians asked them to stop, and the have admitted that they stopped the transactions due to pressure from congress?
It is not a conspiracy, it is simply political pressure, and bending to political pressure, and wellknown facts.
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Why is it a political weapon? Why are so many people convinced it's a Government conspiracy?
Didn't MasterCard say they did this under US government pressure (though the government denied it)? Don't forget that the US government uses its political clout on behalf of Visa and MasterCard on the Russian credit card market. Looks like companies and government are pretty closely tied together here.
Could it just be, that a company feels someone is an asshole and doesn't wish to do business with them?
Of course, we're talking about two companies that together have a monopoly on the online payment infrastructure, and the "asshole" they don't want to do business with is a controversial press organization, whe
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It also needs to be able to be exchanged for local currency, or for goods and services directly, which is where bitcoin fails, isn't it?
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You can freely exchange bitcoins for USD - there are operating currency exchanges, though their volume is quite low.
I believe going rate is something like 1 bitcoin = USD 0.25.
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I just bought my first batch of bitcoins. After I saw the EFF was taking them I decided to read up on them...and I like the system alot. I figured, why not toss a few bucks in (couple of hundred $$ actually, figured if I want people to use them, I should have a few to sell off to people).
My verizon rebate card wouldn't work with the exchange that takes cards, so I ended up sending a check and some cash to some guy who was offering an exchange service personally. Worked like a charm though, I was a bit nervo
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Bitcoins serve exactly this purpose. See www.bitcoin.org
Interesting. Do most webshops accept it? Because without that, it's still useless.
Governments take down Website (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Governments are not strong-arming credit card companies. It's been illegal since the rico laws were passed in the 1960's to do business with organizations knowing the funding was going to support, enable, or further criminal activity. As soon as the CC companies would reasonably believe that acts by wikileaks were criminal in nature, they were subject to prosecution under those laws which is why they stopped.
As for your comment about OSS, well, as I said, the laws have been around longer then OSS has, your
Re:News For Nerds (Score:5, Interesting)
Big news for nerds in Spain today [google.com] has got Spanish "internautas"riled: The US pressured all major political parties to change Spanish laws regarding P2P downloads.
Specifically: these two cables (248887 [elpais.com] and 213345 [elpais.com]) are revealing the backroom pressure to ignore the wishes of the Spanish people and slip the laws in without any debate. Even going as far as to tell elected representatives not to meet with the internet community to debate the issue.
This, right on the heels of a votation without public debate going on right now in congress to force through new laws giving the Spanish Gov the right to shutdown websites at will without so much as a court order...
Re:News For Nerds (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, after actually reading the cables, it appears that it wasn't the US pressuring anybody.
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Actually, the US involvement with the issue began in 2004 (over six years ago) and was at the request of the then Spanish government and supported by the opposition party. That, at least is how it was described in the article referenced by the poster regarding Spain.
So, I guess, the US is still the bad guy when asked for their input and help. Seems they just can't win.
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Wait. What? You actually read the cables?
You're missing the point man. This isn't about what was actually said, by Arab countries, by China, by other dictatorships. No, no no... This is about eeeevil Amerikkka.
That's partly why Wikileaks and their supporters are seen as such a bunch of hypocrites. They claim to be all about freedom of speech and encouraging whistleblowers.
However, where were they when dissidents in various dictatorships literally risked their lives leaking the truth? Nowhere of course. Wher
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Wikileaks wasn't born with Cablegate or the Iraq/Afghanistan war logs. And it's not an anti-US site; their first published leak was of an assassination order in Somalia. It's just that the US is fertile in material...
Plus, if you bother read the cables you'll see the obvious pressure, as pointed out by other posters.
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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?
Can you stop feeding the trolls?
Every thread has a troll in it saying "this is not news for nerd/stuff that matters", they should simply be routinely downmodded and ignored.
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It is arguably the most influence technology, hacking and open-source thinking has had this year
Even more than automated grammar checking?
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Well , ok it uses technology - admittedly from 1991 - but I don't think thats quite what you meant.
And , what exactly is "open source thinking"?
The posting is not the technology part, it's the social impact part. The technology part is exercised by whoever acquired the documents, and the technical ability to keep the site free of attacks and running.
Open source thinking stands for giving everyone access to all information, for full transparency, whether that's inside the box, under the hood, under the table, behind the curtain, behind the firewall, but most especially, inside the secret dealings of corrupt, powerful, monopolist, abusive and viol
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But it appears you stand for their rights to abuse human beings, laws and ethics codes of all lands, in complete secrecy. So I understand why you don't agree.
Really? You drew that conclusion from the fact that he simply questioned whether or not this was a technological big deal and queried the expression "open source thinking"?
I've had this sort of thing happen myself before, and frankly it irritates me more every time I see it. You query one aspect of someone's argument and they feel entitled to assume that you're not only arguing against it (which might or might not be the case), but that you're in favour of everything they're opposed to.
I don't even beli
Re:Hey, this news is only 1.5 weeks late (Score:4, Insightful)
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Can we stop posting every bit wikileaks minutiae and get back to real news for nerds?
And if we do post it, let's pos it while it's still news, and not a week later, okay?
wikileaks almost has nothing to do with tech anyways, and this tidbit is almost certainly not stuff that matters.
Blocking online transactions has something to do with your rights online, though. And that's where this story is.
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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.
Don't be daft. Wikileaks is a major story in the news and internet technology made it possible and continues to enable it. The story is fascinating in many ways, including potential technology measures and counter measures (eg: domain shut downs). Much of what we read here does not make it to the mainstream news sites or the spin on it changes. Some of the minutiae is a little much but certainly some people must want to see it or it would not have been modded up on submission.
Besides, you can always pi
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Legal clauses please. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Many of the data published by Wikileaks have since also been published by various newspapers and other news organisations. I don't see anyone calling for _their_ heads! Double-standards?
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The same thing happened with Pastor Terry Jones, the would-be Koran burner in Florida. High-level government officials said "this is a security risk" and "this will endanger our troops" (yeah even General Petraeus stuck his nose in it).
Then the fire department blocked their burn permit (ridiculous). Next thing you know their insurance company canceled their coverage and their bank called in their mortgage. All over fully protected free speech.
I agree there is a clear need to have some kind of neutrality law
Re:Legal clauses please. (Score:5, Interesting)
They aren't guilty of the Espionage Act. They haven't even been officially charged with anything. It's questionable if they even can be charged under the act (since they do/may-fall-under the journalism exception). So far they are in exactly the same legal situation Intel is over spying on US intelligence: none.
There is lots of saber-rattling and threats; but no charges. Thus they can't be guilty. Arguably, there are no charges because then they could be proved innocent, where as right now they're basically stuck as "we assume they're guilty" unless for push for a court to say otherwise (directed verdict?).
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Assange isn't a US citizen, and thus is not subject to US law.
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So, it doesn't mean he's not in violation of American law.
Nigerian scammers aren't subject to American laws either but we freeze their assets in US owned companies when caught. The same goes with drug lords and communist dictators.
Nothing new here. The your law can't touch me argument fails.
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No, they can be guilty, they just haven't been found guilty in court yet- they aren't convicted. The lack of charges does nothing to determine the guilt or innocence of anyone.
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An American bank financing a person ingaging in violation of Espionage Act of 1917
The bank isn't financing.
Re:Legal clauses please. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I just actually read all of your post. You actually don't have the right to deny service to a minority based on race/creed. The civil rights act made that illegal. That's the reason some tea-party people argue that the act was unconstitutional or overreached.
Now, you may not be prosecuted for refusing to serve a white customer, but if the situation was reversed you could easily lose in court.
IANAL, YMMV, blah blah blah
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The reason most tea party people argue the civil rights act was unconstitutional wasn't because it made certain things illegal. It's because it provided special privileges for some based on race/creed. Namely the affirmative action parts.
Now it was argued that it was necessary to reverse years of suppression due to racism and that might be a valid point. But, being a valid point still doesn't make it constitutional. The part of the constitution that gave congress the power to make the civil rights act is th
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Also you do not have an absolute right to turn down service. In a lot of countries I would suggest if you put up a "No Blacks" etc. sign outside your shop etc then you would quickly get in legal tro
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In terms of Mastercard and Visa, I would say it was a bit more more complicated, as they have a near duopoly of card processing methods
It's called an oligopoly [wikipedia.org], and that's certainly true. Particularly if you're interested in your card actually being accepted anywhere (there are still the Amexs and Discovers of the world, but they're not nearly as ubiquitous as Visa and Mastercard).
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I thought the most barbaric thing to come out of this story is that a US corp pimped children out to afghan warlords to secure a contract and the US government is covering it up and not holding anyone responsible?
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I thought the most barbaric thing to come out of this story is that a US corp pimped children out to afghan warlords to secure a contract and the US government is covering it up and not holding anyone responsible?
Not so much. Covered here [slashdot.org].
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Please though can we get away from the missuse of the the word terrorism. Terrorism involves killing people and threatening to kill people to get what you want. This is civil disobeidence. The best analogy is a something like a picket. It is annoy
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Then you didn't read / hear what was said. Either that or your were on a source that withheld the fact that NONE of the payment systems were affected by the DDoS. It was solely their website / some web services, which has nothing to do with payments.
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I realized that they are engaging in economic terrorism.
Economic terrorism? WTF? Terrorism is violent military action against civilians for political purposes. Economic "terrorism" sheds no blood.
The definition of "terrorism" gets thinner and thinner until we're all terrorists.
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The problem is that Visa and MasterCard together have pretty much a monopoly on international online payments. They own our payment infrastructure, and therefore they can decide what we can do with our money. That's just not an acceptable situation. Our payment infrastructure needs to be neutral, and not corporate owned.
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Have you considered that banks can do international payments too? Using IBAN numbers, etc, you can make payments to any bank account on the planet. Only it's expensive and cumbersome, and not integrated with an easy payment system. But I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to do just that.
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In this case, that's called "voluntary censorship". So yeah, that's what freedom of speech is kind of at ends with in any modern society.
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I actually had no idea, I thought the only way to donate to Wikleaks right now was via Xipwire.
this the first I have heard of it (Score:3)
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You forgot a US corp pimping children to afghan warlords to win a contract and related coverup.
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You forgot a US corp pimping children to afghan warlords to win a contract and related coverup.
Not quite.
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