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PayPal Withdraws WikiLeaks Donation Service
ItsIllak writes "The BBC are reporting that PayPal is the latest company to abandon WikiLeaks. The list now includes their DNS providers (EveryDNS) and their hosts (Amazon). PayPal's move is unlikely to result in many more people boycotting the company, as most knowledgeable on-line users will have been refusing to use them for years for a wide variety of abusive practices."
Adds reader jg21: "As open source freedom fighter Simon Phipps writes in his ComputerWorldUK blog, behavior like this by Amazon and Tableau [and now PayPal] 'informs us as customers of web services and cloud computing services that we are never safe from intentional outages when the business interests of our host are challenged.'"
If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to worry about.
Isn't that what they tell us when they pry into our affairs...?
No sig today...
Wikileaks, which is revealing the truth about governments and therefore aiding (in a way) the democratic process - is being killed off because it is risky for companies to continue supporting it....
Freedom works both ways. I give you the freedom of speech, but please allow me the freedom to not do business with you.
I don't so much mind the fact that some american businesses are bigoted red-necks. The politicians are the one to watch.
well, Guess it's time to close that account then.
what a bunch of bullshit. I'm getting so tired of the the divide that's developing.
It is surprising, watching the entire WikiLeaks controversy, how quickly American corporations discard the concepts and ideals of the American constitution.
"most knowledgeable on-line users will have been refusing to use them for years "
While it's true that paypal generates animosity for some, I still think that the above statement requires a source before putting it in the article summary like it's a fact.
I think there is a real possibility that the more they stamp down on wikileaks the more people are likely to support it. You don't need paypal to get donations. Unless the government is going to open mail and remove checks (I suppose that COULD happen) wikileaks will get support.
As for the Web site, copies of it will float around forever in bittorrent, question is,...will we see wikileaks move completely over to something like freenet (which it has not done but it is being mirrored by 3rd party individuals on freenet)
I must say, this is sizing up to be quite an interesting chapter in our history. The pressure put on these companies by angry or embarrassed government entities must be enormous.
Or nonexistent. Seeing as we've seen no report of governmental influence other than one company saying they unilaterally booted Wikileaks after a Senator made a public statement condemning Wikileaks, any supposition of governmental pressure is pure conjecture. One could also surmise that companies might find doing business with a website which is at the very least hostile toward the US government isn't part of their business plan and cut ties. Or maybe they're really patriotic. The point is, we don't know if the government has pressured American companies not to do business with Wikileaks. I suspect it wouldn't take much leaning on the part of the government to convince them to stop, at any rate. I know this doesn't fit the narrative here at /., what with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, but in the real world businesses do what is in their own best interests.
if those companies are not FOR freedom of speech and information, then it means they are enemies of it. REGARDLESS of their reasons. a tool for oppression, is a tool for oppression. it doesnt matter zit, whether the company shows business reasons as an excuse.
If, you are helping censorship, oppression, it means YOU ARE HELPING CENSORSHIP AND OPPRESSION.
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I dunno if you've noticed lately but:
A. The government is taking down domain names without warrants
B. The government is pressuring hosts to remove services
C. The government is encouraging if not mandating ISP to throttle bit torrents
D. The government is tracking US citizens Via their Credit cards, telephone conversations, Internet traffic and cellphones without warrants.
E. All sorts of other nefarious things we aren't aware of yet...
Seriously, this is turning into a bad Oliver Stone movie.
You know, I never thought about how oppressed we really were until your post on this commercial, advertising-supported Web site cleared it up for me.
Grow up and get some perspective.
oh geee !!! now i see the error of my ways ..
so, if we were back in slavery days, and slave in a plantation owners' farm, and talking at night in the log cabin that the plantation owner stuffed us into, while eating the food that plantation owner had given us, it would be totally wrong if i said 'hey, we are slaves here, we have no freedom' ??
would you say, 'you know, i never thought about how oppressed we really were until your talk in this slaveowner-sponsored log cabin, eating this slave-owner sponsored meal', in that sarcastic manner ?
wake up and dont be an idiot.
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If the US moves Wikileaks on the list of terrorist organizations, I move the US on my list of fascist nations.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Meg Whitman? Wow, tinfoil hattery shows no bounds.
But he's not an Anonymous Coward calling others names on Slashdot.
you know, the kind who dedicated their lives so that others could live: the kind who actually lost their lives.
you mean, the ones who lost their lives while propagating invasions, occupations so that american corporations can create mandates and get access to resources ?
in NO war after world war ii, there has been a situation in which american soldiers were dying for defending freedom and preventing oppression. in ALL situations, and that includes somalia, they were sent to those places to further private interests's aims in the region. Any zone either had strategic resources (panama canal, middle east), or, natural resources (somalia, middle east, oil).
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Any person proud to be of a specific nationality is by definition an idiot. Pride reflects a choice of actions. Pride is often confused with arrogance. Arrogance is the pride exhibited by those who have no cause to feel pride (e.g., someone of noble birth looking down on a commoner). Pride is also seldomly confused with inspiration.
Which is it? Are these companies totally gutless? Unable to recognize the positive publicity they could spin from this? Or - more likely - have they been put under back-room pressure by governmental officials? If so, they should publish *that* through Wikileaks.
The accounts were terminated, because Wikileaks violated their terms of service. Specifically "encouraging illegal activity". Of course the material is illegal - lots of it is classified, and whoever leaked it violated the law. That's kind of the point. Whistleblowing is always against some regulation, be it corporate or governmental. Whistleblowing to expose corrupt, unethical or simply improper practices nonetheless remains important, and should be supported.
In the current round of Wikileaks stuff, I haven't heard of any major bombshells. However, the sheer mass of classified materials points to improper governmental secrecy. There is no reason for most of this stuff to be classified in any way. After World War I, Woodrow Wilson named fourteen points for preserving international peace. His very first point includes the statement: "...there shall be no private international understanding of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view."
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
That is why so many of us believe in property rights, the rights to the fruits of our labors and the right to freely trade with others.
then you are a moron.
'property rights, 'rights of the fruits of our labors', and 'the right to freely trade with others', ends up at THIS point, if there is no size to the limit of an entity or an individual in regard to resources :
in a dog eat dog world of competition, you eventually end up with a few very fat dogs.
and those fattest dogs have the say on what happens and what does not, REGARDLESS of your delusions and self-indulgences about 'freedom of market and fruits of labors' and whatnot.
see, paypal is now the de facto provider of payment around the internet. it suspended wikileaks account. if 2 more major providers of payment suspends them, say, visa, or mastercard, then wikileaks will be practically unable to use modern payment methods, and people will have to snail mail.
lets see, if 2-3 major backbone providers, who control the traffic in most of united states, suspends or slows down their traffic, wikileaks site will not be visible to 200 million + americans.
see ?
in the world you describe, private INDIVIDUALS and CORPORATIONS decide what your freedom is.
and, your freedom, as you can see is, 'not'.
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http://lieberman.senate.gov/index.cfm/news-events/news/2010/12/amazon-severs-ties-with-wikileaks
Clearly Lieberman's office called them before they took it down. It is not cool at all in my book for government officials to be calling web providers and demanding "an explanation". It's unpatriotic. Downright un-American.
Clearly Amazon reported their compliance to Lieberman after they did it.
Clearly Lieberman thinks it is a good idea for communications service companies to be under the heel of random senators' offices. It would seem that in his and Amazon's view, cloud computing and data center hosting arrangements should be provisioned at the pleasure of His Royal Highness.
Lieberman and Amazon need to go on record and explain whether or not this policy should extend to other organizations such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Amazon needs to make a statement about whether or not The New York Times is welcome to host on their EC2 service, and whether or not they intend to exercise editorial control.
Is this guy channeling Nixon, or what?
So let me get this straight:
You, as a private citizen, are free to stop doing business with anyone whom you so choose simply because you don't like what they are doing.
But when Paypal, as a private business, stops doing business with someone they choose because they don't like what their client is doing, you threaten to 'report them to the European Parliament?' On what possible basis? Are you actually suggesting that the government should force Paypal or any other private business to continue doing business against their will?
While I agree in general with what you are saying, if you are using the assets of the "corporations which dominate the economic side," why would you assume to have any freedoms?
Should not the corporation that provides the service have a say in who can use that service and how? If not, what about their freedoms? There is an old adage about not biting the hand that feeds you, so this has been around a lot longer than the rise of capitalism.
a corporation becomes de facto government in a field of life, if that corporation or 1-2 others are de facto controllers of the means of life or services and products in that life.
....
basically, visa, mastercard dominate electronic payment. they are de facto governments of that field of life. period. if, they are let practice as they want, it means that they will effectively GOVERN that aspect of life, as they see fit.
that would be no problem, if visa, mastercard were democratic organizations, in which everyone had equal share. but, due to the principle of property and capitalism mechanics, mastercard, visa, any corporation that spans the globe can be owned/controlled by a a small group, or few individuals. even, one individual at times.
so basically, that makes that small group, or individuals or individual, the sole decision makers in regard to what happens in that aspect of life.
they basically become feudal lords of that field of life.
dont err and deceive yourself by thinking 'competition' -> if a corporation has become so big that it dominates a sector, it means that that corporation has the money and power to keep that position and outdo any competition. exceptions do not make a rule -> walmart is still walmart, visa is still visa, mastercard mastercard
so basically, what capitalism accomplishes in the LONG run, is feudalizing the economic aspect of life. technically, political aspect of life, remains egalitarian and democratic, and that supposedly ensures freedom. BUT, because you need financing power for EVERYthing including politics, inevitably the economic aspect of life governs the political, and carries the feudalism there, to the political life. and that is the ill behind all the issues you people are complaining about corrupt government, senate, congress in usa.
Amazon, Paypal, etc. is not stopping anyone from exercising their freedoms (most likely speech in the context of your post). They are just not choosing to let you use their resources to do it. If you want to set up your own printing press or the electronic equivelant, you are free to do so. If that is economically not feasible, that isn't because you don't have the freedom to do it, you just don't have the means.
oh yes they are.
they are choosing not to let me use their resources, but, it turns out that they are the controller of majority (dominant majority) of those resources.
that effectively ends up pushing me to, well, 'set up my printing press', or its equivalent. ironically, to be able to make my voice heard to the masses with my 'equivalent' services, i have to first BEAT those corporations so that i can actually access those resources they have been withholding of me.
so, you are basically saying, every person is free, but the PRACTICE of that freedom requires engaging in a feudal turf battle with the dominant lord in that zone.
BR. excuse me, but that kind of freedom, we had in medieval times. its 2010.
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You didn't think this through before you started calling people idiots. LOTS of folks have chosen to become Americans.
... of how deeply fascist tendencies have crept into our socio-economic system.
Our government depends heavily upon the cooperation of the corporate community to perform enforcement functions that they themselves are prohibited from by the Constitution. In a true free market, business would tell the government to take a hike until such time as a court injunction was in hand. Up to that point, everyone's money is green. But its evident that our system provides incentives (or pressure) to the corporate world to participate in public policy initiatives, distorting supply and price signals upon which an efficient market depends.
Have gnu, will travel.
I think usually people are "proud" to be of a specific nationality because they are proud of the "choice of actions" of that nation. I could say that I'm proud to be Canadian because of the actions taken by my nation, in much the same way that I could tell my child I'm proud of them for choosing right over wrong, for working hard on their piano practice, or for sticking up for a friend. Pride doesn't have to be completely centered around my own choices.
You're the idiot.
The US is a Republic, based on the idea that we the people govern the country. It was our successful experimentation in self-government that proved to the world that self-government could be done successfully, and that spread the idea of individual liberty across the entire world. In doing so the US changed the political landscape of the entire world for the better. I'd say that is an accomplishment of which any American can rightfully be proud.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
> If it was illegal, why hasn't the justice department issued an indictment for Julian Assange?
I think it's very important to note that Wikileaks hasn't actually released anything that the New York Times hasn't *also* released, *with the same redaction*. And the New York Times has been working directly with the State Department.
Whatever crime that Assange could be indicted for, would also be a crime that editors of the NYT have committed in a conspiracy with the US State Department.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If you're going to take the credit for what your forefathers did in the 18th century (assuming that they were among the residents of the 13 colonies, which probably isn't the case for a large number, if not a majority, of current US citizens), then don't you also have to take the blame for all the mistakes and crimes the US has committed since then? Is the total still in your favour?
You didn't get it. The idea is that you're being irrational if you feel proud for yourself on behalf of something someone else did without a significant involvement by you in some way. You can be proud of your children in the sense that you had something to do with whatever they accomplished and that indirectly reflects on you. You can be proud of a friend if you played a significant role in his success. There might even be a tiny proportion of fans of sports teams that can rightfully be proud when they win due to them having done substantial things to make the win possible. The proportion of citizens that have cause to be proud of their country is just as tiny. No American alive today was involved in any way with the founding of America, and so feeling proud of what happened then is taking someone's else's glory for yourself - it is strutting stolen feathers. Not that that ever stopped anyone.
Publishing classified material IS legal. Stealing the classified material is illegal, and if it is entrusted to you to keep it classified it is illegal to distribute, but if I find a classified document lying in the street or someone gives one to me there is nothing illegal about publishing it.
Respecting the constitution is not the sign of an inept ideologue. Just because a few of the previous AG's didn't think they were bound by the constitution doesn't make that a weakness of this one.
This sentence no verb.
To all those who are saying, "Don't blame PayPal and Amazon, because they are responding to government pressure! It's the big bad government that's to blame, not friendly American businesses!" (and there are several of these in the above threads) I would just like to point out that your government/business dichotomy doesn't actually exist in the real world. While I'm sure some in the government have approached these companies, I'd be willing to bet my life the decisions were made for independent business reasons, because the large corporations know which side their bread is buttered on, and it's the side of a large and powerful US government.
Do you really believe the shareholders of PayPal and Amazon don't see a strong US government as profitable to them? Most of these shareholders own stock in many other corporations, probably including corporations who benefited from government giveaways in Iraq and Afghanistan, from hundreds of other government contracts, from bank bailouts, or from the auto bailout. Notably, anyone who owns stock in companies engaged in war profiteering suffers from both the diplomatic cable leaks and the military leaks because they need the government to have a free hand in matters of war and peace in order to make the decisions that most profit them.
In this country, large corporations and government are on the same side. They have been for decades. They work together to screw us. Think about it: who do politicians most closely listen to? Lobbyists. Who has most of the lobbyists? Big corporations. The only time government and big corporations are NOT on the same side is when we, the people, really push our government to do something different, and at that point government sometimes does something somewhat beneficial while corporations fight it and claim the government is "anti-business". The truth is, the government is never anti-business except when businesses are doing something really wrong and the people stand up to vocally oppose them.
After all, how could an entity controlled by business be anti-business?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
It's not just throwing out diplomatic cables. If that's all they needed to do, they wouldn't need a whole organization. They could just use Tor and the hundreds of other back channels by which data circulates on the internet. But consider all the other things that Wikileaks actually does besides distributing data:
These four tasks are absolutely indispensable. If some future Wikileaks copycat thinks that it's enough to dump out documents, then the world is really in trouble. Wikileaks doesn't get enough credit for all the work they do to make sure their leaking is done in a responsible way.
Then I must ask: Do you live by it? Do you tell the truth, at all times, in your life? That doesn't just mean only saying what is true, that means never omitting important details, never keeping your peace when there is something that would be relevant to say. That includes things like white lies to try and make people feel better and so on. It also means providing anyone who asks with full and complete information on any subject they ask.
This is a rhetorical question because I know you don't, nobody does. There are plenty of reasons to keep secrets.
Now I'm not arguing about if specific secret should be kept or not, but it makes your "Revealing the truth is *never* inappropriate behavior," statement look rather silly.
We don't have to feel shame for we aren't the ones who have done this.
You did this - Iraq, Abu Graib, Gitmo, the 'rendition' of political prisoners, the cluster bombing of villages, members of your government making death threats against innocent people (Julian Assange) with no legal action taken, on the basis that 'his' organisation revealed some truths that were embarrassing. You sat by silently while it went on in your name. These atrocities are now part of the US legacy - and to the extent that you could have done something about it and didn't they are your legacy too. That's the point - you can't be proud of the long gone legacy that you didn't participate in and cannot influence, and not be ashamed of the recent legacy that you, in a small way, were part of.
The ones who should feel shame are the progressives/socialists who have been busily destroying our freedoms and sense of love for our country for more than 100 years and lying about what they are doing every step of the way.
I see. Do Palinisms come in pill form now - making them easier to swallow? Socialism isn't what you think it is, and your freedoms haven't been taken away by socialists - but rather by the corporate hand that steers the actions and positions of your faux representatives in the government. Including Tea Partiers - the same thing, but with different spin.
We have to feel, and act on, our sense of responsibility we have in the governing of our own country, and the sense of the debt of honor we owe our founders. But, we can still derive pride that we are a part of something that has done such a great thing, if we are willing to fight to return our country to its founding principles. I am. How about you? If not, then you do need to feel a sense of shame until you decide your country's founding ideals are something worth fighting for.
Then get on with it. A good place to start would be to abandon the notion that the US is somehow different from the rest of the world. This creates a phlegmatic atmosphere - the delusion that somehow, a thread of underlying decency will shine through eventually if we trust the American Ideal and ignore the atrocities of the recent past. The founding principles of your country have been turned into a mythology that your oppressors and their mouthpieces use to stop you acting against them.