Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
I recall reading here that since Paypal isn't a bank, that they get to do lots of very questionable things with your money in the paypal account. Is it likely they did the same thing here?
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.
Yes, it's always dangerous to do business with large companies like Amazon or Paypal that aggressively try to obtain a monopoly in their market, because these kind of companies usually give a shit about individual customers. For my shareware I've been using Kagi from the start and never had any problem with them.
But I must confess that I'm still using Amazon S3 for my backups. (I wonder what happens if I upload a copy of the cable leaks in unencrypted form? Will my account be canceled without prior notice and all my backups be gone?)
Question: Can anyone recommend a reasonably prized alternative to the S3/Jungledisk combo?
There were idiots believing there could be freedom with full feudalism (capitalism) being allowed in the economic side of life, and democracy and equality in the political side of life.
....
See how that works ? you are free to say anything you want, from the political side, but, you dont have the MEANS to say it from the economic side.
basically, the corporations which dominate the economic side, determine how far your freedom goes. it doesnt matter ZIT whether you are allowed full freedoms in the political side of life.
its stupid anyway - you let everyone be free and equal, but, you give the control of the means to exercise those freedoms to the most wealthy. what did you think would happen ?
this
Read radical news here
Yea! Aren't you PROUD to be an American?
Yes
I'm surprised, I'd have thought Paypal would have been the first to cut ties. Especially considering their connection to Meg Whitman.
Though, this is probably a good thing. Considering Paypal's reputation and standing, Paypal is a company that Wikileaks should have been publishing documents about, rather than using as a payment partner.
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 don't know, I donated to Wikileaks once, and then the following week a package of over 10,000 of my private emails, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc, was leaked and republished in the New York Times and Guardian Newspaper.
Never again...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This has suddenly become an excellent business opportunity to any company that wants free publicity and wishes to get a chunk of Paypal's business. It only needs to contact wikileaks and offer their regular service, along with an assurance that they won't cancel the account. That, alone, will contrast with Paypal's notorious appalling business behaviour, which systematically lets their paying customers hang out to dry.
So, care to put your money where your mouth is, alertpay and co ?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Use Bitcoin (at least until they outlaw it)
I think it's pretty commonly known that paypal sucks. Not that long ago Paypal locked the account of the indie developer of Minecraft for no good reason, holding over $600k hostage.
I have demanded that they reinstate wikileaks account, and noted that i would migrate my business from paypal to other means, and also advise my ecommerce clients to do as such too. In addition, because im in the Eu zone, i have filed my complaint under 'file a complaint in the european union'.
i have also stated that i was going to file an official complaint with the European Parliament regarding the matter, unless the account is not reinstated. As a citizen of a candidate country, i have that right. Any citizen of any member or candidate country, has that right. If you file your complaint properly with your name, address, it is processed by Eu Parl even if it is by email.
take action.
i said, i didnt want to do business with a corporation that caves into the pressure of a single senator from a single country. Let paypal show its international, if it wants to do business internationally.
Read radical news here
That last line in the summary seems to be implying a big negative reason for adopting cloud computing.
Booooooooo
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
Doing that wasnt on my mind even. Thanks, whichever moron, has pressurized paypal to suspend them. They made me donate to wikileaks.
Thank you for your donation.
Your payment of EUR 25 has been received 4.12.2010 16:02:31
With your VISA xxxxxxxxxxxx9516
Reference : 5729
The Wikileaks Team, Sunshine Press
Read radical news here
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.
Read radical news here
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.
Freedom of publication. But can you afford to pay for the press, the ink, the distribution?
Freedom of broadcasting. But can you afford the license fee for the frequency, the cost of powering the transmitter?
Freedom to gather. But can you afford to take a day of work, the travel expenses? Can you get a meeting place?
The chains of oppression are never more powerful then when those chains are of our own making. We make the super-companies and gave them the power to control society. Google dictates what you can put on a website, oh you can pay for bandwidth yourself but who can afford to pay for a DDOS attack traffic? So you get google ads and abide by their content laws or you get the money elsewhere.
Through paypal donations? Only when PayPal approves.
The proof? Boobies. There is no need for congress to ban boobies on TV, self regulation does it already. How nice. But it goes further. Just how do you get something published on TV if the powers that be do not want it? Oh, you might be able to get it on some tiny channel but then the fast majority will never see it.
Mission accomplished.
The conspiracy theory nuts never think devious enough. They fear jackbooted thugs marching down the street when it is so much simpler to simply let it be known that an action would displease you and all the little puppets spring into action to prevent the risk that this displeasement might come on their necks. I could whip you into obeying my orders, or I could make you fear you won't have a job tomorrow with which to pay your credit card debt. I can only whip one person at a time. I can ruin thousands of lives by just signing a simple piece of paper except that the fear means I never have to do it to get you and your masters to obey.
We are seeing now in action what western democracy has become. And nothing will change. Because our masters have replaced the whip with credit card payments, mortages and Idols. The romans would have been proud. To bad they are gone, bread and circusses didn't work out to well for us. Doubt it will for us.
Wonder what the Chinese are making of all this. They seen the romans rice and fall, are we just another empire to die as the Chinese empire continues?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Me too.
I wish there was a way to pay anonymously without having to go through a single company. There is always bitcoins, I guess, but that's not a perfect answer I feel.
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
It is rather easy if you are using paypal for only personal purposes, but it is hard for any kind of web service provider, like websites, or web developers or other small businesses and professionals. It is so because paypal is widely accepted.
So, what other alternatives are there for paypal, for people who are engaged in such industries professionally ? can anyone give a clue ?
Read radical news here
But he's not an Anonymous Coward calling others names on Slashdot.
Me too.
I see you're an AOL user. Didn't know they were still around.
I guess this is the time when the veil's opened and we realize that the web designed by Tim Berners-Lee, is dead.
The Internet has stopped being the land of free-speech as we know it. At any time that corporate or government interests are against free speech, they just hit the political off-switch. If someone decides to install internet routers and domain systems in another country, expect that country to be labelled "terrorist" and invaded by those with power.
Expect peer-to-peer information sources and services to be outlawed. Guess the cyberpunks authors got it right after all.
If Wikileaks is encouraging people to take confidential information from their employers (corporate espionage) so they can post it AND Paypal has a policy that you cannot use a paypal account if you are encouraging people to break the law, what is the issue. If Wikileaks was the only company that paypal enforced this policy on, that would be one thing, but they have done it a number of times.
Paypal is not make a political statement, it is only enforcing it's own clearly stated policies. Mastercard, VISA and American Express all have the same policy, although Wikileaks didn't use them to solicit donation. So, if you are going to close your paypal account, you should also cancel all your credit cards, too.
Why would these pay systems do that? Could be that if Wikileaks is found to be violating the laws of some country or another that they (Paypal, credit cards, etc.) could be held liable for funnelling funds to them. Loosing a few accounts from people acting emotionally is a whole lot less painful than loosing millions in fines or being banned from operating in that country.
The good news about all of this, however, is that Wikileaks has risen to enough of threat/source (depending on how you look at it) that others are taking notice. However, that is a two edged sword because now they are being placed under the same public scrutiny that they subject others to.
So, exposing what a criminal/terrorist/etc government does make YOU an criminal/terrorist/etc, at least in the eyes of Paypal, Inc.
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).
Read radical news here
Paypal is basically discriminating against an entity/person based in European Union, based on political pressure in united states.
United states, is not in european union.
Petition european parliament at the below url via their online form, or, mail your petition to the address below and ask European Parliament look into the practices of Paypal in european union, and take action against their holdings in Eu, if they are found in violation. If they are to do business in European union, they have to abide by its rules and regulations.
https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/petition/secured/submit.do?language=EN
Committee on Petitions
The Secretariat
Rue Wiertz
B-1047 Brussels
Read radical news here
Looking forward to someone at PayPal leaking the emails from the Secretary of State threatening to charge PayPal with aiding terrorism if they don't stop providing a donation button to Wikileaks.
http://www.screw-paypal.com/alternatives/alternatives.html
Dated 2007. Anything newer?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
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.
So you must be pretty pissed at the NYT and Guardian for publishing your private emails, cc numbers and ssn. Do you think companies like Amazon and Paypal should stop doing business with them?
I don't care why you're posting AC
False pride is still pride. So while it may be more appropriate to be happy, it's not at all impossible to be proud.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
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'.
Read radical news here
paypal has become de facto 'reliable and private' payment means for small transactions around the internet. doesnt matter whether youre in singapore or eu or australia or venezuela.
Read radical news here
The documents were taken by a private first class in the US Army. They were not that secure in the FIRST place. Any country with a halfway decent spy service has almost certainly already taken them.
I would also suspect that those documents contain disinformation precisely because they were so poorly secured.
This knowledge is already out there. The outrage et cetera is being manipulated.
This is such a circus.
im really sick of those ayn randist 'free market' delusions.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1896026&cid=34444004
Read radical news here
I've heard people talk about so-called "abusive practices" with PayPal, but over the last ten years I've yet to encounter even a single problem. I've reversed transactions, needed card replacements, etc--and it's all been flawless. Why the hate?
But I closed both my paypal and ebay accounts. This is unacceptable and I advice everyone to do the same. Power of numbers will make a difference.
I've closed my account today. And I hope my donation to them via Paypal done about a week ago has reached them.
If it was illegal, why hasn't the justice department issued an indictment for Julian Assange? Or perhaps gone after Wikileaks itself? It's all been political sabre rattling, because wikileaks itself is completely legal, they can't do anything else.
Wikileaks should sue Paypal over this, they have unilaterally declared wikileaks illegal with no charges having been filed. They are directly violating their contract for service. Amazon's terms had some wiggle room, but Paypal is just full of shit.
This absolutely stinks of backroom political pressure.
This sentence no verb.
hahaha youre funny.
european parliament is the parliament of the european union, and since lisbon treaty, it has ruling power.
its not a simple shit.
Read radical news here
I submitted a story about it.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1408358/Pakistan-and-USA-tackle-Wikileaks-their-own-ways
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Regional/Lahore/04-Dec-2010/Plea-to-ban-WikiLeaks-in-Pakistan-dismissed
I think we can expect numerous current PayPal users to stop using them, and others who have never used them to start, as this is a very polarizing issue
The online shopper has other things on her mind.
The tenuous connection between Wikileaks and PayPal does not rank high among them.
At one point, maybe still to this day, Paypal was giving you interest on the money that you keep as a balance. The income was not guaranteed, i.e. you could loose money, and you had to agree to put your money into that money-market account..
There's one reason why people may have kept a balance with Paypal..
Well said. You should have signed in.
Isn't it interesting that Amazon quite genuinely publicly defended a Paedophilia how-to guidebook longer than Wikileaks? I'm surprised no one else seems to be talking about this in all the discussions I've seen so far on Wikileaks being dropped.
Though the author claimed it did no wrong, and was about 'loving children', reports stated it went so far as to discuss how to create custom condoms for use with children, that's a far cry from innocent intent, but an attack on the innocent.
"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable," it stated.
And yet the single biggest defender of the right to true free speech this century, perhaps even ever, is dumped from their servers quicker than 'TSA for dummies, a terrorists guide' would be.
I find the timing of the massive attempts to shutdown wikileaks at all costs curious (maybe it's just the conspiracy theorist in me). I have no doubt those in power were aware of the pending release of the Afganistan diaries in July. This dump contained information and videos embarrassing (to say the least) to the US, but no real attempt was made to block it's release. The next major dump (gablegate) was no doubt anticipated beforehand as well and we began seeing some moves afoot to try and block it's dissemination, but no "bring the hammer down and stop it at all costs before it gets out" effort. That seems to have changed last week. The government is now warning all military, civilian and contractors to not download and/or read the documents, or they might jeopardize their jobs (or worse). However, the documents are already out there and being reported on. It would seem a little late to try to put the genie back in the bottle, so what's going on here?
Could it be that the next announced major document dump , the so-called "banking information megadump" is the real dump that cannot be allowed to be made public? It's no secret that it's really the banks that control all governments, including the US (or so the conspiracy goes). I'm not sure how much stock to put in this conspiracy theory, but it does make a good deal of common sense that those with the money pull the levers.
I does make one wonder - I'm just sayin'
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
quite an interesting point he has there. pedophilia is more free than information it seems.
Read radical news here
If you don't like PayPal, you can open an actual credit card merchant account.
This is likely going to be a pain in the butt compared to just opening a PayPal account, generating a button, and pasting the HTML into your web page.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1896026&cid=34444004
they are basically governments in electronic payment field. they GOVERN electronic payment, to an extent of 80-90%.
THAT MAKES THEM DE FACTO GOVERNMENT IN THAT SECTOR.
you cant let them decide what your freedom will be.
Read radical news here
And, as you see, it's entirely different from the mindless nationalism of other states. Principles? Values? Morals? Secondary to the incidental place of your birth.
USA! USA! USA! REGARDLESS OF HER HYPOCRISY, USA!
that is the real problem.
there are a lot of cc payment options. but, with paypal, you dont have the trust issue many people have with such direct cc payments.
Read radical news here
What leftist/collectivist twaddle.
In a free society, there necessarily has to be the threat of these "intentional outages".
It's a basic right not to help someone whose interests somehow conflict with yours, or for any other reason.
For instance, a magazine has as right not to publish letters, or refuse advertizers.
I find it hard to imagine how we could fix this "problem" of intentional outages without stepping on freedom.
You didn't think this through before you started calling people idiots. LOTS of folks have chosen to become Americans.
"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.'"
First, let's stop with the "cloud services" references. It's the Internet. More specifically, the web. Second, what it exposes is the ability of any service to stop providing you services. Which private companies can do if you stray outside their terms of use. And third, it's Wikileaks. I struggle to give a flying rats feces about it. I realize to the rest of the world seeing the U.S. getting a finger in the eye is tantamount to a juicy episode of American Idol but they opened the door and were surprised to find that not everyone was going to kiss their gluteus maximus in thanks.
... 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.
Talk about having your head in the cloud...
'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.'"
Before entrusting your most precious services and data to the cloud, you better get an ironclad SLA. An SLA that requires high uptime and is violated by any intentional outage, except under very narrowly taylored conditions. An SLA that requires not only a refund to you, but a minimum amount of compensation designed to penalize the SP, and additional compensation for any damage to your business.
An SLA that allows you to require at your option an independent third party, to make the decision if the SLA has been violated and award you the money.
An SLA with built in recourse for the customer to Arbitrators or Courts of law, solely at customer's option, to mediate any dispute.
Narrowly taylored meaning, all possible Network Abuse must be understood by both parties. And the service provider's recourse for Network "Abuse" is limited, and service can be turned off without long advance notice, only in emergencies, such as compromised servers/accounts, high volume DoS, high volume Spam sending.
With the SP allowed to respond to phishing sites and malware containing websites on a hosted server, solely by gaining access to that server, removing or disabling malicious file(s) or url(s), and billing the user.
I must admit, Amazon does lose credibility here by passing sentence and taking down their servers when a court has not yet issued any orders. Wikileaks' practices seem to be possible illegal, but it is not clear that they actually are.
Amazon's SLA is anything but ironclad, so it's Wikileaks fault technically for subscribing to a service that does not carry protections for whatever unpopular things they are doing
I call on /.ers to do the same.
"We fought for Freedom and all we got was democracy"
- Pieter-Dirk Uys
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
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
Twitter? They are quite useful in delivery of latest wikileaks news/rumors/agenda.
So in other words, you were a supporter until he did something you didn't like, and now you hate him. What is this, middle school? Grow up already.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Arrogance is perfectly possible even if it is based on real accomplishment - it is based on how you behave in relation to other people and not what you have accomplished. If someone is looking down on a commoner for being a commoner, unlike his fine self, then he is arrogant no matter whether he has some merit that the commoner does not.
Apart from the general irritating bloviations, Simon Phipps' thinking is particularly fuzzy when it comes to cloud computing vs traditional hosting.
It doesn't matter how Wikileaks was hosted. If it had been hosted on a bunch of co-located machines, or on a bunch of machines in someone's basement, the company providing connectivity would still have turned it off.
In fact, it is cloud computing that allows Wikileaks to move quickly to other locations: instead of having to buy, move, install, and hook up server hardware and then get connectivity for it, when they get dumped Wikileaks can simply choose another provider anywhere in the world and move their data within minutes. And since they are charged by the hour, it's not even all that expensive.
Eventually, they may still run out of cloud providers to go to, but that's going to take a lot longer than in the bad old days of using your own hardware and hooking up to a telecom.
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.
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.
I agree that the people who accomplished this have something to be truly proud of. But you're not one of them. Instead, you're part of the group that have done nothing whilst your country has betrayed every ideal set by the founding fathers. Torture, ignoring the constitution, invading countries for no good reason. All done in the last 10 years, and the majority were cheering while it happened. You have very little to be proud of.
My UID is prime. Hah!
While this leak demonstrates Assange's malevolent nihilism, it is _not_ the one that should have prompted prosecution. If the U.S. state department feels the need for secrecy in its communications, it is _their_ responsibility to maintain that secrecy (of course, if we had a proper, rational foreign policy, there would be no need for such secrecy). That they were incompetent in this respect is a problem, but it would be crossing a very bright line for Assange to bear the responsibility for this incompetence.
However, the previous leak of _military_ communications, where he explicitly endangered the lives of pro-U.S. informants in Afghanistan, should have put a price on Assange's capture and lead to his prosecution. That was an act of blatant espionage, and he should be held accountable for the damage he did to freedom and the lives he threatened.
As for PayPal, if they are acting on their own initiative (and have not been coerce by the U.S. government), they are doing so too late, but better late than never. It is an expression of the freedom of the individuals who own and operate that company to cease doing business with a bastard like Assange. Good for them!
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
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
Wow, nationalism can be so silly. Even sillier is pride in things you had no choice in. Black pride, white pride, gay pride, proud to be an American... Congratulations on being born by chance in a certain geographical location, with a certain skin tone, or a certain sexual orientation.
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.
" PayPal's move is unlikely to result in many more people boycotting the company"
well, it resulted in my boycotting them. in the process of closing my account right now.
Not just Paypal but Wells Fargo as well. When I heard about Paypal and Amazon I went to the wikileaks website to make a donation. Not only was my charge denied but they put a hold on my card! Talk about harassment. It's bad enough when your own government breaks the law, worse when vendors decide to run a protection racket when they disagree with a customer's purchases/donations.
Actually, the US has laws against funding terrorist organizations, and is moving to try to put Wikileaks on that list.
Does this mean that the NYT, The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde, etc will all be classified as terrorist organizations also?
Also, your insult of someone posting AC makes little sense on a website where most people use pseudonyms anyway. But it's fun to have a group to pick on, isn't it?
It really doesn't work that way. The lack-of-a-login is called Anonymous Coward because absolutely the only reason to post anonymously is fear. You can get an email account for free, and you can get a slashdot account for free, and neither has to be tied to your real name and identity like mine is. But if you do that, then people can judge your online persona, learn that you are a douchebag, and then proceed to ignore your comments. What you actually fear is not being noticed, but being ignored.
ACs are not permitted to be taken seriously. Anything and everything they say must be checked up on before it is believed. That makes them pretty much not worth the hassle, except as a target, because we all like targets. That is your only purpose here; to be reviled. Enjoy it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Geez, I still don't see why prosecutor Marianne Ny (email address: marianne.ny@aklagare.se ) didn't follow any of the standard judicial and prosecutorial procedures; maybe we should ALL contact her to see what's going on?"
"And what's up with Justice Skarhed? (email: anna.skarhed@justitiekanslern.se ) I mean, wasn't she investigating why prosecutor Maria Kjellstrand illegally released aspects of the Assange file to the Swedish tabloids?"
"And that Tableaux Software (headquartered in Seattle, along with Amazon, isn't that were Micro$oft's located???)?
If you support Tableaux's pulling their software license from WikiLeaks, then give them a shoutout for support the Corporate Fascist State."
(first email is management) cstolte@tableausoftware.com efink@tableausoftware.com jmackinlay@tableausoftware.com
Just closed both of my pay pal accounts and my works account for a shopping cart also. Next....
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I've sometimes posted anonymously out of laziness. For example, I lacked the login cookie since I switched computers and didn't feel like driving to the bank to retrieve my 32-character random password from the safe deposit box. (not really, probably the sticky note just fell off the monitor and was under my chair)
But I didn't then go acting like some kind of persecuted minority about it either.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
We don't have to feel shame for we aren't the ones who have done this. 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.
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.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
"Well said. You should have signed in."
Why? Would signing make his words any more true or false?
Why should I feel for shame for something which I don't agree with, and never supported.
I'm here writing what I do because I think my country is worth fighting for on the battlefield of ideas. Our country was founded on the moral high ground, and I say we as a people need to retake that high ground. The only way to start doing that is to start reminding people of our history, reminding people that we don't have to accept corruption, greed, an over-bearing government, etc... as a matter of fact. We the people still have the power to change things, barely. But, if all we do is criticize then we will guarantee that the things we can be proud of will disappear. I'm not willing to do that. Are you? Are you willing to guarantee that what our founding fathers fought and died for will disappear without a fight?
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
When you become perfect, let me know.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
"You can only take pride in being American if it took you some work to become one."
*Or* behave as one.
I can accept someone USA-born taking pride of his nationality if he really lives for what he percieves to be the "true nature" of being American (you know, the land of the free, the home of the brave and all that stuff) and it's up to the challenge of making sure those ideals reach intact or even embettered for those that will come after him.
I really don't know if that's the case here.
Who says that is the pride of which I speak? I support, and argue for, the return to our founding principles. I see nothing in that for which I should feel shame, nor that I should not feel pride in that. I'm in good company supporting the principles I advocate, for I'm in agreement with our founding fathers.
I'm not going to hang my head in shame over mistakes of the past and present, but work to rectify those mistakes. We can return our country to its basic principles. We can hold them up and say we are proud of them and that we will accept nothing other than a return to those principles.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
Nationalism is not evil in and of itself. The problem with the image of nationalism right now is because of people like you who see only the negatives. But, since that fits your agenda that's what you're going to keep on promoting.
Look at the nationalism of the 1800's in the US. It brought about an environment in which the politics of the nation were discussed daily by the average citizen. Politicians were scrutinized closely and held to a much, much greater level of responsibility than they are now.
We took care of ourselves, as Americans. After the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 President Madison refused to send Federal money to the area. His reasoning was that it wasn't the government's business. The request he refused was for something like $100,000. The total aid that went to the affected areas was something like 10 or 15 times that number, and all it came from private sources. We, as citizens, took care of our own. We didn't rely on government. We don't need to now either. We just need to start caring about one another instead of being selfish and claiming it's the government's job to take care of everything.
Those are two positive things that come from nationalism. They are not only good, they are great. They make society strong. They cause individuals to pull together to help one another for they are a part of something greater than themselves. They belong.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
Just for reference, the statement under discussion was: "well then you're an idiot"
That I believe.
Would a bare "you're an idiot" have been a legitimate point in your view, or does the "well then" qualifier give it sufficient logical depth to make it an admissible argument in rational discourse?
Or maybe that sentiment appeals to you emotionally a little bit, and you feel that the standards of intellectual discussion should be lowered to admit ideas with which you agree?
You might consider how such standards might be applied to your own statements. For example, I could have said "well then you're an idiot" right then and you would have been obligated to consider it a "legitimate point".
Or he has, in fact, considered them carefully and reached a conclusion different than yours. Perhaps he has other sources of information than you. Perhaps that he has decided that, on balance, he still is justified in feeling proud.
If you're really that far into the subtleties of language, you might appreciate this interesting paper which addresses some of those deeper points.
Oh, get real.
"So do you still feel proud to be a [citizen of your country]?"
"Yes." <-- NOT NAME-CALLING
I'm proud to be an American, and proud of most things about my country.
If you find that offensive, well, I'm afraid you're just going to have to get over it.
That's good advice. Because even if you were (or were not) eventually impressed, it would be impossible for you to prove it either way.
This is why posts from those with no identity are inherently less valuable than those from even pseudonyms.
Let's start with this: government is the shadow cast by business over society (Dewey or Adam Smith, I think). So when WikiLeaks publishes military and political documents (the middlemen between people and corporations), the embarrassed use minor tactics. Distractions, like attacking the messenger (e.g. Assange) and statements about how publishing might put a few people in sensitive positions at risk (ignoring the fact that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars put millions of people at actual risk).
Publishing documents (i.e. cables containing the business motives for international relations and the forthcoming bank documents) from those with real power? That's unacceptable. Time to make reading off limits to the rule followers, remove finances and publishing (hosting) structures for those remaining who might read banned material, then declare the messenger a terrorist and execute.
This is better, and worse, than any dystopian book.
No they are not ...
... cross referencing. If for example you see things said on record in the leaks between two diplomats refering to a third and so on.
...
Wikileaks does not need to be creadable, it helps though. There are mechanisms to avoid poisoning.
The US goverment could generate 100,000 diplomatic documents and post it to wikileaks.
The WIkileaks credibility can be shot by every measure and it still woudl be useful. You can't depend on it's creadability.
One tool is
You then go to the official records and to the news papers and you find that these guys where actualy together, that woudl add to the credibility.
And so on and so forth
"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."
I don't think that the word most means what the submitter thinks it means. Either that or the submitter is implying that if you don't boycott Paypal you aren't knowledgeable.
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.
So you seem to be proposing that not only should the government have a duty to protect the freedom to do something, they should have to finance your doing it as well? You seem to have a rather fucked up understanding of freedom. Being free to do something doesn't mean that doing it has to be easy, or that someone else has to provide you everything to do it, it just means that you have to be allowed to do it. This is how freedom in nations has worked, well, forever. So whining that "Oh you aren't free because it costs money," is silly.
Also, as this relates to this case, part of freedom means that your freedom can't step on the freedom of others. As the saying goes "Your freedom of speech ends at my door." You are free to speak your mind, but you cannot require me to listen to you. Likewise you cannot demand that I make my house available to you to speak in. You have the right to express yourself, but I can't be forced to help you if I don't want to because that infringes on my rights.
Same is true with web sites and companies. I don't have to allow you to speak on my forums, I don't have to host you on my servers. To force me to do so would be to interfere with my freedoms.
Freedom does not mean that you can do whatever you want, and it also doesn't mean that everyone has to help you do what you want.
The problem is the medium. Everyone "knows" censuring books is wrong, it is presented as such often enough in popular culture: evil Nazis burn books, we don't. Meanwhile the Internet in pop culture is being presented as a thing to be used to perform illegal acts and evade the police, causing them to have to "backtrace" you with VB GUI's, and therefor something which it is completely appropriate to censure. This is a very worrying trend.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
...that explicitly says that it can be terminated without notice don't be surprised or outraged when it is. If you need guaranteed uninterrupted service pay for it. There are people who will sell it to you.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Many of the "leaks" actually USEFUL to the US in terms of airing information it couldn't air otherwise, and criticizing human obstacles it cannot openly out.
Salting the docs with enough trifles to make them "embarrassing" would be wonderful for boosting their effectiveness.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Are you willing to guarantee that what our founding fathers fought and died for will disappear without a fight?
Seeing how a large part of it already did - and all we've heard were a few squeaks here and there not backed by any action worth noticing - I'd say that it's pretty much a given.
On a related note, I find it somewhat funny how Americans cling to their guns citing the "right to revolt" as one of the main reasons. Not that it doesn't make sense - but your government has taken away more and more of your guns with every decade, and each time those people who had those guns talk a lot and do nothing. What's the point of having guns to "defend oneself from the government", when you don't actually do that when they come and take those guns away?
He could have taken credit for it. I would not presume to force AC to comment publicly. Free speech in troubled times often relies upon anonymity to survive as there are so many ways to force silence.
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.
We used to all be "criminals". Now we're all "terrorists". The United States of America is now no better than the Islamic fascists. Both need to disappear. Violence is required.
One cannot sustain freedom without responsibility nor can one sustain responsibility without freedom.
Expect "leaks" of legitimate, verifiable data to be poisoned with traps to track anyone who tries to verify it. Take a look at http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2007-11-25 and http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2007-12-03 for an example of how the procedure works. The comic is also pretty funny, too, and the most dangerous character of all is the brilliant scientist.
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.
I disagree. There is nothing wrong with being proud of who you are and where you came from. It is the moment that you start believing you or your nation or culture is better than that of others and that therefore everyone else should yield to your superiority that you become the idiot. Our history is full of fools who thought themselves better than others. Fortunately there were also several key moments in our history where very wise men were able to do something about that.
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
Well, I cancelled my Paypal account and gave the reason "WikiLeaks". No need to support a company that enables governments to silence free journalism, even if for the most part, the only "business" they got from me was to boast with one additional customer served...
You can say that America is a shitty country and stands for shitty things all you want, but some of us dont feel that way.
it is just a different form of oppression. you are given the freedom to do anything in lip service (politically) but, you need heaps of cash to actually practice those freedoms.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1896026&cid=34444004
Read radical news here
argument this :
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1896026&cid=34444004
you are TOLD you have freedom. you need MONEY to exercise that freedom. as long as you dont have the money to exercise that freedom, it means YOU DONT HAVE THAT FREEDOM.
and idiots like you can lay about, fooling themselves how they have 'freedom' (until they attempt to use it and see they cant) and talk about 'crying, whining, this, that, blabber and bullshit'.
the only difference in between medieval times and now, is that you are now supposedly allowed to be a baron. how many barons are there ?
Read radical news here
That is a different subject. I didn't write that America is a shitty country or a good country, or that it stands for something good or bad. What I wrote is that unless you have some substantial responsibility for making it however it is, it is irrational for you to be proud on that account since it doesn't reflect on you. It makes as much sense as it would for me to be proud that plants have achieved photosynthesis. A great accomplishment to be sure, and both plants and I live on earth, so I guess I do have a tenuous link to plants in that both I and plants come from Earth. Yet them having done so is none of my doing and so me being prideful of their accomplishments is irrational.
we are talking history here, and someone mods it down. 'too informative' maybe ? it seems true that facts deepen zealots' fixation in their beliefs, like said in that research ...
Read radical news here
Merchant accounts in Australia are actually pretty reasonably priced. The amount we pay sure buys us the peace of mind that a non-bank-pretending-to-be-a-bank can't just freeze our accounts and withhold our money.
PayPal's often looked down upon as being used by "unprofessional" vendors. By processing transactions directly, you're often also improving your company's image in your customer's minds.
All countries have their problems. There is not one single country on Earth that hasn't done something bad during their existence. I'm proud of the ideals that America stands for. The leaders of the country don't always act the way they should, but I still support the ideas in the Declaration and the Constitution.
I struggle to give a flying rats feces about it. I realize to the rest of the world seeing the U.S. getting a finger in the eye is tantamount to a juicy episode of American Idol but they opened the door and were surprised to find that not everyone was going to kiss their gluteus maximus in thanks.
the episode of wikileaks is proving entire world, how big a lie democracy and freedom in western world is.
hopefully, it can wake fools like you up, but, it doesnt seem to have made a zit of an effect on you. bad for you. not for us.
Read radical news here
The thing is the guy is an idiot and the amazing thing is he got moderated up.
The USA is the biggest threat to my freedom and a lot of other peoples as well. A culture that is proud of its genocidal past. A culture that is proud of its millions of citizens in jail and many more that have had their fundamental rights taken away due to feudal ideas.
A culture that is still hasn't entered the 19th century. A culture where progressive is a swear word even though the culture embraces progressive things like computers.
It's disgusting to see someone proud to be a bully.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Lots of people play the lottery as well. At that is very similar including the odds. If I buy a ticket I could be a millionaire. If I move to America I could be a millionaire.
Just because people are stupid and play the lottery doesn't mean that it is a good decision.
BTW my parents when they decided to emigrate considered South Africa a better choice then America. And South Africa was pretty low on the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I believe that if you actively uphold the values that made it great, that is to say that you are actively participating in continuing what made it great in the past, you can be proud of what you are doing, and what you are doing it for. Like a good player playing on a Great team, he is proud of doing his part to Continue to make it great. Its not all that he is proud of what they are doing, a very real part is that is the history of the team. The commet that got a +5 failed to take that into account at all. I hear what you are saying, and i agree, just adding that individual people Do have a substantial responsibility to continue greatness every day. In how they vote, how they act, and how they live.
And yet you worship the liberal, progressive, socialist founding fathers. Liberal because they believed in liberty. Progressive because they believed in progress as in a new type of government. And socialist because the revolution was about entitlement. Entitlement to other peoples land. Entitlement to the benefits of society without having to pay for it. Your revolutionary founders were pissed off with having to pay for the soldiers to protect them from the people who's land they were stealing. And the nerve of the King, wanting to treat all his subjects equally. Even then Americans knew they were better then everyone else and were entitled to their stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
If you put such a claim in a summery, it is your task to provide a citation. If you do that, then it is my task to search for a counter-argument, if necessary. If you don't provide a source, then I consider it Flamebait.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
"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"
That maybe true but Paypal remains the easy way to cover your butt if you make a purchase on ebay. There is room for more 'sufferage' at Paypal.
(*: If he's innocent, he can go back and defend himself. If he's innocent, he has little reason not to and a big scary reason to do so... namely, to clear his and wikileaks' names.)
Assange is not hiding. Scotland Yard knows where he is. They are not arresting him because they think that the arrest warrant is not valid.
He has offered several times to speak with the Swedish authorities. He did before he was leaving Sweden, and when he arrived in London. He has offered to be questioned in a video conference, to sort things out and to clean his name. He just does not take the journey to Sweden at his own costs, for just another questioning.
And the press does not know where he is.
I just closed my paypal account and said why in the "reason for closing" form they present.
Details of the angry rant are on my blog. ( http://scavenger-ethic.blogspot.com/2010/12/cancelled-my-paypal-account.html )
Frankly I'm faintly embarrassed that I waited this long to ditch them. I'm just lazy I suppose.
I hope your demands get some kind of response though.
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
I closed my account before coming to Slashdot and then I found this article and this post. Perfect timing. I know that not everybody can do it --for different reasons. But I could do it and thought it was the right thing to do. I told them why I was closing my account. I hope many people do the same too. I also hope that the names of those who buckled under the pressure of the US Govt. are well exposed in the media, as well as their cowardice, so the public becomes aware of who they are dealing with.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Charles Manson spent the vast majority of his time not committing mass murders.
What is illegal must be decided by a Judge and Jury in a formal try. PayPal took the law into their own hand. But that is not the first time. PayPal is known for freezing accounts. Give them an interest free credit until the rightful owner has proven rightfulness. In the case of Wikileaks this probably means an interest free credit until the end of time.
Since the close down was at the weekend there likely is a significant current balance in the Wikileaks Paypal account.
Paypal did not say transferred final account balance and then closed business relation. Makes you wonder.
If this bill passes, it would be a federal crime to donate money to them in the US, one that carries a jail sentence.
Am I glad I don't like in the US.
I think saying something like this would get you into trouble in most countries. Which means you are wrong: You have no right to terminate a business relationship for whatever reason you want.
Neither. You appear to be neglecting both the parenthensis and the context provided by the post I was replying to.
Dig deeper into that incident.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yes, freedom doesn't mean you are free. How nicely argued.
What is a freedom you can't exercise worth?
Free to travel, just can't afford to.
Free to read, just can't afford the books.
Free to speak, just can't be heard.
I don't think I want your idea of freedom.
Now go back to your fellow teabaggers.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You can be proud of whatever you yourself are doing, and for consequences of that. You cannot be proud of something that happened before you were born, or where you connection to it is tenuous. It is true that many people are proud of things from history - I don't disagree that that is going on all over, I'm just saying it doesn't make sense. A player on a sports team that wins can be proud of that since he probably did concrete and significant things to make that happen. Usually not so with a citizen in a country that does something great. What you can do instead is appreciate, support and value the good points of the place you live. If you do something significant to further that, you can reasonably feel proud of yourself for your specific part in making that happen. On the flip side, this also frees you from being continuously ashamed of all the bad stuff the stupid or evil people in whatever country do. Strangely, lots of people seem to (incorrectly) want the good parts to rub off on them yet (correctly) dismiss the bad parts as nothing to do with them.