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PayPal Freezes Support Account For Bradley Manning
An anonymous reader writes "The online payment provider PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, which in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network is currently raising funds in support of US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. 'We've been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there's no legal obligation for them to close down our account,' noted Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network (Support Network). 'This was an internal policy decision by PayPal. ... They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization's checking account by default. While there may be no legal obligation to provide services, there is an ethical obligation. By shutting out legitimate nonprofit activity, PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.'"
They are a bank, incorporated in Luxembourg.
Complaints are to go to:
http://www.cssf.lu/en/
I work for a non-profit that does nothing remotely controversial and we have had to deal with the exact same issue. PayPal forces EVERYONE to withdraw from a bank account by default. They make no distinction about who they are dealing with and they care less about non-profit status. Because they are a quazi-monopoly on ebay payment they pretty much force people to do what they want if you want to buy or sell on ebay.
If you want to be outraged, be outraged that the they use their monopoly status to force their fingers into bank accounts, not that the made some political move they actually didn't make.
Or maybe a little googling:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/paypal-on-cutting-off-courage-to-resist-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-wikileaks/
Summary: CTR set their account up incorrectly. PayPal asked them to fix it. CTR refused and lied about the situation to the media.
Since dirt travels faster than explanation, PayPal will always look like dirt to someone who's encountered this botched story.
I work for PayPal, but don't have any knowledge of why this decision was made first hand.
I can say that in many past cases where a non-profit's funds were frozen, and everyone makes a stink about how evil PayPal is, it comes down to the fact that after the Patriot Act, PayPal is obligated by law to make sure non-profits file extra paperwork to prove their status. I think Xorg's funds were frozen for a while and everyone interpreted as PayPal hating open source, when in reality they just forgot to file paperwork.
This certainly could be PayPal refusing to do business with anyone associated with WikiLeaks after Anonymous tried a DDoS attack on api.paypal.com, but it could also be another technicality.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
"They opted to apply an exceptional hurdle for us to clear in order to continue as a customer,
Apparently, there's nothing exceptional about it; they require every account holder to link their account to a real bank account and permit paypal to access it:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/paypal-on-cutting-off-courage-to-resist-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-wikileaks/