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.'"

Comments

Again?

[Nuno Sa]

Can't those idiots be sued?

Re:Again?

[Shikaku]

For what?

They aren't a bank.

Re:Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

cant those idiots stop getting used?
go for another service, personally i recommend google checkout mainly because it has the biggest chance of getting useful.

Re:Again?

[nospam007]

They are a bank, incorporated in Luxembourg.
Complaints are to go to:
http://www.cssf.lu/en/

Re:Again?

[elrous0]

Sure you can sue them, but they'll freeze your and your lawyer's accounts if you do.

Re:Again?

[thomasdz]

Sure you can sue them, but they'll freeze your and your lawyer's accounts if you do.

Yeah, but we can set up a Paypal donation account and ... oh ... nevermind.

Re:Again?

[blair1q]

That doesn't make them a bank in the U.S.

Re:Again?

[Ecuador]

That is the biggest problem. They claim they are not a bank so as not to be regulated as a bank in the US, so they are allowed to screw customers by freezing funds at their discretion, not giving enough fraud protection etc.
What is amazing though is this: I was reading an article on consumerist (http://consumerist.com/2010/05/keep-paypal-from-using-the-default-atm-debit-setting-to-save-on-bank-fees.html) and someone from Paypal got offended because they were called an "unregulated bank" by the author. So they posted this little tidbit:

we're not regulated as a bank in the U.S. (we don't hold deposits or issue credit)

Whoa, there, cowboy!
First of all, what do you call the funds in the Paypal account? IMHO the only reason they are not called a "deposit" is because Paypal can freeze it at will!
Secondly, if they are not issuing credit, WTF is "Bill Me Later"??? Just because they don't CALL it credit, it doesn't mean it is not!

Re:Again?

[AK Marc]

They are a bank. They are just what happens when you don't regulate banks.

Re:Again?

[Entropius]

Patriotic?

Patriotism is standing up for the ideal that any person accused of a crime deserves a vigorous defense.

Re:Again?

[Isaac-1]

Been there done that, this is much the same way that the Savings and Loan scandle occured 30-40 years ago, they too started with little or no regulation..

Re:Again?

[Entropius]

Does it include the waiver of the right to presumption of innocence and the right to be treated humanely when in captivity?

Re:Again?

[Max Littlemore]

Yeah. I don't do business with PayPal. Trying to figure out how to stop doing business with Visa and Mastercard too.

I would love for them to be forced to pay me every time they do something unfair in support of 1930's Germany^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H2010's United States. All four of my grandparents risked their lives to defeat fascism.

Re:Again?

[GameMaster]

No, but authoritarian nuts like Isaac-1 like to use the boogie-man of "UCMJ" as a blanket shield to justify any treatment of someone like Bradley in the hopes that you won't look too closely at the actual UCMJ and realize that it doesn't actually allow abusive treatment of prisoners (even after they've been convicted).

Re:Again?

[cuncator]

They are not a U.S. Bank but, they are a U.S. patriot!

Interesting use of capital B for Bank and lowercase p for patriot in this message.
I also have a mental image of the Paypal employees combining to form one gigantic, Voltron-like red, white and blue banking entity to reconcile the subject-verb-predicate structure of that sentence.

Re:Again?

[Yaur]

If they (paypal) are already holding the assets how is this not extortion?

Re:Again?

[mikelieman]

And he also agreed to blow the whistle on unlawful acts, didn't he?

Re:Again?

[gordguide]

"Not a Bank" might not be the absolute correct phrase, at least in terms of what we think of as banking. Broadly speaking, the reasons Paypal gives as "not a bank" would not be enough to be considered 'not a bank' in most countries.

However, those reasons Paypal cites are the same ones that allow certain banks worldwide to avoid reporting rules. There are banks in some countries that are used to launder money or avoid reporting income, and they can do this because they are not subject to certain reporting rules which can be summed up thusly: if you don't pay interest or make loans, you don't have to tell regulators who your customers are ... thus numbered bank accounts and offshore tax havens.

Since the US has vastly different banking rules than most nations, I don't know exactly where that puts Paypal ... I don't think you can avoid reporting rules, interest payments or no interest payments, loans or no loans, with a US bank.

However, I do know that Paypal originally incorporated in the state of Louisiana specifically because of that state's lax banking regulations. As it was organized at first, apparently it would have been illegal in most states at the time. No idea if that's changed substantially in the meantime.

Re:Again?

[Xyrus]

...PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.

They're just realizing this now?

Re:Again?

[h00manist]

American patriotism is measured in other criteria too. Has PayPal bombed any third world country in recent memory? I don't think so! Do they have stars and stripes bumper stickers? No! Do they hate Obama? No again! Listen to Rush Limbaugh? Doubt it.

I'm sure everyone has their own definition of what patriotism means, but it sure as hell doesn't mean you should do everything the authorities tell you to, or align your opinion any other party, be they military, anti-military, or whatever. But I do know what it often stands for. Follow orders and agree with power, and we'll give you rewards, medals, and respectability. Disagree, and we'll call you a traitor, and punish you. Every country has a military, and every country does the same. Heroes and patriots are quite often nothing but useful idiots. Don't agree? Ask a bunch of war veterans who are no longer needed. In any country. They feel tricked, used, and aimless, with lots of training to kill and nothing to do with it.

Re:Again?

[Scarletdown]

For what? They are under no obligation to provide their service to a traitor.

Has this Manning fellow been tried and convicted of treason? If not, declaring him a traitor could be considered libelous or slanderous.

Re:Again?

[ReedYoung]

I'm stumped. How?

Re:Again?

[lonecrow]

eBay is closer to home.
"On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay"
Why not pressure eBay to yank to leash of their dog.
Also, I thought the SCOTUS recently ruled that spending money was free speech? And how about anti-discrimination laws? PayPal seems to be discriminating based on a form of "political affiliation" isn't that against the law?

Re:Again?

[miffo.swe]

No unlawful acts? The cables are riddled with illegal stuff. That nobody gets taken to court is because the same people run the countries that did the crimes.

Re:Again?

[Entropius]

No, you don't. Getting a clearance simply means that more things are illegal for you. It does not change the way you must be treated if you are accused of doing something illegal.

Re:Again?

[sg_oneill]

If they do business in the US, they are subject to US law, just as if a US bank does business in luxemburg they are subject to luxemburg law.

Re:Again?

[Mystery00]

Because Paypal has a worldwide service.

Re:Again?

[RockDoctor]

If they do business in the US, they are subject to US law, just as if a US bank does business in luxemburg they are subject to luxemburg law.

But Luxembourg aren't a sovereign nation like the United States, they're just a bunch of towel-headed foreigners in a tax-free malaria-ridden swamp. So it's obvious that they can't have any important banking laws.

(Please check your sarcasm meter : it should be trumpeting loudly.)

Re:Again?

[chill]

I beg your pardon, but the art of haberdashery has evolved considerably in Luxembourg! This beastly chappeau on Princess Alexandra not-with-standing.

Re:Again?

[c6gunner]

Has this Manning fellow been tried and convicted of treason? If not, declaring him a traitor could be considered libelous or slanderous.

No, it couldn't. Libel and slander require conscious lying, not just a mistaken or unproven belief. Bradley Manning IS a traitor, regardless of what stage of the legal process he's going through.

Re:Again?

[hesaigo999ca]

I would tend to think that would be the first recourse, but the problem is this entity is not a bank so does not to adhere by bank rules, does not operate in any real state or country, as it is virtual, therefor again is only glued to follow the regulations it itself expresses on their EULA, and problem again is that if they want to , can turn around and make life really bad for you, and it is not like you can send a news team to investigate and shine a light on it, they never answer any calls for support, even less calls for comment. Paypal is owned by Ebay, who in turn is one of the worst for support I have seen, they seem to go hand in hand, I never have had the pleasure of being frozen or closed (account) but I would hate to have so much money there and then Paypal turn and say, "oh, btw, we dont condone what you are doing (xxx) therefor we are freezing your assets...thank you, come again...."

Re:Again?

[cavebison]

They claim they are not a bank so as not to be regulated as a bank in the US, so they are allowed to screw customers by freezing funds at their discretion, not giving enough fraud protection etc.

Sorry, I think you're confusing the US with a country that gives a damn about regulation.

Re:Again?

[Golddess]

Secondly, if they are not issuing credit, WTF is "Bill Me Later"??? Just because they don't CALL it credit, it doesn't mean it is not!

Even completely ignoring that, they do also have an actual credit card.

Re:Again?

[Ecuador]

Hehe, good point! I hadn't noticed that.

Re:Again?

[Kitsune Inari]

It doesn't, but it does make them a bank in Luxembourg, and you're their client. Sue them there.

Re:Again?

[Richard_at_work]

Actually, no they don't - their credit cards are supplied by another entity (Santander in the UK, Bank of America in the US last time I checked), which handles the credit extension, billing etc etc. Its just another banks white label product with branding applied.

Mirrored at Crpytome

[Anonymous Coward]

http://cryptome.org/0003/paypal-evil.htm
"They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization's checking account by default. Our accounting does not allow for this type of direct access by a third party, nor do I trust PayPal as a business entity with this responsibility given their punitive actions against WikiLeaks-an entity not charged with any crime by any government on Earth."

The Support Network repeatedly requested and was refused formal documentation from PayPal describing their policies in this matter.

PayPal is a private company and thus under no legal obligation to provide Courage to Resist, the Bradley Manning Support Network, or anyone else with services. This was something made very clear to the Support Network by PayPal representatives.

"They opted to apply an exceptional hurdle for us to clear in order to continue as a customer, whereas we have clearly provided the legally required information and verification. I think our dealings with PayPal should be a cautionary tale for any possibly controversial not-for-profit entity with a PayPal account," Paterson said, "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."

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[blair1q]

"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/

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[zero0ne]

Do what everyone else does... create a dummy checking account and link it up with Paypal.

Anytime you pull money out of Paypal and it posts, transfer that money to a different back account.

Paypal can't withdraw money from a bank account that has no money in it.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[atheos]

no they don't. I don't have a checking account linked to my paypal account, and never will.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[bluefoxlucid]

If you receive more than $500 a day or something you need one.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[fishbowl]

>Paypal can't withdraw money from a bank account that has no money in it.

What is your source for this claim?

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[GooberToo]

Depends on the bank. Banks favorite source of new found cash is automatic overdraft protection. Should the attempt to withdraw money which is not funded in your account, your bank may decide to transfer funds from another account (typically checking and then savings in that order) into the other to cover the transfer. Furthermore for doing this favor for you, they'll then charge you $25-$75 (varies from bank to bank) for each occurrence they protected your overdraft. Should you then start bouncing checks elsewhere because their the protection they gave you, they'll then be happy to collecting bounced check charges from you too.

In short, unless your alternate account is with a different institution or you know for a fact your accounts has auto overdraft protection disabled, expect to get shafted.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[houghi]

I apparently am not everybody. What I did was stop using Paypal.

At one point I was able to buy something only with payment through Paypal and I rather did not buy it then use them. I even have used a much more expensive way (international back transfer) then using them.

Not using them is the only way. I also tell friends never to use them. One once tried to tell me I was wrong. I stated that he as a doctor did not know his profession if I did not know mine. After some more explanation, he also stopped using it most of the time.

So stop using it.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[GooberToo]

He has none. See my post to the parent. And should they not be able to collect from him, they are a legal creditor who can immediately begin collections and corresponding credit damage.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[sed quid in infernos]

Not only is it not exceptional, I don't think it's unique to PayPal. When I set up a merchant account to accept credit card payments, I was required to connect it to a bank account, and the merchant account provider could withdraw money from that account. It was required so that the service provider could take back disputed charges. We had a minimum balance we had to keep in there, based on average daily charges. That was a decade ago, so it could have changed, but PayPal's requirement strikes me as very similar.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[imthesponge]

Exactly. If you are a merchant with PayPal, your agreement with them states that any money you take in belongs to PayPal, and that they only allow you to use it at their convenience.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[shentino]

Does it count as a bounced check if they fail to withdraw?

I can see someone getting drowned in bank fees even if paypal doesn't clean them out.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[Chewbacon]

or better: temporary debit cards. They do exist. Paypal can't withdraw from a card that no longer exists.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[Firehed]

Paypal can't withdraw money from a bank account that has no money in it.

Perhaps you are not familiar with the ACH networks. Or how much banks enjoy collecting overdraft fees. Or how much PayPal enjoys also charging overdraft fees. Hint: by registering, you agree to ToS which gives them a clause to collect overdraft fees. Whether they're going to take the time and effort to pursue that $35 (or whatever) is another story, but they can absolutely create quite a lot of headache.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[thegarbz]

You fail at the point. Here we have an account that's kept empty on purpose so that some corrupt third party can't get at your money. You still loose if you have to pay $25 for the privilege of not having someone steal your money.

Also sometimes situations just conspire against you. All it takes is an account linked to Visa Debit to have a major transaction delayed for a week (cab companies are good at this), and you think you have $100 in your account, you check you have $100 in your account, spend $20 and the next day you get charged an overdraft fee because the merchant only just got around to putting through the paperwork.

Tracking many small transactions is easier said than done, and when it comes down too it I keep as little money as possible in my account since I get absolute shit rates compared to other savings accounts.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[blair1q]

That's how all banks work.

You don't "own" your deposits. You have lent that money to the bank, and it's theirs to use as they please (within the limits of the banking regulations). All you have is an account receivable that they, typically, do the bookkeeping on for you. The bank is a debtor and you are a creditor. The laws of your state regarding the relationship between depositors and banks are likely built around the words "debt", and "credit".

Your account with PayPal (which isn't even a real bank in the U.S., it's classified as a payment service) allows you to request them to pay you back at any time. Usually they will, but there may be reasons they can't, or won't. Then it's up to you to deal with them as a creditor going after a deadbeat debtor when that happens. Same as if it was a bank or your cousin Lenny.

Re:Mirrored at Crpytome

[blair1q]

But they can freeze your account when they find your "bank" no longer responds to transactions.

Wow

[Charliemopps]

There really is no excuse for this at all. We're all entitled to a fair trial and the best legal defense available to us. This signifies that Paypal doesn't support the constitution or the rule of law. Shameful.

Re:Wow

[memnock]

Paypal is a private entity. Unfortunately, it's not doing anything illegal or unconstitutional, as far as I can tell, by choosing not to do business with someone. What Paypal should do though is return the funds and those donors decide what to do with their own money, not choose for them.

As an aside, I've never and never will, use Paypal for anything. I can send a check to a PO BOX. That's not secure, but I don't think of Paypal as secure either. If I want to be anonymous, I can send a money order. Stop giving Paypal business is my opinion.

Re:Wow

[Nidi62]

There really is no excuse for this at all. We're all entitled to a fair trial and the best legal defense available to us. This signifies that Paypal doesn't support the constitution or the rule of law. Shameful.

Nowhere does the Constitution say that you have the right to have an online money-transfer system facilitate a non-profit in taking donations for a legal defense fund. They are a business, they have the right to refuse service to someone. If Amazon suddenly said "sorry, we aren't going to carry any of your books anymore", are you going to sue them for violation of your 1st Amendment rights against free speech?

Besides, as he would be tried under court martial since he is a uniformed service member, the military has to provide him with counsel(a military officer). He can of course hire additional civilian lawyers if he so desires. But, if this infringes on his constitutional rights, then that would mean that anyone who did not have a non-profit taking donations for them would have been deprived of their rights as well. And(to get really pessimistic), the Constitution says nothing about the quality of your counsel, only that you have the right TO counsel.

Re:Wow

[bhcompy]

A company isn't obligated to provide service. No rule of law says that a company must provide service to something they disagree with.

Re:Wow

[commodore6502]

>>>I don't think of Paypal as secure

Paypal does provide protection if you buy something and the Seller (a) doesn't deliver it or (b) delivers it but not in the new condition advertised. They've saved me from losing a few hundred dollars on bad transactions (over the last ~5 years).

Oh and Paypal was already sued for taking people's funds and/or freezing accounts. Rather than lose the case, they chose to settle out of court, by issuing refunds.

Re:Wow

[geekoid]

"are you going to sue them for violation of your 1st Amendment rights against free speech?"
depends on why they did it.

That said, they did agree to do business, and then froze everyones money.
So give them money being held, and then tell them you don't want their business.

Re:Wow

[Nidi62]

Nice straw man, because neither of those equate to freezing your account because it's not set up properly according to their terms of service and standard procedures.

Re:Wow

[Unkyjar]

What if they decided not to sell pornography? Would there be an issue then?

Re:Wow

[causality]

There really is no excuse for this at all. We're all entitled to a fair trial and the best legal defense available to us. This signifies that Paypal doesn't support the constitution or the rule of law. Shameful.

 

Paypal is a private entity. Unfortunately, it's not doing anything illegal or unconstitutional, as far as I can tell, by choosing not to do business with someone.

Too many arguments go like this. I believe it misses the real point being made. It was already well-established by the summary that Paypal has no legal obligation here.

If you truly support the Constitution and principles like rule of law and due process, then you adhere to them even if the government is not going to use force to make you adhere to them. Anywhere that there is a choice in the matter, you get to see what people really believe in. Paypal wouldn't even provide a copy of the relevant portions of their policy.

The funny thing is the implied hypocrisy. If any of the decision-makers at Paypal did find themselves in violation of the law, they'd never surrender their rights to due process. They'd want to know which law they are being accused of having broken. They'd want the prosecution to have to prove every claim it makes. But in their own little kingdom where they both make and enforce the rules, they want the ability to arbitrarily shut anyone down without ever having to demonstrate that they violeted the rules or even citing which rules would apply.

In my opinion, they're assholes and if you do business with them, it is because you want assholes to prosper. Like you, I have never onced used Paypal and because of behavior like this, I never will. This is not remotely the first example of pathological behavior from this company.

Re:Wow

[memnock]

Sorry, bad choice of words. I didn't mean secure in relation to theft or crime, but I guess maybe reliable. If you can't be sure Paypal will deliver your money to someone, for capricious reasons, it's kind of the same as your check disappearing when you send it through the postal system.

Re:Wow

[commodore6502]

>>>the Constitution says nothing about the quality of your counsel, only that you have the right TO counsel.

Where does it say this? (reviews document) I don't see it anywhere.

Re:Wow

[Nidi62]

The summary says why they did it. Paypal asks that the account be set up so that Paypal can withdraw by default. They don't have an account set up for that, so they aren't holding to their part of the agreement. If they don't like those terms, they don't have to to business with Paypal.

Re:Wow

[grcumb]

Paypal is a private entity. Unfortunately, it's not doing anything illegal or unconstitutional, as far as I can tell, by choosing not to do business with someone.

Indeed. The question is not whether PayPal has the right to do this. They most assuredly do.

The question is whether PayPal management are, collectively, acting like the most retarded douches ever in the history of online finance. Once again, they most assuredly are.

(My apologies to any retards who might be offended by the comparison.)

Re:Wow

[Attila Dimedici]

While I agree with the general thrust of your point, this is more if Amazon suddenly said, "We aren't going to give you the money for the books that we sold for you." Paypal has collected money for this organization and now they are saying that they are "freezing" the account. That means that Paypal gets to use the money until such a time as they decide to unfreeze the account or a court orders them to do so.

Re:Wow

[HangingChad]

>>>Stop giving Paypal business is my opinion.

Now I'm glad I closed my account. This is really a little vile.

Re:Wow

[Enderandrew]

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.

Re:Wow

[bigstrat2003]

This is a straw man. GP isn't saying that what PayPal is doing is prohibited by the constitution, he is saying that they are willfully interfering with a charity trying to help with a man's constitutional rights. Thus, they clearly don't support the constitution.

Re:Wow

[Enderandrew]

Your understanding of how the Constitution works is shameful.

The Constitution is designed to protect freedoms. Here a private business has the right to refuse or offer service as they see fit. You would suggest that they be obligated to provide service to anyone against their will because it fits your wishes.

Whether or not PayPal offers a financial service to a website doesn't change whether or not he will receive a fair trial.

Re:Wow

[toastar]

the Constitution says nothing about the quality of your counsel, only that you have the right TO counsel.

Dumbass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strickland_v._Washington

Re:Wow

[LordNimon]

>>>I don't think of Paypal as secure

Paypal does provide protection if you buy something and the Seller (a) doesn't deliver it or (b) delivers it but not in the new condition advertised.

Not quite. They only provide this protection if they can withdraw the funds from the seller's account. I had a problem with one seller not shipping the product I purchased. When I complained to PayPal, they told me that I was entitled to a refund, but they wouldn't give me one because they could not obtain the funds from the seller. Fortunately, I used a credit card to make the purchase through PayPal, and the credit card company refunded me.

Re:Wow

[Fractal Dice]

Since money is the core of our civilization these days, perhaps the time to cut private banks out of the business of managing account balances/transfers. Money is, after all, a government-created and government-backed resource. Wouldn't it be more sensible to have a common transaction API and master database administered by an institution which is democractically accountable?

Governments already have the legal authority to gather all transaction data to attempt to identify money laundering so it's not like big brother is going to learn anything it didn't already have the authority to know. Government might still cut off accounts like this, but then they would have to stand up and acknowledge that it was being done rather than all the games and smokescreens of "private institutions making their own decisions".

Or, if you are a free-market fundementalist, the alternative would seem to be to go out and create your own specialist bank with a strong brand-commitment to never block accounts and help circumvent any attempts to censor transfers.

Re:Wow

[Schadrach]

Big distinction -- they took the money from donators, and are refusing to pass it over the those whose account it was supplied to.

PayPal can certainly refuse to deal further business with this fund, that is their right. But they should be required to either release the funds collected to the legal fund, or refund it to all donators, such that said funds can be donated through alternative means.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Then why won't Paypal even provide the relevant policy text explaining their decision? Something stinks here. Oh yeah, it's Paypal. Honestly though, anyone that uses Paypal for more than a token amount is an idiot. This is hardly the first time they've taken arbitrary actions that are unsupported by their stated policies. I don't see how anyone can justify placing any trust in the company.

Re:Wow

[zero0ne]

How would that be a 1st amendment right?

"I don't see a problem Judge, as a corporation, there are no legal obligations for me to sell books by 'negros' or 'jews'. Since I know you will be asking for it next, I have let my lawyers forward you our current compliance standards for EOE."

This of course avoids the eventual termination of his job by the board, and most likely the end of that guys career for making such a decision.

Re:Wow

[rwa2]

Yep, same here. I tried to buy something on Craigslist and the seller stopped talking to me as soon as I sent in my PayPal payment. I registered a complaint, but by PayPal's official policy, they won't even look into complaints until 7 days later, to encourage buyers and sellers to "work it out for themselves" first.

Put in a dispute with my credit card company and had the payment to PayPal stopped within 24 hours. After that, PayPal processed the complaint just a day or two afterwards. Maybe before or after the seller could move the money out of his checking account... don't know, don't care :-P

So, yeah, don't use your checking account... you won't be able to get PayPal's attention for matters like this.

Re:Wow

[guruevi]

That's not a requirement. I had an account that wasn't linked to my bank account which worked well. And I closed my account because of the Wikileaks debacle and let them know why. The only reason they want the bank account number is because they want to (or have been given orders to) track who is giving what to who.

Either way, stop supporting PayPal. They don't HAVE to support people's rights but I don't HAVE to give them my business. Google Checkout is still available.

Re:Wow

[Locke2005]

As a douche, I am also very offended at being likened to the scum at PayPal, you insensitive clod!

Re:Wow

[david duncan scott]

Since when does the Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War apply to the case of a U S Army enlisted man held by the U S Army? He may be a prisoner during time of war, but so is the guy who robbed the liquor store down the street

.

Does the UCMJ (which would seem the appropriate body of law) provide for speedy trials and such?.

Re:Wow

[Locke2005]

Wait... there's people that actually pay for porn?!?

Re:Wow

[Grishnakh]

As an aside, I've never and never will, use Paypal for anything. I can send a check to a PO BOX. That's not secure, but I don't think of Paypal as secure either. If I want to be anonymous, I can send a money order. Stop giving Paypal business is my opinion.

Unfortunately, that's not a viable option for many people, such as people who sell goods online.

1) Most buyers don't care about the problems with Paypal, they want to pay for stuff and get it quickly. Accepting only money orders is not a realistic option when you're running on online store; not only is a PITA to process them, but most buyers don't want to bother with going to the PO and paying an extra dollar just to send you money (plus an envelope and a stamp). They'll simply go elsewhere to someone that accepts credit cards or Paypal. Furthermore, international buyers can't do money orders.

2) Accepting credit cards with a merchant account is expensive as hell, and only makes sense for larger online sellers (where the lower per-transaction fees at high volumes more than make up for the monthly and other fees). Small sellers can't afford merchant accounts.

3) The only other alternative to Paypal is Google Checkout. But just like Ebay, chicken and egg: tons of people have Paypal accounts, and no one uses GC. So only accepting GC again will cut out much of your customer base.

Unfortunately, you can't run a business with excessively high ethics. You have to compromise somewhere. For instance, suppose you're a brick-and-mortar store with a merchant account to take credit cards. But you think that Mastercard and Visa charge way too much in fees. Either you use them anyway, or you do cash-only, and go out of business because so many people these days don't use cash.

It sucks, but Paypal is pretty much the only game in town when it comes to online transactions between small entities. They make it very easy for a small online seller to set up shop and accept payments; their fees are relatively low (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, and only 1% extra for currency exchange, no monthly or other fees) compared to merchant accounts. They also make it easy to print prepaid USPS and UPS shipping labels to send your goods, without having to sign up for an additional account or pay monthly fees like Encidia and stamps.com do, and they get you better shipping rates too.

Re:Wow

[DerekLyons]

We're all entitled to a fair trial and the best legal defense available to us.

True, but irrelevant here.
 

This signifies that Paypal doesn't support the constitution or the rule of law.

Untrue histrionics. Paypal is a private entity and is not required to support or refuse to support any particular cause, issue, or individual.

Re:Wow

[tnk1]

Having the power to collect information is not the same as having collected it. If your money is in a government bank, they don't even need to notify anyone, including you, that they have audited your account or even stored it in an easily accessible database. In the private system, at the very least, they have to produce legal orders or they have to enact a regulation. Both of those would have to be on the public record and allow bank customers to understand what the government can do and under what circumstances.

Although banks will work with the government to keep it off their back, they still need to maintain some responsibility to their customers or they will go out of business when their customers cease trusting them. I will grant that their corporate interests will tend towards helping the big government over the little guy, but that is not an absolute.

And, I think, one of the things that allows me to bear living in a democracy where most of the voters are uninformed and reactionary is that they don't get access to everything by default. It may be far better than every other form of government that we have ever had, but its far from perfect, and I don't think its a good model for running a bank on.

Re:Wow

[AK Marc]

Paypal does provide protection if you buy something and the Seller (a) doesn't deliver it

News to me. I had that happen once, and PayPal told me to go screw myself. So I did a chargeback. Well, they didn't tell me to screw myself, they told me to prove I never received the item. Since that's impossible and they know it, I took it as a "go screw yourself" request.

Re:Wow

[Titanarm]

You are forgetting that Bradley Manning gave up some of his constitutional rights when joining the military. The best example being free speech. His detainment and trial are not covered under the constitution, they are covered by the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).

Re:Wow

[AK Marc]

The question is not whether PayPal has the right to do this. They most assuredly do.

I disagree with that. They are a bank. Whether they are currently regulated as such in the US is irrelevant to the question of whether they are one. As such, they do not have the "right" to do this. That the government has chosen to declare the bank to be not-a-bank because of bribes received is irrelevant to whether they are a bank and whether they have the right to do it. Having the power to do it doesn't mean they have the right to.

Re:Wow

[Aldenissin]

You mean a credit union?

Re:Wow

[DeadCatX2]

They are a business, they have the right to refuse service to someone.

Can PayPal refuse to offer service to African Americans?

Re:Wow

[Aldenissin]

Well, if you were in Bradley Mannings shoes, and were innocent, I doubt you would be happy with the lawyer the state would supply, especially since he is being held without a trial at the moment...

Re:Wow

[Hatta]

No, the constitution doesn't say that. As it turns out the guarantees of the Constitution are insufficient to protect our freedom, even if they were respected by the government. Economic power is political power. If we are to maintain equal protection under the law, we must remove the influence economics has over the court.

Re:Wow

[mywhitewolf]

so, if you pay me for a service or a product, AFTER you've paid me i can then say "i don't want to do business with you any more" without providing the service you paid for? this is a company using loop holes to game the system.

Re:Wow

[Charliemopps]

I didn't say they were violating the constitution or rule of law. I said they weren't supporting the constitution and rule of law. They are actively hindering their users right to free speech and this gentlemans access to funds to provide for a fair trial. It's not illegal, it's immoral. I'd say the same thing if it were funds to defend Charlie Manson or Gandhi. They have a right to refuse service to anyone, just like I have a right to never use Paypal again.

Eventually services like paypal will be the ONLY way to transfer money long distances, and the chilling affect that will have on situations like this when all these service collectively decided someone shouldn't be allowed to have money any more.

Re:Wow

[Risen888]

They already provided service. They took the money. They accepted the donations. This is theft.

Re:Wow

[toastar]

the Constitution says nothing about the quality of your counsel, only that you have the right TO counsel.

Dumbass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strickland_v._Washington

You cited SCOTUS, quoted post cited the text of the Constitution.

"...and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

I'm arguing that an ineffective counsel is incapable of providing assistance, as required by the Constitution.

just because you passed the bar exam doesn't mean you are capable of meeting the constitutional requirement of being able to provide assistance of Counsel. In the case I cited the ineffectiveness of the lawyer even went far enough to say that he was also deprived of his other 6th amendment right to call witnesses in his defense.

Isn't amazing how one word can change the entire meaning of a sentence? One of the reasons I'd be a bad lawyer, But this particulate line is pretty cut and dry.

Re:Wow

[imthesponge]

That's how credit cards work. If the seller accepts a stolen card as payment, then they lose the money.

Re:Wow

[mikelieman]

Being a "private entity" doesn't remove from you an obligation to act in Good Faith. This clearly sounds like it's not done in Good Faith.

( I use quotes because the 'privacy' of a registered corporation is something which should be quantified better, and depending on where you draw the line, pretty much every corp, llc, and llp can just STFU and obey whatever regulations are imposed. They always have the option, should they not like the regulations, of finding another way of structuring their business dealings which don't obligate them to obedience to regulation... )

Re:Wow

[splatter]

He won't get a civilian lawyer he'll get a jag defender. It amazes me how many people want to comment on military justice that have no clue how the system works.

Re:Wow

[shentino]

If they swallow the money and refuse to cough it up then they're not just scum, they are thieves.

It borders dangerously close to fraud if they don't ever cough it up.

Re:Wow

[shentino]

You have the right to refuse business with anyone (long as you're not violating someone's civil rights).

You do not, however, have the right to unilaterally breach a contract when you please.

Re:Wow

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Is there another way to pay for just about any ebay transaction in the States?

Re:Wow

[shentino]

No, but selectively enforcing said terms under the blanket backdoor of "sole and final discretion" may.

Re:Wow

[shentino]

If they're doing it at the instigation of a government agency then it very much does become a first amendment issue, since the minute they start kissing government ass, they are acting as an agent, and become subject to the same restrictions on free speech as the principal already is by virtue of being the government.

Re:Wow

[the_womble]

The effect of private companies doing things like this is that the government gets powers that go far beyond what is constitutionally allows, and, because they are purely informal, cannot be reined in.

Re:Wow

[Grishnakh]

In my opinion, they're assholes and if you do business with them, it is because you want assholes to prosper. Like you, I have never onced used Paypal and because of behavior like this, I never will. This is not remotely the first example of pathological behavior from this company.

Every large company exhibits pathological behavior. How are you posting on Slashdot? Are you using an Intel processor to do it? If so, then you want assholes to prosper, because Intel has shown a lot of pathological behavior (remember the RAMBUS fiasco?). What kind of car do you drive? The company that made it probably has shown pathological behavior (esp. if it's Ford or GM).

There really isn't a way to avoid doing business with pathological companies, unless you plan to be a hermit living in a cave. The only real countermeasure against pathological behavior by companies is government regulation, but Americans don't like that because they think companies should be able to do whatever they want, even if it means unfairly squashing the competition so you have no real choice but to do business with them.

Re:Wow

[grcumb]

As a douche, I am also very offended at being likened to the scum at PayPal, you insensitive clod!

That's anti-algae-ism at its worst! How dare you associate the soul-less hacks at PayPal to perfectly respectable single-celled organisms!
signed
The Pond Scum Anti-Defamation League

Re:Wow

[sulfur]

For instance, suppose you're a brick-and-mortar store with a merchant account to take credit cards. But you think that Mastercard and Visa charge way too much in fees. Either you use them anyway, or you do cash-only, and go out of business because so many people these days don't use cash.

I wonder why businesses do not offer discounts for cash payments like diesel gas stations / truck stops do. If Visa/MC take x% of each transaction as a fee, retailer could just make x% discount to customers who pay with cash. I mostly use CCs because of cashback rewards, but if cash discount were greater than my current cashback rate, I would gladly stop using credit cards.

Re:Wow

[jmcvetta]

They are a bank. Whether they are currently regulated as such in the US is irrelevant to the question of whether they are one.

Thank you, sir, for reasoning like an honest man not a lawyer.

Re:Wow

[m50d]

Did you miss the "by their own admission there's no legal obligation for them to close down our account" right there in the summary?

Re:Wow

[tophermeyer]

If you truly support the Constitution and principles like rule of law and due process, then you adhere to them even if the government is not going to use force to make you adhere to them.

The Constitution represents the format of the Government and establishes the relationship between the Government and the People.

The Constitution has absolutely nothing to do with the relationship between Paypal and it's users.

In my opinion, they're assholes and if you do business with them, it is because you want assholes to prosper. Like you, I have never onced used Paypal and because of behavior like this, I never will. This is not remotely the first example of pathological behavior from this company.

I'm in total agreement. They've clearly established that they do support an agenda and will inconvenience their user's to push that agenda. Anyone that continues to use Paypal after all this is, at best, tacitly supporting them.

Re:Wow

[Enigma23]

There really is no excuse for this at all. We're all entitled to a fair trial and the best legal defense available to us. This signifies that Paypal doesn't support the constitution or the rule of law. Shameful.

Looks like PayPal have had a missive change of heart and reinstated fully.

Courage to Resist's PayPal account now says "Your Account Access is Back in Regular Standing. Thank you for taking the steps to return your account to regular standing..." What, you mean complain loudly and publicly about what a bunch of idiots PayPal are on your own website, resulting in multiple other PayPal customers contacting them and signing an online petition to get the account reinstated properly?

Re:Wow

[tophermeyer]

Racial Minorities are a protected class. They can of course refuse service to individuals that are African American, but not solely on the basis that they are African American.

The right to refuse service is pretty fundamental to running a business.

And if I were running my own escrow service, I would most definitely would not be interested in handling funds for an organization that is openly supported by a group like Anonymous that has already launched a coordinated attack on my business. As the wise prophet Snoop D oh double G once said, I would "drop it like it's hot".

Re:Wow

[tophermeyer]

To your first point, I don't fully understand how it would work in a US Military court but in an overworked state appointed lawyer is exactly what the vast majority of indigent defendants get in the US legal system.

To your second point ...I've got nothing to add. What's happening is atrocious, and downright embarrassing as an American.

Re:Wow

[DeadCatX2]

I didn't realize that Courage to Resist is supported by Anonymous. Does CtR even *want* Anonymous' support?

I suppose if Anonymous suddenly starts supporting, say, eBay, then by your argument PayPal should stop handling funds for eBay.

In fact, maybe that would be their next plan of attack. Just start supporting people that they want PayPal to stop handling funds for.

Re:Wow

[Grishnakh]

Some businesses do, but it's pretty rare (Arco gas stations come to mind). A couple of theories:

1) Larger businesses probably have some kind of agreement with Visa/MC where they agree to keep the price the same, no matter how it's paid for. These businesses probably have much lower fees than smaller businesses too. I'm pretty sure Walmart doesn't pay the same 3% fee that your local dentist office does, for instance.

2) For many businesses, they'd rather deal with CCs/DCs than cash, because cash is risky: employees steal it, thieves can steal it, etc. Your local Walmart probably doesn't have many theft problems since they can afford to have an armored car come to their stop and take the cash securely, but your local mom-n-pop strip mall business doesn't have that luxury, and has to send someone to the bank after hours, and that person could get robbed. So while cash doesn't have fees, it has a certain risk associated that carries a cost, and paying 3% processing fees may be worth it to avoid that risk.

Re:Wow

[AK Marc]

My understanding is that he provided a receipt from the post office. It had no tracking, no shipping address, but showed that he did send something from a post office, but in no way indicated he sent anything to me specifically. But it doesn't matter, because I won't let PayPal touch my accounts, I always use a credit card so I can chargeback, as I have had to do multiple times with PayPal and never anywhere else.

The only people who use it are people asking for donations (or other short term or very low frequency sellers) or merchants too shady to get a credit card account themselves (which any idiot can get for much less than the PayPal fees). So it's a great litmus test. Anyone that requires PayPal for a purchase from an online store is an unreliable idiot (or a criminal), and I make my decision to buy accordingly.

Re:Wow

[Aldenissin]

You're right, I didn't think of that at the time.

So, what you're saying is, he'll get a Judge Advocate General, defender. Well, having a military appointed defender instead of a state one, even if he is a supposed "judge's advocate" (at least the title appears to be honest) would certainly make anyone feel a million times better. There is no way that a JAG defender, and more so being they are military, would be persuaded by the military politics that will obviously be at hand here. I don' care how the show JAG portrays them in fantasy land, this is the real world.

It amazes me, that someone thinks they can just make a snarky comment and not realize they probably just outlined the situation is actually worse than they tried to refute. Oh, and one doesn't need to necessarily know the details of something to get a good idea of how it works. Output can often give you a lot of help on what any machine does, in general...

Re:Wow

[Aldenissin]

It sure is embarrassing, disturbing, and a host of other things. The last real final ability to report on corruption in America is being sewn up right in front of our eyes, and many people are in the coliseum calling for the Ceasers to hold their thumb up. (Yes, down actually meant mercy. So thumbs up means you want them to "kill it".) Nevermind that they too could be the next loyal General Maximus Decimus Meridius.

who uses PayPal?

[corbettw]

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem using PayPal as a buyer if that's how a merchant has their account set up (though I'll only use credit cards through them and won't ever, ever, link a bank account with them). But who in their right mind would ever use this fucktards as their clearing house for financial transactions? Just get a merchant account and use your bank's credit card processing services, or go with someone like Google Checkout or Authorize.net. Using PayPal seems like you're just begging to have your accounts seized and funds raided because someone there doesn't like you.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[elrous0]

Actually, if this follows the pattern of Assange, Mastercard and Visa are next--making it all-but-impossible to accept online donations of any kind.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[GameboyRMH]

Only Amex and Discover left. I've suspended use of my Mastercard since the incident and have been looking into switching to Discover or Amex. Did you know Discover has 3x higher processing fees than the Big 2, and is generally a massive PITA for businesses to deal with? That's why nobody uses them. Amex's processing fees are almost as high.

Re:Who uses paypal?

[MickyTheIdiot]

In terms of Ebay they pretty much are the only game due to the way EBay has forced them onto us. Google Checkout could easily be used to pay for ebay auctions but Ebay has never allowed it saying that there were unspecified security issues.

Pretty much Paypal are scuzballs that force things onto their users in the name of security. Paypal's security basically does nothing but cause problems for people who haven't done anything wrong. This particular issue has nothing to do with the non-controversial nature of this non-profit (see below) but has to do with the fact that PayPal wants your bank number and if you want to play on Ebay/Paypal's territory they can force you to do what they want you to do. It's a much worse monopoly/collusion situation than we've ever seen with even the likes of Microsoft.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[PoolOfThought]

And why is google checkout any better; and the same goes for authorize.net? Seems like they have the exact same power do they not?

Re:who uses PayPal?

[corbettw]

They may, but I don't recall ever hearing of such behavior for either company. Do you?

Re:who uses PayPal?

[BacOs]

Only Amex and Discover left. I've suspended use of my Mastercard since the incident and have been looking into switching to Discover or Amex. Did you know Discover has 3x higher processing fees than the Big 2, and is generally a massive PITA for businesses to deal with? That's why nobody uses them. Amex's processing fees are almost as high.

Actually Discover's processing fees are on par with VISA and Mastercard. It's AMEX who charge double or triple what the others charge.

Re:Who uses paypal?

[GameboyRMH]

Not for shopping on eBay, but it sure doesn't help that idiots use PayPal in other situations where there are alternatives. I mean, WTF? It's like putting your dick in a mousetrap. There's just...no...reason.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[GameboyRMH]

Maybe my info is out of date (one comparison of rates I saw was from 2008). Now that I look for it I can't find a current comparison of processing fees.

Re:Who uses paypal?

[blair1q]

eBay used to allow half a dozen payment services to do payments for auctions.

Now, you can hardly find anyone willing to take cash or a credit card.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[PoolOfThought]

You know... I didn't remember ever hearing anything like this happening with them. But, since you asked:

A quick google search and a few minutes turned up the following situation involving Google Checkout. I do remember a string of other things (not related to checkout) that google has recently gotten into that doesn't exactly show that they are perfect including privacy issues, bowing to polital pressures in faraway lands, etc.

As for authorize.net, I'd never even heard of them. I'm not interested in hunting down their complaints as I'm confident they're out there too... everyone has screwed up or been put into an unwinnable situation before.

And I'm not by any means saying Paypal is right for what they did. I'm just saying that immediately jumping ship to one of these other companies that have the exact same capabilities is probably very close to jumping out of the hot frying pan and into the fireplace (whether the logs are on fire or not).

Re:who uses PayPal?

[GameboyRMH]

Ah that explains it. So it's pretty much impossible to really know how the rates compare. That sucks.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[rwa2]

That sounds about right. That's why fewer merchants take Amex. (No one takes Discover simply because it isn't popular - cue Futurama ref).

The rates are a few percent of the transaction, with a minimum of, like 50cents or so. All the cashback cards simply give you back a fraction of that charge.

So if you have a merchant you like or are invested in (like a coop or something), you can support them more financially by paying with Mastercard / VISA or better yet cash, or maybe check (though those are extra work). Debit cards have much, much lower fees as well, but less protection for you.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[jenningsthecat]

...who in their right mind would ever use this fucktards as their clearing house for financial transactions?

...who in their right mind would ever use these fucktards FOR ANY REASON AT ALL, given their long history of consistently conscienceless, corrupt, evil behavior?"

There, fixed that for you!

Re:who uses PayPal?

[DogDude]

"Did you know Discover has 3x higher processing fees than the Big 2, and is generally a massive PITA for businesses to deal with" It's not a massive PITA at all. In fact, neither is Amex. Call them and set up an account. Give account number to your merchant services provider. Finished. Visa and Mastercard debit is a royal PITA, because they batch out payments randomly, making reconciliation nearly impossible.

Re:who uses PayPal?

[DogDude]

You have to look at the other side of it as well. Amex is very generous with credit, especially when compared to traditional banks, and they offer incredible service for the purchaser. We give much higher priority to buying from vendors that accept Amex as opposed to those who don't.

Scumbag Paypal

[mfh]

Just saw this scumbag mashup a few minutes ago on Reddit and I had to chuckle.

Commentary

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . there is an ethical obligation.
 
Wrong. There is no ethical obligation to do business with people supporting treason. I'm not saying there's an ethical obligation not to support them, but these people are worse than terrorists.

Re:Commentary

[MozeeToby]

Supporting a fair and open trial is hardly supporting treason. By your logic, anyone who thinks accused serial killers deserve a fair trial must support murder.

Re:Commentary

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that he's going to have defense whether or not he can pay for it, right? Most of the people supporting him are *not* thinking "fair trial," they are in favor of what he has been accused of doing.

Re:Commentary

[MozeeToby]

Not at all. As someone who holds a US security clearance I am absolutely against what he is accused of doing; it was dangerous, irresponsible, and against an oath he took when he agreed to accept his clearance level. At the same time, I have very little faith in a government appointed defense attorney providing the best defense available, which I feel such a high profile, political case deserves. Considering the man has been in solitary confinement for nearly 6 months now without so much as a peep out of anyone representing him, I'd say my lack of faith is well founded. Even if you assume that the man is guilty (which is always a dangerous and stupid thing to do) he deserves the right to defend himself in a court of law and other people have the right to raise money for that defense.

Re:Commentary

[betterunixthanunix]

Everyone deserves a legal defense. That is one of the best parts of our legal system: everyone is entitled to a legal defense, and everyone is entitled to have a lawyer defend them. Even people who are accused of treason are entitled to a defense.

The ethical obligation here is for Paypal to not try to thwart people who are trying to exercise their right to a legal defense. Paypal is not doing business with Bradley Manning, they are doing business with his legal defense team.

Or perhaps you would prefer a system in which your right to a legal defense was a sham, because you were unable to pay for a lawyer? Or perhaps you think people accused of treason should not even get the chance to defend themselves?

Re:Commentary

[ColdWetDog]

Exactly this. Although, as Scent Cone points out, his appointed lawyers do have to give him a fair and spirited defense, the US government is playing dirty by putting him in solitary and limiting his access to counsel and the world. Even if they are obeying the letter of the law, the government has lost the spirit of it and in many ways, lost the case in the wider court of world public opinion.

Re:Commentary

[bstender]

Attempting to undermine his defense is vigilantism. _IF_ Bradley Manning is guilty of treason, and considering he is being held without trial it is safe to assume the case is not made, then the law has ample means to extract the appropriate punishment. Paypal is not required by law to act in a just and fair manner, but they are (once again) in contempt of these most precious of societal values.

Re:Commentary

[bstender]

not taking anything away? that's pretty fucking funny. unless of course, you're Bradley, if you're Bradley, your chances of living just dropped by 90%.

Re:Commentary

[slackbheep]

I'm just going to start copy pasting a response I've already typed up, as no one seems interested in reading anything but the summary. ( I know, I know, what do I expect? )
Let it be shouted from the rooftops: "PAYPAL ONLY REQUIRES THEY ADD A CHEQUING ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO RECLAIM THE ASSETS"

Re:Who?

[WillyWanker]

I think you forgot the part about "innocent until proven guilty"? How about a fair trial first (which is what he needs the money for), THEN you can condemn him.

Re:Who?

[HaZardman27]

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

"Land of the free"

[unity100]

you are free to do anything in a capitalist economy. see, the catch is, everything costs money, and those with bigger money, can determine how much free can one be.

such is the lesson of this incident, apart from the paypal's staggering lack of spine. roadside pimp may be having more spine and honor than paypal in regard to principles.

Re:"Land of the free"

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I can always spot a 'unity100' post, because all problems are a result of capitalism and money, and the subject is usually some kind of sarcastic citing of a traditional American saying.

The post usually always stops just short of trying to encourage everybody to start living in communes.
 
Also, my CAPTCHA is 'inequity'. Amazing.

Re:"Land of the free"

[Gorimek]

That has been rephrased slightly to keep up with the times. It is now Land of the fee.

We apologize for no inconvenience!

Re:"Land of the free"

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I get the feeling you and I see the same problems but reached far different conclusions on how to solve them, and ultimately, what consititutes a 'solution'. Side effect of being human, I suppose.

I used to be quite the neo-con, until I started studying history and society. Now I'm in favor of small countries, small militaries, open government, and diplomacy.

Re:"Land of the free"

[unity100]

I used to be quite the neo-con, until I started studying history and society. Now I'm in favor of small countries, small militaries, open government, and diplomacy.

then you havent studied enough history. you need to go to all the way to prehistory, start there, and come to scientific age slowly. giving special emphasis to fall of rome, and early middle ages (dark ages) altogether. from 300 to 600 AD.

when you come to scientific age, passing through the age of enlightenment reading, you will see that this is not something that is related to size - but to concept of ownership, and money as its mechanic. as long as a person or a group can own ownership of more things or the same thing more than others, you will never be able to solve the issues seen in this system. ages old rule - the one with the gold makes the rule.

it doesnt matter whether a society is 200 people or 2 billion people - as long as some command more than others, they will have power over others.

Re:"Land of the free"

[bluefoxlucid]

The problem is not money but people. Communism doesn't work because of people. Capitalism also doesn't work because of people. Communism is broken from the start; capitalism is broken because people find the holes and jump through them to string the rest of the people along as puppets. One supports those in power at the expense of the many; one allows the few to manipulate those in power, again at the expense of the many.

The truth is something must be done. The politician's fallacy is that this is something, thus it must be done; the truth is that what must be done must actually be effective. And there we find our answer: the politicians please the masses by doing something, anything, even the nonsensical. Obviously, what must be done must address the masses' inability to think on their own.

This means a cultural shift by educating the masses in philosophy, by which they will learn meditation (personal, takes form of yoga, zen meditation, quiet reflection--i.e. while doing slow tasks like washing dishes by hand or gardening), the argumentation of logic (the study of logical fallacies and the like, reasoning skills), or some other facility that trains them to mentally assess and carefully consider everything that passes them.

That is the critical point: everything is too fast, everything is instant-gratification, entitlement, the works. The government must save us from everything, hence social security and the like. We want instant access to anything and everything. We don't want time to think, because we want to move on to the next thing the moment we're bored. That is a problem; any number of solutions address this.

This is why I support the study of philosophy and the cultural shift to the study of the game of Go. Studying philosophy, applied correctly (i.e. not studying existentialism, although I don't invalidate that completely in its own right) is akin to studying Go, but in the field of argumentation: you become versed in the more technical meanings of ethics, morals, logic, things that you think about. The playing of Go is a cognitive process that improves the relevant mental facilities, and teaches you to approach simple and difficult problems by examining both the local situation and the overall situation as far as is relevant, an extremely important skill. Either having a toolkit to structure your approach to all arguments (moral, ethical, logical) or having the mental facilities to approach problems in general is an improvement; having both is ideal.

Understanding the world sufficiently will also allow you to understand the role of money: it is societal credit for the value of your existence. Rather than trading a sheep for a plow, we value the sheep and the plow similarly, trade money for a plow, and you use the money to buy not-a-sheep from a guy who buys not-a-sheep from another guy, who uses that money to buy the sheep from me. You made a plow, this is a valuable contribution to society, since I make the food you eat and I could definitely use a plow; the money is a token that says this is how much the plow is worth to me. It's hard to set up, but it evens out naturally... in a healthy system. Obviously a plow allows the production of much food, so food will cost about as much as everything that goes into it, including the plow divided by how much food you can grow before the plow breaks, yes?

We are ill because we fail to recognize these things, and now money is pure value, but only for the sake of money. Sad.

Re:"Land of the free"

[The AtomicPunk]

Capitalist economy? Where do you live? I think this took place in the United States, which is far from a capitalist economy ...

Re:"Land of the free"

[unity100]

you can do it. actually, this was the way people lived before 6000 BC, and there was much more harmony in between societies and the nature. they still had tools, they still had cities.

Re:"Land of the free"

[unity100]

great phrase there. ill use it.

Re:"Land of the free"

[slackbheep]

Oh look, someone else with a point to make and no concern for being relevant.
Let it be shouted from the rooftops: "PAYPAL ONLY REQUIRES THEY ADD A CHEQUING ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO RECLAIM THE ASSETS"
+5 Insightful? Sigh.

Paypal policy

[operagost]

So, what's Paypal's standard policy on this? Have they done this with any other orgs? They often do stupid things like this for no reason other than they have stupid policies. For example, it took years-- YEARS I tell you-- to get them to verify and change the address on my wife's account.

Re:Paypal policy

[Anonymous Coward]

Paypal regularly does this sort of thing. They'll freeze an account for whatever reason, refuse to give the money back to the people that paid in and refuse to give the money to the intended recipient. They use the guise of owning the money between when it's sent and received as justification for it. IIRC they did it to Minecraft as well as Wikileaks and they are hardly the only ones to fall victim to the scam. Paypal warning

Re:Paypal policy

[GameboyRMH]

Paypal's standard policy is "Fuck you, I'll do what I want!" So this is in line with their standard policy.

Re:Paypal policy

[slackbheep]

Paypal is at least 95% demonic, but in this case specificly it seems they hadn't provided a chequing account and the funds are simply frozen until one is added.

I am shocked

[mewsenews]

PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt

But not financially bankrupt!! Cha-ching!!

Re:Who?

[bstender]

so why the fuck am I supposed to feel bad that this guy is getting exactly the punishment that he knew he would get?

oh i don't know, does "due process" feel like something you could feel good about?

and

[unity100]

why are you anonymous ? before accusing someone of treason, someone should develop the balls needed for expressing their views with at least a dubious registered website account. notice - i didnt even say 'with your own identity'. such is the level you are at, currently.

Re:and

[unity100]

surely the ends never justify the means, isnt it.

like, if a nazi officer refused to kill people in a concentration camp, and let them free, he would be judged of treason and shot dead.

ends never justify the means indeed.

hypocrisy galore ...

Re:and

[edraven]

And you used the magic words, "if" and "should he be convicted". Respectable.

Re:and

[bstender]

being the devil's advocate, I wonder if you would consider there ever to be a case of treason which was justified by appealing to a law of universal human rights? Governments are capable of high crimes and treason may be the only way to stop it. Say, a general in Khadafi's army refusing the order to fire on its own citizens, or say, a soldier refusing to massacre civilians at Mai Lai. Or perhaps revealing the existence of a program of genocide by your Fuhrer, or perhaps numerous crimes against humanity being perpetrated by an army who illegally invaded and occupied a sovereign country, leading to the death of over one million souls and counting?

Re:and

[shentino]

That's still making the dubious assumption that your own life is worth less than the thousands of lives you are executing. It's selfishly bad math at its finest.

Re:morally bankrupt

[Shikaku]

treasonous Bradley Manning

[citation needed]
Criteria for citation requires:
1. Law(s), with sections and code.
2. Previous convictions with said law(s) and with similar case(s).

Correction

[Stenchwarrior]

It should read "US Army PFC Bradley Manning", not "Pfc."

Re:Correction

[geekoid]

US ARMY KFC Bradley Manning is right out.

Re:Correction

[Stenchwarrior]

Mmmmm chicken (drool)

OK, while I understand the angst

[Shivetya]

I understand where PayPal is coming from too. They open themselves up to more trouble than a bunch of people complaining on message boards; usually at sites where the people loudly claim that PayPal is evil anyway and cite numerous stories of cousins brothers best friends little dogs being ripped off; compared to some country's politicians deciding to play up the populace with some timely investigations or worse getting other departments to look at areas of business not related.

Corporations can't win, they aren't protected by the law in areas like this. An individual would garner more sympathy than they would should previously mentioned government entities try to make a run at them. So yeah, it sucks for people who like what this group is doing. The truly sad part is that more people will express angst here and on other boards than would have made a contribution.

Re:OK, while I understand the angst

[corbettw]

Corporations can't win, they aren't protected by the law in areas like this.

They are when they follow it. I'm unclear on how freezing a customer's account without proving a violation of the Terms of Service is an example of "following the law".

Re:OK, while I understand the angst

[Minwee]

The law that Pay Pal follows is usually the one that says "I've got the pistols, so I'll keep the pesos." Yeah, that seems fair.

Re:OK, while I understand the angst

[lastchance_000]

To which I'm sure their response would be, "You want 'your' money? Feel free to sue us."

Re:OK, while I understand the angst

[geekoid]

What law? they are not required to shut down someone account. They should be middle men in getting money from person a to person b. Not moral judges of who is worthy. Not freezing the account is the win for them.

Re:OK, while I understand the angst

[fishbowl]

>So yeah, it sucks for people who like what this group is doing.

One of those people could care enough to provide them with a free merchant bank account so that they could take credit cards, ACH, EFT, paper checks, cash in various currencies, other negotiable instruments, etc.

Re:Who?

[Ant P.]

This is a Milgram Experiment, and you are the test subject. You pretty much failed.

Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[pla]

I cannot imagine why any sane person or organization would use PayPal as a bank-like entity after their many, many, MANY abuses of their "not a bank" status.

Seriously... It surprises more to hear about people successfully getting their money out, than stories like the FP.

Really simple, folks - Just stop using them. Period. They have the right not to serve us, and we have the right not to use them. Exercise that right, and put these bastards permanently in the red ASAP.

Slashdotted

[guspasho]

Anyone have a backup link? I want to read the article before I jump on or over any guns.

Re:Slashdotted

[TubeSteak]

More often than not, Google *will* cache a webpage, even if it doesn't show a link in the search results

No cache link in the search results: http://www.google.com/search?q=couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/891/1

Working cache link: http://google.com/search?q=cache:www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/891/1

Re:Who?

[TitusC3v5]

^This. The entire situation is completely and utter absurd, and a slap in the face of everything our country is supposed to represent. He's been in custody for how many months now without any word of a trial?

Re:morally bankrupt

[UnCivil Liberty]

even traitors deserve a fair trial, see also John Adams legal defense of Captain Preston after the Boston Massacre.

Re:Who?

[mug funky]

missing the point. this isn't manning's account, it's an account set up to defend him.

paypal are basically saying that they reserve the right to screw anyone for no reason if they so choose. politics be damned.

i think the internet backlash might just hurt their business a little more than threats from a bankrupt government... it's a dumb decision on paypal's part.

Two sides to the story?

[Dachannien]

So far, the only nominally credible journalistic outlet reporting on this story (and indexed so far by teh Google) is Huffington Post, which appears to be reporting solely based upon the press release.

This would be a great opportunity for some actual journalism - to find out why Paypal actually suspended access, what the reason behind the checking account access requirement is, whether or not there's government pressure at work here, and whether or not there's something that Courage to Resist knows about but isn't saying in their press release.

Or, we could just blindly accept everything Courage to Resist says as the unvarnished truth.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[blair1q]

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.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[ScentCone]

I'm sure the Huffington Post, known far and wide for its even-handed, thoughtful editorial positions and rational world view (including endless articles touting homeopathy's amazing medical powers, or junk science pieces trying to talk people out of getting their kids vaccinated, etc), surely has vetted this fine article. It only looks like a press release from an axe-grinding activist entity that hasn't been able to attract its desired level of attention by other means.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[Draek]

Lied? that article says exactly the same as TFS and TFA: CtR set their account up and started receiving money, PayPal asked them unrestricted access to their bank account in exchange for being recognized as a non-profit, CtR refused, PayPal blocked their account until they cave in. And since that they state nowhere just *why* do they require unrestricted access to non-profits' bank accounts, I'm still leaning on "bunch of amoral scumbags" as far as PayPal goes.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[Mr. Slippery]

We are dealing with a case of someone who has pretty much confessed. At any rate is caught dead to rights...

Evidence?

The word we are looking for here is TRAITOR.

Based on the number of crimes revealed by the leaks, the word for whomever is responsible for the leaks is "whistleblower".

So now we have a skeevy group of anarchists and progressive/marxist activists raising money in this traitor's name.

No, that's not what we have at all. What we have is a group of people of a variety of ideologies concerned with due process, the use of torture, and the specter of cruel and unusual punishment, raising money for a legal defense fund for an accused person.

Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that this group of misfits might be suspected of, and Paypal might have evidence of, some dubious activity going on with that money?

About as much as a stretch of the imagination as to imagine that someone as ignorant and misguided as yourself is planning some dubious activity.

Aren't you glad that you're entitled to be considered innocent until proven guilty, rather than condemned by some innuendo based around your political beliefs?

Re:Two sides to the story?

[blair1q]

Lied.

That policy does not apply only to 501(c)(3)'s. They were emphasizing that it also applies to them.

PayPal needs you to have a bank account for at least two reasons: 1. identification; the presumption being if a bank believes you are who you are, then you are; for what that's worth. 2. to fund your account automatically if you make a payment from your PayPal account in excess of your PayPal balance; there's actually a whole list of things PayPal can try in order to cover your payment, so having an empty bank account isn't automatically going to stop the transaction.

CTR is full of crap, is ladling it out generously, and a whole slew of slashdotters are eating it with relish and ketchup on top.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[Ixokai]

Did... you read the article you said you read?

It says nothing about PayPal demanding "unrestricted access" to a bank account. It further goes on to state that they are _not_ seeking the ability to unilaterally withdraw money from the bank account.

PayPal simply requires that all non-profit accounts be linked to a bank account-- among other things you have to go through too, to confirm your non-profit status. In return for this sort of thing, PayPal charges less on the transaction fees.

Its actually a pretty clearly spelled out policy... non-profit accounts have to be linked to a bank account. That _doesn't_ mean you have to grant PayPal the ability to roam around the bank account and do anything they want to.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether they state why they need it or not really doesn't matter. They agreed to the ToS when they signed up for the account and now want the rules changed. don't like the rules, then don't use Paypal. Much like myself and a ton of other people.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[jmorris42]

> Based on the number of crimes revealed by the leaks, the word for whomever is responsible for the leaks is "whistleblower".

You guys keep saying that as if by repetition it will become, if not true, at least 'Truthy.' Name one. Saw a lot of methods and sources spilled. Say a lot of fairly ordinary acts of Statecraft spilled. Saw a lot of private assessments being sent in from the field to the State Dept, which is a big part of what we have embassies for. So enlighten us, oh wise one.

And IF you manage that, you can then go for the bonus points and explain how just dumping hundreds of thousands of pages that obviously were NOT evidence of wrongdoing but the release was harmful to US interests was the right way to deal with any hypothetical wrongdoing. And after that you can explain to us all how black is white and get killed in the next zebra crossing because you will almost certainly have to depart reality to pull that one off.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[russotto]

It's common tactics to come up with some niggling bureaucratic reason for taking an evil action rather than admit the true one.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[Dachannien]

Thanks for finding that. I can only assume that Google hadn't yet indexed the story when I did my search, since it was posted right around the same time I made my post.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[drinkypoo]

Its actually a pretty clearly spelled out policy... non-profit accounts have to be linked to a bank account. That _doesn't_ mean you have to grant PayPal the ability to roam around the bank account and do anything they want to.

Yes, yes it does. Because when you give them access to make deposits and withdrawals, which is what you are doing when you "link" paypal to your bank account, then you are giving them permission to do anything they like to your account in practice whether or not that was your intention. I say this as a paypal user who has never had a single problem. It's just a matter of time though, right? If I were doing any meaningful volume, or if I had any meaningful amount of money in the account linked to paypal, then I would feel vulnerable. I would use something else, but nothing else lets me do what paypal does.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Name one

How about the secret bombing war the US is involved in in Yemen?

dumping hundreds of thousands of pages

Please point to where anybody can view these hundreds of thousands of pages.

the right way to deal with any hypothetical wrongdoing

You're right, Manning should have gone to his CO and complained about an illegal war going on.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[jmorris42]

> How about the secret bombing war the US is involved in in Yemen?

It was secret but what makes it illegal? According to Wikileaks they had a deal with the government of Yemen. Where were you when Bush announced the new rules of the game included killing AQ terrorists wherever they might be hiding? That meant everywhere, regardless of whether the local government was ok with it, but in that case they apparently wanted em dead almost as badly as we did, only for different reasons which have now become obvious.

> Please point to where anybody can view these hundreds of thousands of pages.

Do you deny that Wikileaks is in possession of that number of documents? Do you deny that several major media outlets are in possession of almost as many documents as Wikileaks itself? Last time I checked Julian Assange doesn't have a US security clearance and neither does Pinch over at the NYT. It is a safe bet (Assange being a clueless nitwit) that most major foreign intelligence agencies are now in posession of the entire corpus of leaked documents.

> Manning should have gone to his CO and complained about an illegal war going on.

You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it does. Illegal isn't a synonym for "Things progressives don't like."

Re:Two sides to the story?

[bill_mcgonigle]

It was secret but what makes it illegal?

Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

Where were you when Bush announced the new rules of the game included killing AQ terrorists wherever they might be hiding?

Reading the Constitution. Talk about a progressivist attitude!

Re:Two sides to the story?

[pjbgravely]

And further readings shows Paypal now says it was a misunderstanding and all is well now.

Re:Two sides to the story?

[AliasMarlowe]

And further readings shows Paypal now says it was a misunderstanding and all is well now.

Amusingly, their statement refers to the "Courage to Resist PayPal" account...

Who uses paypal?

[Script Cat]

Does anyone still use this service? There must be some alternative.

Re:Who?

[mfh]

Manning is a hero to democracy. He risked everything to ensure that the people found out the truth about all the dirty secrets. I personally believe that in order for our world to get past all the bickering and warring, we will need open government as a constraint. We will not be able to properly explore deep space and survive our eventual destruction without complete openness in all aspects of our lives as well. Until then, we will be playing shadow games with one another and we will remain stuck on this rock, doomed.

Also, PayPal is not a good organization. They are self-interested, and corrupt.

They should use http://flattr.com instead

[weeble]

The founders of Pirate Bay have shown themselves to have courage in the past and to stand up for themselves when they believe they are right.

Wikileaks nor Bradley Manning have been convicted of any crimes and yet Paypal et al. withdraw their service under inexplicable circumstances.

Looks like a great time to stop using paypal, Amazon and the others that fail basic morality tests.

Re:They should use http://flattr.com instead

[fishbowl]

The circumstances are quite explicable: The relationship with these users is a liability to them, and is not beneficial to their business.
There's no government conspiracy here, and unless PayPal seized cash, no civil or criminal issue here either.

Re:They should use http://flattr.com instead

[jtnix]

Really? From the Flattr FAQ at https://flattr.com/support/faq

How do I get money in and out of the Flattr system?
- [...] To get money out of the system, we currently support PayPal only.

Re:They should use http://flattr.com instead

[Noughmad]

Strange, this is from the same page:

When your revenue balance has reached €10 or more you can withdraw the money to your PayPal or Moneybookers account.

Can someone remind me?

[EasyTarget]

Does LamePal already have a financial/military sector corporate pimp?

Or is this just another displaying of the wares to attract one?

Re:Can someone remind me?

[Kakari]

Palantir Technologies, specifically Peter Thiel.

Re: Since you are writing in support of a traitor.

[Tsingi]

Well, if he has been convicted already, then I guess this is all moot.

Re:morally bankrupt

[mug funky]

manning's actions were based partly on his ethics and partly on his other issues.

just because you don't agree with his ethics does not render them void.

also, you forget that while the USA slides into ever more intractable debt, the rest of the world is reaching for the popcorn.

feels good man.

it will be a shame when the USA falls, because in many ways it really has been a good thing for a lot of the world (IMHO).

also you spelled "weasel" wrong :)

Re:Huh?

[corbettw]

Morals do not apply to corporations.

My Business Ethics professor would've flunked you for saying that in class.

Re:Who?

[pla]

so why the fuck am I supposed to feel bad that this guy is getting exactly the punishment that he knew he would get?

3/10, but I'll bite anyway - Because whether or not his case amounts to a prosecutorial slam-dunk, he still has the right to a fair trial.

More importantly, this has less to do with whether or not you should "feel bad" for him, than with whether or not a private business has the right to arbitrarily seize your assets temporarily in their possession. The specifics here (depriving someone of the funds required to afford one of our basic constitutional rights) just makes the core offense all the more insulting.

Its gotta stop!

[ldconfig]

This war on geeks has gotta stop. Don't they have any idea how stupid it is to PISS OFF ALL THE SMART FOLKS! ld

Re:Its gotta stop!

[uncanny]

But it's the stupid people where they make all of their money.

Re:Its gotta stop!

[russotto]

Don't they have any idea how stupid it is to PISS OFF ALL THE SMART FOLKS!

The smart folks are the ones who became lawyers and bureaucrats and politicians, who have the smarts to force the technically inclined to do their bidding for them. The REALLY smart folks are that subset who convinced the technically inclined that this state of affairs was right and proper.

Re:Who?

[dummondwhu]

I don't owe Bradley Manning a fair trial because I'm not a government entity. He is entitled to a fair trial before government punishment is meted out, period. I'm entitled to form an opinion of him based on available knowledge and I'm also free to decide to not associate with him in any way whether or not that opinion is based on fact or conjecture. PayPal is afforded the exact same rights that I am. They don't owe him anything and they certainly aren't forced to wait for government trials to conclude before they form an opinion of someone and act upon it, so long as they aren't violating traditional discriminatory statutes and the like.

Yeah yeah

[GameboyRMH]

Paypal morally bankrupt, scummy company not to be trusted, old news, we all know.

Re:Yeah yeah

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Hilariously, Paypal was actually started by a libertarian as some sort of "resist the man and his fiat currency's dead hand on trade." kind of thing. Now it voluntarily licks the boots of those who would suppress the entirely legal efforts of an advocacy group to secure a man a fair trial(rather than the present detention-without-trial-of-indefinite-length...)

All hail the private sector, defender of liberty!

Re:Yeah yeah

[blair1q]

Libertarians, unsurprisingly, respond to offers of cash for their companies the same way that regular Republicans do.

Re:Yeah yeah

[causality]

Hilariously, Paypal was actually started by a libertarian as some sort of "resist the man and his fiat currency's dead hand on trade." kind of thing. Now it voluntarily licks the boots of those who would suppress the entirely legal efforts of an advocacy group to secure a man a fair trial(rather than the present detention-without-trial-of-indefinite-length...)

All hail the private sector, defender of liberty!

Far as I can tell Paypal is just another pro-Establishment tool despite any intentions of its founder. Wikileaks has been accused of no crime in any jurisdiction, but they irritate a lot of powerful people. So Paypal interferes with the effort to support Wikileaks by using Paypal to make donations. Manning is currently facing some serious accusations; he is accused of leaking information that ended up in Wikileaks which again pisses off a lot of powerful people. So Paypal freezes the account that would have been used to fund his legal defense.

This is opinionated speculation only, but I really wonder what kind of favors or kickbacks Paypal is going to receive in the future. They have faithfully served their masters it would seem, and that's obviously not its users and customers. Fascism is the merging of corporate and government power. Corporations doing what is convenient for the government and acting against people government doesn't like, in the absence of any actual requirement to do so, is a step in that direction for certain.

Even those who are guilty as sin deserve a fair trial. So long as their fair trials are funded voluntarily there is nothing that needs to be stopped.

Re:Yeah yeah

[SimplyGeek]

You have no clue what happend with the original company as it was founded. Criminals were using Paypal to launder money. As a result, the Feds started putting serious pressure on the company "or else". It was either that or close up shop so they had to play ball. I admire what they tried to do. We need competing currencies and ways to exchange money without the Feds knowing about it. There's no way the IRS would ever let that happen.

Re:Yeah yeah

[kothmac]

A) Which of the founders of Paypal was libertarian? [citation needed]
B) When you join the military you sign away your rights. You are subject to the UCMJ.
C) Bad troll is bad.

Re:Yeah yeah

[Grishnakh]

Far as I can tell Paypal is just another pro-Establishment tool despite any intentions of its founder.

Founder's intentions mean squat with any company after it's been bought out by someone else.

Just look at Ebay: back in the late 90s when it was new, it was a great place for regular people to sell off their old crap, like a big internet garage sale. It had low fees, and few problems aside from scammers (a problem any time you deal with private sellers). Now it's been taken public, has a CEO, and is mired in greed and unethical behavior. Fees are ridiculously high, small-time sellers are screwed over in favor of "power sellers" who sell tons of Chinese-made junk, and scamming is still a giant problem because the company (even though it has far more resources than ever) refuses to do anything about it.

This is opinionated speculation only, but I really wonder what kind of favors or kickbacks Paypal is going to receive in the future.

My theory is that their purpose in scratching the government's back is to keep the government off their back when anyone complains about their actions, which would be illegal if they were chartered as an actual bank. So they get to act like a bank, talk like a bank, quack like a bank, but when they prefer to do something that banks aren't allowed to do (like freeze accounts arbitrarily), they can say "we're not a bank!" and get away with it because the government doesn't want to bother them after their help with "annoying" issues like this.

Re:Yeah yeah

[houghi]

Resist "The man" until you become "The man".

Re:Yeah yeah

[AK Marc]

When you join the military you sign away your rights. You are subject to the UCMJ.

You can never sign away rights. You can't sign yourself into slavery. You can, however, sign a contract with the government that subjects you to another set of rules with "alternate" rights. But you know what the rules are before you enter, and they are consistently (if not always fairly) applied. The rights aren't "gone" but you agree to abide by more restrictive ones for the time you are employed by those who, ultimately, grant the rights (and please, no arguments about rights being innate, I understand that argument and point out that, whether true, that's not how rights operate in the real world).

Re:Yeah yeah

[SteveFoerster]

Which of the founders of Paypal was libertarian? [citation needed]

Peter Thiel, who's gone on to fund libertarian projects like the Seasteading Institute. But he and the other founders of PayPal sold out to eBay years ago, so you can't blame him for its current morally bankrupt decisions.

Re:Yeah yeah

[realityimpaired]

Moral high ground aside, PFC Manning stands accused of treason and espionage. Assuming he actually did provide the information to Wikileaks, then he's guilty of both crimes, which are among the only crimes in the UCMJ that are still punishable with execution. While the accusation has yet to be proven, I haven't exactly seen any reports of him denying the charges. It has nothing to do with information wanting to be free... in theory, I support the idea of the information being free and the kind of work Wikileaks is trying to do. But having worked in military communications, I also understand the importance of opsec and comsec. Some kinds of information should most emphatically *not* be made public until after the war is done. While in this particular case it probably hasn't led to the extreme, the bottom line is that breaking opsec and comsec puts lives at risk, and no matter how noble the intentions, there is no excuse for that.

Practically speaking he's more likely looking at life behind bars than a bullet between the eyes for his trouble, but he *really* should have considered the implications of what he was doing, as well as the ramifications thereof before he provided the information to the website.

As for what this has to do with the topic at hand? Paypal still has to do business in the US. They may be incorporated as a bank in Luxembourg, but most of the transactions they do are in US dollars. If they were asked to close the account, and made a stand against the government in favour of somebody who doesn't even deny his actions, how do you suppose it would turn out for them?

Re:Yeah yeah

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

A) Peter Thiel.

B)UCMJ, Subchapter II, section 810, Article 10: "Any person subject to this chapter charged with an offense under this chapter shall be ordered into arrest or confinement, as circumstances may require; but when charged only with an offense normally tried by a summary court-martial, he shall not ordinarily be placed in confinement. When any person subject to this chapter is placed in arrest or confinement prior to trial, immediate steps shall be taken to inform him of the specific wrong of which he is accused and to try him or to dismiss the charges and release him."(emphasis mine)
UCMJ, Subchapter II, section 813, Article 13: "No person, while being held for trial, may be subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances require to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline."(emphasis mine, and I'm pretty sure that month after month of solid solitary doesn't count...)

C)Worse Troll is worse.

Re:Yeah yeah

[brain159]

http://www.bitcoin.org/ and a recent episode of Security Now went into a bunch of detail about the theory of how it works.

(tl;dr hard crypto-guesswork puzzles are used to restrict the creation of their new digital currency. It is apparently anonymous and untraceable, and some sites already exist that will trade it for RL US$)

Re:Yeah yeah

[_Sprocket_]

Hilariously, Paypal was actually started by a libertarian as some sort of "resist the man and his fiat currency's dead hand on trade." kind of thing. Now it voluntarily licks the boots of those who would suppress the entirely legal efforts of an advocacy group to secure a man a fair trial(rather than the present detention-without-trial-of-indefinite-length...)

I'm no fan of Bradley Manning. I think he's a fool and not worth all the hero worship and calls to rally a defense. But in so far as said rally is legal, I can't abide by Paypal interfering with it.

Re:Yeah yeah

[kothmac]

A) Former CEO and founder. Paypal is now owned by eBay.
B) Like I said, subject to the UCMJ. The UCMJ is strict as hell and the offense he is accused of committing is a big one. They're not gonna let him out on bail.
C) Awesome NO U retort there bro.

Re:Yeah yeah

[ifiwereasculptor]

in theory, I support the idea of the information being free and the kind of work Wikileaks is trying to do. But having worked in military communications, I also understand the importance of opsec and comsec. Some kinds of information should most emphatically *not* be made public until after the war is done. While in this particular case it probably hasn't led to the extreme, the bottom line is that breaking opsec and comsec puts lives at risk, and no matter how noble the intentions, there is no excuse for that.

If I may digress for a bit, this is the army we're talking about. Even considering that the nformation WL revealed does indeed endanger some people, I assume it's safe to say that the lives that are "being put at risk" by information are, in fact, already at a fair amount of risk. Plus, while valuing preservation of life above freedom of information is perfectly understandable, again because of the nature of the armed forces, those lives that information supposedly jeopardizes are quite often trying themselves to end a number of other lives. That kind of renders the ever so popular "OMG! lives at risk/blood on WL's figurative hands" argument kind of moot from the point of view of human rights, because lives are at risk and some are going to be ended either way. Revealing information would just shift some of the casualties from one side of the warmongers to the other. Seems to me you'd really have to enter on motives, consequences, the why of both the fighting and the whistleblowing in order to to formulate an opinion.

Re:Yeah yeah

[fishbowl]

During wartime, he could be court-martialed in the field, convicted and executed on the spot with no appeal.
He's at least receiving some modicum of due process.

Re:Yeah yeah

[GameMaster]

A) You asked which of the founders was Libertarian, he answered you and you confirmed that Peter Thiel was, in fact, one of the founders. The fact that eBay is the present owner has nothing to do with your orginal question.

B) The reason most people have been throwing the "you give up your rights under the UCMJ" line back at people angry about the military's treatment of Manning is that they are, somehow, trying to imply that the UCMJ makes it ok for the military to leave him in solitary confinement for almost a year while they take their time developing a case for him (or, as many people suspect, waiting for the isolation to break him mentally so that he's willing to just sign any plea bargain deal they shove in his face in order to get out of solitary). While common sense should really tell anyone that if the UCMJ did, in fact, allow such abuse of prisoners that it would be monsterous and should be changed immediately, fuzzyfuzzyfungus went the extra mile to quote the specific sections of the UCMJ that make this kind of treatment just as illegal in the military as it is in normal society.

C) I'm not going to get involved in this pissing match.

Re:Yeah yeah

[kothmac]

A) Check the parent. He was talking shit.
B) I never implied his treatment was right.
C) Err, you just did.

Re:Yeah yeah

[realityimpaired]

The military is not a killbot factory. They're trained to actively avoid taking lives if they have a choice in the matter, and the rules of engagement support that. They aren't out there "trying themselves to end a number of other lives", as you put it.

Seems to me you'd really have to enter on motives, consequences, the why of both the fighting and the whistleblowing in order to to formulate an opinion.

In a civilian context, maybe. In a military context, no. The motivation behind a conflict takes a back burner once the conflict actually starts. At that point, the most important part is getting out of it alive. *IF* that means taking another life, then that's what it means. If I have a choice about it, then I will not take a life. "blowing the whistle" like this will only inflame the other side, and that will prolong the conflict. More people will die as a direct result of his actions.

This kind of information should eventually be made public, yes, but not while the conflict is still going on. That puts lives at risk, and the most diplomatic way I can describe Wikileaks' decision to publish it is irresponsible.

Re:Yeah yeah

[DarkofPeace]

Well either you process all transactions or you inspect (and are responsible for) every transaction. PayPal is selectively enforcing some internal and unclear guidelines.

Re:Yeah yeah

[jmorris42]

> It is apparently anonymous and untraceable..

And will thus be used to launder money and other naughty things until the governments of the world drop on their ass just like happened to PayPal, eGold, etc. The problem is a lot of people might be interested in the ability to conduct commerce without leaving a trail but the early adopters will always be the criminals, thus making it impossible to ever get enough of a critical mass to become too big to shutdown.

So my advice to the next bright but clueless anarchist libertarians who get the idea to try to conquer this business niche is to make finding a solution to that problem their priority.

Re:Yeah yeah

[shermo]

But we've always been at war with Eastasia.

Re:Yeah yeah

[toriver]

Assuming he actually did provide the information to Wikileaks, then he's guilty of both crimes

Who died and made you judge?

Re:Yeah yeah

[realityimpaired]

What part of the above sentence is confusing to you? If he provided the information to Wikileaks, then he committed treason and espionage. Providing classified information to an outside source is a textbook example of both crimes. If he did it, then he's guilty of the crimes. End of discussion.

You do realize that "assuming he actually did X" is a conditional statement, and the following phrase is the outcome if it's true? Whether he's convicted of it is perhaps another discussion, but you should realize that military justice is very different from civilian justice. If they're laying charges in the first place, they have enough to convict him in a court martial.

Re:Yeah yeah

[Firehed]

Huh? PayPal was basically a weird PDA app focusing far more on security than payments before the x.com merger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Beginnings). They basically hacked their way into IPSP/merchant services through eBay sellers which then acquired them and made them the only payment option for auctions.

All of this stuff boils down to risk management. Not just payment chargebacks, but bringing in undesired oversight and investigation from the government. I think it's a sad state of affairs when collecting donations for someone's legal defense is likely to get you and everyone else involved (donors, payment processors, etc) under federal scrutiny, but that's America in 2011 for you. PayPal isn't the only payments company trying to avoid the potential fiasco, they're just the most high-profile.

Re:Yeah yeah

[Firehed]

Since I forgot I can't edit on /. - I'm by no means defending PayPal's actions or the company as a whole (in fact, I work for one of their competitors - it shouldn't be hard to find out which one if you care). On the contrary, I'm more attacking the government's stance on this, since it's in my opinion an attack on free speech. Whether what Manning did is illegal is something for the jury to decide, but by trying to help the guy out you effectively get labelled as a co-conspirator. Same with attempts to raise funds Assenage's (apparently failed) defense. As someone would who would like to contribute in some way (whether financially or otherwise), it's a damn shame that the government has made it anywhere from impractical to potentially illegal to do so.

Re:Yeah yeah

[illumnatLA]

The military is not a killbot factory. They're trained to actively avoid taking lives if they have a choice in the matter, and the rules of engagement support that. They aren't out there "trying themselves to end a number of other lives", as you put it.

Right! Killbot duties have been turned over to private "security" firms such as Blackwater.

Re:Yeah yeah

[ifiwereasculptor]

How is the military not a killbot factory, exactly? They are people trained to kill efficiently. And when they are deployed somewhere, it's much more often to kill people than, say, to pet stray dogs. I know they also have peaceful missions and all, but their purpose is very clear: to kill people who fuck with country X (or who country X wants to fuck for some reason).

The motivation behind a conflict takes a back burner once the conflict actually starts. At that point, the most important part is getting out of it alive.

Who has to get out alive? The military unit? The country? And what conflict? An encounter? The war? I think that's valid for a military unit in a single encounter. That'd be pretty natural. But then again, there are "acceptable losses" or "acceptable risks" or whatever the cool kids are calling it nowadays. Basically it means that it's ok for some people to die for an objective. Also, the best way to survive a conflict is to not be anywhere near ir, so if the most important part was indeed to get out alive, a great shortcut would be never getting in in the first place. Also, if you purposely put yourself in a situation that will make you take a life so your is not taken, how is that any different than just taking the life from the get go? So you can talk about the country surviving, "getting out alive" of the war. Makes sense, but then again, you'd need to have some countries locked in a highlanderesque scenario where, say, there was only enough of a crucial resource for one of them. What's crucial is open to discussion, but I think we can agree that this is actually a very unlikely scenario for a war. look at WWII, for example. Had the war never happened, no country would have "died". And no one stopped once Germany was again confined to its original territory, so there goes the "getting out alive is a priority" theory. No, the original motivation, the goal is always present. And it should be, because if you're killing for something, you better keep in mind the reason, otherwise it might go away and the conflict loses its purpose. The prolonged occupation of Iraq, originally to get rid of the WMDs, comes to mind. Ok, now that I have spewed enough hippietalk for the whole month, let me continue.

"blowing the whistle" like this will only inflame the other side, and that will prolong the conflict. More people will die as a direct result of his actions.

You're assuming there's only one possible outcome for the conflict: the victory of the party that's being harmed by the information. If it does have an impact, it might make one party win faster, thus avoiding more unnecessary deaths. There are a myriad of scenarios that could come from releasing classified information, including protests leading to or aiding a cessation of hostilities in a deadlocked, neverending war/occupation. Look at the Vietnam War. Again, I believe you'd really have to take a very careful look at the situation. In a nutshell, what I'm saying is that people that are killing other people/ordering people to kill other people/directly funding people that kill other people can't really complain about some other people revealing true information that might or might not put their lives in slightly greater danger because it's morally wrong to risk human lives. Seems beyond hypocrisy. Having said all that, I do not believe WL has revealed anything that directly puts people at greater risk. As for undirectly doing so, that's what newspapers do everyday.

Re:Yeah yeah

[thegarbz]

Manning is currently facing some serious accusations; he is accused of leaking information that ended up in Wikileaks which again pisses off a lot of powerful people. So Paypal freezes the account that would have been used to fund his legal defense.

I hate Paypal. They are one of the most corrupt organisations in the world. However in this case it appears it has nothing to do with Wikileaks or Manning and instead is just a breach of the terms of service. All other donation accounts require paypal to have access to the checking account where the funds are to be transfered. Make what you will of this rule, but in this case they have come out and said the account and funds will be thawed as soon as the account complies with the same rules as every other account used for donations.

Personally I'd much rather bash them for truly corrupt decisions like freezing the donation account from the Something Awful forums when they started collecting for New Orleans victims due to "fraudulent activity", and not "we froze their account because someone clicked through and didn't read the rules, as soon as they comply it'll be fine".

Re:Yeah yeah

[pipatron]

When you get a bullshit "or else", you ask "or what?". Not just do whatever they ask.

Re:Yeah yeah

[c6gunner]

They are people trained to kill efficiently. And when they are deployed somewhere, it's much more often to kill people than, say, to pet stray dogs.

In WW2, maybe. In current conflicts, we quite literally spend more time petting stray dogs than we do killing people.

Re:Yeah yeah

[Limburgher]

Oh, come on, I think you're letting Scientology, the Vatican, and the GOP off awfully easily. :)

Re:Yeah yeah

[wkcole]

A) Which of the founders of Paypal was libertarian? [citation needed]

Peter Thiel at least, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel and chase the references as you see fit. Elon Musk IMHO as well, whether he calls himself a libertarian today or not.

Background: Thiel was the concept & money guy at Confinity, the company that originated the PayPal brand and their consumer-facing service. Musk founded X.com, which had a slightly different focus, useful backend tricks, and more product ideas. The two companies merged within months of their foundings, under the X name initially. However, it was the PayPal brand and service which made them viable and attracted eBay to buy the company.

alternative

[freddyfred89]

I can't understand the privatization of payments online. Governments used to be the primary supplier of moneys which everybody had the right to use and everyone had to accept. But online only the private sector (credit cards, paypal, etc) is providing the means of payment. Anyway, all these folks should use Bitcoin: http://www.bitcoin.org/ It is peer-to-peer and anonymous. The tricky part involves converting it to traditional currencies but it currently has parity with the dollar, as reported earlier on Slashdot.

Simple enough

[proverbialcow]

1) Open a secondary account.
2) Wash the checking account down to the minimum balance daily, and the rest to the secondary account. Depending on the daily balance, the bank will do this automatically either for free or a small fee, or you can take 2 minutes a day and do it yourself.
3) Grant them the stupid permission on the checking account.

Re:Simple enough

[proverbialcow]

1.b) This should have to go without saying, but be sure sure the secondary account is never linked as an overdraft protection account to the first account.

Re:Simple enough

[geekoid]

There NfP status might not allow 3rd party access to the account.

Re:Simple enough

[DCFusor]

Since I often have to use paypal (some ebay vendors give no other choice for example) this is just what I do. Actually, I do it reversed. I created a separate checking account just for ebay, and only put money in it as needed, more or less the exact amount for the transaction, and only a little slush to keep the bank happy. Of course, you have to make sure your bank really understands this and doesn't add stupid "features" like "overdraft protection" when paypal comes to rob you, that will siphon money out of some other account at the bank and charge you for the "privilege" of not protecting you from paypal. I buy more than I sell, so this is lots less work. I just xfer the money from another account via online banking, then do the paypal thing. Good grief, never let those thieves have real access to real money!

Re:Simple enough

[proverbialcow]

You're forgetting about overdraft fees.

No, I'm not. The first time PP tries to withdraw money for a reason both parties do not agree is fair, an overdraft fee is incurred, and you shut down the account. At that point, you know you can't trust PP with your donations, and you stop using them. Until that actually happens, you continue to use them to collect donations. The overdraft fee is the risk of doing business with PayPal, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than putting the entire balance in the account at risk.

Re:Simple enough

[proverbialcow]

There NfP status might not allow 3rd party access to the account.

Then how are they able to deposit to the account to begin with? Even if you don't give them explicit permission to withdraw from the account, they still have the right to "correct" an erroneous deposit, which has the same result.

Re:Huh?

[dkleinsc]

Actually, the wonderful Canadian film The Corporation argues fairly convincingly that if you were to treat a corporation as a person, you would be forced to diagnose them as a complete sociopath.

Doh

[rrohbeck]

Paypal is part of the banking system. And you expect them to tolerate a librul cause? ROFL.

Re:Doh

[blair1q]

PayPal is not a part of the banking system.

It is not a bank.

It is a private entity to whom you give authorization to debit your bank account.

Re:Doh

[rrohbeck]

I didn't say it's a bank. It is definitely part of the system.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[AvitarX]

Paypal certainly does have the right to not collect the money.

This is very different then freezing money they already collected.

Nothing to do with Bradley Manning

[MickyTheIdiot]

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.

Re:Nothing to do with Bradley Manning

[ScentCone]

Because they are a quazi-monopoly on ebay

They are eBay. That's like complaining that GM has a monopoly on making and selling Chevrolet cars.

It's their auction site, and there's nothing stopping you from starting up your own, or using any of the others that are out there.

Re:Nothing to do with Bradley Manning

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Is this just for merchants? Every time I make a transaction as a seller they bug me about linking to a checking account, but so far I've managed to avoid doing it. The day they require it is the day I stop using them altogether.

Re:Nothing to do with Bradley Manning

[TheGratefulNet]

same here - I never EVER gave them my bank info and I've been on paypal since the late 90's. the nag screen comes up almost every time - please link your bank account with us!

no fucking way, jose. I will close down my paypal acct before I'm *compelled* to link, even to a token bank acct.

maybe new accts have to be linked but very old ones do not.

otoh, I've heard that once you hit some magic lifetime limit, you are then forced to 'link'. I have not hit any such limit, though, I guess.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Wrong. You have the right to legal defense - period. Not "the best legal defense available". Big difference.

Correct. Big difference. Your position that you're only entitled to a Lionel Hutz-esque defence irregardless of what's wheeled out to prosecute you results in something that I like to call 'not a fair trial'.

But since you are writing in support of a traitor

But then, I suppose, you were never really interested in a fair trial, were you?

And there are other means available. Someone could set up a bank account for the purpose.

And the difference between an actual bank just cutting off services to a legal defence fund, and a pseudobank doing that same thing is..? Please, enlighten us as to how this is a better solution.

Horribads

[jimmerz28]

I closed my PayPal account after they stopped taking WikiLeaks donations.

They're free to choose whatever business practices they wish. Just not with me supporting them.

What is this areally about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this have anything to do with Manning?

Or is this just because Courage to Resist doesn't want to give PayPal the ability to withdraw funds from a checking account?

After reading the article at http://cryptome.org/0003/paypal-evil.htm it seems that Courage to Resist is equating PayPal saying "Follow the rules about checking account access" to "We're freezing your account because you help someone the Gov't doesn't like"

Re:What is this areally about?

[Mike Van Pelt]

It looks like whoever's behind "Courage to Resist" might be using the whole Bradley Manning thing to change PayPal's long-standing policy on linking bank accounts.

I've never had a bank account linked to my PayPal, but I've never used it to receive money, just to buy stuff. There is, I think I recall, some dollar limit at which point they'll say "you can't use PayPal any more until you give us a bank account", but I don't seem to have hit it yet. (I think it was $10,000? If so, it'll be decades.)

Maybe the thing people need to investigate is why this so-called "Courage to Resist" refuses to work with PayPal the way PayPal has always required.

Re:Who?

[epyT-R]

I was with you until

..without complete openness in all aspects of our lives as well.

so how do you propose to keep everyones' life completely open? a tyrannical police state? oh wait, world governments are already busy building that as we speak.

Yesterday + Trunip Truck

[Stumbles]

PayPal has always been morally bankrupt; what took you so long to figure out that?

Re:PayPal is within their rights and legal in this

[fishbowl]

If they froze the account with a positive balance, I care (because that's seizure of assets, a Big Deal.) If they froze the account with a zero balance, I don't care, because I understand and support their right to do that.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[morgauxo]

We need more traitors like that. People should not be allowed to kill indiscriminately regardless of who they are or what their position is. Have you actually read any of the documents he leaked? Soldiers were gunning down whole families because there may possibly have been some terrorists nearby. If our country is going to be doing that then "We the People" need to put an end to it and we can't do that if we don't know what is going on. Afterall, "We the People" are the source of the government in the US, right? If not then worse traitors than Bradly Manning have already done their damage and the wrong traitor is on trial. How can we "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" when the crooks and murderers in charge may hide from us everything important that is going on?

So-called blind justice

[macraig]

So now Bradley Manning's ability to mount a strong defense is directly affected by corporate behavior having nothing to do with the judicial system. Gee, who knew that "business" could affect "justice" so directly? Does anybody really still think that simple campaign finance reforms are reformation enough?

Corporate behavior can be as dangerous to democracy and ethics as any military campaign.

Why withdraw?

[gstoddart]

So, why does PayPal insist on the ability to withdraw from the account of an organization which is being used for donations.

I've never trusted PayPal, and continue not to. I don't give anybody the ability to withdraw money from my accounts. You can have a credit card on a per-transaction basis, but you sure as hell don't get blanket access to my accounts.

Re:Why withdraw?

[blair1q]

So they can recoup deposits they determine were made in error or due to fraud.

Re:morally bankrupt

[elrous0]

Who is this "John Adams," some sort of commie?

Re:PayPal is within their rights and legal in this

[Chyeld]

Free to "refuse service" and "free to suspend an account with money in it for arbitrary reasons" are not equivalent statements.

PS. Man this has to be a record for dupes on Slashdot, I've got the exact same article on my screen twice, posted to the front page about 45 minutes apart.

Re:Who?

[ScentCone]

He has no need for funds, since the military (of which he is still a part, despite his decision to commit the crimes in question) will provide him with a team of lawyers at no cost to him whatsoever.

Re:PayPal is within their rights and legal in this

[fishbowl]

I wonder if someone could twist an argument that the discrimination against Manning is indeed based on his "Veteran Status".

Re:Who?

[Kral_Blbec]

Sometimes a court isn't necessary to prove guilt. The Constitution doesn't guarantee a court proceeding, it simply requires due process. Due processes has then been interpreted in many different ways.
There are many occasions where guilt can be proven without a court, and the courts only responsibility should be to determine the legal and appropriate punishment. For example, the shooting of Rep. Giffords. Is he "innocent" because a court hasn't found him guilty yet? No. Dozens of eye witnesses and video recordings prove he did the act. There is no question about it.
I haven't followed this case very much, so I can't say off the top of my head what the evidence is against him. From what little I've heard it is a pretty clear cut case.

Time and time again

[Andy Smith]

People who do not use PayPal do not get ripped-off, betrayed, or stolen from, by PayPal. Surely there must, must, MUST be something we can conclude from this?

Traitor

[Anonymous Coward]

From all I have read on him, I would definitely call him a traitor.

It is one thing to blow the whistle on heinous activity that you know is going on, and to publish proof of that activity. It is quite another to irresponsibly start sending out as much confidential/secret information you can get a hold of to third parties. The former, I would praise him for -- as many people seem to be doing. For the latter though, I condemn him. At best he acted recklessly or wantonly and deserves time in jail for violating his oath, his duty, and the law. At worst, he is guilty of espionage and high treason.

Re:Who?

[WillyWanker]

While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, it's clear you have already judged him without benefit of a trial, so as far as you're concerned, he's guilty. Yet you condemn others that question your judgment. Where I come from we call that hypocrisy.

And while PayPal, a division of eBay, certainly is under no obligation to provide him an account, their biased actions could come back to bite them in the ass someday. I already know plenty of people who no longer use eBay or PayPal due to their shady and uneven practices. Stuff like this only sends more and more people looking for alternatives. And I'm a-ok with that. That is, after all, their opinion, right?

Re:Who?

[geekoid]

Lets suppose a general contractor hire you to paint a house. He then gets paid by the client and then would pay you. But after he gets the money he says "You're a rapist, and we think you will use the money for rape, so we aren't giving you what we agreed upon"

Is that OK?

Of course not, and neither is freezinf someone assets.

It would be ok for that contractor to not use you in the future, but not OK for him to hold your assets.

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

So do you think OJ was guilty?

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[epyT-R]

yeah but they don't have the right to abscond with other people's money...no matter WHAT their TOS says.

How do you spell "Net Neutrality"?

[unil_1005]

not this way.

Re:Who?

[geekoid]

The Milgram Experiment is seriously flawed. It doesn't deserve to be mentioned.

Re:Funds? What funds?

[fishbowl]

Yeah I don't understand the story, for want of details.
I have a feeling that when you get the whole story, it's a case of PayPal needing to mitigate its own risk. Maybe they want to be able to compensate for uncollected funds if clearing house transfers bounce?

Isn't this standard Paypal policy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I am confused, but Paypal normally lets you create an account but must eventually have withdrawal access to a real bank account. This is how they verify you are not a terrorist, have a recourse for their dispute policy, and claim to not be a bank. Every Paypal account I have setup requires this.

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[guspasho]

Yeah, I'd like to know this too. Hell, if I had any experience I'd start something myself. This seems like a real opportunity for some competition that promises to be less corrupt than Paypal.

Re:Who?

[blair1q]

Our country is supposed to represent bad reporting?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/paypal-on-cutting-off-courage-to-resist-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-wikileaks/

Re:morally bankrupt

[mug funky]

lol, u mad?

Re:Can they be sued?

[yurtinus]

It's no problem, we'll just set up a legal fund and accept donations via Paypal

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[spidercoz]

one's traitor is another's patriot

Re:Who?

[WillyWanker]

Absolutely. "Not guilty" doesn't mean "innocent". But at least he got his day in court and all the evidence was presented. Until this guy is afforded the same right, I'm making no judgement, cause I don't have all the facts.

Re:Who?

[blair1q]

Tell it to the judge.

Bashing the wrong target...

[Simozene]

We need to stop pointing our fingers at PayPal and start pointing them at the US Government. I am sure political powers put a tremendous amount of force on PayPal to shut down the account.

Anonymous:

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

Re:Who?

[interkin3tic]

I'm also free to decide to not associate with him in any way whether or not that opinion is based on fact or conjecture. PayPal is afforded the exact same rights that I am.

In my opinion, this is yet another example of why corporations deserve LESS rights than real citizens, not the same or more.

Furthermore, you didn't say you would associate with him. Paypal on the other hand has agreed to transfer funds for all legal transactions. Singling out this one because they think/hope he's guilty or disagree with him, or wish to curry favor with those government powers that have already decided his fate, no, that's not legitimate. Legal of course.

Re:Huh?

[Unkyjar]

And a fortune 500 company would have offered 'em a position.

Re:Who?

[blair1q]

Manning is a dipshit.

In the materials he was supposed to read when signing for his clearance, he was told how to handle information he believed was improperly classified. He refused to follow procedure or the law that would have gotten the improperly classified information declassified, and chose "glory" or some shit like that, ostensibly at the urging of Julian Assange.

Manning deserves to spend many years in jail, possibly the rest of his life, and if evidence is evolved that his actions caused someone to be identified and killed by the enemy, he deserves the death penalty.

As for PayPal,

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/paypal-on-cutting-off-courage-to-resist-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-wikileaks/

whatever it is, it's not acting politically in this case.

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

He gets his pre-trial evaluation this month and should see justice relatively soon. Is it a travesty of justice to allow the government to make their case, finish their investigation, and ensure that Manning is fit to be tried?

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[pla]

Yeah, I'd like to know this too. Hell, if I had any experience I'd start something myself. This seems like a real opportunity for some competition that promises to be less corrupt than Paypal.

You'd find less demand for such a service than you might think, for the simple reason that businesses can deduct payment processing fees on their taxes.

Obviously that doesn't help non-profits, but for legitimate businesses, it makes processing fees all but a non-issue. Key word there, "legitimate" - No business planning to declare their PayPal receipts as taxable income would risk having their assets frozen on a whim. PayPal amounts to the online euphemism for "cash business".

Re:Who?

[blair1q]

If you're expecting the entity that's prosecuting you to also defend you fairly, then you need a lawyer of your own checking their math even worse than you think.

easy solution

[MooseTick]

"They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization's checking account by default"

Set up an account that only has PayPal deposits in it. Transfer that money daily to another account they do not have access to. At the wost, paypal can only take back the money they have deposited for that day. Problem solved and everyone's happy.

Re:easy solution

[shentino]

Not if some accountant with an axe to grind at PayPal decides to slam you with a million NSF fees by resubmitting a withdrawal a million times.

Assuming they try a new withdrawal every day until they claw their money back, they'll probably be costing you around 75 bucks in bank fees every single day, which is roughly what you can gross working 40 hours a week at minimum wage.

Double that if they get to charge "bounced check" fees of their own.

Re:Who?

[dummondwhu]

The issue at hand is not whether or not I think he's guilty (which, by the way, you apparently inferred from my words because I intentionally did not address it). The issue at hand is whether someone deserves a fair trial before they are condemned by a private entity's personal opinion, and the answer is "no". And I never condemned anyone that questioned my judgment. I merely stated the fact that PayPal is not required to wait for a trial before forming an opinion and acting upon it. If they're acting illegally, then that's another story.

And yes, it's fine for people to refuse to do business with PayPal because of things like this. I don't understand the sarcastic-sounding question at the end. Would you expect me to have disagreed with that?

Re:PayPal

[fishbowl]

I'm not sure how much sympathy I could muster for an organization that can clearly afford regular merchant banking.
Why on earth would the Burning Man folks -- rolling in money -- need to use PayPal?

Re:Who?

[Kral_Blbec]

This isn't a direct response to you, but more to the general mentality I've observed on Slashdot over time. You just happen to be the lucky one that finally prompted me to write it.
It's interesting to me the hypocrisy around here. The entire nerd culture is obviously very progressive and liberal oriented, but from time to time something like this happens and it makes me wonder.
Progressive and liberal ideology always requires more and bigger government. Just look at what Obama has done (coincidently, Obama has a lot of support around here). Yet at the same time it's common place to see rages against the evil corruption already in place in politics, while advocating giving them more power. They are evil conspirators, except when they want to take over your healthcare, and except when they want to take over your job, and except when they want to tell you what to eat, and except when they want to "spread the wealth." Then they are just working for the greater good.
Yes, America has a lot of dirty secrets. Read up on the rise of communism and you will see how in many ways the US is very responsible for supporting and developing both the Soviet Union and China. All the blood on their hands is also on ours. I do not pretend that America is the perfect country, but I do declare it to be unique. It's done a lot of bad, but its also done more good for the world than any other country in history. It's full of imperfect people who elect imperfect, and often evil, leaders.
It's done that because of the basic principles upon which it was founded. When followed, they will keep a steady course for good. It is when they are violated, ignored, overruled, or otherwise set aside that things go bad.

paypal morally bankrupt?

[netwrkr]

"By shutting out legitimate nonprofit activity, PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.'"

They aren't morally bankrupt - they are a dictatorship. If you choose to use them, you get all the good and bad that comes with it.

That's not how it works

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone doesn't have to be convicted to be guilty. A guilty person is guilty when they commit the crime, not when found guilty in court.

Just like sometimes guilty people sometimes don't get convicted, i.e. O.J. Simpson.

Re:That's not how it works

[zero0ne]

Define crime.

Re:That's not how it works

[Risen888]

Someone doesn't have to be convicted to be guilty. A guilty person is guilty when they commit the crime, not when found guilty in court.

My ass. This is America. You are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Let me repeat that. Innocent. Until proven. Guilty. You don't like that, get the fuck out.

Re:That's not how it works

[bruce_the_loon]

No, you are presumed innocent in the eyes of the court until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Your actual guilt begins the instant the crime is committed.

PayPal is neither

[Anonymous Coward]

Stories about PayPal's behavior are legendary. Search the 'net and you'll find numerous cases where PayPal has been accused of blocking access to accounts with little or no means of finding out why and therefore with little recourse for the account owners.

Many years ago I stopped using PayPal after reading some of the stories. They are not necessary - even eBay sellers are quite willing to take money orders and cashier checks if you just prearrange it. Do not get locked into a situation where somebody can arbitrarily block access to your money. Avoid PayPal.

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

Amen. How many people thought OJ was guilty before his trial? I know I did. Hell I still think he did it. We make judgements based on information we have, but we're not deciding his fate so who cares?

Re:Who?

[blair1q]

right to a speedy trial

Be careful what you wish for. The speediest trials are often not found in favor of the defendant.

The "speedy trial" thing is about unnecessary delay, not necessary delay, which includes developing the case, vetting the evidence, locating witnesses, etc.

The defense needs time to develop its case as well, especially when it's skating on ice as thin as Manning's is.

Re:Who?

[halivar]

Actually, many of this nation's defining moments are a direct result of bad reporting. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[hey!]

Well, leaving aside the issue of whether Manning is a traitor -- which is the very question to be put to trial -- you're right about PayPal having no *Constitutional* obligations here. Its an action that i profoundly against American civil values, but those values are not law.

I disagree that giving defendants any sort of defense whatsoever is sufficient. The trial system is an adversarial one, and the teams on each side should be about evenly matched. That means in most cases the defendant should be assured a competent defense, but in high profile cases where the state is putting substantial resources into prosecution the defendant should be entitled to the very best representation. Otherwise it makes a mockery of the word "trial". If you put a top drawer prosecutor with decades of experience up against an inexperienced or incompetent defense attorney, you're determining the results of the trial before it happens.

Re:Huh?

[GuruBuckaroo]

Thank you for demonstrating the root problem here - the conflation of Morals = Ethics. They don't, and this situation is a perfect example. Paypal may not be acting Ethically. They are incapable (as is any corporation) of acting Morally.

Also, they are entirely justified in refusing access to this account - if, as it says in the summary, the account holder has not authorized withdrawals from the associated checking account. Paypal has always required the ability to withdraw from an account automatically, to correct in case of fraud or improper crediting of an account. This has always been the case, for every Paypal user. Why should this group be different?

Digital cash

[betterunixthanunix]

Let's see, why might banks not be interested in digital cash...

1. Banks profit from transaction fees when you use debit and credit cards. Digital cash would, by its nature, remove such fees, and thus close a revenue stream for banks.
2. Digital cash is anonymous, and so law enforcement agencies would suddenly find themselves unable to look into someone's financial transactions. Spending a large amount of cash gets you reported to the DEA; you are supposed to use the easier-to-trace check or debit/credit card systems.
3. Digital cash could be sold by anyone; banks would lose much of the power they hold when every gas station and corner store could exchange hard cash for digital cash and visa versa.

Or to put it another way: digital cash would be a good thing for common people, so you can bet that the government and leaders of larger corporations have a problem with it.

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

Fair enough. I kind of thought OJ was guilty before he got tried myself. But I wasn't in charge of his trial so nothing bad came of my rush to judgement. We make decisions based on information we have, but we can amend those later if we need to right? Is anyone really harmed when some idiot like myself rushes to judgement?

This is perfectly normal.

[mister_dave]

They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization's checking account by default.

This is standard procedure for Paypal, in the UK if not the US:

For security purposes or as part of the Verification process, you may be asked to add a bank account to your PayPal account and confirm ownership of this bank account.

You can confirm your bank account by following these steps:

• Log in to your PayPal account at www.paypal.co.uk
• Click 'Profile' at the top of the page.
• Click 'Bank Accounts' in the 'Financial Information' column. (Don’t see this step? Follow the alternative set of instructions below.)
• Select the bank account you wish to confirm, then click 'Confirm'.
• Click the ‘Set up Direct Debit’ button.

"Direct debit" is the authority to withdraw money from your bank account. Lots of people do this with their utility bills.

Re:This is perfectly normal.

[badfish99]

Lots of people do this with their utility bills.

Fine, if you trust the utility company to never make a mistake. But why on earth should anyone who is using a Paypal account to receive money, allow Paypal the facility to take as much money from them as it chooses? Once you've set up a direct debit, they can clear out your bank account, and there's nothing you can do about it. And why would they ask for this facility, unless they think that, at some time, they are going to take your money without your permission?

Re:This is perfectly normal.

[mister_dave]

I'm not comfortable with giving Paypal a Direct Debit for my bank account either. Paypal insist on it, so I don't use Paypal.

Re:This is perfectly normal.

[jmorris42]

> And why would they ask for this facility, unless they think that, at some time, they are going to take your money without your permission?

Because they often have to do exactly that. And yes you agreed when you checked off the EULA. And everyone sane who uses Paypal wants them to do that. What? Am I nuts? Nope.

Paypal is a weird hybrid that combines different aspects of banking. A paypal account combines a checking account, a credit card AND a credit card merchant account into something that is none of them and yet all of them.

If I buy something in a brick & mortar store with a credit card the merchant often doesn't get the money instantly, especially if he is small. He has to leave enough float to cover chargebacks or make some other arrangement with the credit card clearing company to ensure they will be made whole if a flurry of chargebacks hit. Paypal might post the money to your account quicker but does demand you have a linked checking account to charge back to. It's funny these people talking about having a second checking account to stop Paypal from cleaning em out. Idiots. They will charge back if they decide they are going to reverse a payment and you WILL pay. The difference is since you keep the second account empty you will get to pay the NSF charge too. And I suspect Paypal has other safeguards for people doing larger volumes because they would be losing millions to scammers otherwise.

Re:Huh?

[Red Flayer]

Why? Because your Business Ethics professor wishes it to be true that morality applies to corporations, a non-thinking, non-acting entity? There can be a moral code associated with a group (such as a tribe, or a corporation), but morality can only be applied to the actions of a thinking individual. As such, corporations cannot be held to a moral code; only the individuals affiliated with the corporation can. Sure, the corp could support moral actions while discouraging immoral actions, but it's not the same thing.

The distinction is important because of selection for amoral individuals in business. Corporations tend to reward behavior that increases profit, regardless of morality. So there tends to be a higher proportion of immoral individuals at the top of corporations than among the general population or even among just the employees of that corporation.

In the extreme, a corporation can be so riddled with amoral (or immoral) decision-makers that if you could apply morality to the corporation, you would have to consider the corporation amoral. Unfortunately, it seems that many corporations fall into this category.

Re:Who?

[tinkerghost]

He refused to follow procedure or the law that would have gotten the improperly classified information declassified

Doesn't happen any more. Even information that was scheduled to be declassified is being held back - obviously 50 year old supply records for the Vietnam & Korean wars are still highly sensitive.

More types of information are being classified all the time. I fully expect to find out that the names of presidential candidates are going to be classified in the next election - the debates will be held with the voices scrambled & the candidates hiding behind screens. When you get to the booth, you only get to vote A or B.

Re:Who?

[WillyWanker]

Sorry, I thought you were the OP. My bad.

But to address your post directly (this time), yes, anyone is free to form any opinion they want, but they do themselves and others ill favor when they form those opinions without having all the facts. People are much less likely to give your opinions any weight, or take them seriously, when they know they are snap judgments and/or ill-informed.

And although PayPal is under no legal obligation one way or the other they really shouldn't, as a matter of principal, do things like this. I'm sure they have their reasons, which I'm also sure we'll never really know, but it only further underscores the concerns that guys like Manning aren't going to get a fair shake.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[zero0ne]

You have any links to the war journal to prove that?

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[Mr. Slippery]

but for legitimate businesses, it makes processing fees all but a non-issue.

That doesn't follow at all. If my business pays, say, a 25% income tax rate, all that writing them off on my taxes means is that I get 25% of the processing fees back. If I'm looking at $100 in fees a month for an Authorize.net account versus $50 for PayPal fees, tax implications take that to $75 versus $37.50, which is less of a difference but still not a "non-issue".

He should NOT want a trial.

[Anonymous Coward]

When Manning goes to trial, he will be convicted of treason and executed. There's really no ambiguity in what he did. Giving away state secrets to foreign nationals is treason, plain and simple. The only way he can avoid execution is to put off having a trial for as long as he can.

Re:Huh?

[bstender]

since their job is only to make lots of money, not use the corporation as some sort of moral flagpole, if it is not in the corporation's best interest to do something, it will not be done.

so one wonders where the profit is in this latest move. trying to sew up the ignorant redneck business? protecting lucrative govt. contracts? or did their true morals herniate in public here?

Bitcoin - an alternative to PayPal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Source: http://www.bitcoin.org/

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. Advantages:

        * Bitcoins can be sent easily through the Internet, without having to trust middlemen.
        * Transactions are designed to be computationally prohibitive to reverse.
        * Be safe from instability caused by fractional reserve banking and central banks. The limited inflation of the Bitcoin system’s money supply is distributed evenly (by CPU power) throughout the network, not monopolized by banks.

Bitcoin is an open source project currently in beta development stage. Development is hosted at Github.

Ethics?

[Tailhook]

Paypal's business model doesn't function when its cut is subject to individual negotiation with every tom, dick and harry that whats to participate; thus the automatic debit requirement. The Paypal model you wish to leverage depends on this.

Reasonable people have no difficulty understanding this so Paypal thrives with lots of participants. The folks involved with this case are, however, not reasonable people. They are malcontents and they demand special treatment. Any failure to accommodate their demands is 'unethical' and evidence of 'moral bankruptcy.'

Oh, and Paypal doesn't need a 'legal obligation' to justify shutting you down. Paypal isn't a right.

Hmm..

[spinkham]

I thought this was a news site? The fact that Paypal is a bunch of unethical business is not news.

Re:Who?

[WillyWanker]

IMO it depends upon the context. It's fine if you're just discussing the issue as a form of social discourse. But I think it crosses the line if someone takes an action based upon an ill-formed opinion.

The OP is saying it's ok for PayPal to cut off his legal funds cause the guy is clearly guilty and should get all he deserves. I just think he should get a fair and honorable trial BEFORE we start trying to cut him off at the knees. I mean seriously, isn't that the whole foundation of American society?

In D&D, you'd be a lawful good.

[mykos]

Yea, that would be a refreshing change. But journalism is dead. Even if a news outlet still had the resources to invest in actual fact gathering vs reprinting press releases or just letting a press flack have a few minutes of airime or a few inches of column space, they are philosophically opposed to truthseeking. Truth is a social construct now.

Your mindset is right and you are a seeker of truth, as evidenced here.

But in the rest of your post, you are attacking a person holding a candle in the darkness, revealing what was hidden (no matter what the reason he did it). Your judgment is clouded by your belief that law is infallible, that the government keeping secrets from us is in our best interests.

If you really seek the truth, support those who reveal it, and not those who hide it.

Re:In D&D, you'd be a lawful good.

[Draek]

Actually, he'd be a straight case of Lawful Evil given its attempts to deny one of his countrymen due process simply on the basis that he believes him to be a "traitor".

Re:In D&D, you'd be a lawful good.

[jmorris42]

> But in the rest of your post, you are attacking a person holding a candle in the darkness...

Manning was a PFC. He took an oath and broke it for none of the historically acceptable reasons. It is hard to believe that better men than him have already died as a result of his actions and beyond the realm of reason to believe that men won't die in the future as a result.

There is a long tradition where a soldier should refuse some orders. Where blowing the whistle on certain wrongdoing trumps he military chain of command. Nothing so far in the Wikileaks datadump rises to that bar. He did what he did out of hatred of his own team and if that isn't treason, please share your definition. PFC Manning deserves a fair and open trial. Then assuming there isn't a Perry Mason moment he rates one blindfold, one smoke, a brick wall and a regulation firing squad. Because you can't maintain a military organization with rules and this guy broke pretty much all of the important ones.

I'm really confused with the lack of clarity on this point by the blue team. You guys hold it a matter of religious doctrine that Cheney should still be sent to prison for (not) oytting Plame who wasn't even covert anymore. But Lionize Manning for outting a number of people and secrets still being counted up. The NY Times just outted a CIA op sitting in a Pakistani prison and nary a peep from you guys. Btw, in a sane world we would be making every effort to locate the responsible person for that and getting them up against the wall. Here in bizarro world the NY Times will probably get another major award thye can put on the shelf besides Duranty's Pulitzer.

> revealing what was hidden (no matter what the reason he did it).

Statecraft can't exist without nation states being able to keep some secrets. Like or dislike, that is reality unless you have a radical new idea on the issue. Military organizations likewise must keep some things secret, even more in time of war like now. Yes there is a conflict there with the notion that all just power derives from the consent of the governed when the governed by definition can't know all of the facts. At our current level of philosophical understanding we lack a good clearcut rule to resolve that conflict so we are left with ad hock solutions to each problem as it arises.

> Your judgment is clouded by your belief that law is infallible, that the government keeping secrets from us is in our best interests.

No, I believe in the Constitutional Republic (or what is left of it) and that we elect leaders to wield the sovereign powers reserved to nation states. If we don't trust the current batch we work to replace them. The Blue Team won that argument in 2006 and 2008 and mismanaged things to such an extent the Red Team cleaned house in 2010 and will quite likely do so again in 2012. One of the things we entrust them with is the authority to keep secrets, to decide what to keep secret. I didn't vote for President Obama and will be doing everything in my power to remove him in 2012, but until he is removed he is POTUS and must have the power that matches the responsibilities of the office. Otherwise we don't have the Rule of Law anymore. It isn't in PFC Manning's job description to make those decisions so barring a exceptional case, which his has yet to even make a good case for being, he must be tried and shot to send a message that his sort of action won't be accepted. The guy is an enlisted man, he doesn't even have a commission from Congress. He hasn't been empowered to make decisions of any sort on behalf of the Republic.

Re:In D&D, you'd be a lawful good.

[jmorris42]

> attempts to deny one of his countrymen due process

Not at all, looks like you have a reading comprehension problem though. Reread the original post. I clearly said that, like all cases, the jury will have to proceed from a presumption of innocence. Where you apparently got confused was when I then said that like in many other celebrated cases where guilt really isn't in doubt enough for us in the general public to feel a need to postpone judgement for purposes of policy debate, he can be be considered guilty as hell. Didn't hear any 'we have to await a verdict' silliness about any other major assassin, or mass murderer. Laughner? GUILTY. Mcveigh? GUILTY Cho (Virginia tech) GUILTY, all the first day their name is released.

It is only traitors of a certain stripe that get that consideration from a certain segment of the political spectrum. Manning. Rosenberg. Because they believe they didn't do anything wrong, but know they dare not speak that aloud. Go ahead, deny it, I dare you. Then there are the monsters who are held up as heros by the same deranged gang. Ones with horrific body counts like Che, Castro, Mao, Stalin. Also little petty cop killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal. Not just unreasoning madness, a determined attempt to deny reason itself.

Re:In D&D, you'd be a lawful good.

[mykos]

Those comparisons are a big stretch. All of those people killed other people. Manning killed nobody; in fact, he probably saved a lot of lives now that off-the-chain chopper gunners know that they might not get away with wanton slaughter again.

Re:In D&D, you'd be a lawful good.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Nothing so far in the Wikileaks datadump rises to that bar.

Not even the US being involved in a secret bombing war in Yemen?

Re:Who?

[HeronBlademaster]

We will not be able to properly explore deep space and survive our eventual destruction without complete openness in all aspects of our lives as well.

I think you're greatly underestimating the importance of privacy. Suppose you were put into juvenile detention for a few weeks for some relatively small offense, but did not commit even a traffic violation during the following 20 years. Now suppose this is true of 20% of the population. If each individual keeps this secret of his or her youth, would you argue that those harmless secrets prevent our survival as a race?

Or suppose you have a shoe fetish that you only indulge in your bedroom. "Complete openness in all aspects of our lives" certainly encompasses that, seeing as how it is an aspect of one's life; is it your argument that we cannot explore deep space or survive our supposed eventual destruction if we don't know about your shoe fetish?

I see absolutely no reason why "properly exploring deep space" or "surviving our eventual destruction" should depend on "complete openness in all aspects of our lives". It's a rather large leap of logic and an absurdly broad requirement, but you've provided no basis for the argument.

Re:Huh?

[Hatta]

Whether or not they are morally bankrupt is another matter, however since their job is only to make lots of money

It is not another matter. If you put money above ethics, you are morally bankrupt. Period. The fact that it's your job to do so carries about as much weight as "I was only following orders".

Re:Who?

[loxosceles]

The American adversarial criminal-law system could use some serious adjustments, but the way it stands now, the government will do everything it can to put Manning in prison for a suitably long period of time so the gov can claim a political win. Federal judges are not likely to stand up for justice, either.

The only chance Manning has of even a small amount of justice is to be represented by a good legal team. That requires lots of money, in the U.S. Justice is not only about whether the jury reaches the correct verdict. It is also about whether there is an effective advocate for both sides, and a fair arbitrator. In the U.S., the fairness of a particular judge can vary quite a lot, so the only way to ensure a little bit of justice is to have the most effective legal defense team you can put together.

This has nothing to do with whether Manning is guilty or innocent. It's about the U.S.'s failboat legal system, and Paypal deciding unilaterally (or more likely with some pressure from .gov stooges) to make it harder for any voice other than the government's voice to be heard adequately at trial.

There is also much more than just whether Manning is guilty or innocent. Even if we all stipulate to illegal actions Manning allegedly took to release classified information, there's the matter of appropriate punishment, which cannot be decided without a fair and equitable legal process.

The government will spend millions if not tens of millions prosecuting Manning. To deny Manning the ability to raise funds for his defense is a miscarriage of justice. If Paypal had an ounce of civic awareness, they would realize this, but sadly they appear to care only about publicity and government pressure.

Antitrust? Veteran discrimination?

[redelm]

I'm sure PP has good lawyers, I just wonder if the right ones have been consulted. Paypal could easily be viewed as a monopoly under which they have certain enhanced obligations.

Furthermore, Manning is a veteran (not sure conditions of discharge are relevant), and there are laws against discriminating against veterans.

"Unrestricted access" to banking is not very clear -- PP does have a reasonable right (and even duty) to know their customer, so [repeated] confirmation of bank account is reasonable. However, viewing deposits/withdrawals, let alone being able to effect same is egregious.

Re:Who?

[i_b_don]

I'm sorry, but this is stupid. The court is supposed to make the judgment if someone is innocent or guilty and then give out the appropriate punishment. Guilt, in theory is determined by the truth of weather or not you committed the crime. Here in the US, we have these things called courts and laws. Some people, like Jared Loughner are pretty obviously guilty, yet they still have a right to a speedy trial. Manning's guilt may be a forgone conclusion in your eyes because I'm sure the government would never tell you things that were untrue. But the fact that he hasn't gone to trial raises a lot of flags. Flags about his guilt or at the very least it raises a lot of flags on how they are planning on using him against Wikileaks. In either case, he is a US citizen and he has the right to a speedy trial, political games be damned.

In the US, people have the right to a swift and open justice system. Manning may not have the specific right to the "open" part because he's part of the US military and because he's being accused of leaking state secrets, but he still has the right to a trial, military or otherwise before being punished. Right now you have an un-convicted US citizen being locked up in this country for nearly a year without a trial or trial date set. That's not right and that's not ok. Just because you say he's guilty doesn't really matter. Just because the media says he's guilty doesn't really matter. Just because the US government says he's guilty also shouldn't matter until he's proven guilty in a court of law. Here in the US people are supposed to have rights and I happen to believe people's rights are still important.

d

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[DerekLyons]

Seriously... It surprises more to hear about people successfully getting their money out, than stories like the FP.

That's because all you hear is the squeaky wheel. By some weird thought process that has lead you to believe that there are no wheels that aren't squeaking.

Uhh

[phmadore]

Why do they have a problem with allowing PayPal access to their checking account? I'm pretty sure it's probably that they're just doing such volume that PayPal wants some sort of security in case of disputes and what not. I do a lot of volume with PayPal and my account was on hold for awhile until I got my account verified, and later my address. If they're moving that much money, they should probably go to a merchant account solution. They'd get a better rate anyways.

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[tlhIngan]

I cannot imagine why any sane person or organization would use PayPal as a bank-like entity after their many, many, MANY abuses of their "not a bank" status.

Seriously... It surprises more to hear about people successfully getting their money out, than stories like the FP.

Really simple, folks - Just stop using them. Period. They have the right not to serve us, and we have the right not to use them. Exercise that right, and put these bastards permanently in the red ASAP.

So how are you supposed to accept credit cards then?

No one else lets you accept credit cards from random strangers without having to follow some really weird and arcane rules to satisfy the merchant account rules. Google Checkout doesn't (it requires you be a store), not sure about Amazon Payments, but I think it's similar as well.

Face it - the only real reason people use Paypal is because it's pretty much the only way Joe Average can transfer some money to John Smith via credit card. Sure you can go to the post office and get a money order, mail it off, hope it arrives a week later, ... rigamarole, but that seems idiotic in this day and age of fast and easy e-commerce.

And the other options aren't much better - western union? egold?

Until someone manages to find a way to allow two random people on the internet send random amounts of money via credit card, Paypal's it. You want to put them out of business? Set it up in Paypal's niche.

It's also why eBay bought Paypal - because they're very synergistic.

And here's another question - why did they use Paypal? Why couldn't they set up their own merchant account? Or use Google Checkout? Or Amazon Payments? Most likely, either the fees are higher (Paypal may charge a lot, but credit card processors aren't cheap, either), or they didn't qualify. If they didn't qualify, Paypal ends up being the only way to accept credit cards.

So why are people falling into the same trap again and again? Google Checkout and Amazon Payments should also work, as does a merchant account...

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[phmadore]

I still wonder why Google hasn't moved their Checkout product to be more like PayPal, enable P2P payments and so forth. They're really missing out on a lot of revenue from people who are fed up with PayPal.

Re:Prick in Arizona

[Unkyjar]

Is there a charity raising money for him using PayPal?

The true motivations of the capitalist

[SmallFurryCreature]

The true motivations of this guy are very clear, "we can circumvent the constitution by making everything private". Privatise everything and EVERY thing can be regulated without it coming down on the state. Right to have shelter? Sure you do, not out problem the renting industry doesn't want to rent to you. Right to counsel? Sure you do, not our problem you can't afford to pay for a private lawyer. Right to speech? Sure you do, not our fault you can't afford a spot on private television.

It is very effective and the Mafia knows this. Control the basics and you control the town. You don't have to pay protection money, your garbage just won't be collected by the private company they just happen to have a say in.

But they say, it says nowhere that your freedoms have to be available. Yes indeed, that is because they made bloody sure of that. It is how the system work. You are free from the state you elect and own yourself to the company store instead, that you don't elect.

Private enterprise is the chain that binds free men. Next time you see a repubilican claim that something should be run by private industry or go un-regulated, look further.

Remember, that republicans love freedom, their freedom to chain YOU. Because it is abundantly clear that Paypal indeed is not required to provide service to all, no US bank is. Doesn't that say it all? It means an essential service can be denied NOT after due process but simply because a board of directors decided to. In many ways I prefer outright dictatorship, at least the controls are clear then. Who made Paypal do this? Paypal has no morals on way or another, so which hidden master pulled its strings?

Re:Huh?

[jenningsthecat]

PayPal can not be morally bankrupt as it is a corporation, not a person. Morals do not apply to corporations.

Under the law, a corporation IS a person. If 'morals do not apply', then that's because we fail to apply them. Shame on us - we should be hounding these bastards out of existence.

Correction to the Correction.

[PhxBlue]

You're wrong. Associated Press style for private first class is Pfc.

Re:Correction to the Correction.

[Stenchwarrior]

I cld lv ll th vwls ut f ths scntnc nd stll b ndrstd bt tht dsnt mk t rght.

This isn't news and has little to do with the fund

[6ULDV8]

Just try opening a PayPal account yourself with one way transferral of funds. PayPal will only allow you if you give them unfettered access to your account. It has been their policy for years. You can't use pre-paid debit cards either.

Re:Who?

[i_b_don]

Congratulations sir, for your undying deference to the truth as stated by the man, you have been promoted to the rank of "Government Flunky". Please attach this sticker to your forehead and wear it proudly!

Re:Who?

[inanet]

not really. the problem is most of the general population are apathetic to many causes, and generally don't care as long as they are able to order the shit they want.

Re:Who?

[mug funky]

and you overestimate the influence a bankrupt economy can have on a business that deals with money. i would rate the two as of similar importance to Paypal's bottom line.

i have not met anybody that hasn't heard that "oh, aren't paypal a bit dodgy though?". that's all that's needed to turn people off it. when it comes to trusting someone with your own money, people are more astute than they would be when trusting a person they're not effectively giving their hard-earneds to.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[Risen888]

Why do you hate America?

Re:PayPal is within their rights and legal in this

[Noughmad]

How about "Housing"?

not correct

[slew]

Although IANAL, I believe the following is all true...

There is no obligation for an establishment to serve the entire public. The only requirement is to not descriminate based on race, color, religion, natural origin or other protected categories of the public (e.g, various handicaps).

For example, if you have a diner or restaurant and you say "pants-required", and someone doesn't have pants, you can refuse service. As a more nuanced restriction, you can say no children (no law protecting against age descrimination in public), or refuse service to potential patrons that are too rowdy, too smelly, or just about anyone that detracts from the safety or welfare of other patrons.

As another example, a bank can refuse to do business with someone as long as the reason isn't protected by public policy. For example, they can refuse to open a checking account if you don't have a street address, or aren't a resident of the state, or if your credit score is too low, etc... They can also choose to close your account at any time for any reason (e.g., low-usage, high-usage, inactivity). Ironically, they can even refuse to take cash deposits (currency is legal tender for debts, not for deposits) and often do when the amounts are high and the source is suspicious (e.g, 100 bills on pallets wrapped with cellaphane, or with purple dye splashed all over it). Also, when they freeze your account, they can just send the money to the state as unclaimed assets.

People with lawyers may disagree with the possibilities listed, so there is always potential forlegal recourse, I doubt it would be successful based on my understanding of what constitutes a public accommodation and what is protected by law.

I would have done the same thing...

[Anachragnome]

I didn't really have a "hero" when I was a kid, nor did I as I was growing up, primarily because all of the "heroes" I was told I should look up to were either fictitious (and thus inherently biased) or simply bullshit. Even as a kid that was pretty obvious. I did have people I looked up to, people I emulated as being role models, such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., but they focused on the symptoms of what was really a cancer that needed to be excised--they never addressed the root of the problems they made so much noise about.

I do have a "hero" now, and have since the day I heard about him. Bradley Manning. He found himself in possession of something that could actually be used to address the root of those problems and did what he though would best serve that goal, as well as do what he took an oath to do--protect his country, not the government, but his country...at all costs, up to and including his life.

Say what you will, but any way I look at it Bradley Manning knowingly risked his life to provide the citizens of this country, as well as the rest of the world, with KNOWLEDGE, knowledge that I think is crucial to our understanding of those we employ to run our country, and by extension, a large portion of the rest of the world (another issue entirely). It is one thing to speak out, it is another thing entirely to risk one's life in order to speak out. He knew the risks and weighed them carefully, I am sure.

Many do not understand his actions simply because they wouldn't do such a thing themselves--put themselves in harms way for the betterment of others. That in itself, in my mind, is a symptom of exactly what he is trying to fix--the selfish ambivalence pervasive in our society that allows our elected leaders, as well as corporations, to do pretty much anything they want. That selfish ambivalence is a product of the misinformation and lies we've all been handed, as well as the omission of data from the public domain. The release of those cables is a huge step in dealing with such issues.

That being said, fuck you Paypal. I've never been a customer and I never will because of shit like this (that also rules out doing business with anyone that requires PayPal transactions).

Anyone have any idea if Courage to Resist has set up a SECURE (and by that I mean "unfreezable") means of donating? I'd like to donate.

Re:I would have done the same thing...

[Ash-Fox]

Chinese Universities are already as good as your once glorious Ivy League ones

If they really were as good, they would have a reputation just as good as the Ivy League ones in the international world. I can't ever recall a Chinese university being mentioned here in Europe as the place to study.

People go to Ivy League universities not only for what they offer in education, but for having a piece of paper with a well known, reputable institution. A Chinese university does not offer that in the international world when compared to the US's Ivy League.

Sir, you are a liar. Your claims failed to reach even simple things like reputation. Thus they could not be "as good".

China produces more goods while you throw money away at ponzi schemes like facebook.

At least the US doesn't do underhanded tactics like preventing their currency from floating to manipulate the market which has been responsible for many job and money issues in the rest of the world.

Re:Who?

[northstarlarry]

When you say "fit to be tried", do you actually mean "psychologically broken down by inhumane and unnecessary holding conditions so that he'll be willing to cop a guilty plea"?

Not so sure about this article...

[steppin_razor_LA]

My recollection is that to have a full account w/ paypal that you need to link it to your checking account. I don't blame people for finding this to be scary -- but I guess the idea is that paypal reserves the right to try and "take back" funds from your accounts if there is a dispute. While I find this distasteful, I don't think that this has anything to do with Bradley Manning..

Bank?

[Catskul]

Why would they need to be a bank to be sued?

Re:Who?

[DavidRawling]

A very serious crime. It comes with a sentence of 15 years paid leave on a Caribbean island, compulsory parades in New York, Los Angeles and the referee's home town and a requirement that you accept being carried around like a king for the rest of your life.

Re:Who?

[Cwix]

As long as during that time the accused isn't punished beyond what is necessary.

What I mean by necessary punishment is custody, and that pretty much it.

Hes been locked up in solitary confinement, made to sleep without clothing, not allowed to exercise, hes not allowed a sheet for his bed, or a pillow, prohibited from possessing any personal items, like letters or pictures.

This is psychological torutre. Im surprised they are letting him sleep. Hell even the country that started off the whole shebang in the middle east, Tunisia, promised to not use solitary confinement for more then ten days. That was in 2005. If a country corrupt enough to be overthrown by their own citizens, treats their prisoners better then we treat ours, then something is seriously messed up..

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/04/19/tunisia-pledges-end-long-solitary-confinement

Stirring the pot

[jmorris42]

> If Amazon suddenly said 'we are going to stop selling books by negro and jew authors because
> they are written by negros and jews', there very well could be an issue.

Yes they would have legal problems. They shouldn't though. Am I mad? Perhaps, but Freedom that doesn't include the Right to be Wrong isn't Freedom, it is some anointed assholes telling you that they are Right and you are Wrong and if you don't agree with them bad things (government is violence) will happen to you.

Lets run the thought experiment. Amazon does exactly what you suggest in the free world I propose. What happens next? The government wouldn't be able to do a darned thing so what happens? Well the way I see it one of two basic results are possible.

1. To say the reaction from the general public is negative is the understatement of the century. Business dries up, profits tumble and the shareholders install competent management and spend the next couple of years trying to recover.

2. While losing some business they survive as a major force in retailing. We should thank them for their service in exposing the bigger problem in society because obviously there are a lot more bigots out there than anyone would have thought possible.

It is debatable whether the Civil Rights Act was constitutional but even with the benefit of hindsight it was probably the only tool available to solve the real problem that existed at the time. The Democratic Party had an iron hold over a large area of the country and was just as hellbent on their wicked ways as they were in the aftermath of the War of Southern Independence. I'm not some suicide pact libertarian, sometimes it really is required to violate the letter of the law to save it's spirit. But we need to understand that was what was happening so we can realize that if we still need it the problem probably can't be solved by government force. The best way to end discrimination by race/gender/etc really is to stop discriminating/classifying/etc people on the basis of race/gender/etc.

However just because I think it is a bad idea for the government to be imposing it's notions doesn't mean We the People shouldn't use social sanction on idiots who still refuse to get with the program. My way they still have the right to be wrong, they just suffer severe shunning for it. In many ways more severe than in the progressive world because in prog world you can't refuse to to business with someone in most areas of life (banking, housing, etc.) and in mine you could.

bitcoins

[spanky the monk]

Sheesh guys, just use bitcoin already!

Re:Huh?

[Xyrus]

But in the real world they would have promoted him to CEO.

Insidious

[BlueF]

Anyone else have second thoughts when finding a seemingly "great deal" on eBay or other online store where paypal is the only method of payment available?!?

Something about paypal has never seemed quite right to me. In part due to eBay disallowing any other method of online payment allowed, not infrequent stories of frozen accounts with no reason or recourse, no phone number (or other customer service options) available until forced to do so, not to mention questionably high fees for accepting money via their 'service'...

I think the word I'm looking for is insidious. Or perhaps monopolistic?!?

Re:Insidious

[1s44c]

I think the word I'm looking for is insidious. Or perhaps monopolistic?!?

I think the word is 'thevies'. Just because it's technically legal for paypal to pull this scam over and over again doesn't make it anything more than common robbery.

I won't deal with any ebay sale that insists on paypal.

Re:Who?

[easyTree]

He joined the military. Despite the fact that he decided to betray his own oaths by lying, stealing sensitive material, etc.

Perhaps when he made those oaths he believed that those nominally in-charge were morally superior, that they were leading the defence of his countrymen and so in a sense, rightfully 'in-charge' and that he was 'one of the good guys' ?

Perhaps, once he realised his misunderstanding, he decided to do something about it ?

Set up a bank account

[synthespian]

Can't the Manning fund simply set up and announce a bank account? Today, you can wire money all over the world. There are dozens of US banks that will take money shipped from overseas, for example. And I imagine the US banking system allows eletronic transfer between banks from and to private citizens's acounts, no?
Strictly speaking, this is PayPal's double loss (financial and PR - because it does look ugly that they should mingle in politics).

Re:Set up a bank account

[Ash-Fox]

And I imagine the US banking system allows eletronic transfer between banks from and to private citizens's acounts, no?

You'd think so, but whenever I've tried to transfer money to US accounts, they are unable to provide me with an IBAN which many countries outside of the US use and require for international transfers.

Re:Huh?

[corbettw]

There can be a moral code associated with a group (such as a tribe, or a corporation), but morality can only be applied to the actions of a thinking individual.

If you think a thinking individual isn't behind the actions of a given corporation, you need to start taking your meds again.

Re:Who?

[northstarlarry]

How about a fair trial first...THEN you can condemn him.

the fact that he decided to betray his own oaths by lying, stealing sensitive material, etc.,

...Whoosh! This is the whole point of a fair trial: You don't know that these things are facts. The military investigators could have picked his name out of a hat to be a scapegoat. I readily grant the extreme unlikelihood of that scenario. However, the point of everyone being entitled to a trial is that it's very difficult to figure out what the facts are. One side says one thing, the other side says another. How do we know who's right (or at least _more_ right) without looking at evidence?

Re:Who?

[codepunk]

As a military vet who dealt with sensitive data every day I highly disagree. What should happen to him is a firing squad for treason committed during a war. Now had the leak been accidental or leaked some other way that is a different story. This however is the case of a military member sworn by oath, knowing full well the seriousness of his actions.

Re:Who?

[shentino]

Murder. The victim being a ref doesn't make the crime any different.

Re:Who?

[shentino]

I'd only tolerate complete openness if the watchers could themselves be watched.

Thing is it's a prisoner's dilemma where the government has every reason, motive, and opportunity to defect and pass some bullshit law or simply classify something in the grand name of national security.

So unless the government plays ball, I'm not cooperating.

Re:Wow, the sky? Just checked - STILL Blue!!!

[shentino]

Ebay and other important companies: Thou shalt not use any payment processor other than paypal or you will not do business with us.

I wonder if paypal has a united way-esque exclusivity clause in their agreement.

Re:Huh?

[shentino]

The only morals are those of loyalty to shareholders.

It is the shareholders who are so morally bankrupt, greedy, and/or so detached from the company's front lines of cause and effect that bear the brunt of responsibility for what their corporation is up to. Stock gives them voting rights.

Of course, this leads to interesting results when you have a short circuit where a bunch of companies engage in an infinite ownership loop, leaving nothing but profit as an end result.

Supposing that in the greatly simplified case, you have corporations A, B, and C, each of which has half of the voting stock of the other two. You end up with an infinite profit loop, and the corporations are accountable to nobody at all.

Picked a fine day to give in and use them

[JimmytheGeek]

Needed a part, available almost exclusively on Ebay. All the sellers accept only paypal. Must all be masochists or something. Wish I had stuck it out now, but today before I heard about this I used paypal for the first time in *years*. And the last time, ever.

Re:Who?

[hubie]

I don't understand your post. If what you say is true, are you suggesting that this should be the basis of his legal defense? I'm not sure "I lost faith in my commanders" will get him off for passing on classified material.

Re:Who?

[hubie]

Correct me if I am wrong, but he does not have to pay for his defense, nor is there a manner in which he could if he wanted.

PayPal has always done this

[Old Wolf]

If anyone complains about an account then PayPal freezes it, without explanation to the account holder. They've always done this, and not just for high profile accounts. The only solution is to not use PayPal if it would inconvenience you to lose all the funds on your account.

Re:PayPal has always done this

[robertinventor]

Or make sure your PayPal account never has significant funds by withdrawing funds frequently - okay unless you do earn lots in a very short period of time. Another example is the temporary freeze of the funds for World of Minecraft was just reading about that - recent case took weeks to undo - can happen just because of unusual pattern of activity as in that one: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103385-PayPal-Freezes-750K-in-MineCraft-Devs-Account

Re:Who?

[Kral_Blbec]

I meant that paypal wasn't in danger from the "internet backlash". How many people do you met that you actually discuss paypal with?
I've dealt through paypal for years, along with my entire family, and never had a single problem despite the horror stories you claim are so prevalent.

Re:Who?

[Kral_Blbec]

You either didn't read my post or failed comprehension. I specifically avoided giving any definitive statement on if he is guilty or not because, by my own admission, I haven't followed it enough to know much about it. You say my point is stupid then go on to agree with it by saying

Some people, like Jared Loughner are pretty obviously guilty

.

Re:Who?

[Kral_Blbec]

Well said, especially for an AC. You just forgot to mention the part where it doesn't matter that he is guilty because he did it for "the greater good"

Defrosted

[hat_eater]

It seems that "in a wake of protest"PayPal has unfrozen the Courage to Resist account.

Re:Who?

[easyTree]

I'm not saying that that should be part of his legal defense. It's clear that he has no defence - he's completely controlled within the framework of rules defined by his opponents - those who place themselves into a position of unquestioned virtue, despite committing/sanctioning unimaginable acts of horror, nominally on 'our' (I'm in the UK) behalf.

I'm often reminded of Jack Nicholson's character's rant in "A few good men" (below) and wonder whether in fact, the way forward is for those of us who are 'ignorant of harsh reality', those of us who are beneath the blanket, to push those who provide it into offering it to those who are currently left uncovered. Something needs to be done. No longer can a country have a 'hard coating and a soft chewy interior' - internal ethics and morality need to be extended to all levels of society and then out into the world community such that we can all live together in peace (man).

This man, Bradley Manning, apparently took a stand for what he believed was right. Surely it's clear that morality is larger than the rule of law and only partly contains it as a set? Yet, we act as if law is morality. Indeed, take a look at the comments on this thread, "PayPal didn't break any law so everything's ok. waaaa" - again and again. It's quite clear that PayPal must be aware that this man's future in large part depends on his ability to mount a legal defence in his David vs Goliath - style battle yet because 'the rules were not broken', we are to consider that they acted appropriately. Please!

It's one step in a generations-long battle to eradicate hypocrisy and abuse by those in power. Roll-on the next step and the next. Let's get this thing moving!

</incoherent_rant>

-
“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have more responsibility here than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. I know deep down in places you dont talk about at parties, you don’t want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it. I prefer you said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand to post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!” [Jack Nicholson, as Colonel Jessup]

Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): “You want answers?”
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): “I think I’m entitled.”
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): “You want answers?”
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): “I want the truth!”
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): “You can’t handle the truth!”

-

PS. wth slashdot? line-height: 40px ? !!

'PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.'

[1s44c]

Come on now. You heard the warnings, everyone heard the warnings. Paypal pulls stuff like this often, and it's been going on for decades.

There is one simple rule to not getting ripped off by paypal, never have anything to do with paypal. They are the virtual street thugs of the money transfer business.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[Sardaukar86]

since you are writing in support of a traitor

Normally I try to explain my reasoning for taking issue with something and lay out my position

Well, whatever small amount of karma I have here be damned. You're an absolute arsehole, a genuine fucking cunt. Please, writhe in agony for hundreds of hours before expiring in puddle of your own goo, you fucking, fucking cunt.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[Sardaukar86]

Once again you cut through to the heart of the issue and see it for what it is. I'm one of your fans for this very reason and I really enjoy your posts.

I find with stuff like this I tend to get caught up in the heat of the matter and lose perspective. Your comments are frequently modded to +5 and with good reason; thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Re:Who?

[Sardaukar86]

^This. The entire situation is completely and utter absurd, and a slap in the face of everything our country is supposed to represent. He's been in custody for how many months now without any word of a trial?

Exactly. However, I'd point out it's not merely custody he's been enjoying at the pleasure of the 'American people'; kind Uncle Sam laid on a full spread of psychological torture for the man who pointed out the Emperor's saggy bottom cheeks behind the 'cloth of finest gold'. He's suffering even now, as we post on the innertubes.

Ahh, America, land of the free.

Note: I don't think my little shit-splat country is any better - of course, New Zealand doesn't trumpet and parade itself as a bastion of freedom like the US of A does..

Re:morally bankrupt

[Sardaukar86]

"Reaching for the popcorn"? I think you misspelled "Reaching for the lifeboats because if the US falls so will the entire fucking world."

In other news, Galileo has been exhumed and re-animated (with wires and stuff) to publically recant his belief that the Earth orbits around Sol.. in truth, it's America that the rest of the world revolves around; specifically, the state of Utah.

Paypal needs a competitor

[umaynome]

Sounds like there's a market for an alternative to PayPal.

Oblig. "Father Ted" quote

[Dusty101]

"That money was just resting in my account!"

moral bankruptcy

[AnimalCoward]

"By shutting out legitimate nonprofit activity, PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.'" Interesting turn. PayPal takes unilateral action for whatever reason - just the same as Manning took unilateral action for his own reasons. PayPal decided for itself that they wanted to restrict funds for Manning's defense. They did not confer with Manning, his supporters, or his family. Bradley Manning decided for himself that he should release thousands of classified documents. He didn't confer with any other American. He just decided for himself. interesting... Apparently there is no monopoly here on "moral bankruptcy."

Re:Who?

[slackbheep]

Lesigh. I don't want to see this guy screwed over anymore than the rest of his supporters but it's been pointed out several times in this thread and trumpeted from the rooftops by Paypal that the reason the account has been frozen is because they require a chequing account. Seems Courage to Resist could have figured that out themselves but decided to start screaming and waving their arms instead. It's also funny that they claim Paypal wouldn't supply the information when they've has responded to other requests for information pretty openly it seems.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[intheshelter]

I guess George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc. were all traitors too then? Technically they were from a purely British standpoint, but they stood up, broke the rules, and they did it because they believed the rules to be injust. Same thing here. It's a risk on their part and on Manning's part (dumb fool should have kept his mouth shut) but he wasn't betraying his country for money or to destroy the United States, he was trying to hold the US accountable for its actions so we start acting with some morals instead of just paying it lip service.

Undoubtably I'll be labeled a traitor now too since I spoke out against my government and they are illegally scouring just about everything under the sun any more for those who dare to ignore official party line!

Re:morally bankrupt

[slackbheep]

Sounds like you mad, bro. Though I use that in the sense of insane. The US losing its position of prominence is going to shake things up quite a bit and anyone who believes it will happen quietly seems to be forgetting how our previous superpowers have met their ends.
And no, I'm not American and wouldn't even consider relocating.

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

Well if you have problems with that then where is the outrage for ALL prisoners in the US? I've been in maximum security before and I never had any defense fund or anyone crying over it. Ever been in a 23 hour lock down situation for months? I have and although I do understand the conditions aren't great, they serve their purpose. They need to isolate him from others and make sure he doesn't get hurt by others or hurt himself. This is not unusual in anyway and the fact that people think it is shows how little everyone knows about the conditions in almost any US prison.

Don't do the crime if you can't handle the time. Seriously. Who commits a crime and then cries because the conditions aren't ideal? It's a joke.

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

What you described happens in prisons every single day. Where is the outrage for that?

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[Duradin]

Or perhaps he did it because he was busted down to PFC for some other infractions and wanted to expose the unjustness of his punishment.

Re:Who?

[Cwix]

I am outraged by it I think its ridiculous.

The fact that you and so many other citizens think its A-OK makes me sick though.

Re:Huh?

[Red Flayer]

If you think a thinking individual isn't behind the actions of a given corporation, you need to start taking your meds again.

If you think a single thinking person controls the actions of large corporations, you need to check back into the asylum.

Re:Who?

[Risen888]

They don't owe him anything

Like hell they don't. They owe him the money that they collected on his behalf.

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

Oh I'm not okay with it at all. My point is everyone else is. I've spent months in 23 hour lock down with1 hour out by myself for "recreation" which amounted to sitting in a sealed yard and seeing the sky above. See this is how we treat everyday criminals, I didn't commit a heinous crime.

It's screwed up big time and people are completely cool with it. It's only when people want to make a political statement with an inmate that they care.

Another point I was trying to make is - be prepared for this if you do a crime. Jail is really messed up and you should avoid it at all costs. This guy obviously didn't understand the consequences but this is what awaits anyone who goes against the US government or it's states. They'll let you know real quick who is really in charge and right or wrong, you'll be fucked.

Re:Huh?

[corbettw]

Jesus, you're an idiot.

If the CEO of a company commits fraud, he would be fired. Short and simple, and it happens all the time. To say that "morals don't apply to corporations" is the most idiotic drivel that gets promulgated on this site.

Just because you have a job at a corporation doesn't mean your ethics go out the window. And no, chasing the dollar does not excuse one from making immoral or illegal choices, and those choices can still get you fired and thrown in prison. Thinking otherwise is a crock of shit.

Re:Huh?

[DarthVain]

Then they would have gotten hired by Goldman Sacks or similar and made their millions all the earlier...

Re:Who?

[hubie]

The problem I have with these types of arguments that are based on morality, particularly when it has to do with legal issues, is that the the foundation for morality is pretty cloudy and is basically defined by the person making the argument. For this reason I don't necessarily agree that morality is larger than the rule of law because the law is (more or less) clearly spelled out, whereas, in general, morality isn't. Even within religions it isn't clearly spelled out, and certainly not across religions. If your moral standing on an issue is not the same as my moral standing, than I would want you punished for breaking laws you might feel you are permitted to break. People who kill doctors who perform abortions make that kind of argument, and I can't say that I sympathize with them when they are arrested. I recall from years ago a newspaper article (I think this was even pre-9/11) about radical Islamic clerics who openly advocated and encouraged killing Israelis. Apparently, in the Koran it is spelled out pretty clearly who you can and can't kill (my foggy memory recollects it being something like it is forgivable to kill enemy soldiers in war, but you must never kill innocent civilians). The argument these particular clerics were making was that military service in Israel is mandatory for everybody, so indiscriminate killing of men, women and children was OK because if they aren't currently in the military, they would be eventually. Like those who kill abortion doctors, these clerics have defined the moral ground and their standing in it, and clearly feel justified in what they advocate. You can even find posts in this topic (35306854, which isn't the one I'm thinking of in particular, but they're not hard to find), and basically for any story that gets posted about Wikileaks, where people counter the argument about releasing this info will put people in harm's way by saying that those people who might be killed because of that were just going to kill other people, so it is OK.

It seems to me that the strongest supporters of Assange and Manning, at least around here, draw a very sharp line defined by the notion of transparency, which they take to be absolute. To me, that line isn't nearly as sharply defined as they make it to be. However, some at least, stake a high moral claim by stepping to one side of that line and seem to express forgiveness for any alleged wrongdoing. It is the sort of passion and one-sided arguments that you usually don't see expressed outside of "hot button" issues that crop up with religion or perhaps post-9/11 US patriotism (remember, you are not a true American if you don't wear a flag on your coat lapel at all times). I would wager that a good deal of those around this site who argue so passionately for Manning and Assange would look with disdain upon those who argue passionately, for example, the Pro-Life movement, even though (in my mind, at least), they are making the same argument that only differs on which tower on the moral landscape they decided to climb.

Re:Who?

[northstarlarry]

where is the outrage for ALL prisoners in the US?

This is a straw man. We're talking about Bradley Manning. My voicing of concern for his conditions does not affect in either direction my concern for those of other prisoners.

I don't know the reasons that you spent time in prison. I am sure that the conditions were extremely unpleasant, quite possibly inhumane. However, the fact that you or any other prisoner was mistreated has no bearing on the rightness of the mistreatment of prisoners. Mistreatment is mistreatment. It was wrong when it was done to you, and it's wrong when it's done to Manning.

Don't do the crime if you can't handle the time.

Bradley Manning has not even been accused of a crime. He's being held in solitary confinement, under suicide watch, in pre-indictment custody. A military psychologist has examined him and found him to not be a self-harm risk, but he is still under suicide watch. His access to the world outside his jail is incredibly limited. Tell me how the way he's being held is contributing to him being less likely to want to hurt himself, or being, as you said, "fit to stand trial".

Re:Who?

[trollertron3000]

Oh okay. No need to continue this bullshit conversation then. Write your fucking congressman.

Re:Huh?

[al0ha]

Yeah - that is the difference between academia and the real world... Academia lives in a Utopian bubble

Re:Huh?

[al0ha]

Word!

Re:Huh?

[shentino]

You missed my point.

The only morals a corporation can have is to increase profits for the shareholders. It is presumed that maximizing profits is in the best interests of the shareholders, who are usually so disconnected from internal management that they accept this by default.

Mind you, those morals preclude breaking the law. A corporation cannot break the law and expect to earn a profit, at least not while upholding their fiduciary obligation to their shareholders.

I'm talking about the morals of the corporation itself. The people working for or investing in it are different story however.

Re:You don't understand the Constitution

[morgauxo]

here ya go http://file.wikileaks.info/leak/CollateralMurder_full.mp4

Re:Who?

[KZigurs]

And a jury would have the right of nullification, then.

Re:Who?

[mfh]

Paypal is overextending themselves here. Charities could give them one account that is usually empty, and move funds from it to another account so that even if Paypal could remove funds they wouldn't be able to do so. Therefore Paypal has no recourse here and this is further evidence that they are attempting to be corrupt. They have no right to stipulate how some company does business.

Further evidence of them being shady is that after I have spoken against them, one of their developers ceased his Slashdot relationship with me.

Re:Who?

[mfh]

The Communist yin is the American yang and that's the whole point. We'll get to a single world government soon enough. It's required for deep space travel to become possible on a regular basis for most human beings... and it will be required for us to survive as a species.

Let's not split hairs on government. When we are capable of easily traveling space individually we will not require big government... but until then we do.