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PayPal Freezes Support Account For Bradley Manning
An anonymous reader writes "The online payment provider PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, which in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network is currently raising funds in support of US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. 'We've been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there's no legal obligation for them to close down our account,' noted Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network (Support Network). 'This was an internal policy decision by PayPal. ... They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization's checking account by default. While there may be no legal obligation to provide services, there is an ethical obligation. By shutting out legitimate nonprofit activity, PayPal shows itself to be morally bankrupt.'"
Can't those idiots be sued?
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.
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.
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.
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But not financially bankrupt!! Cha-ching!!
This is a Milgram Experiment, and you are the test subject. You pretty much failed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Morals do not apply to corporations.
My Business Ethics professor would've flunked you for saying that in class.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
It's no problem, we'll just set up a legal fund and accept donations via Paypal
+1 Disagree
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.
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.
"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.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
"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/
Libertarians, unsurprisingly, respond to offers of cash for their companies the same way that regular Republicans do.
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.
So they can recoup deposits they determine were made in error or due to fraud.
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.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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.
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.
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).
Learn to love Alaska
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.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
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...
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$)
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.