WikiLeaks To Sue Visa/MasterCard

An anonymous reader writes "After six months of financial blockade by Visa and MasterCard, during which they claim to have lost over $15,000,000 in donations, WikiLeaks and Datacell are filing a complaint against the two financial giants, with plans to litigate should the block not be lifted. WikiLeaks stated, 'On June 9th the law firms Bender von Haller Dragested in Denmark and Reykjavik Law Firm in Iceland acting on behalf of DataCell and WikiLeaks told the companies that if the blockade is not removed they will be litigated in Denmark and a request for prosecution will be filed with the EU Commission.'"

Comments

As well they should

[hedwards]

Visa and Mastercard are payment processors, it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things and it's not their place to make moral decisions on behalf of their clients. Given how there are only 4 major options and that American Express and Discover have much smaller networks and are frequently not accepted, I can't see how Visa and Mastercard can possibly be allowed to continue these shenanigans.

Re:As well they should

[Nidi62]

Visa and Mastercard are payment processors, it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things and it's not their place to make moral decisions on behalf of their clients.

And it's not your place to decide who a company can and can't do business with, based on your own moral and political views. If you don't like the policies of the company,or feel that they are preventing you from paying for something you would like to, you have the right and opportunity to go pay through someone else.

Re:As well they should

[HBI]

I'd be shocked if money laundering wasn't already in play here. That'll be the justification.

Wikileaks is an intelligence agency, by Assange's own admission a few years back. What did they expect? Anything other than being crushed and jailed?

The money is never coming.

Re:As well they should

[Registered Coward v2]

Visa and Mastercard are payment processors, it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things and it's not their place to make moral decisions on behalf of their clients. Given how there are only 4 major options and that American Express and Discover have much smaller networks and are frequently not accepted, I can't see how Visa and Mastercard can possibly be allowed to continue these shenanigans.

Any company, including payment processors, have the right to not do business with companies that violate the law. They aren't making a moral decision but a legal one.

That is a separate issue from whether wikiLeaks is violating the law; and I would guess the lawsuit would hinge on that issue.

Re:As well they should

[zero.kalvin]

Well too bad, the law in the EU explicitly ask the companies to behave as the Grandparent poster explained.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

use bitcoin as alternative?

Re:As well they should

[igreaterthanu]

With an internet service provider, either the company should be liable for absolutely everything that passes through their network, and they should be free to allow and to block whatever they wish or they can claim "common carrier" status and waive liability, however they are required to allow everyone to use their network.

In my opinion the same should apply to financial institutions. Visa and MasterCard should be allowed to block payments if they like, but if they do discriminate then they should be held liable when they do let illegal transactions get processed.

Re:As well they should

[hansraj]

Sure, if I opened a bar and posted a sign saying "Black people not allowed", everyone who is enraged should just stfu and go to a different bar instead. Right?

OP did not suggest in any way that what VISA and Mastercard did was wrong because they did it to wikileaks. It makes a lot of sense to me to expect (maybe even require) companies not to pick moral sides. Let the people choose whether they want to donate to wikileaks, and let the court decide whether wikileaks should be allowed to receive donations.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

So its up to private companies now to decide wether or not another company is legal?

Re:As well they should

[zill]

it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things and it's not their place to make moral decisions on behalf of their clients

And it's not your place to decide who Visa and Mastercard choose to do business with.
 
Companies can freely choose who they conduct business with*, just as you and I can freely choose who to associate (and not associate) with.

*as long as they are not discriminating against a particular group of people

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically the GP is half-right... It isn't our place to decide who a company is allowed to deny services, however on the flip-side the company does not have a say in who they can do business with.

E.g. Visa and MasterCard are perfectly free to say no to the customers EU law requires them to serve, and EU is perfectly free to keep those companies out of the EU market.

Re:As well they should

[paziek]

Well, AFAIK Wikileaks didn't break any law in EU. Its Visa and MasterCard that could possibly do that - at least in EU that is. If they want to operate in EU, they need to comply. They don't want to? Well, I'm sure some else will take over.

Re:As well they should

[KiloByte]

Visa and Mastercard are one of worst promoters of censorship. For example, look at this case of outrageous religious censorship. Exiern is a webcomic with a PGish level of violence and some nudity. This is enough for an outright ban from the big three (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal), so the author was forced to split it into two sites, one with any violence, one with any nudity. Then they came up with another outlandish rule: that "mythical characters" cannot be displayed with any nudity. Yes, I'm not making it up.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod +1 Joke

Re:As well they should

[Co0Ps]

Although I mostly agree with you I think their acting is understandable. Private companies should be free to chose what other companies and organizations they like to do business with. The real problem here as I see it is that the current digital monetary system depends on a handful of big players which means they can effectively choke the ability for anyone to send or receive money. In other words the current digital monetary system is broken.

Imagine that paper money was printed by handful of bug private companies that forced everyone to pay a transaction fee every time they used it in the store, and pay a yearly fee for using it at all. They could also deny people and organizations to use it for any reason. This is why paper money is printed by the government and why digital money should be too. It doesn't make sense to outsource economic infrastructure to the private sector. Having to pay a fee to use money is like being required to pay a fee for walking down the street. Why we accept this treatment online and hasn't come up with a public government controlled standard for digital currency transactions is beyond me.

Re:As well they should

[Lisias]

The money is never coming.

Maybe. But this doesn't means that we should made it easy for them.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be interesting to see how an international diplomatic incident will play out in EU courts. Wonder if the EU is ready to pay for it's own defense yet.

All these issues... since the money all runs through the US, I wonder if possibly the US anti-terrorism laws apply...

Gee, maybe the case is not as simple as it seems...

Re:As well they should

[nurb432]

They are a private company and not the government, so of course they can decide who they do business with, and who they dont.

Re:As well they should

[zero.kalvin]

That is the point, they can't have it both ways. Beside as far as I know, Wikileaks did not break any EU or even American law, so there is no 'illegal' activity for them to check against.

Re:As well they should

[icebraining]

Sure, if I opened a bar and posted a sign saying "Black people not allowed", everyone who is enraged should just stfu and go to a different bar instead. Right?

That's probably not a good example, since for many people (Libertarians in general) you should in fact be able to discriminate.
http://www.libertarianfaq.org/index.php?title=What_is_the_libertarian_position_on_discrimination%3F

Re:As well they should

[grumbel]

Speaking of deciding what one can buy, how is PayPal getting away with this?

You may not use the PayPal service for activities that: [...] relate to sales of (a) narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or other products that present a risk to consumer safety, (b) drug paraphernalia, (c) items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity, (d) items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime, (e) items that are considered obscene, (f) items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction, (g) certain sexually oriented materials or services, or (h) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (i) ,certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law

It's not only blocking some customers, but blocking whole industries from its service and essentially trying to enforce morals via its payment service.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

And the EU is free to tell them to do business elsewhere. There is an implicit agreement between them (EU and the companies) . They (companies) have to service everyone( who isn't doing anything illegal) and the EU let them do business.

Re:As well they should

[philipmather]

> Any company, including payment processors, have the right to not do business with companies that violate the law. They aren't making a moral decision but a legal one.

Except when they are participant in a monopoly or near monopoly (especially where collusion may be suspected), you may find the following links of interest...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_service_obligation

Given the current tendency for homogenization within the financial and payment processing industry the principal of USO should be extended into those areas. As another poster has mentioned the basic principals of Common Carrier Status could also be applied to the financial industry now that it has become an essential pillar of modern civilisations, people should consider whether it remains in their interests to allow the basic provision of these facilities to remain in the hands of private enterprise or whether the state should provide at least the very basic facilities for all it's citizens (see proposals for the Royal Mail/British Post Office). I am not however suggesting anything near or like the wholesale or even part nationalisation of financial industries, I think we have plenty of examples where that ends up.

Excluding government enforced break ups as a separate action for a moment the results of USO and common carrier status on the telecommunications industry has been largely positive in many examples.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikileaks has broken no US or EU laws. The politicians have bitched, but there have been no indictments because what they are doing is perfectly legal. None of the anti-terrorism laws apply. Any law that they pass in the future to make what they are doing illegal would be unconstitutional, and can't apply retroactively.

Re:As well they should

[mcvos]

Any company, including payment processors, have the right to not do business with companies that violate the law. They aren't making a moral decision but a legal one.

Companies aren't judges. I don't see how it's their place to determine what's legal and what isn't. Only a judge can do that. WikiLeaks didn't break any law, and hasn't been convicted of anything.

Re:As well they should

[pcolaman]

Of course they can get away with this. As a private company, they are entitled to set their own policies on what they will/won't let their customers buy using their services. There is nothing legally that can prevent them from doing so.

Re:As well they should

[TheGratefulNet]

these are not 'just companies'. they ARE the financial infrastructure, in very many ways.

the water company can't decide not to serve you. they can't ban you. this is essentially the same. once things are at this scale (bastardcard included) they HAVE to be impartial and offer services to all customers.

if they want to 'look inside' of the souls that are their customers, they'll have to start rejecting a lot more customers, then.

these guys are too large to be allowed to decide who can and who cannot exchange money in the world. yes, its almost to that level where a few control the world's flow of money. we all know it, so stop acting like its johnny's lemonaide stand on second street. this is the mainstream finance industry saying NO! and they simply should not have the right to say no to anyone.

or, maybe its time they all get broken up.

its also time we don't let things ever get to the point where things are 'too big to fail' or too big to be stopped or fought with. companies should NOT be allowed to just grow and grow. we tried that. it didn't work out. lets admit it and create a better model. (yeah, right, like those in control would entertain a revolution. in fact, THIS is what they are most afraid of. duh!)

Re:As well they should

[NeoMorphy]

Visa and Mastercard are payment processors, it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things and it's not their place to make moral decisions on behalf of their clients.

And it's not your place to decide who a company can and can't do business with, based on your own moral and political views. If you don't like the policies of the company,or feel that they are preventing you from paying for something you would like to, you have the right and opportunity to go pay through someone else.

That's a very unfair statement, Visa/Mastercard are a duopoly and it's not like there are a glut of other international options. The easier you make it possible to make a money transaction, they more likely it is that it will happen. You can't expect everyone to jump through hoops, some will make it happen, others will say screw it, and then you've lost revenue from that group. Isn't that why some merchants offer multiple cards, to make it more likely that their potential customer can make the transaction.

You can't have companies working to control the market and making everyone think that they are the best option and then when they finally control the market start using their power to control the world. There are anti-trust laws for that.

Visa/Mastercard have already been through multiple anti-trust cases, they're showing serious signs of corruption. They seem to have no problem making transactions on behalf of nearly all porn sites(even the ones that are beyond my limit to handle) and even malware sites. I wouldn't be surprised if high profile scumbags/criminals used them. So, why did they suddenly decide to stop Wikileaks? If it was pressure from the U.S. government, then they shouldn't be used internationally, they should be U.S. only! If they did it because they're controlled by banks and those banks are desperate to stop Wikileaks, obviuosly those banks have something really dirty to hide. Which makes this lawsuit a potentially major win for Wikileaks! I would love to see the rational for what they did.

Re:As well they should

[mcvos]

And yeah, Visa/MC should pull out of the EU completely. I'm sure that'll help the economies of the member countries a lot...I think they should do it. Would be perfect. Visa/MC would win in the end because tourists wouldn't have easy ways to buying/paying for things.

I think it'd be awesomeif they pulled out. It would finally create a strong incentive to set up a neutral and reliable international/online payment framework. Of course Visa/MC would never do that, because they'd lose a huge market, and basically sign there own death warrant even outside that market.

So yes, it could be immensely effective to put pressure on them in the EU. A big fine for abuse of their position would set a very valuable precedent.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

So a hotel can put out a "no coloureds" sign with impunity, should they so wish?

Re:As well they should

[zill]

Oh? The posting of classified government information isn't illegal in the EU?

The posting of classified American government information isn't illegal in the EU, since USA is out of their jurisdiction. EU isn't qualified, nor do they incline to, classify whether a particular document counts as "classified government information" of a foreign state.

That being said, even in the US there has been no charges pressed against Wikileaks, so as far as the American government is concerned Wikileaks has not, and is not being accused of, committing an illegal act. An American soldier is being prosecuted for leaking classified intelligence, but not Wikileaks.

Re:As well they should

[Sique]

WikiLeaks is not accused in a court of law in the U.S. of anything right now, so it can claim to be a perfectly legal entity.
As long as that doesn't change, it's VISA and Mastercard, who are breaking the law. So what was the diplomatic issue you are talking about right now?

Re:As well they should

[Lifyre]

+Insightful

Re:As well they should

[FriendlyLurker]

And it's not your place to decide who a company can and can't do business with, based on your own moral and political views.

Bzzt, very very wrong. Yes it is societies place to decide how a company can and cannot behave, including with whom they can and can't do business with... since the company is after all operating as a guest within the framework society has setup (not the other way around, as appears to be the thinking in the US).

Visa/Mastercard have 98% market share in the EU - If they decide to stop payment processing for any political parties they don't like, or boycott any business competitor's of their "preferred partners", or as in this case try to stifle whistleblowers - it is societies legal (and moral) obligation to punish financially that companies bad behavior, at worst drive it right out of the market for not playing fair and by the rules. Unfortunately we here in the US we appear to let companies run society (by owning our politicians) however they prefer, which lead's to fanatical pro-corporate-runs the state ideas like this being often repeated: "it's not [societies] place to decide who a company can and can't do business with".

Re:As well they should

[Sique]

In the EU there are other internal payment processing agencies (eurocheque being the most important one). So it's mainly VISA and Mastercard who will suffer. And as far as I know the documents were not classified by any EU entity, so no EU law was broken.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why they refuse to at least give him the money stored in the accounts.

Re:As well they should

[zero.kalvin]

EU is not some small country somewhere in the third world. Even though EU economy isn't bigger than USA's. It would kill Visa/MC should they pull out of the EU.

Re:As well they should

[icebraining]

Please post the court decision that determined the illegality of Wikileaks actions or STFU. Only a court can decide if what they did was illegal, not Mastercard or Visa.

Re:As well they should

[NeoMorphy]

I agree with you! I never thought of that.

I have heard something similar said about old dictionaries that are now in the public domain. If someone decides to edit/censor parts of it then they are responsible for the parts they don't censor. That's why it was presented in it's original unedited form.

Re:As well they should

[zill]

Except that Visa and Mastercard aren't monopolies, since they each hold less than 50% of the market. Wikileaks would have to prove in court that Visa and Mastercard conspired together to ban Wikileaks and thus effectively acted as a single entity. This will be extremely difficult since the two companies are bitter rivals and have no financial interest in colluding with each other.

Re:As well they should

[MillionthMonkey]

And it's not your place to decide who a company can and can't do business with, based on your own moral and political views.

Uhhhh... I've seen local businesses have to stop taking one card or another when payment processors decide they shouldn't be processing payments for them. If all three of them decide a business should only accept cash, it will put them right out of business. It's not some goofy financial corporation's place to decide who I can and can't do business with, based on their moral and political posturing.

Re:As well they should

[Jiro]

The only reason you can say that Wikileaks didn't break any US law is that they're not located in the US and aren't under US jurisdiction. I'm pretty certain that if they were located in Iran and lobbing missiles at the US they wouldn't be breaking any law, either of the US or Iran. I'm also pretty sure that Visa and Mastercard wouldn't serve them under those circumstances even though their acts are perfectly legal.

Throwing electronic missiles instead of real missiles at the US shouldn't change it.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Not when they control the market! There is a very good reason behind monopoly laws. Companies can't control markets and then go around fucking everyone. They simply can't.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally incorrect. There's nothing in the definition of discrimination that restricts the word to people. It is commonly used to refer to discrimination against people but discrimination can be applied towards things as well. The object doesn't matter.

Re:As well they should

[Richard_at_work]

its also time we don't let things ever get to the point where things are 'too big to fail' or too big to be stopped or fought with. companies should NOT be allowed to just grow and grow.

Its starting to sound like you want it to be "too big to succeed" - punish success, screw the business owners over if they are too successful.

Re:As well they should

[zill]

Article 101 and 102 of the EU treaty only applies to monopolies, so Visa and Mastercard do not qualify. Wikileaks would have to prove in court that the two companies conspired together and effectively acted as the same entity.

Re:As well they should

[briareus]

Your assumption is justification? Brilliant...

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

So, uhm...

"We have to allow the courts to manipulate our corporate policy? Really? Oh. Well, we'll just go ahead and fold. That's right. No more Visa or MasterCard. We're stupid rich and we've just been keeping it up for the lulz anyway."

Amazon is the only company with the testicles a company should have. Even Microsoft threatened to stop producing Windows over the antitrust thing... Considering every single system in the entire government runs on Windows... yeah, might not want to mess with them.

As well it should be.

Re:As well they should

[zill]

Visa does not control the market. If they did then Mastercard wouldn't exist.

Re:As well they should

[RuiFerreira]

Actually the EU's economy is larger than USA's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union

Re:As well they should

[briareus]

No, they cannot. They are not "just private companies". They are part of the financial backbone and cannot simply pick and choose whose payments get processed and whose do not on this type of basis. View the world as black and white only and you miss the important details.

Re:As well they should

[zero.kalvin]

Wrong metaphor my friend. A good one would be the Pentagon papers. If Visa/MC want to play that game, they can. But they have to suffer the consequences, and those consequences would be getting kicked out from the EU market. The US can do whatever it pleases them, but not Visa/MC.

Re:As well they should

[TheGratefulNet]

look at history. EVERY single 'too big' company turned evil when it got large. too much power corrupts. duh! its simple human nature. we can't redefine it, best we can do is 'manage' it.

I can tell you are a hardware capitalist but your kind is what caused this burn-down in the world's economy. our re-badged barons and aristocracy simply do NOT scale and are NOT fair for anyone but themselves. 'trickle down' never worked and never can work.

yes, I want hard caps on companies so that there is more even-ness in the spread. you surely must see that putting all the world's power in the hands of so few is a bad thing??

we gave your way a good long chance. it failed. admit it and lets invent a new variation, one that is more fair.

Re:As well they should

[MooUK]

Of course they have financial interests in colluding. Any alternative company that starts competing with them is a threat to both and it is clearly in their interest to wipe them out, by working together if need be.

Re:As well they should

[TheGratefulNet]

hardware? oops. meant hardcore (lol). well, that's the kind of typo you get on a tech site..

Re:As well they should

[the eric conspiracy]

MasterCard etc. are not government agencies. They are privately owned companies. They are free to do anything they want to that is not in violation of the law including not processing payments to and from organizations that they do not wish to for ANY reason unless it violates some anti-discrimination or other law.

MC/Visa etc. don't discriminate against pornography per se. It is perfectly possible to use your MasterCard to purchase this sort of stuff.

Re:As well they should

[iamhassi]

"And it's not your place to decide who a company can and can't do business with, based on your own moral and political views."

Credit card companies have a monopoly, it's like the utility company shutting off your electricity and water because they don't agree with your political stance or moral views.

I'm glad they're suing, only reason Mastercard/Visa should stop accepting is if customers are complaining about fraud. If Mastercard/Visa stopped accepting Wikileaks what's next?

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes then Eruope could switch back to the Eurocheque system. Anyway I have no idea why this was replaced with Maestro 10 years ago.
Also it should not be too hard to find a solution for the tourists from other countries. Maybe they could introduce an international bank transfer system like the one in the EU, without the high fees of the credit card companies or Paypal?

Re:As well they should

[FunkSoulBrother]

Ah yes, just like Cable and DSL, Democrat and Republican. Truly the free market is wondrous with it's choices.

Re:As well they should

[iamhassi]

"The only reason you can say that Wikileaks didn't break any US law is that they're not located in the US and aren't under US jurisdiction."

So what you're saying is US laws should apply to the entire world?

Re:As well they should

[Opportunist]

Isn't it an NPO? And as such, a legal person?

Re:As well they should

[TheGratefulNet]

what's the line, then, between the FUNDAMENTAL infrastructure such as 'the big 2' (mc/visa) and 'just companies trying to stay in business'?

come on. there's a world of diff here between some guy selling his used card from his driveway vs the 2 (only) plastic money companies in the world.

ignore the elephant in the room, much?

if mc/visa say no to a business, that business is essentially done for. that's too much power.

Re:As well they should

[mysidia]

So anyways.... who a business chooses to do business with is a separate question from the contents of the transaction, so it's nothing like "Common Carrier". It's more like the question of.... WHO a phone company chooses to do business with. Well, that's easy, cell phone companies can refuse to provide service to anyone, for reasons as simple as a delinquent account on their credit report. If they determine you're a bad person, and they don't want to do business, they can close your account, and still be a common carrier -- because their choice to do business with you is separate from the actual data/voice content you sent/received.

With an internet service provider, either the company should be liable for absolutely everything that passes through their network, and they should be free to allow and to block whatever they wish or they can claim "common carrier" status and waive liability, however they are required to allow everyone to use their network.

ISPs are not legally common carriers.

ISPs are not liable for the contents of everything that passes through their network.

However, ISPs are free to allow and block traffic. ISPs can refuse to provide others access to their network based on criteria they define.
And ISPs can set rules and turn customers off if it is reported to the ISP that they are violated. For example, ISPs may choose to terminate users whose activities are abusive or constitute excessive usage.

And, frankly, I think this is a good situation. It allows ISPs to refuse to connect known spammers to their network, even when they apply for service. It allows ISPs to be picky about what networks they allow to peer with them; which improves ISP stability and financial conditions.
It allows ISPs to turn off spammers. It allows ISPs to remove hacked computers from their network, stop DoS abuse, and other activities that either unfairly disrupt a user's network connection, or that disrupt the ISP network.

If ISPs became "common carriers", or forced to take on liability the internet would likely collapse, because SPs could no longer afford to be in business.

Also, a business has a right to refuse service. Businesses commonly choose to do business with only the most profitable prospective customers, and setting a high price of service (and discounting favored customers) is a common way of accomplishing that, but businesses can also refuse service altogether, if the management has moral issues doing business with the customer, if doing business with the customer will cost them other business, or lead to other high costs, service is likely to be refused.

Re:As well they should

[the eric conspiracy]

Balderdash. Any company has to make decisions on who they do business with, for both financial and legal reasons.

Re:As well they should

[NeoMorphy]

Visa/Mastercard is considered a duopoly.

And I don't think it will be that hard, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.#Legal_proceedings , notice the usage of "Visa and Mastercard".

Re:As well they should

[zill]

But they have a bigger financial interest in not colluding. Since Visa rejected Wikileaks first, if I were the CEO of Mastercard, I would just put up a banner on the homepage: "Donating to Wikileaks, free; supporting freedom of speech, priceless". Everyone who boycotts Visa will consider switching to Mastercard.

Not to mention all the transaction charges that can collected from the donations.

Re:As well they should

[Opportunist]

Why should it be illegal in the EU to leak foreign classified documents? Do you think the US would be too unhappy if classified Iranian documents ended up on the web?

Hell, it doesn't even seem to be illegal in the US, at least I haven't heard of the US suing Wikileaks over them.

Re:As well they should

[the eric conspiracy]

Bad example. Racial discrimination of this sort is forbidden by law.

Replace that with "Proper Dress Required", or simply "This Establishment May Refuse Service to Disruptive Patrons" and you are fine.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Both control nearly all the market in EU.

Re:As well they should

[Opportunist]

When the amount of companies is small enough that it becomes likely that they acted coordinated in certain actions to the disadvantage of a third party, they can be treated as a monopoly (or, more correct, a cartel). There's something similar currently going down in the EU regarding the oil companies and their pricing policy.

Re:As well they should

[Opportunist]

What's that? The Furry Rule?

Re:As well they should

[foobsr]

"The economy of the European Union generates a GDP of over €12,279.033 billion (US$16,228.23 billion in 2010) according to the IMF, making it the largest economy in the world. The EU economy consists of a single market and the EU is represented as a unified entity in the WTO." (wikipedia)

CC.

Re:As well they should

[Opportunist]

But it seems like Visa and Mastercard are in this together, and together they DO more or less control the market.

This wouldn't be the first time the EU ruled against cartels.

Re:As well they should

[Luckyo]

False. If they were "lobbing missiles" they would be guilty for a number of crimes, ranging from potential murder to war crimes.

In fact, Iran isn't "lobbing missiles" because it doesn't want a war. It doesn't have the economy or technology to survive one.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. They are a financial institution that must follow laws and regulations. They are not privy to the freedom and whims other business types may have.

Re:As well they should

[Luckyo]

Just because there are many racists, or people with beliefs similar to those of racism in the world, doesn't mean that racism should be allowed.

P.S. I'm white.

Re:As well they should

[arkenian]

Oh? The posting of classified government information isn't illegal in the EU? Really now? LOL.

The posting of EU classified government information may be illegal in the EU (EU states do not have as strong press freedom laws as the US, actually -- as one friend put it "about the time the US was publishing the Freedom of Information Act, the UK was updating the Official Secrets Act") but wikileaks hasn't done that. I find it hard to think of any law in the EU wikileaks could have broken. Yet.

In the US the pentagon papers case leaves it carefully ambiguous as to whether one is allowed to publish classified information when one gets it in ALL cases, but certainly in some cases it is legal as that was the point of the precedent. (NOTE: US law has no forgiveness for Manning, nor should it -- he broke a half dozen laws that on several occasions he specifically promised to uphold. Wikileaks, though, is probably okay. It depends on whether Wikileaks is classified as a journalistic or intelligence gathering agency.)

But in this case what is at issue is a.) EU law, and b.) that wikileaks has not so much as been indicted in any court, nor, in truth, is it likely to be. Bravo to wikileaks for taking this action, and I hope they win, it will be a win for free speech and freedom of the press around the world.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

MasterCard etc. are not government agencies. They are privately owned companies. They are free to do anything they want to that is not in violation of the law

Yes, but since they have a duopoly, antitrust law may apply, and their actions may be in violation of it.

Re:As well they should

[uglyduckling]

Actually it is [collectively] our right to say this. Banking is a semi-regulated sector, where it's not possible for many businesses of different shapes and sizes to compete. Many of the larger financial institutions got to be large by agreeing to certain terms and conditions when they were permitted to buyout or merge with other companies. There are laws in every country which regulate how companies may do business. Your suggested approach won't work in sectors where only a few large companies govern the market, which is why regulations are in place.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but it is government's place to decide who a company can and can't do business with.

Re:As well they should

[zill]

My apologies. I stand corrected.

I did not realize a US court already ruled that Visa and Mastercard is considered a duopoly in the US.

Re:As well they should

[DigiShaman]

Your right. It's illegal to run an establishment that states "%RACE% people not allowed". But I wonder how it would hold up in court to say "%RACE% people are welcome". That basically says that everyone is welcome, but from a marketing standpoint you're putting emphasis toward a specific group. Lets face it. There are different groups of people who visit different themed bars. It's kinda hard to delineate between race and culture legally even though in reality, a line does indeed exist.

Re:As well they should

[uglyduckling]

Really? So if a company refused to do business with the "black gay bikers' association of Great Britain" but were happy to do business with the "white straight bikers' association of Great Britain" that wouldn't be considered discrimination? I think you need to think that one through a bit more.

Re:As well they should

[RobertLTux]

don't forget that there are instances where even the worst of enemies can fight together when a greater threat comes to light.

besides i would bet that both Visa and MasterCard have a very good understanding of "Family Values" (heck i would bet they have Family members on staff).

Re:As well they should

[mysidia]

Sure, if I opened a bar and posted a sign saying "Black people not allowed", everyone who is enraged should just stfu and go to a different bar instead. Right?

Well, in fundamental principal, yes, you should be able to post the sign, as despicable and reprehensible as that is, because, while the government can regulate commerce, nobody can force you to do business, and there is a constitutionally protected right to be stupid.

In practice, NO, because race and skin color are special. Better go find a better example; race and gender discrimination are so special and privileged that it is a 'special case', they are blocked/unacceptable in a manner more strongly than almost any other type of business decision.

It's a sensitive issue, so no, you can't do that, not without serious reprisal from the public, including vigilantes, government officials, and your suppliers/vendors are likely to cut you off should they learn of this. Good luck running a bar, if the liquor companies refuse to ship you anything or allow you to place orders. See, this cuts both ways; if you use a "no black people" sign, your suppliers can send you a letter that says "No bars that refuse blacks may order products from us".
Also, local government can discriminate against your bar in the same way -- by revoking the liquor license, so you better be in a place and doing a business that doesn't require any licenses to operate.

Due to events from American history, there was racial discrimination in the past, it was widespread, and needed to be stopped for the good of society, so special laws (constitutional or not) were put into place to ban it.

And public reaction has shifted strongly to the opposite position -- that is, to say public opinion is highly anti-discriminatory; even if you're not actually discriminatory, the mere perception that you are, can ruin you, better err on the side of affirmatively favoring black people in your bar, if you really want to be safe.

I wouldn't recommend posting such an extreme sign, unless your place is a 'poster' or some sort of reenactment/museum, and the sign is showing what an actual storefront looked like lin the 1950s.

There is a constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech, which enables you to post just about any sign you want on your private property, possibly subject to government regulations, when it is visible to the public, about what size/position/whether you can post any sign at all, but the content of messages you send are constitutionally protected, especially if they are intended to express a political message.

In reality, however, you cannot do that, because (1) enraged people are likely to vandalize your business, even if the sign's sole purpose is to express a political message (and not to physically refuse anyone service)
(2) the contents of the sign is likely to result in a disturbance of the peace, when people the sign applies to show up and are excessively angered
(3) because of (1) and (2), you may be ordered to remove the sign.
(4) Many rational people will boycott your business in protest
(5) Even more rational people will avoid your business out of fear of a 'scene' occuring
(6) As soon as your sign becomes publicly known, protestors are likely to line up with signs, and block access. You won't be able to sell any product, if any of your potential customers are harassed, or no parking/access is available
(7) You may be sued, because under current commerce law, if you do business with the public, you cannot exclude on the basis of race, and your sign may result in de-facto exclusion even if you do not enforce that.
(8) If you do actually attempt to enforce the sign and remove people based on race, you're likely to run into all sorts of trouble with the government, based on racial discrimination laws, you may have police officers dispatched to close your store or to forcibly remove signs

Re:As well they should

[Jiro]

Lobbing missiles would still be *legal*. It's not murder, because it's not murder under the laws of Iran, and it's not murder under US law because the US has no jurisdiction there.

It's true that Iran doesn't lob missiles because it doesn't want a war. But starting a war is not illegal. Doing so is ill advised because it could lead to them being bombed into the Stone Age, but it's not *against the law*.

Re:As well they should

[Luckyo]

Correct, and in this case the argument is that by NOT doing business with wikileaks, they in fact broke the law.

Re:As well they should

[aristotle-dude]

With an internet service provider, either the company should be liable for absolutely everything that passes through their network, and they should be free to allow and to block whatever they wish or they can claim "common carrier" status and waive liability, however they are required to allow everyone to use their network.

In my opinion the same should apply to financial institutions. Visa and MasterCard should be allowed to block payments if they like, but if they do discriminate then they should be held liable when they do let illegal transactions get processed.

I do not often reveal virtually anything that could possibly tie me to what sector I work in but I can assure you that banks, foreign exchange brokers and payment processors such as Visa and MasterCard are regulated by government agencies which can impose huge fines for sending a payment to any person or organization on the OFAC of FINCEN lists. In some cases, these organizations can be financially ruined if they are blackballed other banks which they have peering relationships with as a result of repeated infractions of government regulations.

Re:As well they should

[LordLimecat]

Im not sure how liability works with a bank, but Im fairly certain that if you make a ruckus in their lobby they are free to tell you to leave the premises and deny you the use of their services.

Re:As well they should

[Luckyo]

Visa and MasteCard together however do control the market, and most if not all rules that apply to monopoly extend to cover dupoly as well.

Re:As well they should

[tiddlydum]

And the alternative is? Communism? Nice idea, but it has been shown to fail by history. You said to look at history, but if you do, you see that most of the world has been capitalist for a long time, and it has worked out pretty well so far. Yes, you get depressions, but you also get highs, one tending to follow the other.

Human nature has not evolved to share. It has not evolved to look for the best for everyone else, it has evolved to look after itself. That is why communism fails, even though, in an ideal situation, it would be the perfectly fair option. People suffer regardless, but you cannot say that there are more people suffering in the UK, USA or EU than did in the USSR.

Re:As well they should

[10101001 10101001]

MasterCard etc. are not government agencies. They are privately owned companies. They are free to do anything they want to that is not in violation of the law including not processing payments to and from organizations that they do not wish to for ANY reason unless it violates some anti-discrimination or other law.

So, let's see... A company, created for the purpose of maximizing its own profit (presumably legally and not necessarily through attempts to manipulate the government to write laws to its own advantage) has every "right" to go against that mandate...unless it violates some anti-discrimination or other law, since that company "right" is not absolute but a facade to make it easier to write laws governing company behavior. Sounds like Visa/Mastercard are showing clear and willful signs of a market failure, which screams out for a need to change the law in the US to make their actions illegal (tortious interference might apply at the civil level, regardless, but I'm no lawyer). It sounds like their actions might already be illegal in the EU.

MC/Visa etc. don't discriminate against pornography per se. It is perfectly possible to use your MasterCard to purchase this sort of stuff.

And? If MC/Visa/etc were discriminating against pornography, wikileaks, or whatever because ti furthered their profit motive, then at least that'd have some logical foundation in the function of a company. If it's being done to placate US Congressmen so they'll be more likely to write laws favorable to MC/Visa/etc without consideration of the US Congressmen's constituents (since it's possible a law may only incidentally advantage MC/Visa/etc when its primary effect is for the people), it's sounds like an attempt at quid pro quo or otherwise indirect bribery.

If the only thing that can be said is that what MC, Visa, etc do today is not currently illegal in the US, it says little about what should be illegal. Companies, after all, are social constructs. The individuals inside them are individuals. Things might be different if all interactions in a company were simply individuals agreeing upon contracts. But, that sort of organizational structure would make most medium to large companies untenable.

Re:As well they should

[LordLimecat]

Thats a bad example, because there is specific legislation which addresses that specific issue, because of the issues we had with racial discrimination in the past.

However, I think you COULD post a sign saying "no short people of allowed", since that affects neither race, nor color, nor religion, nor national origin. Im sure you would get sued for it, but courts have often upheld a business' right to deny service.

Likewise, if a company wants to deny service for political affiliation, I believe they could do so-- once again, it does not fall afoul of the specific exemptions to the "right to deny service".

. It makes a lot of sense to me to expect (maybe even require) companies not to pick moral sides.

Companies are run by people who have certain beliefs. Are you saying that if there is an advice hotline, and you are totally anti-abortion, you should be required to advise someone on the best way to perform an abortion? Or that news stations should be required to run certain pieces? I absolutely expect businesses to make choices of right and wrong, and to decide that they will not aid in practices they consider wrong.

Re:As well they should

[shentino]

If they've bounced it back to the donators then that's cool.

If they confiscated it and kept it for themselves, not cool.

Re:As well they should

[LordLimecat]

the water company can't decide not to serve you. they can't ban you. this is essentially the same

No, its not, not in any remote way.

Water companies use existing, hard to deploy infrastructure-- they are a natural monopoly. Contrast with Visa-- there are NUMEROUS ways to send money: Western Union, MasterCard, Paypal, Google Checkout, etc etc etc. There arent the barriers of laying pipeline-- the infrastructure (internet, mail, banks) is already there.

Further, water companies are utilities, and are regulated differently because of it. Visa can absolutely deny your application for an account, or give your existing account the boot if they want; water companies have a much harder time with that.

companies should NOT be allowed to just grow and grow. we tried that. it didn't work out.

The solution is you let them fail when they suck, not prop them up. And we already DO break them up when they get too big; its just that for some inexplicable reason we have been allowing ridiculous mergers recently.

Re:As well they should

[Lehk228]

unretrained capitalism also fails just as bad, the OMGSOCIALISM of the US, UK, and EU are what minimize suffering and provide opportunities for class mobility.

as tax rates have decreased and wealth has concentrated in the US class mobility has fallen and the rich have gained more and more undue influence over govornment policies, and thanks to traitors on the SCOTUS giving away even more to Corporations in Citizens United and other cases, it gets less and less likely that the situation will be fixed from within the political system in the US.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that any company can discriminate their customers at their free will. But they can not do this if they dominate the market. If you want to earn money and customers use credit cards to pay you and out of a sudden 96% of the credit cards are no longer accepted, then this is an abuse of market dominance. If 1% of cards wouldnt work, then nobody would care.

Imagine your local electricity country would decide no longer to serve you and you would have to get electricity from the next town or just live without it. Thats a similar discrimination of market dominance. At the end it has nothing to do with if you like or dislike wikileaks. That's outside of the scope. Its the payers free will to donate or not. And this expression of free will is now being hindered by the card companies because they have the power to make it impossible to practically all card owners to donate. Imagine, the alternative: You want to donate 20$ and you have to go to the bank and do a wiretransfer which costs 15$. Very time consuming and inefficient.

Re:As well they should

[mysidia]

these are not 'just companies'. they ARE the financial infrastructure, in very many ways.
the water company can't decide not to serve you. they can't ban you. this is essentially the same. once things are at this scale (bastardcard included) they HAVE to be impartial and offer services to all customers.

Mastercard refusing to process payments for you is not like having the water turned off. It is more like FedEx or UPS decides to blacklist you, and inform you that they will no longer accept any package to be sent from your address.

Yes, you might have just lost one of your convenient options for delivering your products, but nothing stops you from using independent freight companies or using an alternative like DHL.

As large as they are, they are not a municipal monopoly. Payment cards are not the financial infrastructure. Mastercard is a payment card company, not SWIFT, and there are alternatives available to every service Mastercard provides. Mastercard's service is not critical to exchange payments -- it is just a convenient method of conducting transactions.

For example, Visa, AMEX, ACH, EFT/ wire transfers, PayPal eCheck, money orders, paper cheques, AmazonPayments, or WU are a few alternatives to MC.

"Financial infrastructure companies" also commonly deny services to customers, usually because the bank decides the credit score is too low, or insufficient history, to issue a LOC and grant them a plastiq payment card.

Re:As well they should

[gary_7vn]

It may not be his "place", but it is his right to question. If Visa was refusing to process transactions from Jews, or blacks, you might be able to get past your love of the free markets and see the wrong here. Think about what you just said, essentially you are saying that the people cannot question corporations. They only power they have is where they spend their money? Really? I don't think so. Corporations are people in your world and people get told what to do all the time.

Re:As well they should

[Lehk228]

as a corporation they operate under a corporate charter, which makes them direct subjects of the state.

IMO if they want to give up the legal protecitons of incorporation they should be free to do as they wish, but when they get legal protection for their shareholders they consent to unlimited regulation

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

That the same logic that give us racial segregation. Should this be call 'polical segregation' ?

Re:As well they should

[mysidia]

This is why paper money is printed by the government and why digital money should be too. It doesn't make sense to outsource economic infrastructure to the private sector. Having to pay a fee to use money is like being required to pay a fee for walking down the street. Why we accept this treatment online and hasn't come up with a public government controlled standard for digital currency transactions is beyond me.

I would think long and hard before I said "I wan't the government handling digital currency transactions"; that means the government would have to build the infrastructure at cost, they'd essentially be a monopoly, then.
The payment card industry works so well because there is so much profit to be made, they're able to justify the expenditures required to keep it highly available, and keep it secure. I'm not so sure the government wouldn't botch that up.

More importantly.... if the government processed every digital currency transaction, there would be no privacy -- you can bet, the contents of every single transaction would be immediately available for review by law enforcement, with all information about both parties to the xaction.

At least with the payment card companies, we know there's a limiting factor -- the company's own costs of sharing information are a deterrant, unless the gov't pays them handsomely.

Re:As well they should

[Nidi62]

But that is still discrimination based on the people WITHIN the organization. Visa/MC aren't blocking donations to Wikileaks because Wikileaks was founded by Assange and they just don't like Aussies or megalomaniacs.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be great, if there were a viable "somebody else" to go pay through.

Re:As well they should

[ISoldat53]

Which side is the moral side? To many people what WikiLeaks did was the moral side.

Re:As well they should

[aaaaaaargh!]

They are privately owned companies. They are free to do anything they want to that is not in violation of the law including not processing payments to and from organizations that they do not wish to for ANY reason unless it violates some anti-discrimination or other law.

I think you are wrong. In Europe companies, especially in the banking and payment sector, cannot just refuse doing business for ANY reason or cancel their contracts as they like. Besides, your indemnification clause makes the claim pointless because Visa/Mastercards have almost with 100% certainty violated European laws when refusing to process payments for Wikileaks. This is particularly so, because people in Europe do not generally have the choice of which kind of credit card they get and VISA/Mastercard have a quasi-monopoly in Europe.

In a nutshell, at least in Europe the law is very likely on the side of Wikileaks and they have good chances of succeeding -- and rightly so! This has nothing to do with political opinion: A financial company that decides because of political pressure from a completely foreign country far away to stop doing business with you and cancel your contracts without sufficient prior warning is really not a company anyone wants to do business with. But some people don't have a choice, and so these companies need to be punished.

Re:As well they should

[NeoMorphy]

I was going to point out that Muammar Gadhafi must have got around this, but then I saw that it was only recently that he was put on the list. I would have thought he was on the list for decades? Was he on and off the list multiple times? How much does that cost?

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20110311.aspx

Re:As well they should

[mysidia]

It's not only blocking some customers, but blocking whole industries from its service and essentially trying to enforce morals via its payment service.

Well, I think many of these are for their own protection, take h for example: (h) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (i) ,certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law

If they allow ammunition/firearm transactions to be processed, there is a fact that firearms are often used in the commission of crimes -- that means they are likely to get a lot of demands from law enforcement for records. These kinds of requests are a burden, and incur expenses that cannot be passed on to law enforcement, but must be complied with.

So they could either charge higher fees, or they could refuse the transactions.... the choice of having (h) in the agreement, probably benefits most PayPal users, who aren't in the gun business.

(g) items are similarly risky. Participating in the sale of sexually oriented services are likely to be illegal, and result in more forced records discovery by law enforcement.

(e) and (f) are of course items specifically prohibited by law, that the customer's not allowed to deal in.

(d) is likely to result in law enforcement requests / discovery for lawsuits as well. Paypal can charge for civil compliance with a subpoena, but they may make a conscious decision of specifically wishing to avoid that. They probably do not wish the PayPal name associated with "racial" / "hate" materials, and this is about branding.

(a), (b), and (c) are all items that are illegal to trade, and PayPal can't have a policy of allowing without taking on huge risks themselves, they must stop doing business with someone and report it to authorities, if it comes to their attention a transaction fits under those.

Re:As well they should

[Nidi62]

You are using a strawman analogy here. They AREN'T discriminating against a certain type or subset of people. They aren't blocking donations to the NAACP or the Jewish National Fund or whatever. They're blocking donations to an organization that is non-affiliated in any way with a specific race, creed, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. Like I said earlier, you can discriminate against people, not organizations/companies. Unless you are arguing that wikileaks and its supporters are all made up of one of these groups?

And yes, implicit in this argument is my belief that the whole "corporations=person" argument is complete bullshit. Corporations are not and can never be a person, because they have in indefinite lifespan. Or, better yet, corporations can be a person. However, if they claim to be a person, then every single employee of that corporation should be considered as part of that person, and therefore only 1 vote is allowed, and after that no one else in that corporation can vote in the election.

Re:As well they should

[cheekyjohnson]

Communism isn't the only alternative (and I'd think it would be difficult to determine if communism would always fail). It's possible that there is other alternatives that would work that have yet to be thought of, or alternatives someone has already thought up but have yet to be tested.

Re:As well they should

[inca34]

Actually, it is our place to determine who they can do business with given the fact that they are granted partial monopolies on the backbone of consumer culture. How they operate their business directly affects the economy of the planet, so it would behoove us to settle on policy which is ethical and sustainable unless we would like to have yet another monopolistic overlord to please in order to even begin serving market needs.

In the entrepreneurial spirit, I believe it is very important to remove concern and barriers to entry so that we can actually see some of those market forces do some good. Cheers.

Re:As well they should

[toriver]

But Libertarians are just corporate apologists for whom private business can do no wrong and the world is full of free enterprise throttled by evil governments. They refuse to acknowledge actual history where unchecked corporations seek monopolies, anti-competitive collaboration and suppression of customers as long as they grow large enough.

Re:As well they should

[Co0Ps]

Okay, you trust private companies with your transaction information more than you trust the government with it. I don't. I think the profit motive of the private company will make them cut corners on security. If the government handled transactions it could directly enforce privacy and security directly. Who knows how many times visa and mastercard servers has been hacked and transaction details leaked? Nobody because they erase all evidence of it to avoid PR disasters. I don't really understand why it's bad that the goverment would have a "monopoly" on the transaction infrastructure.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

MasterCard etc. are not government agencies. They are privately owned companies. They are free to do anything they want to that is not in violation of the law including not processing payments to and from organizations that they do not wish to for ANY reason unless it violates some anti-discrimination or other law.

And that's fine up to the point where what is effectively a cartel can strangle other businesses arbitrarily or capriciously. Which is probably why that lawsuit is going to take place in Europe. It'll be interesting to see if there's a legal framework to deal with it. If there isn't, there should be.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact they are legally entitled to do something does not make it morally acceptable to do it. Whilst they are free to discriminate in this way until it is made illegal, we are equally free to describe them as scum for doing it, and try to damage their business by bringing this disreputable behaviour to light.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

This again?

Look, if a private company is big enough and influential enough to effectively censor something, then it may as well be the government doing it because in practice THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. Or is it just that libertarians only hate censorship when it's the government doing it? Businesses and government are just as bad as each other.

Re:As well they should

[mpe]

It's true that any company can discriminate their customers at their free will. But they can not do this if they dominate the market. If you want to earn money and customers use credit cards to pay you and out of a sudden 96% of the credit cards are no longer accepted, then this is an abuse of market dominance. If 1% of cards wouldnt work, then nobody would care.

IIRC there are situations where a company having 20-30% of a market can be subject to laws protecting customers from monopolies.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

MasterCard etc. are not government agencies. They are privately owned companies. They are free to do anything they want to that is not in violation of the law including not processing payments to and from organizations that they do not wish to for ANY reason unless it violates some anti-discrimination or other law.

Except that these companies also operate over here in Europe, where "companies are free to do what they want" is something you REALLY don't want to use as an argument in court. At the very least you would need to give an argument for why this page in particular deserves a boycott like this. This is btw the same EU that forced cellphone networks to standardize so you can use any phone on any network, and also threatened to force a standard for cellphone chargers unless phone makers came up with one themselves.

The same applies to employment laws and similar. Most European countries don't have a "fire at will" type of legislation. To take an example, in Sweden if you are cutting down the number of employers in your business you are not allowed to simply fire the ones you don't like. Often there are rules in place ( frequently negotiated with the unions ) that determine in which order you can fire employees, and what is considered an acceptable reason.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Short people can't ride the rides at amusement parks for example.

Re:As well they should

[hansraj]

I personally believe that individuals should be entitled to hold moral values (whether I agree with them or not), and be able to act accordingly (of course, within the constraints of law, etc). In general I would even extend this principle to groups of people, but corporations should be treated as an exception to this "right" imho. One simple reason is the sheer clout they hold over our lives in this day and age. You start treating them like agencies that deserve the same rights as people and you run the risk of ending up with a society where the interest of corporations is supreme simply because they have much more clout that individuals do.

Of course I realize that US courts have usually held the right of a company to do business mostly as they please, but I think it is in general a bad idea. I will stick to my vision of the society I want to live in: let people decide what is moral for them; let elected representatives decide what should be illegal; and let corporations stick to doing business and not chose a "moral side" and force them to stick to the "legal side". Either what wikileaks did was illegal in which case the government/s could get a court order to make VISA and Mastercard to block donations to wikileaks, or it was not illegal in which case the government/s could just suck it up, or try rallying people's support to outlaw wikileaks.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible he was removed a few years back when the EU got all friendly with him and he agreed to publicly give up his nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programs.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

The moment Wikileaks published a single classified document, they did in fact break US laws. You may not agree with those laws but they did break U.S. Law.

Re:As well they should

[zero.kalvin]

Monopolies and Cartels, which is the case of Visa and Mastercard.

Re:As well they should

[MightyMartian]

I have my doubts that Visa or Mastercard would shoot themselves in the foot that badly by pulling out of the European market. What an absurd thought. It's worth billions to them.

The United States is not the center of the universe. The EU, being a huge market, has sufficient clout to do major corporations serious harm.

Re:As well they should

[Znork]

Most countries have laws against lobbing missiles in any direction at all, and I would be very surprised should Iran not have such laws, probably implemented as reckless endangerment, use of unlicensed weapons, manslaughter, etc, etc. The holders of power in any country tend to take a dim view of such capacity in the hands of private citizens.

And yes, starting a war is certainly against international law. Look up crime against peace.

It may not always be enforced, but violators that get away for political reasons, such as for example Tony Blair, will have to exercise a certain care with what countries they visit or risk ending up incarcerated. And hope that those pesky european arrest warrants are only applied to the correct targets.

Re:As well they should

[dwillden]

Just because formal charges have not been filed does not mean they are not guilty of breaking the law. Also such charges are rarely pressed against organizations. But Wikileaks is breaking US Law by knowingly publishing Classified Documents. Visa and MC are both headquartered in the US. It is in their best legal interest to not do any business with any organization that is blatantly violating our National Security laws.

You may disagree with those laws, but they exist and have full legal standing. We can't really prosecute Wikileaks, but we could (if we had the political will) most certainly prosecute any US Corp that conducts any business with them. So far we are not doing that, but we do reserve the right to do so. And should we decide to start doing so MC and Visa would have been at risk, after the news agencies who helped to publish the stuff.

MC and Visa are protecting their company's, and stockholders interests, by refusing to provide service to Wikileaks.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the United Negro College Fund?

Re:As well they should

[dwillden]

But you are neglecting the other side of the coin. It is in the best interest for the private firm to protect the data and transactions of it's customers. Failure to do so will result in being replaced in the marketplace by firms who do put that emphasis on protecting the information. There is risk in trying new more advanced security measures, but much greater risk in not trying such measures.

In the Government, the interest only goes as far as the current rules require it to go. There is ZERO incentive to take extra steps and measures to protect that data. If it's government run, failure just means a couple new regs will get passed, but they'll still be in business and still have their jobs. There is ZERO risk in not trying new security measures but plenty of risk in trying something new.

By and far your transactional data is far safer in private hands that have financial incentive to keep your business than it would be in government hands that have no incentive to keep your business because they can't lose it.

Re:As well they should

[MightyMartian]

You can't have companies working to control the market and making everyone think that they are the best option and then when they finally control the market start using their power to control the world. There are anti-trust laws for that.

Visa/Mastercard have already been through multiple anti-trust cases, they're showing serious signs of corruption. They seem to have no problem making transactions on behalf of nearly all porn sites(even the ones that are beyond my limit to handle) and even malware sites. I wouldn't be surprised if high profile scumbags/criminals used them. So, why did they suddenly decide to stop Wikileaks? If it was pressure from the U.S. government, then they shouldn't be used internationally, they should be U.S. only! If they did it because they're controlled by banks and those banks are desperate to stop Wikileaks, obviuosly those banks have something really dirty to hide. Which makes this lawsuit a potentially major win for Wikileaks! I would love to see the rational for what they did.

No kidding. To have the credit card companies claiming to stand on principle against Wikileaks and yet be willing participants in scams, purveying of porn and acting as the go-between for all manner of questionable enterprises is pretty laughable.

Re:As well they should

[careysub]

And the alternative is? Communism? Nice idea, but it has been shown to fail by history...

Regulated capitalism, of course -- which has been shown by history to succeed far better than the unregulated sort.

I really can't do better to summarize that history than Elizabeth Warren:

Okay, a young country, George Washington is in his first term and we have a credit freeze. There is a financial panic. Every ten to fifteen years there is a financial panic in our history. Just look at it. And there is a big collapse, trouble, people lose their farms, wiped out, until we hit the Great Depression. We come out of the Great Depression and we say we can do better than this. We don't have to go back to this type of boom and bust cycle. We come out of the Great Depression with three regulations. FDIC insurance. It is safe to put your money into banks. Glass-Steagall. Banks won't do crazy things. And some SEC regulations. We go fifty years without a financial panic, without a crisis... some recessions but no crisis, no banks failing. No big crisis. Then what happens? We say that regulation is a pain, it's expensive, we don't need it. So we start pulling the threads out of regulatory fabric. And what is the first thing that happens with that? We get the S and L crisis. Seven hundred financial institutions fail. Ten years later what do we get? Long term capital management when we learn that when one thing collapses in the world that it collapse everywhere else. In the early two thousands, we get Enron which tells us that the books are dirty. And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric.

Ending most recently with the Great Recession of 2008, from which we have not yet recovered. (Oh yes, there was that extraordinary rescue by the government to prop up those brilliant innovative capitalist heroes, and to keep the Wall Street bonuses flowing. But no regulatory reform to speak of.)

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad example. Racial discrimination of this sort is forbidden by law.

Not too bad an example when you consider that Visa and Mastercard still accept payments for the Klu Klux Klan.

Re:As well they should

[cavreader]

I'm tired of hearing people bleat on and on about "international law". A law is only applicable if it can be enforced otherwise it's just a bunch of bureaucratic posturing. Also to be "international law" countries would have to surrender their sovereignty and that will not happen anytime soon in the US or any other country with a measure of common sense. Sort of like the political witch hunt posse know as the ICC. The US was roundly criticized for not siging up for this political motivated court. China, Russia, India, or Japan also did not sign up for this but you never hear any complaints about them.

Re:As well they should

[SpongeBob Hitler]

And the alternative is? Communism? Nice idea, but it has been shown to fail by history. You said to look at history, but if you do, you see that most of the world has been capitalist for a long time, and it has worked out pretty well so far. Yes, you get depressions, but you also get highs, one tending to follow the other.

Human nature has not evolved to share. It has not evolved to look for the best for everyone else, it has evolved to look after itself. That is why communism fails, even though, in an ideal situation, it would be the perfectly fair option. People suffer regardless, but you cannot say that there are more people suffering in the UK, USA or EU than did in the USSR.

I'll just leave this here and let you figure out what is wrong with your argument.

Re:As well they should

[lexsird]

Are you meaning false accusations of money laundering so that they have a thin excuse to justify their actions? I believe they would try that.

Wikileaks, an intelligence agency? Sorry, but I think they qualify as a whistle blower agency who dabbles in acquiring intelligence. I think real intelligence agencies are laughing in their sleeves at that notion.

As far as being "crushed and jailed", its like a Jedi move for them to be so destroyed. Like Obi Wan, they will only return more powerful than before. Heavy handed moves are always the acts of the incompetent, and this is sliding out of control fast. First, if MC/and Visa run aground some EU legal battle, that could cost them dearly and I am sure they have plenty of opponents that would LOVE to have a shot at them in court. I am sure the next time they get a phone call from the US Feds, they will not be so happy to "drift their way" with their requests. Way to burn a handy bridge that could be vital in the future, dipshits!

This has gotten way too much public attention. Secondly, if you are so sloppy that you end up exposed by Wikileaks for something, aren't you full of epic fail? By playing such a heavy hand with them, it only gives them more street credit and inspires more people to copy them. If they wanted to crush wikileaks they should have done it with piracy and child porn like I suggested once. Then it would be Wikicreeps, and Assange wouldn't be a modern day Robin Hood.

Re:As well they should

[crunchygranola]

...Mastercard refusing to process payments for you is not like having the water turned off. It is more like FedEx or UPS decides to blacklist you, and inform you that they will no longer accept any package to be sent from your address.

Yes, you might have just lost one of your convenient options for delivering your products, but nothing stops you from using independent freight companies or using an alternative like DHL.

If the water company shuts you off nothing stops you from using independent freight companies from hauling water in by truck. You just lost one your convenient options for getting water.

At some point inconvenience becomes more than just "inconvenient".

We are easily there with the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.

Re:As well they should

[CodeBuster]

I can't see how Visa and Mastercard can possibly be allowed to continue these shenanigans.

Then you aren't looking hard enough. Visa and Mastercard are American financial institutions and they require access to the American, and therefore international, banking system to do their buisness. The US government has warned them not to process payments on behalf of Wikileaks. Corporations, especially financial institutions, have little choice but to aquiesse to the demands of the US government because if they refuse, the corporate death penalty (i.e. no more access to the financial system) is imposed. Governments are all about threats of "consequences" if you don't do what they want. Their power is derived from violence and violence, if organized on a large enough scale, trumps legal commerce every time. The only alternative is to deal in guns, cash, drugs or precious metals/stones while waging open warfare with the government and its agents. This is what the drug cartels, gun runners and mafias around the world do, but their business is small potatoes compared to what the legal multinational corporations earn. So, if you want to understand why Visa and Mastercard refuse to deal with Wikileaks, look no further than their government masters; the ones with the real power. Did wikileaks expect the powerful governments of this world to simply bend over and take it in the ass? Please, Assange is lucky that he hasn't met with any unfortunate "accidents" yet; never mind the money.

Re:As well they should

[SpongeBob Hitler]

Well, AFAIK Wikileaks didn't break any law in EU. Its Visa and MasterCard that could possibly do that - at least in EU that is. If they want to operate in EU, they need to comply. They don't want to? Well, I'm sure some else will take over.

Funny thing is that the conservative Americans (what the rest of the world calls "Fascists") on this site who would be the most offended by your comment are the same ones who were always saying "Don't like it? Leave!" about any American who questions the American military bombing the shit out of anyone they please.

Re:As well they should

[CodeBuster]

If it was pressure from the U.S. government, then they shouldn't be used internationally, they should be U.S. only!

The dollar is the reserve currency of this world and the United States essentially controls the global financial system, or the parts that matter anyway. When The US government says "jump", everyone connected to that system responds with, "how high"? Nobody wants to be taken out of the financial loop for refusing to cooperate.

Re:As well they should

[bill_mcgonigle]

The part you're missing is that they only got big enough because government regulations (which always favor the incumbent) prevent them from having meaningful competition.

Go ahead, try to start a competing payment processor and see how well you do. Look into PayPal's history if you doubt this.

Re:As well they should

[SpongeBob Hitler]

don't forget that there are instances where even the worst of enemies can fight together when a greater threat comes to light.

Yes. Kind of like the Republicans and Democrats if any third party threatens. They can put aside their differences in a heartbeat if their ability to assrape the American public is ever threatened.

Re:As well they should

[CodeBuster]

Yes it is societies place to decide how a company can and cannot behave, including with whom they can and can't do business with

How delightfully quaint, do you believe that your vote still matters as well?

Re:As well they should

[f16c]

Why does it have to be Communism? History tells us that communism as a term devolved in the practical world as yet another name for totalitarianism. That war ended in 1945. I'm not sure we won. Capitalism was never supposed to be totally unregulated. That's why it keeps getting a bad name. There are supposed to be social and societal limits along with regulations and laws limiting corporate behavior. Companies are like people (since they are made up of them in any case): Laws and regulations are for the idiots among us that can't think for themselves. Companies without limits become monstrous in the extreme. Capitalism without restraint is utter insanity. Communism as a concept never happened and was a sort of outsized socialism that never really worked in practice. Socialism seems to work fine in large parts of Europe with a large side dish of capitalism and a dash of common sense. Capitalism seems to coexist pretty well with a lot of other social concepts if given a chance.

Our insistence that anything other than pure capitalism as being the ultimate answer to everything makes us look stupid to the rest of the world and we really need to get over that.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called taxes

Re:As well they should

[frinsore]

I've always thought that it was innocent until proven guilty.

It's not for Visa or MC to decide if they're guilty or not, that's the job of the courts. Visa and MC could have gone to the courts and said "Hey, these guys are doing some funky stuff, can we suspend them?" and what ever court had jurisdiction would make the call. As long as Visa and MC followed the court's directions they'd be fine. It's the fact that Visa & MC either listened to someone that didn't have jurisdiction or made the decision on their own that's placed them on the wrong side of morality.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. As soon as the state gives your company certain protections, i.e. limited liability, your corporation should be forced to serve everyone equally. If you remain a sole trader or whatever it's called in other countries, then you can do what you like (within the bounds of other laws of course).

Re:As well they should

[icebraining]

That's not their argument, though.

Re:As well they should

[Sique]

It is your privately held opinion that there ought to be a law to forbid the publishing of classified documents, but alas there is none in the U.S. code of law. There is only a law that forbids leaking classified documents. That's why the U.S. prosecutors fervently try to get Pfc. Manning to testify that Mr. Assange or another person affiliated with WikiLeaks actually demanded from him to get hold of the documents they later published. But so far they don't have any proof of that, and WikiLeaks denies to ever have done so.

Your turn: What law WikiLeaks has broken?

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a fault in EU law, then.

Re:As well they should

[Em Adespoton]

This is true, but Visa and MasterCard are more equall than others in this equation... which is why when Russia set out to create their own credit network and lock out Viisa and Mastercard, the US government stepped in, and the Russian rules were changed. End result? A lot of patently illegal transactions in Russia (illegal in Russia, not just the rest of the world) get brokered via Visa and Mastercard. Fake antivirus software and fake medicine are two examples of this. Visa and Mastercard are blatantly looking the other way while billions of dollars in illicit funds are being transferred via these methods, and yet deny access to their network for a single client handling a small volume is at odds with the US government.

I see this as a conflict of morals, and a conflict of operating practices. They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways, with the deciding factors being the amount of money they make on the deal and whether the most powerful government in the world requests they stop/don't stop dealing with a customer.

Of course, me ranting about this isn't going to change it. I hope the EU has the guts to do so.

Re:As well they should

[Runaway1956]

Yes, it is our place to decide when a company is being a complete horse's ass. If they can't process payments to Wikileaks, then I will take my business elsewhere - and I hope that several million other Americans are smart enough to do the same.

Oh - wait - millions of smart Americans? Sorry, smart Americans are an inverse propotion to the number of Americans who watch American Idiot, and Dancing with the Stars, and Biggest Losers, and, I'll quit now. That's enough to give you the idea, at least.

Re:As well they should

[Runaway1956]

Yeah, yeah, yeah - and IF I were living in Byzantine times, then some cleric or another could have me executed for heresy or some similar thing, because I don't believe in any of their gods. So, yeah, IF Wikileaks were subject to American law, THEN they would have broken some laws.

In short, you seem to be saying that you don't like wikileaks, and you want to see them punished. However, the law only works like that under tyrants.

Re:As well they should

[Runaway1956]

Cite the law then. It should probably begin with USC blah blah blah. Don't cite anything from a lesser authority, and do NOT cite any military laws, rules, or regulations. Only USC laws could possibly apply.

Re:As well they should

[Em Adespoton]

Paypal gets away with it by not being a financial institution in most places it does business -- it has none of the protections, etc. that financial institutions have. This in turn means any money you pay to paypal for the privelege of them paying most of it to someone else is not protected, and can vanish, with your only recourse being a) to sue the company for recompense or b) to cancel your business contract with them.

I do believe that the EU is an exception to this however; the PayPal Europe agreementd probably don't have that wording.

Re:As well they should

[hairyfeet]

So if a company says "We don't serve niggers" is that cool? Discrimination has been a no no for quite awhile now, be it race, color, creed, or belief. I don't know how it is in the EU but before the USA was sold to the corps we also had a thing known as antitrust, where companies who had grown to dominate a market couldn't use their control of a market for douchebag behavior.

So let us hope that unlike the USA, which was sold several years and a few decades ago, and is now nothing but a shell with lip service paid to a constitution nobody in power actually follows anymore, that the EU actually has a spine. With groups like Wikileaks to expose the evil dirty double dealing backstabbing bullshit that goes on every damned day in the halls of power? Well I'd say things would be even worse but honestly I'm beginning to doubt anything short of our own Arab spring is gonna change our freefall anyway.

I mean when you have a government covering up for a defense contractor that is using 9 year old boys as fucktoy party favors to win a contract, and whom the time before that was giving out 10 year old girls for the same reason, and the ONLY complaint they have is it might bring some bad publicity? Sorry but your government is evil now and there is no other way to put it. Now the USA IS the bad guys.

Re:As well they should

[PPH]

Due to events from American history, there was racial discrimination in the past, it was widespread, and needed to be stopped for the good of society, so special laws (constitutional or not) were put into place to ban it.

Actually, the fix was the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. So, by definition, it was constitutional (baring any problems with the amendment process).

In practice, NO, because race and skin color are special. Better go find a better example; race and gender discrimination are so special and privileged that it is a 'special case', they are blocked/unacceptable in a manner more strongly than almost any other type of business decision.

But free speech is 'special' in that it is protected by the firat amendment. So, until a court finds Assange and/or Wikileaks guilty of a crime involving those contributions, what VISA/MC did is logically equivalent to putting up a "No Blacks" sign.

Or if this sort of nonsense is still permitted, when I'm hired on as CEO of VISA or MC, I'm cutting off campaign donations to all GOP candidates. Just because I can. But I can't, because contributions are a free speech issue. Just like my contributions to Wikileaks.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

STFU, corporate shill.

Re:As well they should

[HiThere]

Well, yes, they would. But I defy you to state a consistent moral position (other than "Black people are inferior") that justifies discriminating against Wikileaks and forbids discriminating by race. Or the contrapositive. (I.e., I assert that either A & B or ~A & ~B is valid, but neither A & ~B nor ~A & B.)

Well.... there is one possibility. You could deny that collective entities have any right at all. But then neither Visa nor MasterCard (nor Wikileaks) have any rights, so there's nobody being injured. That kind of reductionism is technically valid, but it makes the world too complex to deal with. And you can take it further so that people don't have any rights either, only the molecules of which they are composed. And the molecules don't have any rights, only the atoms of which they are composed. And clearly the atoms aren't being injured. So while I don't guarantee that you can't find an acceptable statement along those lines, I've never seen one, except the declaration that "rights" a a fiction, and all that exists is power politics. (Acceptable here means logically acceptable, not morally acceptable.)

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than base your political opinions on fear of terrorism, you should put human rights first in your thoughts. (7) and (8) are the important ones. (6) would be illegal, and due to past incidents, protesters are required to stay a certain distance away from abortion clinics.

Rather than just say that it's illegal, you should consider why. History tells us: it used to be normal for most businesses to not serve niggers, and white folk wouldn't have to deal with niggers when they went out, and niggers patronized their own businesses.

Re:As well they should

[PPH]

Hear, hear!

You start treating them like agencies that deserve the same rights as people and you run the risk of ending up with a society where the interest of corporations is supreme simply because they have much more clout that individuals do.

Which is bizarre because corporations are a creation of the State. And the State shouldn't have the right to create legal entities that have rights which the State itself does not have.

Re:As well they should

[jwhyche]

An you are quite incorrect in this reguard. The Supreme Court has already handed a ruling that freedom of press out weighs any form of government classifiation. So while the person who turned over those documents to the press is guilty of a crime, the person that published them, in this case Wikileaks, is not.

Re:As well they should

[hairyfeet]

That is why we have war crimes and world courts, because as we found out in WWII there are certain levels of evil that the free peoples of a planet just don't want to condone, whether the dictator wants to condone them or not.

As for TFA what we have here is what another poster hit right on the head....the Pentagon papers. like the Pentagon papers we have some intel showing the collective douchebaggery (and I would argue warcrimes) of those in power. I mean covering up a defense contractor that gives away little kids as fucktoy party favors to win contracts? You sick fucks need to be shot. And this intel coming out was more than a little embarrassing because it showed what sick evil fucks are doing quietly in the halls of power in the name of "national interests" so they are trying to use their power here to force laws over there to punish them.

But lucky for the rest of the planet they aren't forced to bow before the USA (yet, I have seen some of the treaties we are trying to ram through) and if you want to do business there you have to follow the rules there, and lucky for the rest of the world by and large the EU seems to have a spine when it comes to big corps being dicks. Personally though I have a better idea: How about instead of punishing Wikileaks you execute the sick evil fucks running a muck in the halls of power, how about that? If you weren't selling your collective asses Mr politician you wouldn't have to be embarrassed when the video shows up on the net.

Re:As well they should

[HiThere]

It seems to me that corporations are senior to most people in US law. They are potentially immortal. They cannot be convicted of most felonies. They are effectively immune to most misdemeanors. They have specially favorable tax laws.

We've come a long way from the days when corporations were barely tolerated, and only allowed to exist for short periods of time. Whether it's an improvement is extremely questionable, but the distance is far. (When is the last time you heard of a corporation's charter being dissolved?)

Re:As well they should

[HiThere]

Please state the ethical or moral principle that justifies your footnote. Without the footnote I found your position repugnant, but logically consistent. With it, it becomes BOTH repugnant AND inconsistent under my default assumptions. So you are presuming some moral axiom that I am not presuming. What is it?

Re:As well they should

[mcvos]

If they're liable by doing business with Wikileaks, then they're definitely liable by doing business with any number of criminals, criminal organisations and other organisations that have a much more tenuous relationship with the law than Wikileaks. Besides if they don't do business with Wikileaks, why are they still doing business with the New York Times? There's no legal or moral justification for that.

The only reason is: the US government wants to hurt Wikileaks, but can't legally do that, and Visa/MS need a favour from the US government to protect their interests in Russia. That's it.

Re:As well they should

[X.25]

They are a private company and not the government, so of course they can decide who they do business with, and who they dont.

I guess it'll be fine if I open a bar in NYC and hang a sign that says "We don't do business with black people and Indians".

The fact that you're a private company does not mean you don't have to follow some rules/laws.

Re:As well they should

[NeoMorphy]

Then the United States totally messed up! If this goes to court, it will make it clear to the World that Visa/Mastercard can be used to punish any entity that defies the U.S. or Visa/Mastercard or the banks affiliated with Visa/Mastercard. Considering how much the U.S. is loved by the rest of the World, it will probably help promote a non-U.S. based credit card company that is backed by the E.U. over Visa/Mastercard.

The publicity will probably gain more financial support for Wikileaks than they lost and the U.S. will look even more like fascists trying to take over the world. I'm embarrassed by how stupid our government can be sometimes.

They should settle out of court, ASAP! It's a win/win for Wikileaks. The more they fight it, the more people are going to hate us.

Re:As well they should

[vux984]

The moment Wikileaks published a single classified document, they did in fact break US laws.

Wikileaks is not in the US. They are not subject to US laws. And publishing a document a foreign government deems classified has never been illegal anywhere, ever.

A farmer in Afghanistan who slaughters a goat and sells the meat is not in contravention with New York state law requiring a meat vendor to have a state issued butchers license.

A man doing 150km/h on the German Autobahn is not violating Florida state ordinances on speeding.

Foxxconn paying employees less than $7.25 an hour in China does not violate the US Federal minimum wage law.

Your claim that wikileaks broke US law is absurd on its face.

Re:As well they should

[PCM2]

I have my doubts that Visa or Mastercard would shoot themselves in the foot that badly by pulling out of the European market. What an absurd thought. It's worth billions to them.

The United States is not the center of the universe. The EU, being a huge market, has sufficient clout to do major corporations serious harm.

On the other hand, do you really think the EU would want to be shut out of as important a payment processing market as Visa or Mastercard? If anything, there's plenty of incentive for the EU to side with the credit card companies against Wikileaks.

Re:As well they should

[Jiro]

Wikileaks only managed to turn up any actual misconduct at all because given a really massive quantity of releases, they're bound to turn up something. I'm sure that if every American's private computer hard drive was leaked to the public, there would be evidence in there that someone's a pedophile. That doesn't mean that everyone's computer should be public. There are legitimate reasons for both you and the government to keep things away from public eyes, and if it shelters a couple of pedophiles, then fine.

*Most* of the time, Slashdot recognizes that "we have to release this private information, because it'll help us catch pedophiles" is a really terrible idea.

Re:As well they should

[X.25]

I'm tired of hearing people bleat on and on about "international law". A law is only applicable if it can be enforced otherwise it's just a bunch of bureaucratic posturing. Also to be "international law" countries would have to surrender their sovereignty and that will not happen anytime soon in the US or any other country with a measure of common sense. Sort of like the political witch hunt posse know as the ICC. The US was roundly criticized for not siging up for this political motivated court. China, Russia, India, or Japan also did not sign up for this but you never hear any complaints about them.

Yeah, but China, Russia India or Japan were not the ones pushing for ICC to get created.

Re:As well they should

[pz]

Not an exact analogy. A closer analogy would be to open a bar and post a sign saying, "Julian Assange not allowed." But an exact analogy would be to have no sign but give your bouncer a photo of Mr. Assange with specific instructions to prevent him from entering.

Re:As well they should

[Killall -9 Bash]

There is no such thing as international law, because there is no international government. The UN is NOT A GOVERNMENT BODY.

There are many treaties in place which specify what is or is not acceptable.... but not every country's ambassador signed them, and of those that did, not every country's government ratified them. The treaties also seldom specify punishment for infractions, because you'd never get anyone to agree to punishments for breaking treaties they plan on breaking.

'International law' is where people point when they don't have an actual legal basis for something. Like both wars in Iraq.

Re:As well they should

[Jiro]

No, I'm saying "we shouldn't go after Wikileaks, because they broke no laws" is stupid. Assange is like a one man military operation, in an era where because of the ubiquity of computers, one man actually can mount a military operation. Enemy soldiers can be captured or shot, never mind just freezing their assets, even though they have broken no laws.

Re:As well they should

[gaspar ilom]

>I can assure you that banks, foreign exchange brokers and payment processors such as Visa and MasterCard are regulated by government agencies

Hahahah!

Government Regulator leaves FinCEN for Bank of America

Bank of America Acknowledges Illicit Funds Moved Through a Manhattan Branch

Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal

Re:As well they should

[X.25]

Just because formal charges have not been filed does not mean they are not guilty of breaking the law. Also such charges are rarely pressed against organizations. But Wikileaks is breaking US Law by knowingly publishing Classified Documents. Visa and MC are both headquartered in the US. It is in their best legal interest to not do any business with any organization that is blatantly violating our National Security laws.

Oh, that's nice.

You don't need courts and judges in the US anymore then. I mean, what's the point of wasting taxpayer's money and actually pressing charges and going to trial, when they can just consult you to tell them if someone has broken the law?

Yes, they are NOT GUILTY OF BREAKING THE LAW.

They are innocent until proven guilty, you stupid retard.

Re:As well they should

[toriver]

They are businesses operating in heavily regulated (by governments) industries.

If they don't want to play by the rules for the "financial industries" they are free to switch to a different business.

Re:As well they should

[endymion.nz]

Except he's not a military operation. The whole wikileaks crew is probably not as armed as your average US citizen.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Most countries would probably be overjoyed.
Denmark massively pushes their own payment system (paying with anything else incurs extra fees), France has its "carte bleue" and in Germany EC/Maestro vastly dominates Visa/Mastercard (even if nobody is officially pushing for it).
That last one also available in basically all of Europe, though in some parts you will have a lot more issue paying directly and might have to go to an ATM instead.
So it is likely enough that the main effect would be less money going to US companies (and thus the joy).

Re:As well they should

[Aighearach]

You tried a little harder than you could manage on that one, coward old boy.

It turns out, these companies did choose to do business in the EU, and the conduct in question even happened there. So yeah. The whole "keep out" thing is silly; a company implicitly agrees to follow the rules in an area when they choose to do business there, and in the case of banks, they explicitly agree to it as part of licensing and regulating.

It is simply not the case that a business can agree to the rules they must operate under, and then just decide to break them, with the remedy being to "keep [them] out of the... market." I'll ignore the issues with tense. When you break the rules, and it financially harms another party, you're gonna be liable for that. Duh.

Re:As well they should

[Solandri]

Visa/Mastercard have 98% market share in the EU - If they decide to stop payment processing for any political parties they don't like, or boycott any business competitor's of their "preferred partners", or as in this case try to stifle whistleblowers - it is societies legal (and moral) obligation to punish financially that companies bad behavior, at worst drive it right out of the market for not playing fair and by the rules.

Unfortunately, "fair" is a subjective measure. e.g. the majority of journalists fall towards the left side of the political scale. Does that mean in order to be fair, society (i.e. government) should support right-wing journalists in order to even things out?

There's a line between public and private infrastructure which you're casually crossing. If you truly believe Visa/Mastercard have an obligation to make everything fair, then we should just dispense with appearances and nationalize their credit card payment systems. Have them run by the government instead of private companies. (I might actually support that despite my pro-free market beliefs. The credit card companies have managed to drastically overcharge (typically 10-25 cents + 1-2% for transmitting a few bytes of data and making appropriate changes in a database), while at the same time nearly completely offloading their risk and liability onto merchants. Market forces are not working as they should be.)

If you're unwilling to nationalize, and wish payment processing to remain within the realm of private business, then the correct solution to Visa/MC boycotting certain political parties is for someone to start a new payment processing company which will cater to those parties.

Yes it is societies place to decide how a company can and cannot behave, including with whom they can and can't do business with... since the company is after all operating as a guest within the framework society has setup (not the other way around, as appears to be the thinking in the US).

That's a gross mischaracterization of U.S. philosophy on law. The U.S. is based on the principle that the only powers government has are those given to it in the Constitution and subsequently passed laws. In other words, you believe that nothing should happen without the approval of government. The U.S. belief is that you (as an individual or a company) are free to do anything unless the government is specifically empowered to prevent it. You have to remember that just as too much power in corporations is a threat to free society, so is too much power in government. Otherwise you're just trading one overlord for another.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies can freely choose who they conduct business with*, just as you and I can freely choose who to associate (and not associate) with.

*as long as they are not discriminating against a particular group of people

Does the group of people who a company chooses not to conduct business with not count as "particular"?

Re:As well they should

[Jiro]

Military operations include activities other than shooting people with guns.

Re:As well they should

[DrJimbo]

In my opinion the same should apply to financial institutions. Visa and MasterCard should be allowed to block payments if they like, but if they do discriminate then they should be held liable when they do let illegal transactions get processed.

[...] I can assure you that banks, foreign exchange brokers and payment processors such as Visa and MasterCard are regulated by government agencies which can impose huge fines for sending a payment to any person or organization on the OFAC of FINCEN lists.

This is an unrelated issue. Obeying the government's blacklist is an entirely different thing from being liable for illegal transactions with people/groups that are not on the blacklist.

The point the grand-parent was referring to is once companies start to discriminate who they do business with they are then legally liable for their choice of who they do business with. Visa and MasterCard (and the government that pressured them) want to have it both ways. They want to be able to deny service to people they don't like but they also want to be totally free of any responsibility for who they do choose to deal with.

Re:As well they should

[DrJimbo]

Im not sure how liability works with a bank, but Im fairly certain that if you make a ruckus in their lobby they are free to tell you to leave the premises and deny you the use of their services.

Unless you provide a Youtube video of Assange creating a ruckus in the lobbies of both Visa and MasterCard then it didn't happpen.

Re:As well they should

[blueg3]

They may be guilty of breaking some law, but they can't be treated as such until they're found guilty by a court in the appropriate jurisdiction.

Of course, they're in the EU, and Visa and MC are in the US, and international law and trade are tricky, but they haven't been charged with anything in the US, either.

Plus, as others mentioned, it's not illegal to publish classified material. It's illegal, more or less, for someone who has legitimate access to classified material (clearance) to transmit it to people who don't. There are also other laws that can apply to that person -- and worse if they're in the military -- but once it's been leaked to the unclassified world, further transmission is legal.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually depends where.
As far as i know you can't be discriminatory against some(read: any) type of customer. It's against low in EU.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

It could still be murder under US laws, and the US could try and convict in absentia if they so wished. An American citizen killed on US soil can be prosecuted in the US, regardless of where the person was who pulled the trigger.

So yeah, it is "against the law."

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

"The government" doesn't have rights. Just like "a corporation" isn't a person and thus has no rights. So there's no right to privacy or such that would be violated by requiring the government to release documents, while there would be a problem with that and releasing all documents from all personal computers.

*Most* of the time, Slashdot recognizes that "we have to release this private information, because it'll help us catch pedophiles" is a really terrible idea.

Yeah, and most will also point out that there's nothing in the Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right of the government to be secure in their papers. I'm confused why you are attributing infinite rights to the government and then comparing that to the people. It's unrelated and seems silly to compare the rights of the people to the rights of the government (not that the government has any "rights" at all, just powers delegated to it by The People).

Re:As well they should

[bug1]

"If they don't want to play by the rules for the (whatever) they are free to switch to a (whatever)."

How about you grow up ?

Just because something can be done in theory, doesnâ(TM)t mean that its practical, or desirable.

Instead of making ambit(?) claims (lol, am i doing it now) how about describing the reasoning why the rules are important, and the prof's and cons of changing whatever.

Without reason all you have is noise.

Re:As well they should

[mcvos]

I fully agree. We need a neutral payment infrastructure. In cash, we have that. Online, we don't. Well, Netherland has its own neutral online payment system that's supported by all banks (iDeal), but that works only in a single country. We need something like that that's world wide, that all banks and other payment providers in the world can join, and if one bans you, you can simply switch to another.

I really hope this Visa/MC abuse leads to an initiative in this direction.

Re:As well they should

[zill]

The footnote has nothing to do with my personal moral principles. My personal principles do not tolerate fictitious legal persons but that's entirely irrelevant to the present discussion.

The footnote is merely a statement of fact based on the various anti-discrimination laws that companies have to comply with while operating in the EU.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Then EU should ban them forever from the EU and lobbying for them to be banned in other countries around the world

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

the water company can't decide not to serve you. they can't ban you. this is essentially the same

Except that utility company have monopolies only because those monopolies are granted by law. Monopolies don't persist if there are no laws to protect them.

Re:As well they should

[ScrewMaster]

It turns out, these companies did choose to do business in the EU, and the conduct in question even happened there. So yeah. The whole "keep out" thing is silly; a company implicitly agrees to follow the rules in an area when they choose to do business there

Yeah. Wasn't that pretty much what the whole flap about Google pulling out of China was all about?

Unfortunately, a frustrated China could not be reached for comment.

Re:As well they should

[CodeBuster]

Considering how much the U.S. is loved by the rest of the World, it will probably help promote a non-U.S. based credit card company that is backed by the E.U. over Visa/Mastercard.

Europe already has a fully functioning credit market. In fact, the European credit and banking system is more sophisticated in many ways than that which is run by the United States. However, the problem is one of scale. There aren't enough Euros or Euro backed debts in circulation to serve as collateral in the quantities that would be necessary to support serious competition to the US Dollar hegemony and neither the Europeans nor anyone else is particularly interested in trying. Reserve currency status and control of world credit and banking systems has its advantages, but it also has rather substantial downsides; not the least of which is a crushing 14 trillion dollars in long term liability for the United States. What you say you want will never happen because the Europeans are neither able nor willing to expand credit enough to compete with the US Dollar for reserve status.

They should settle out of court, ASAP! It's a win/win for Wikileaks.

Governments do indeed settle out of court, but that's probably not the sort of "settlement" you had in mind.

The more they fight it, the more people are going to hate us.

The people who matter don't hate us and the people who hate us don't matter; that's what's important.

Re:As well they should

[gaspar ilom]

> And it's not your place to decide who a company can and can't do business with

Says who? Get your nose out of that sociopathic Ayn Rand/Libertarian propaganda.

"Unregulated free markets" are not some immutable law of Nature, or physics. Nor were they handed-down by god/s. They are a human social constructs. (as is the dysfunctional regulatory framework we have now, and as would be a better, alternative system.) Forget, for the moment, the fact that corporations benefit form from the stability that government ostensibly provides -- via roads and bridges, national defense, public education, a legal system that enforces contracts, etc.

We, the people -- via government -- have the power to issue and regulate currency. (even if the US Federal Reserve is private, it doesn't have to be that way.) We're already living through a catastrophe of banks that were "too big to fail" -- so of course we need to, and ought to, regulate the banking industry.

And on top of all that, consider that we, the public, basically give away money and power to corporations by allowing them to have limited liability. In exchange, I ask that our government regulate these monopoly credit card companies as a sort of "common carrier," such that they cannot discriminate on the basis of political ideology. Now, you either believe that we can't have government enforce such regulation (within constitutional constraints) -- or, you don't believe in democracy.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

"A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats."

So no, military operations don't include anything other than shooting guns.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

And I'm not sure how liability works with a bank either, but if you are kicked out because you are black (or white, or green) in the US, then the bank broke the law. From what I'm hear, it's similar in the EU.

So now that we've established that there are some things they are allowed to refuse services for, and other things they are not, then we can move on to whether they were right or wrong in this case, whether morally or legally.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

But that is still discrimination based on the people WITHIN the organization.

But it's not. If they discriminate solely based on membership in an organization, they are not singling out any person within the organization. I know more than one male member of The Society of Women Engineers, so discriminating against the organization isn't necessarily discriminating against women, despite the name. So would it be fair to refuse service to them? Would it be legal?

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

Yeah, their argument is that racism should be supported because "the free market" (which doesn't exist in the US, but the libertarians pretend it does whenever it suits them) will fix any such problem.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

That's for direct safety reasons. Wasn't there some vaccine that they didn't give black people because it was likely to cause them problems, but not white people? It wouldn't be discrimination to give a less effective alternative to them to prevent safety issues. Keeping people from an action that may harm them is different from keeping people from something in order to harm them. And the courts (and apparently, everyone not on slashdot) recognizes this distinction.

Re:As well they should

[Richy_T]

You're quite, quite wrong.

Re:As well they should

[mr_lizard13]

The US doesn't own the world son. Your little laws don't mean shit outside your borders.

Re:As well they should

[Co0Ps]

Then you are likewise arguing that the government doesn't have an "incentive" to keep public roads safe or provide good education. So by that standard everything should be privatized. "The government" is not some kind of sentient being that doesn't give a fuck. It's a collection of institutions with normal people with normal jobs. They have responsibilities and if they screw up they could get fired - just like any other job in the private sector.

The government doesn't have expenditures and profit but rather responsibilities and money it needs to spend to meet those responsibilities. This has pros and cons. The cons are that it makes it non-innovative and it has higher expenses. The pros is that it can focus directly on these responsibilities and it acts in the public interest since it's administered by politicians elected by the people. This makes it he best entity to use for managing the common, basic infrastructure and services all citizens indiscriminately have right to access. Like using roads, getting education etc.

You know private sector is a bad idea when the business idea is basically "own it, become part of the system and profit from it" - when there's no innovation or risk involved. The big credit card companies (like many other banks) have done precisely this - they have become a part of the system. The lock in effect of the technology and people now using their proprietary currency transaction technology is enormous. It's exactly the same lock in effect where mobile operators have created a proprietary standard for text messaging which enables them to charge 700000$+ per gb of data. They own the infrastructure and the standard which reduces competition to zero. You can't just start your own text messaging standard that competes with the existing version - try to convince the telecom operators that they should support this new standard in their network that will make them earn less money. If a private company own the power lines they will charge you as much as you are prepared to pay - which is a lot because you need power. If a private company owns the road you will pay up because you need to drive to work. If a private company owns the transaction technology you'll pay that 1-5% per transaction (essentially a tax) and yearly 60$ because you need to buy food.

There's lots of money to be made on simply owning standards and infrastructure. Many companies has made the lock in effect part of their business model. Microsoft for example. God knows how much money they have earned so far on having created their executable standard, OS API standard, GUI standard, office standard formats and so on. This has paved the way for lots of innovation though. The credit card companies paved the way for the credit card standard once. This doesn't mean that they should be granted the exclusive market position that they got from this forever though. By replacing proprietary lock-in standards, technology and infrastructure with general public, open ones there is lots of money that can be saved by tearing down the lock in effects. So philosophically this issue touches on (software) patents as well. Innovation grants you the right to exploit either artificial or proprietary standard-given lock in effects for a while - as a reward. But people also have the right to not be subject to this skewed market for too long for the same reasons as there are antitrust law.

Re:As well they should

[shutdown -p now]

The laws that we have make it hard to compete by virtue of screwing over your customers (more than is usual, anyway). As you note, PayPal is a shining example of that.

Re:As well they should

[shutdown -p now]

Look up the definition of "cartel" in the dictionary.

Re:As well they should

[bill_mcgonigle]

The laws that we have make it hard to compete by virtue of screwing over your customers (more than is usual, anyway). As you note, PayPal is a shining example of that.

The laws cheerfully allow PayPal to screw over its customers - are you unaware? Meanwhile, it's nearly impossible to compete with PayPal. Therefore, PayPal will continue to screw over its customers whenever it feels like it, safe in the knowledge that the government is protecting its business model.

Re:As well they should

[TapeCutter]

Indeed, "Unregulated free markets" is an oxymoron since a "market" in the economic sense is just a set of rules governing transactions.

Re:As well they should

[budgenator]

Many do, for instance US federal laws against rape and murder can be enforce irregardless of where the crime took place; you really have to read the law to know for sure.
for example, the RICO statutes:

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt in which such person has participated as a principal within the meaning of section 2, title 18, United States Code, to use or invest, directly or indirectly, any part of such income, or the proceeds of such income, in acquisition of any interest in, or the establishment or operation of, any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce. TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 96 > 1962 Prohibited activities
note it says "It shall be unlawful for any person who has received any income..." not "It shall be unlawful for any person in the United States who has received any income..." and you just know that there is an office at the DOJ working out ways to prosecute Asange and Wikileaks and working out a way to apply RICO to them.

Re:As well they should

[budgenator]

I'm not sure Wikileaks is part of the press.

Re:As well they should

[cavreader]

The US also pushed for the League of Nations but ended up not joining because by the time all of the political drama and compromises had been played out the original League as envisioned by Wilson had been negotiated away.

Re:As well they should

[budgenator]

I'd be amazed if NATO didn't have numerous treaties and operating agreement amongst its members respecting the classifications of its members documents.

Re:As well they should

[hairyfeet]

I would also point out it is We,The People, that is paying for this douchebaggery so don't we have the right to know where our money went? I'm sure the guy above would argue the CEO of a company has the right to know if the IT guy is running a CP server on their network but what we have here is 1000 times worse: active coverup of a pedo ring using OUR money and OUR force to protect sick fucks that not ONLY did this in Afghanistan but in Kosovo? Did the the same damned thing with 10 and 11 year old girls!

So this isn't some "think of the children" bullshit here, we are talking about a company working for and with ties to the US government actively snatching little fricking kids and selling them for fucktoys. This is EXACTLY the kind of shit the American people have a right to know, and how sad is it that only wikileaks seems to give a shit enough to publish while OUR MSM tripped over themselves to have Assange declared worse than Osama. How far this once great nation has fallen, and I'm only glad my grandfather that fought and suffered to free Europe isn't here to see what a sleazebag country we have become.

Re:As well they should

[wannabgeek]

*Most* of slashdotters also recognize the difference between private information of individuals and pseudo-private information - that of governments which are supposedly owned by public.

Re:As well they should

[MimeticLie]

Except the first amendment doesn't apply, because as many other posters have pointed out Wikileaks isn't in the US. If Visa and MasterCard are violating anything, it's EU law.

Re:As well they should

[TaoPhoenix]

Let's cut to the endgame of this.

Response from Visa & MC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdCUpiI1MSA&NR=1

"Here's a settlement of $10,000 without admission of wrongdoing. Plus fees to the Simpsons for legal advice. Now go away."

Re:As well they should

[cavreader]

And the laws of other countries don't mean shit to the US. I thought this fact would already be widely known by anyone paying even the slightest attention to what goes on in the world. The government has done nothing but blow smoke and issue crazed rhetoric about Wiki-leaks and the only person being charged is the guy who released the information.

Re:As well they should

[icebraining]

That's not the given argument either.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

"it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things and it's not their place to make moral decisions on behalf of their clients."

Bullshit. Until it is no longer the case that one is the owner of ones self and ones possessions, they have all the right in the world to decide who uses their service.

If you are so worried about the lack of options, perhaps you should consider the reason for that instead. You will find that the control over people you endorse is exactly why we have these monolithic corporations.

Re:As well they should

[Jiro]

It's "active coverup of a pedo ring" in exactly the same way that not searching everyone's computers is active coverup of a pedophile: there are pedophiles who can't be caught because their existence is hidden from you, but if you conduct a fishing expedition to such a degree that there is no such thing as private information any more, you can catch them.

Assange pretty much released an indiscriminate chunk of secret documents. Nothing he did was aimed at catching pedophiles; the fact that it revealed some pedophiles was a side effect of the fact that there are a certain number of pedophiles in any large group (whether a group of government workers or a group of private citizens) and if you do a massive enough release you'll catch a couple.

So this isn't some "think of the children" bullshit here, we are talking about a company working for and with ties to the US government actively snatching little fricking kids and selling them for fucktoys.

You're phrasing that to make it sound like secret government documents reveal real pedophiles, but secret personal documents don't. That's not true You really could save a number of children from being fucktoys if you somehow managed to hack into a zillion personal computers and posted everything to the Internet. It's not just an excuse--there actually would be children saved from sexual molestation by doing this.

But it still wouldn't be good.

Re:As well they should

[Teun]

There might be a reason one of the cases is brought in Denmark where Visa is the de-facto monopoly(!) on debit payments.

Debit payments are in Europe vastly more important than CC and a Visa led consortium has bid to take over the debit payments in many other countries of the EU.

Re:As well they should

[PPH]

I am. And I wish to speak by making a donation.

Re:As well they should

[mysidia]

Actually, the fix was the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. So, by definition, it was constitutional (baring any problems with the amendment process).

We are discussing anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws, specifically. The 13th amendment doesn't have anything to do with discriminatory business practices; the 13th amendment forbids slavery. Now it is a true historical fact, that in North America slavery became discriminatory, as indentured servitude had been replaced with chattel slavery, resulting in all slaves being African or Native Americans.

Enslavement based on race was only one very extreme type of discrimination however.

So the 13th amendment addressed only that one specific problem. But the racial discrimination went way beyond slavery, evidenced by the fact it continued even after the 13th amendment was passed, well into the 60s.

Re:As well they should

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...dude? The government is not a person it is a business owned by WE THE PEOPLE who have a RIGHT to know what our money is being spent on!

We are talking about OUR MONEY being paid to guys that give little fucking kids as party favors! Doesn't that bother you even a little bit? I know Citizens United was SCOTUS trying to sell us down the river but repeat after me...governments and corporations are not people they are businesses and like all businesses they are (or at least should be) responsible to their shareholders!

Now you gonna tell me if you bought shares in Google or MSFT you would be okay with "We're not gonna tell you our plans, what we did with your money, in fact here is our response to you" and they gave you an 8x6 of Goatse? Are you REALLY that "corporation yay, government yay"?

Maybe you were all for rigging the 72 election as well? After all Nixon said it was state secrets too. Without transparency there can be NO legitimate government, because there is NOTHING stopping another Watergate or some PMO from making sure no matter what "el presidente" gets his way. Is that REALLY the government you want?

Frankly Manning is an American Patriot and hero and Assange should have gotten the Nobel prize given to our "dropping bombs isn't hostile" dear leader. Those papers on wikileaks make the Pentagon papers look like the Sunday funnies and the simple fact that those that committed those crimes aren't in prison and instead the whistleblowers are being hunted simply shows how we no longer have a functional democracy, but a puppet state controlled by the elite.

Re:As well they should

[Artifex]

I would have thought he was on the list for decades? Was he on and off the list multiple times? How much does that cost?

Honestly? Probably $2.7 Billion US - the blood money for the Lockerbie victims.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

"The key element is that no man, organisation or government can force you to interact with people you don't like." You are right. The site you linked to states that there is nothing wrong with deciding you wish to not associate with anyone for any reason, so there is no argument against discrimination at all. It should be legal, it should be allowed by all, and there's nothing that would limit any discrimination that most people find objectionable.

Given the troubles with discrimination and the fact that just about everywhere in the industrialized world bans discrimination in one form or another (usually with very good reason) it just goes with my personal view that libertarians are anti-democracy anarchists. Just about every (if not absolutely every) democracy has passed some anti-discrimination law, but yet the libertarians want to reverse all that and bring back segregation and such. And justify that as the right to harm others through violence (where property rights of the rich trump civil rights of the poor). And people wonder why libertarians are never taken seriously in politics. You can't be libertarian (by the definitions of the site you cited) without being evil. We have enough evil in the two parties running already, I'll pick a non-evil 3rd party. Now someone just needs to start one.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

our "dropping bombs isn't hostile" dear leader

This is what got Clinton in trouble. The judge defined "sex" with a definition that excluded receipt of oral sex as a sexual act. As such, stating "I did have sexual relations with her" would have been perjury, and "no" was the only legal answer he could have given.

The definition of "hostile" in terms of the war powers act requires that American troops be put in danger. The point was to protect servicemen. So if no servicemen were put in harm, then the war powers act doesn't apply. But when it was passed, there was no concept of waging a war without risk. So the spirit of the law is such that it should include unmanned strikes. However, the words in the law make it clear that if one were to "wage war" without risk to American life, then it isn't a "hostile" act as the act defines it and isn't regulated.

Don't blame Obama for the definition. Blame him for being evil (but sadly, better than his predecessor).

Re:As well they should

[toriver]

Growing up means having to play by the rules. In this case, the regulations that are there to prevent "privately owned companies" (that become the most significant actors processing payments between people and companies) from abusing their power and becoming a political tool. What if instead of the U.S. government pressuring them on WikiLeaks, it was e.g. the Russian government pressuring them to stop payments to British Petroleum in order to force oil concessions from the latter? Where does it stop?

Re:As well they should

[Macthorpe]

Just because armies are authorised to use lethal force, that doesn't mean (or even imply) that it's all they do.

Re:As well they should

[bug1]

That was much better :)

Re:As well they should

[xelah]

I wouldn't be surprised if VISA and Mastercard would much prefer to be able to (or be required to) allow their member banks to offer their services to whoever they think they can make money from. I doubt very much they enjoy dealing with political nonsense like this - there's nothing in it for them, it's a distraction and whatever they do is going to upset somebody. It'd be much easier to point to a law and say 'sorry, press/public/US government, but it would be illegal to do what you're asking' than be forced in to making a political decision.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, this is going off topic somewhat but I take serious issue with this:

"In fact, Iran isn't "lobbing missiles" because it doesn't want a war. It doesn't have the economy or technology to survive one."

This is very ignorant of what Iran does, Iran doesn't directly "lob missiles" but it has for decades now been handing missiles to everyone from Hezbollah to the Taliban to the Iraqi shiite insurgency during America's occupation of Iraq to lob at foreigners.

Iran doesn't do direct wars sure, it carries out wars by proxy, and that's how it gets away with it. But I think it's false to say Iran isn't "lobbing missiles"- clearly it is, just not directly. It very much wants a war, it just wants a war where the opponent through good international manners doesn't fight back because it relies on plausible deniability- "Oh those mortar rounds and rockets with made in Iran written on them? Yeah, sorry they killed a few of your civilians, it's not really our fault though, someone stole them. Honest.".

This is also the primary reason why Iran can't be trusted with nuclear equipment full stop, because it if it's willing to covertly violent numerous global standards on arms control for rockets, how could we possibly trust it on it's word with nuclear materials? But still, that's a different argument.

I'm not particularly a fan of the US (politically- beautiful country, lots of nice people otherwise) myself, but the anti-US rhetoric that reaches this absurd conclusion that the likes of Iran and Hamas etc. are these cute innocent little puppies that would do no wrong and it's all Israel and the US or whoever elses fault is rather tiresome, stupid, ignorant, and part the reason the likes of Iran can keep getting away with war by proxy, and can keep building tensions in the middle east to boiling point.

There are other ways of committing war than just directly firing munitions at your opponent, and Iran is very much engaged in them.

Re:As well they should

[azalin]

If Visa would shut down it's operation in Germany today, I'd say 90% of the people would not even notice and for 9.5% the minor inconvience would last less than two weeks (until car rental companies changed the insurance process). The remaining few would bicker a little bit and then move on.
I'd say for the Netherlands and France the same will hold true. The UK might feel a little more impact, but would probably stop caring about the issue in three or for weeks (that means until everyone noticed, sighed once and used their bank issued ec card instead).

Re:As well they should

[philipmather]

I'd argue that's a technicality but live by the sword, die by the sword, I can't argue when Wikipedia uses Mastercard and Visa as the primary example of duopoly eh? :^)
I'd still prefer to use the word monopoly in this case on the basis that the term carries greater negative connotations in the context and society in general and also on the Duck principle i.e. if it looks and quacks like one...

Re:As well they should

[azalin]

Except that utility company have monopolies only because those monopolies are granted by law. Monopolies don't persist if there are no laws to protect them.

OPEC? (although technically an oligopoly)
Monopolies occur all the time if not regulated. Main reasons being high costs of entry, technological or market share advantages or control over resources.
Going back to the example: IF said water company decides not to serve you anymore, the chances a different company would start laying a second set of pipes to your place are rather dim. Society accepts this fact and therefor attaches strings to "accepted" monopolies. Like having to serve every customer, or putting caps on the prices.
Don't they teach basic business theory anymore?

Re:As well they should

[GuidoW]

Please explain why you think this is a joke. Wikileaks IS accepting Bitcoin donations, and it is working quite well, too.

Re:As well they should

[the eric conspiracy]

Poppycock. We are ALL direct subjects of a state. That is not the same as having no freedoms.

Re:As well they should

[the eric conspiracy]

Yes, they must follow regulations. That doesn't mean that they have to do business with somebody they don't want to unless there is a legal reason.

Look at Wikileaks. They have publicly threatened to reveal confidential information from various banks.

Why would ANY financial institution consider doing business with them?

The ONLY reason would be legal compulsion. Is there such? What law exactly states that they have to?

Re:As well they should

[Courageous]

In practice, NO, because race and skin color are special. Better go find a better example; race and gender discrimination are so special and privileged that it is a 'special case', they are blocked/unacceptable in a manner more strongly than almost any other type of business decision.

There's a variety of very good reasons for this. Foremost, is that race and ethnic strife are so sufficiently contentions as to create the most heinous outcomes imaginable: such will start wars, at a very minimum. Which is to say, clearly: a collection of individuals, bound together into common cause as a country, have every reasonable motive to nip this particular freedom in the bud on the grounds that it is necessary to do so to prevent a clear and present danger of unimaginable danger.

C//

Re:As well they should

[Courageous]

Monopolies don't persist if there are no laws to protect them.

This isn't true, you know. Ever heard of the concept of a natural monopoly?

There are many regions in the US where cable companies have no legally granted monopoly, but because the cost of running/trenching redundant lines in parallel with an existing company with high service density, no second company will compete.

In markets like this a sort of monopoly naturally happens. Worse, in markets with just a few players tend towards a process called "tacit collusion".

The free market is good, but if one persists in treating it like a magical genie that can solve all woes, one will be as crazy as a communist.

C//

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

OPEC doesn't have a monopoly. US, Canada and Mexico are not in it. And US, Canada and Mexico combined produce more oil than OPEC. For all the talk, only 40% of the oil used in US is imported from outside the country. Although I should admit that it's been about 5 years since I checked this number.

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

This isn't true, you know. Ever heard of the concept of a natural monopoly?

Yes. I also happen to know that the sky is blue and how to tie my shoes. "Ever heard of it..."... Geez! It's a myth. The same was said about Internet Registry before multiple registrars were allowed to form and compete.

If a cable company has no legally granted monopoly, what's preventing other methods of content deliver and information exchange from competing in the area? Power company is still regulated, right? So no ethernet over power lines because it's not profitable or because it must get a regulatory approval? Oh, and digging up ground still requires permits, right? That's local regulatory barrier. This isn't a monopoly keeping competition off the market by using its monopoly power. It's regulatory barriers that are keeping competition from coming in -- not market place forces. Do you know that in many parts of Africa cell phones appeared where no land lines ever existed? Cost of digging up dirt doesn't always have to be paid in order to create a content delivery system.

Re:As well they should

[Luckyo]

Correct. This is not something Iran has invented - it's something it has learned. From us. We have supplied their enemies with far more powerful weapons for decades. We (not Iran) also established countless precedences on this issue stating that this sort of supplying is not an act of war, not matter how much people like you would want to apply one set of rules to party you view as friendly, and another to those you view as hostile.

Therefore you're barking up a very wrong tree.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

Given that's the primary distinction from other organizations, it explicitly indicates that all other functions could be handled elsewhere, thus implying that's their primary duty.

They don't cover much else in basic training other than how to kill and skills that enable and improve that capability. Well, it has been a while since I've taken a look at the substance in basic training, maybe it's all about cosmetology now, but it seemed pretty focused on things designed to make one a better killer.

Re:As well they should

[PPH]

We are discussing anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws, specifically. The 13th amendment doesn't have anything to do with discriminatory business practices;

Actually, we are getting a bit off topic. But for the purpose of illustrating that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution do indeed extend beyond interactions between the government and the people and to those between private individuals (businesses in this case being considered to be groups of private individuals). Just try buying a slave and see where that will get you.

Collectively, they are referred to as civil rights violations and if you don't think businesses have been slapped with them, you haven't been reading the news much lately. Worse yet, if any evidence can be found to show that VISA/MC reacted at the request of the US Government, the violation becomes pretty straightforward. The government cannot suppress free speech, either directly or by employing the credit card companies as agents to do its bidding.

Re:As well they should

[jmcvetta]

Many do, for instance US federal laws against rape and murder can be enforce irregardless of where the crime took place; you really have to read the law to know for sure.

Yet such laws, despite their unilateral declaration of universal jurisdiction, can only be enforced under certain circumstances:
- The violation occurred on US territory
- The violator was a US citizen, and can be extradited
- The Washington regime can convince a foreign nation to hand over one of their citizens
- Use of covert military force, probably in contravention of international and possibly of US law, to abduct or assassinate a foreign citizen outside US territory

Re:As well they should

[WNight]

Julian Assange is just telling the truth. If you think that's a military action you'd have to admit that your intense propagandizing certainly is.

If a Wikileaks supporter popped over tonight, round 7ish, to shoot you for your role in this military action would you still feel this is okay?

Re:As well they should

[icebraining]

The site you linked to states that there is nothing wrong with deciding you wish to not associate with anyone for any reason, so there is no argument against discrimination at all.

No it doesn't. If you intend to keep replying, it would be useful if you could read it.

By the way, I don't necessarily agree with them, but misrepresenting their position like that is not right.

Re:As well they should

[mysidia]

if any evidence can be found to show that VISA/MC reacted at the request of the US Government, the violation becomes pretty straightforward. The government cannot suppress free speech, either directly or by employing the credit card companies as agents to do its bidding.

I will agree with that. If the government, or any government representatives such as elected officials (president, senator, house member), or staff, DoJ worker, etc, pressured MC or Visa to block payments based on a political message, then there would be a clear violation.

And it would be the government violating the law, not necessarily MC/Visa, who merely executed illegal actions on their behalf, possibly in good faith, that the government would not order to do something the government was not allowed to do.

Re:As well they should

[WNight]

You have no expectation of privacy on a work computer. The owners have the right to bypass all security measures and read everything. Then they are required by law to report most of the illegal activity they find.

In the same way the electorate are the rulers of the country and ultimately have the right to know what's being done in their names.

Obviously our government can't be trusted (lying about the need to invade Iraq, etc) and therefore, however beneficial it would be to keep some secrets, we cannot justify it. People are dying, unjustly, at our hands. Our convenience is laughably unimportant.

Re:As well they should

[WNight]

[But mom,] China, Russia, India, or Japan also [...]

Ahhh, comparing yourselves to China and Russia. Remember when you used to make you look good?

You're now spying on all your people (and the rest of the world) and are ten years into the great patriotic war against Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan and Yemen, etc.

A law is only applicable if it can be enforced otherwise it's just a bunch of bureaucratic posturing.

In other words, force is the only language you understand. Noted.

Re:As well they should

[hairyfeet]

Actually I'd say Obama is MORE evil than Bush, and here's why: Everyone knew what Bush was, hell he did jokes about "his people" at functions for the mega rich. He was an ass, people knew he was an ass, but sadly the choice was like shrimp or wimp in the 80s it was pretty much suck all around.

But I know plenty of young people who will NEVER believe in the system or vote EVER again because of what a lying POS Obama turned out to be. They voted because they believed they could actually affect change only to watch Obama become Bush II dipped in chocolate. Every major promise? Broken. Every major evil Bush supported? Obama supports too, sometimes to an even worse degree.

So it is at this point I have to say I agree with them, just don't bother giving a shit and wait for our Arab spring to come when the whole corrupt cabal comes crashing down. I personally think it is just a matter of time, as I know people, good hard working folks mind you, living in tents because there simply aren't any jobs to be had. I personally wouldn't be surprised if the real numbers are closer to 30% unemployment and probably close to that underemployment.

As for Clinton? hell he could fuck cheerleaders on the White House lawn and I'd still vote for him for POTUS to this very day. The economy was running good when old Slick Willie was pres, hell when he was guv the roads were getting fixed and the education system was improving. Personally I'd rather have a guy that fucked bimbos than the country ANY day of the week!

Re:As well they should

[icebraining]

Well, Wikileaks is not under the US jurisdiction, so they couldn't sue them even if it was illegal under US law.

Re:As well they should

[Courageous]

I was citing CABLE as an example, and you cited things OTHER THAN cable as counter examples. Since you have placed your argument on shifting sand, what do you want me to do? It's not the cost of permits that permits classic cable from coming against other cable competitors: the math of the situation is obvious. The entrenched competitor has too much density, and therefore better costs per linear foot of trunk. If a competitor came in and starting laying down a second trunk, the company with existing lines can lower prices enough to put the new competitor out of business. Easy, shmeasy.

While it's obvious to me that the above is true, if the cost of permits is so prohibitive, how does the existing cable company manage it? Hint, hint, they did, and do.

I'm aware that there are alternative delivery systems. But they're aren't enough such systems, and without a critical mass of players, there will not be thriving competition. Small markets often behave collusively, through a principle known as "tacit" collusion. The competitors never have to meet or agree to lock-step prices, as there are so few of these competitors that they can do so without ever meeting or openly colluding.

The free market isn't everything.

C//

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

"The key element is that no man, organisation or government can force you to interact with people you don't like."

You may dislike my characterization of their comments, but I did read it and my statements are factually correct. If you have an issue with my statements, please explain how my characterization of what they are calling for (complete deregulation of all discrimination regulations) is at odds with their stance.

Continually saying "that's not what they said" when it is exactly what they said just leads to frustration. They call for no rules against discrimination at all. And I took that, applied history and logic, and stated what they called for would result in. But that's not what you objected to, but my statements about what they said. And they called for complete deregulation.

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

Cable is an example of what? I didn't say that monopolies don't exist (if you recall). I said they don't last. If the cable company was justified in shelling out the costs to achieve such a high "cable density" as you put it, then with time as more technological solutions become available, it is inevitable that market entry will be available to someone at a lower cost. The only way that cost of market entry can be kept up is if there is something which keeps those costs from falling down despite cheaper technical solutions. If power lines weren't so regulated, we'd have a content delivery over power lines long time ago. I am not sure why you think that narrowing a solution to one technology somehow proves any point. It's the service that matters. Both TV programming and the internet service are offered through other technologies now. Oh, and the "tacit" collusion as you called it is even less effective than actual collusion. Costs always decrease because cheaper methods are developed. This allows providers to decrease prices to compete (again, unless some entity stands in their way of decreasing prices). They don't do it to be nice. They do it because they like steak.

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

Just so we are clear, naming technologies which can compete with cable does not put the argument "cable company X has a monopoly" on a shifting sand. It shows quite clearly that the argument that a monopoly which is held by a cable company may be broken by other technology companies. Thus it shows that the argument "cable company X has a monopoly" does not imply the conclusion which you attempting to suggest: "the cable company X will always have a monopoly in that area."

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

Buah.. tired.. ok... i am gonna try this again just because i am tired of this lord of the flies being used as a manual in governing:

My argument was NOT placed on a shifting sand. You attempted to state that a regional monopoly of a certain cable company implies that permanent monopolies are possible. You had to be suggesting the permanent nature of that particular monopoly because you were countering the argument that monopolies (without government assistance) do not last. My retort (that other types of businesses could be providing the same service through other technologies even if they couldn't do it with the same technology so long as the local government didn't stand in the way) does not go outside the scope of the original argument. The monopoly is not on selling a particular technology. It is on providing a particular type of service. A different technology providing the same type of service in the same market would amount to a substitute. And if there a substitute service, then the original provider does not have a monopoly. I cannot wait for you to spew something along the lines of "so you agree that it is a monopoly?" I can just check myself into an insane asylum right then and there. This insanity that is calling itself progressive thought just might not reach me there. Just in case, you do have an attention span that is at least 1 sentence long, I'll repeat. Monopolies do exist. They just don't LAST without laws to protect them. Please, remember what technology is. It's people changing natural resources into things which other people find useful. People will continue to do that whether people who wear suits and smile and nod approve of it or not.

Re:As well they should

[cavreader]

"comparing yourselves to China and Russia" No I am not comparing them I am just pointing out how those countries are given a free pass on anything they do and are not held to the standards being applied to the US. Until every country is judged by the same set of standards conflict will continue unabated. "You're now spying on all your people (and the rest of the world)" Spying on ALL of or people? 100% Bullshit. Exaggerated non-sense to prop up your sense of self righteousness. There has not been anyone convicted of a crime in the US using electronic evidence collected without a warrant. The President and Congress may make changes in the law but ultimately it is the judicial branch who gets the last word on what can and what cannot be used against someone accused of a crime. The Judicial branch has torpedoed quite a few laws that made it through Congressional approval. "force is the only language you understand" The use of force has been and will continue to be the primary means of change in both international and domestic affairs. I am not saying I agree that force should be used all the time I am only stating that force has been used ever since one caveman hit another over the head with a club to get a bigger cave. Every country on the planet has used force in one form or another when declaring their borders and defending their sovereignty. Every boarder on the plant is drawn in blood. And as far as Yemen, Pakistan, and every other country in the region I don't give a damn what happens to them. I support removing all US presence along with the financial aid and just let them continue to kill one another as long as they want.

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, you either believe that we can't [sic] have government enforce such regulation (within constitutional constraints) -- or, you don't [sic] believe in democracy.

You didn't mean that of course.

Re:As well they should

[Kattspya]

I did and I see standard oil continually lowering their prices as costs fell to keep newcomers out of the business. I see alcoa doing the same. The same goes for some of the "robber baron" railway tycoons.

Have you actually looked at history or did you only look at the parts supporting your preconceptions?

As for companies "turning evil" when above a certain size I'm convinced it's due to the shortsightedness that comes when the original owners relinquish or otherwise are no longer in control. Then the only check on shortsighted behaviour are the shareholders and they tend not to hold accountable for errors nor very interested in the long term.

The only decently behaving (giving the customers what they want) large companies seem to be the ones still under the original owners control. Examples are: google, walmart and maybe IKEA. There are probably better examples and you'll probably disagree with walmart.

Re:As well they should

[Courageous]

Three responses to my message? Really?

Anyway. The monopoly of land-based cable is likely to persist for quite a while, as well as the power line monopoly. They would continue without government assistance. In the case of one, the power line, it would be relative madness to do it any other way than current, and the same forces I mentioned previously apply: no one would. Same for water, by the way. No one would, either. In the case the cable company, decades of cable in many, many municipal areas that do not grant monopolies is against you. Sure, this is a small and not very thriving market of folks attempting to compete with the select few who have already done the digging, but if what you want is bandwidth then they're not competing very well, thank you.

Also, "monopoly" is hardly the only concern of a thriving market. A handful of players is simply not enough, because these players will virtually always collude tacitly (on prices), if given any opportunity. Small markets tend to form ad-hoc oligopolies. These are not in your interests, no matter what you might feel about it.

The free market is often good. But it isn't always good, and doesn't always take you to that shining, happy place you wish it would. Look what's been happening with all the mega-telecomms for the last 20 years. Give them another 5 and they'd be Ma Bell again, if they could. Are you saying that government interventions forced them into their M&A spree? Get real.

Natural monopolies are no myth.

C//

Re:As well they should

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to Osama bin Laden, son.

Not a single fuck was given on that day.

Re:As well they should

[PCM2]

in Germany EC/Maestro vastly dominates Visa/Mastercard

In perception only, since Maestro is owned by Mastercard. Similarly, your carte bleue might also be a Visa card (particularly if you want to use it outside of France). I don't know anything about Denmark's system.

Re:As well they should

[PCM2]

If Visa would shut down it's operation in Germany today, I'd say 90% of the people would not even notice and for 9.5% the minor inconvience would last less than two weeks (until car rental companies changed the insurance process). The remaining few would bicker a little bit and then move on.

The German people, maybe. Travelers would be a little more put off, and I doubt German merchants would be willing to give up sales to international customers. Or do you really expect the first step of international travel should be to send away for a local bank card months in advance?

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

Three responses to my message? Really?

I was tired and kept making errors of omission which made points opposite of the one I wanted to make.

The monopoly of land-based cable is likely to persist for quite a while, as well as the power line monopoly.

Now I just think you are ribbing me. Of course, the power monopoly persists. It does so by law. It's supported by multiple local and regional regulators.

They would continue without government assistance. In the case of one, the power line, it would be relative madness to do it any other way than current, and the same forces I mentioned previously apply: no one would.

No, they would not. The examples of substitute infrastructure getting built (in the absence of laws prohibiting it or increasing barrier for its entry) are plentiful. Unless, of course, by "assistance" you mean some sort of subsidy. Because they would persist without any subsidies as long as laws keep the barriers to entry high for their competition. I know that's a form of assistance as well, but I am just not sure if you include this type of assistance in your definition of the word.

Also, "monopoly" is hardly the only concern of a thriving market. A handful of players is simply not enough, because these players will virtually always collude tacitly (on prices), if given any opportunity. Small markets tend to form ad-hoc oligopolies.

You wanna explain how cell phone service keep dropping in price and increasing in quality even though there is only 4 national providers? Sure, the drops are not as precipitous as they used to be, but that's mostly due to the fact that competition has driven the prices almost down to the cost levels. Or would you like to suggest that cell service does not have a naturally high barrier to entry? Or that it is not thriving? What you call ad-hoc oligopolies might be temporary conditions which result from prices getting driven so close to the costs by the market. At that point price levels decline only gradually (as technology improves). The idea of "tacit collusion" is absurd. In fact, it's a bona fide oxymoron. I apologize for the level of abrasiveness of this statement, but I do stand by its content.

The free market is often good. But it isn't always good

It isn't good or bad. It's ethics neutral. It's just the equilibrium condition of the current state of knowledge and the current availability of resources. Anything which interferes with it introduces inefficiencies. Inefficient use of knowledge hinders progress and inefficient use of resources creates waste (of resources).

Give them another 5 and they'd be Ma Bell again, if they could.

Give them regulation and it will keep other players off the market. Right now you have a lot of phone over ip activity. They already fired the 1st shot with forcing vonage to support 911 calls. But you still have skype and ventrilo (not to mention the ease of rolling your own phone over ip server). Try dealing with a government organization and you'll see what technological inertia is like (they think faxes are still a form of communication).

Are you saying that government interventions forced them into their M&A spree?

Ha??? When? When did I say that the government helps formation of monopolies? I said it helps to perpetuate them. Competition breaks them up or at least reduces their market share. I said government keeps competition away and thus prolongs monopolies. I am not saying, by the way, that it doesn't encourage them to form. I am just saying that I haven't delved into the subject of their formation -- only into the subject of their persistence.

You do know that FIOS competes with cable, do you not? And you do know that it has to lay down new cables to do it, right? You just keep saying that there is a cable monopoly in 1 region, bu

Re:As well they should

[gary_7vn]

Glenn Greenwald writes cogently about issues relating to the corporate state. You might want to check him out if you haven't. thanks, Bill

Re:As well they should

[Courageous]

No, they would not. The examples of substitute infrastructure getting built (in the absence of laws prohibiting it or increasing barrier for its entry) are plentiful.

Show me your examples of redundant competitive water infrastructure, line power, or "plentiful" competitive, redundant line comms.

The idea of "tacit collusion" is absurd.

Why do you find it so? Overt collusion occurs when it can, and would occur pretty aggressively without government intervention. Is it "inefficient" to prohibit monopolies, price fixing, and anti-competitive behaviors, such as business behaviors expressly targeted at putting competitors completely out of business?

Strong players in narrow and unthriving market are quite happy to manipulate that market into an "efficiency" which benefits themselves pretty heavily, at the expense of everyone else. To wit: they aren't very "efficient" if you put the dotted line around the entire market. These parties don't care about the market, though, just themselves. The Invisible Hand is an amazing thing, but let's not commit ideological idolatry, okay?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/technology/13panel.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/chipmaker-cartel-fined-331-million-for-dram-price-fixing.ars

Anything which interferes with it (the free free market) introduces inefficiencies.

A free market is not always able to produce an economically effective result. What do you think of the concept of a "market failure"?

You do know that FIOS competes with cable, do you not?

Yes. Well, sorta. FiOS doesn't go everywhere, but be that as it may:

A duopoly (cable vs. AT&T) is hardly a thriving market. You need more than a few players in a market for it to thrive. Two is most assuredly not enough.

You wanna explain how cell phone service keep dropping in price and increasing in quality even though there is only 4 national providers?

Are you confident such a thing would keep happening if there were only 1 national provider? And why are price drops your only measurement of how well the market is doing? Do you think cell service is fungible, like pork, your throughput, quality, or services not to matter?

In any case, it would appear that you regard a market with a vertical monopolist operating in one silo and a very narrow market of nearby substitutes as a "free" one (e.g., municipal water vs bottled water). I do not agree. Conditions need to be changed such that this is not so. My observation is rather generic in nature, as in to say "what we have now sucks, and it shouldn't be merely left there." Additional regulation would be a silly answer; however pretending that privatization will fix everything flies in the face of observed facts. To wit: there are municipalities that have tried privatizing municipal water. As it turns out, the "inefficiency" of government-operating things isn't as bad as the inefficiency of corporately-managed things plus the need to extract private equity return on investment.

It's almost like giving up on your childhood by rejecting its beliefs.

When you assess your own self, how is it that you can be sure that your own mind is that of an adult? Have you ever really evaluated your inner self and asked, or have you never considered the matter?

For example, given the character of your the last paragraph in your message to me, do you find my response here surprising? Is it one you wished me to make? Would have you predicted I would? Was it a desired outcome, or did you lack the foresight to know one was forthcoming? Do you feel wounded by my questions, or introspective, or otherwise? If you feel my response is pointless, why did you bother to generate it? When you wrote an "abrasive" response, did you desire one in return? If not, what would an adult mind have reasonably expected?

C//

Re:As well they should

[MeateaW]

So you agree, corporations eventually go evil when they get too big?

Perhaps ALL shareholders should become legally liable for the actions of the company they hold shares in. Maybe that would fix the system.

Re:As well they should

[MeateaW]

err mastercard/visa not hard to deploy infrastructure????

What planet are you living on?

here's a thought experiment for you:
Go to South Africa. Use your non-mastercard non-visacard payment method to buy a loaf of bread.
Then go to Australia, use your non-mastercard non-visacard payment method to pay for a taxi ride.
Then go to america, use your non-mastercard non-visacard payment method to buy a plane ticket.
Then, after they all deny your payments because they don't support google checkout, because they haven't received the Credit-Card processing machine that supports "Western Union" tell me there is no already deployed infrastructure that is required to process your payment.

Fact is, they deploy hardware. Those little mag-stripe readers are designed to work with them. If you killed mastercard, and visa, all those banks that process those cards would stop being interoperable. You could still use BankX card at BankX machines, but unless BankX talked directly to BankY, you now can't use your card there. You'd need 2 cards.

You see, what mastercard and visa do, is they have deployed a world-wide system, that gets banks to sign up to, to then allow credit cards issued by BankX to work at BankY machines, and vice versa. While it may not be all "Hardware" infrastructure, it is "Software" infrastructure. Legal infrastructure even if you will. BankX agrees that when MasterCard says "Charge it" BankX pays the merchant the money. even if it is a BankY card!!.

Your example of Mastercard or visa denying a card to someone? Actually a false example.

BankX is well within their rights to deny you a card.
BankY is well within their rights to deny you a card.
Neither of them can deny you a card: "For being smelly". Often you'll find they need to provide an actual reason for denying you the card. And if they do, you take them to court and a judge will agree. Double the payout when it turns out both BankX and BankY spoke to each other and said: "I'll block him if you block him" and it turned out the whole reason they decided to deny service was "because we don't like his beliefs about how the world should work".

(as opposed to: "we thought he would be a bad debtor". You can deny bad debtors loans, thats a stupid counter-example).

Re:As well they should

[icebraining]

Your statements are not factually correct. They called for no rules, but they never said there is nothing wrong with it. What they did say is that just because something is wrong, doesn't mean the State should use violence to stop it.

In fact, they specifically refer to that it should be perfectly acceptable for society to shun their behavior and refuse to do business with them because of their policies.

Re:As well they should

[Kattspya]

No, not through size alone it takes more than that. But I'm not ruling out the existance of a point where the increased bureaucracy and inefficiencies inevitably leads to evil in spite of good ownership.

That would solve the problem. It would probably also create much bigger problems. Something should be done but what I cannot tell you.

Re:As well they should

[superwiz]

You know if you are going to deliberately disregard the logic present in my argument which refutes your follow-up arguments. You should at least misquote me. When you put up my own quote which already addresses the questions you raise in your the follow ups, I don't see any point in replying.

Re:As well they should

[LordLimecat]

You could still use BankX card at BankX machines, but unless BankX talked directly to BankY, you now can't use your card there.

er, no, not really. The mag-stripe readers read the mag-stripe, no matter what card it is. Its the software that interprets it, and figures out what card it is, and its then the back-office hardware/software that figures out where to send those payments. Adding a new card is a matter of paying the fees, and updating the software that sends all the payments through.

A lot of small vendors probably wouldnt take your new card, but then thats the same with Amex due to its fees.

Re:As well they should

[AK Marc]

What they did say is that just because something is wrong, doesn't mean the State should use violence to stop it.

They ranked wrongs, making one "more right" even if they still think it wrong. And because they are calling for explicit permission to do that, there's no functional difference between allowing and endorsing.

In fact, they specifically refer to that it should be perfectly acceptable for society to shun their behavior and refuse to do business with them because of their policies.

Which is just ignorant. The free market didn't end segregation. It took government force.

I guess the difference is that I see how the civil rights movement went down and I see that the government (initially against, eventually for) is who ended it. Not the free market. And looking back, we are better off with the civil rights movement having the successes it had.

Libertarians show that they are ignorant of history, ignorant of what happens in the free market, and stupid when ranking evils. And the page you linked to showed that as clearly as any other. "The free market will cure racism." International relations are libertarian. The one who owns the land has 100% power, and they deal with others with the same setup. And we've had massive racism/nationalism/tribalism for as long as records have been around with no indications that it will ever end. How's that for free market libertarian fixing of racism? Oh, it never has and never will "fix" anything.

The only thing libertarianism does is give extra power to the rich and take it away from the poor. It's not about liberty, it's about giving power to those with land and taking it away from those without. And everything I've seen in defense of libertarianism has only solidified that idea. And also recently, it's been made clear to me that libertarianism is anti-democracy in that the libertarians want to roll back freedoms people enjoy and force their idea of freedom against the will of the people. What's wrong with letting the people choose how they'd like to define freedom via democracy? Oh yeah, because only 1% would vote for the way the libertarians want it handled, so the libertarians want to push their agenda regardless of what people want. And that's why they'll never win a real election (and no, the Libertarian party isn't libertarian, they are Republicans without the neo-cons).

Re:As well they should

[Aighearach]

Yeah. Wasn't that pretty much what the whole flap about Google pulling out of China was all about?

No.

Re:As well they should

[Courageous]

When you boldly assert that you have "refuted" my arguments, does it help you win an argument in your head? Is it like one of those moments after you have an argument with another person, where you recite out loud the winning words you wished you would have said in your car while driving down the street, to make you feel better? We're you hoping, some how, by repeating your past mistake of taking the condescending tone with me, that it would lead to some outcome you like? If so, what outcome was that?

I'm curious. Did you predict that I would say any of this?

C//

Re:As well they should

[MimeticLie]

Are you a corporation? That would help.

Just WOW

[lennier1]

Sounds like they're using the playbook of a MAFIAA lawyer (for every dollar of possible revenue demand at least twenty thousand in damages),

Then again, if people donate 16 million bucks to Wikipedia just to get rid of that teaser image of Jimmy Wales' face this might not be that far off after all.

Re:Just WOW

[Lifyre]

I think either they have a legitimate reason to think $15 million is a realistic number (in the grand scheme it isn't that large) or they are going with the start big to get their attention and settle for much less and the removal of the block.

Re:related

[Cyko_01]

ummm not related

Re:related

[chtit_draco]

Spam account.

... and Postfinance?

[Anonymous Coward]

... and what about Postfinance? The Swiss Bank had closed the accounts of Julian Assange and as Switzerland is one of the financial nerve centers of this planet Wikileaks should consider sueing them too.

Re:... and Postfinance?

[Sique]

Switzerland is not in the EU, so EU law (what the law firm in question is specialised in) does not apply.

Re:... and Postfinance?

[Luckyo]

Harder to do due to local legislature being largely in favor on freezing/confiscating foreign assets in favor of local banks. Switzerland is not part of EU.

PRICELESS

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"...for everything else..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMN2c24Y1s

Re:PRICELESS

[alexo]

If the video (or any other) doesn't play, change the "http" to "https" and then tell us what you think of Google.

They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard terms

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact here is:
Someone in the US Government told Visa and Mastercard to get rid of this customer.
Visa and Mastercard get in touch with Datacells acquirer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquirer) and ask if this customer really is what it says it is, and if due dilligence is done. Actually, Visa and Mastercard demands that the acquirer visit every new customer, to verify that they really are a restaurant etc (which they obviously almost never do).
Datacell has told their acquirer that they accept payments for "datahosting" or something like that, but in fact their only business is collecting donations for Wikileaks. This is violation according to visa and mastercard rules. So datacell/wikileaks fucked up, easy as that. Now no other acquirer dear to accept them as a customer :)

Money Orders?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like VISA or MC, don't use it. There are plenty of ways with which to wire money. Grow up people.

CAPTCHA: Puberty

Re:Money Orders?

[PPH]

Wikileaks likes VISA and MC. The problem is VISA and MC don't like Wikileaks.

Should have used Bitcoin.

[earls]

Should have used Bitcoin. No worry there. Right? Right?

Re:Should have used Bitcoin.

[GuidoW]

They DO accept bitcoin. See: http://www.wikileaks.org/Donate.html

Good fucking luck

[TheSpoom]

The CC companies' lawyers will crush Wikileaks into the ground, with 99% certainty. They're just not big enough to get justice here.

Re:Good fucking luck

[kangsterizer]

the fact of the matter is that these people and banks control the world, so its a pretty important battle

Re:Good fucking luck

[TheSpoom]

Realistically one of two things will happen. One: The trial will be over quickly as the CC companies find a way to short circuit the case, with an early dismissal or something similar. Chances: 60%. Two: The trial will take forever because the CC companies will drag it out, and Wikileaks will run out of money (since they control their primary source of donations) and settle. Chances: 39.9%.

Re:Good fucking luck

[Luckyo]

Until someone like Neelie Kroes decides to get involved. That woman has the balls of solid titanium, and she scares the shit out of most high power CEOs.

Re:Good fucking luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Three: You don't know that the party which files a lawsuit does not "settle," and that even if we were to short-hand "accepts a settlement" to "settle" that if they're being run out of money to prosecute their case, their opponents won't pay them for no reason, inches from victory. Chances: 100%.

Re:Good fucking luck

[blueg3]

Or perhaps they'll remind Europe how much fun it might be if Visa and Mastercard suddenly became unavailable there.

Re:Good fucking luck

[nonicknameavailable]

just start a european creditcard and outlaw visa and mastercard

Re:Good fucking luck

[PerformanceDude]

Don't count on it. The Danish courts are not in the pockets of big business the way the US courts are (mainly because judges are appointed for life and don't have to please their political masters to get re-elected). WikiLeaks have picked an interesting jurisdiction for this battle. I for one am going to get some pop-corn and enjoy the show.

Re:Good fucking luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances 99.99%: Julian Assange donates 20% to the bank of Vatican if they get control of the money...and believe me...it IS released...

Re:Good fucking luck

[91degrees]

They're not making any money from blocking wikileaks. There's not a big incentive to spend a lot of money fighting this. The only reason they're blocking payments in the first place is to keep the government off their backs. A court order insisting they must allow payments will do the job just as well.

no

[unity100]

its OUR place to decide what a company can do or not, who it can render services to or not, if that company is a practical monopoly.

you cant monopolize the lives of people, and still do whatever you will. period.

Re:no

[SpongeBob Hitler]

its OUR place to decide what a company can do or not, who it can render services to or not, if that company is a practical monopoly. you cant monopolize the lives of people, and still do whatever you will. period.

Well, in the civilized world, this is reasonable. In Corporatist America, this is called Socialism (or, perhaps Socialism calls YOU! I don't know).

Mastercard = Visa

[bradley13]

Mastercard and Visa are not even independent of one another. Most larger banks (at least here in Europe) issue - and earn money from - both cards. This means that the banks do not actually want to cards to compete with each other. So Mastercard and Visa put on a show of competing, but in reality are quite happy to just divide the market between themselves, and keep any other payment method from getting to big.

The result is that Mastercard and Visa often act in lockstep - just as they have done in the case of Wikileaks. If they were genuinely independent, and competing with each other, one of them would have been more than happy to take the other's transaction fees on 15 million quid.

Re:Mastercard = Visa

[Anonymous Coward]

Legally V & MC are independent, but since both companies IPO'ed they are owned (and controlled) by the same stockholders - major banks.
And the banks are regulated by governments - those same governments, whose secrets were leaked. So it's no big surprise that the systems (and banks) blocked donation acceptance. And the block was more politics then economics. with worldwide annual volume in the trillions the income (processing fees) from the 15 mil is peanuts.

just my 2 cents

Re:Mastercard = Visa

[Anonymous Coward]

So Mastercard / Visa are acting as a cartel which is illegal at least in the USA. Don't know about Europe

Re:Mastercard = Visa

[HiThere]

And the kicker is, they collected the money, and then refused to deliver it. (Granted, it's probably being held in the accounts of the individuals who donated...but they don't dare spend it, so it's effectively available to the banks...and it may not be even that honest.)

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[PPH]

Datacell has told their acquirer that they accept payments for "datahosting" or something like that,

You assume this, or you know this to be a fact? Its possible that Datacell gave an accurate description of their services.

Actually, Visa and Mastercard demands that the acquirer visit every new customer, to verify that they really are a restaurant etc (which they obviously almost never do).

So the acquirer 'fucked up'. That may make them liable for part of the damages.

Someone in the US Government told Visa and Mastercard to get rid of this customer.

This is probably true. But the subsequent actions of VISA/MC without proper subpoenas or injunctions may place them afoul of laws governing their fiduciary relationship.

Re:If they were 'common carriers'

[hjf]

What if some illicit gambling or kiddie porn or mafia ring raised millions this way?

I'm pretty sure they allow that in any jurisdiction where it's legal. I don't think they have to be subject to US laws just because they're a US company (no idea where Visa is established). They don't need to comply with *every* law in the world at the same time - Visa processes payments for porn every day, but they also operate in countries where porn is illegal.

OK, porn is not a good example. How about Foie Gras? In many countries it's illegal, because of the unnecessary suffering the geese are put through. I'm pretty sure you can buy all the foie gras you can eat in France with your Visa card. And myself, I think they're greedy shits for allowing that to happen. Same with AMEX. You can't buy porn with AMEX but you certainly can buy foie gras, live sushi, or baby seal coats. I'm not a PETA fanboy - I like meat. I just don't like some methods of production: it IS NOT all black, or all white. Slashdotters need to get in their heads that law is complicated because you can't treat every company the same. Same reason you can't just go and buy a gun - there is a waiting period. An asperger-syndrome slashdotter can't see "why" because under his logic a gun shop is the same as any other shop: i give you money, you give me goods. But there are reasons why the waiting period is in place. And there are reasons why financial entities are not subject to the same laws and requirements as the rest of business. Hell, even Walmart isn't subject to the same laws your corner store is: size is also a factor, even if they sell the same stuff.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this for a fact, I was involved.
You can compare it to making a gambling website. But instead of using MCC code Betting/Casino Gambling, you tell your acquirer to use "Eating Places, Restaurants" (see http://www.irs.gov/irb/2004-31_IRB/ar17.html). That means that countries which have made gambling illegal, you can still use your card on this site.
This is not a fuckup by the acquirer. It's simply impossible to ensure that every customer are giving you the correct MCC code, if you're not visiting every potential customer physically.
So, datacell breached the agreement they had with the acquirer.

   

Re:If they were 'common carriers'

[Shoe Puppet]

Credit card companies are by no means a monopoly or a duopoly. There are four major companies in the US alone, and several more in Europe. It's not a big market just because it's got a high barrier to entry, but it's by no means impenetrable.

Any examples -- examples that are widespread enough to be useful, in particular?

You think Visa/Master card didn't want to handle

[makubesu]

those transactions? That's money down the drain. Visa/MC were afraid of the US government. They're blaming the victim, not the culprit.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[makubesu]

How the heck is this mod'd down? It's informative about the case.

Re:If they were 'common carriers'

[NeoMorphy]

Actually, in my state(New Hampshire), there is no waiting period. You can just walk in and get a gun, if you're a resident. So, I guess it is like any other shop.

WikiLeaks parody of mastercard ad... priceless!

[Xentan]

They've made a spoof video of the mastercard ads,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7kFC6KSNVc

Cognitive Dissonance for the Free World

[lexsird]

Freedom my fat ass. Indeed, the terrorist shouldn't hate us for our freedoms anymore.

Does anyone else find it hard to believe that our Constitution matters one fucking iota anymore? Wikileaks is just what our Constitution was written for. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech. The fact that Wikileads isn't based in NY should be our first major embarrassment. Isn't it sad that a whistle blower outfit like Wikileaks has to try to HIDE FROM THE US's long arm in European countries? Isn't it just a howling joke that in order for them to be free, they need to operate where corporations haven't been able to crush them with their puppet governments?

Now we get to watch the British Government show just how puppet they are too. Britain has become so Orwellian it's creeping me out. I couldn't live there, I would have to make a hobby out of destroying every CC camera I seen. The logistics are impossible for such a task for one person, so I would either go mad....or....I would organize resistance, and make a movement out of it to take them all out. It would need a theme, Guy Fawkes would be perfect for it, run around in those masks taking out CC cameras. It could be stylish! Recruit hot women, first order of business for any movement. Image is everything. Revolution is chick this season, no?

No? Ok, I will just change my sig for now.

Re:Cognitive Dissonance for the Free World

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you live? I think the USA has gotten just as bad in the last 2 years. Every light just about has a camera on it in NJ now. NYC started it all from what
I understand. The interesting bit is these intersection cameras are not red light cameras.

Re:Cognitive Dissonance for the Free World

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else find it hard to believe that our Constitution matters one fucking iota anymore?

When are you guys going to use your precious guns to make it matter again? Or are they just for show and big talks?

Re:Cognitive Dissonance for the Free World

[ScentCone]

The people who wrote the Consitution also shot people who were acting as spies, or who treacherously told enemies about sensitive information. That you can't understand that a person sworn to protect sensitive information was acting wronly when blindly dumping untold thousands of records into the wild, and that an entity that actively helped him do so was complicit in that, and that people who are actively financing that complicity (using their credit cards) are part of that picture ... never mind, you know all of that, and you're just trolling. Nice.

Re:Cognitive Dissonance for the Free World

[lexsird]

Let's recap shall we? Private Dumbass Nutjob Bumpkin decides to do something epically stupid, giving the information to Euro-Hippies who like to tattle on big corporations and whatever information that the BIG PEOPLE don't want the little people to know. And those who support this pathetic fail-safe for our freedoms are somehow bad people and shouldn't be giving their money?

First, you deal with Private Bumpkin like the doofus he is, he had no business being there, or anywhere near anything more dangerous than matches. His case in it's self makes me ill, what kind of leadership is there in our military at the moment? Next how is it that Private Bumpkin can get to ANYTHING sensitive so that he could let ANYTHING into the wild. We should be thankful for Private Bumpkin for showing what glaring jackasses we have in command, for Sweet Jesus, if a low rent retard like him can fuck fumble something into play, what the hell would a trained operative do, let alone a squad of them?

Someone needs to STFU and stop whining about Private Bumpkin and the Euro-Hippies and stick a giant green cock in someone's ass for having such sloppy protocols in place. Military Intelligence my fat ass, don't give me that oxymoron! This is why Intel should stay in it's own fucking agency and the military needs to STFU and be the blunt instrument that they are designed to be. Too many cooks spoil the soup. Handing off any intel communications out to the Military is like sending your computer to the retard classroom to be fixed. Seriously people, some of that data, what the fuck was it doing running through any military hands at all? Like how the hell is diplomatic information relative on any level to excuse it being in their system?

You see, this just brings up all kinds of fucked up questions that probably too many are too pussy to ask. Its really just easier to beat on Private Dipshit Bumpkin and his Euro-Hippie cohorts, and fuck them if they think they are getting any money, right?

Re:Cognitive Dissonance for the Free World

[Anonymous Coward]

"Revolution is chick"? Assuming that wasn't a particularly silly typo it neatly defines the general level of stupidity in your post.

Repeat after me:

  . Terrorists never hated me for my freedom; they hated me for pushing my culture on them.

  . The constitution never mattered; it was written by hypocrites and changed regularly for political expediency.

  . CCTV is security theatre; the resolution, coverage, aperture size and ease of defeat makes them essentially useless anywhere outside of malls.

Re:Cognitive Dissonance for the Free World

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you have CCTV in shops in the US? That is where most of them are in Britain, there aren't all that many non-private ones and those are typically in town centres. It is just the ANPR cameras that bother me, they are the only ones that can be feasibly used for tracking.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[Anonymous Coward]

You underestimate the power of the -1 "I disagree with your position" mod.

Don't assume Visa/MC are making the decisions

[bill_mcgonigle]

Visa and Mastercard are payment processors, it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things

I'll bet somebody a two ounce of silver donation to Wikileaks that if this is adjudicated we'll see that Visa/Mastercard were directed by the government to block transfers to Wikileaks.

It's not by accident that sufficient regulatory hurdles exist to starting a payment processing company that there are only a few which can be easily controlled. Government-regulated "free" markets are first and foremost designed to work well for those governments. 2nd Amendment supporters understand why this is true for personal freedoms, but even some of them support infringement of economic liberties.

Perhaps this is the point of the lawsuit - to expose the blacklisting in court.

Not true

[traindirector]

But Wikileaks is breaking US Law by knowingly publishing Classified Documents.

No matter how you feel about WikiLeaks, it is not illegal to publish classified documents in the U.S. There is no "state secrets" law like some other nations have. While there are laws that can punish the person who is entrusted with a classification and uses that to leak information, there are none about publishing it. This was affirmed by the Supreme Court after the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Newspapers publish classified information all the time.

You may disagree with those laws, but they exist and have full legal standing.

Not sure why you felt the need to add this rather than providing some evidence, but again, it's not true.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[PPH]

I know this for a fact, I was involved. You can compare it to making a gambling website. But instead of using MCC code

So, what MCC code did Datacell provide to their acquirer? And which code should they have used?

My ISP provides payment services for its hosted sites. As far as I can tell, its still an ISP and reports itself as such. Unlike Datacell (maybe?) it actually hosts numerous sites and, other than TOS prohibiting "illegal" activities, they don't care what I provide or charge for. So they would be at a loss to provide anyone with an MCC (or any other description) of the specific services they hosted. Their operation falls under the general purpose "ISP" description. If someone were to claim that I was doing something illegal and in violation of their TOS, they'd demand a court injunction before pulling my plug.

And what's the MCC for "leaking secret information"?

my mind's exploding

[superwiz]

On the one hand, I think Visa should have every right to deny service and access to their private network. It's their network. You shouldn't have any more rights to access it than you have rights to access my own home network. On the hand, I think it's absurd that we are going after someone who is clearly engaged in a journalist effort simply because we don't like how much information he was able to obtain. All attempts to label him anything but a journalist are disingenuous. The only reasonable solution I can come with would not be on his side. He should come to the US and sue here. Of course, he'd be forced to stand trial. As well he should. And we would all benefit from his victory in court. The principle that a journalist has a right to publish anything he knows apparently needs to be reaffirmed in the current day and age.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[blueg3]

It's not informative, it's speculative. It might be insightful, but there's no guarantee that insight is right.

It seems convenient, maybe even likely, that someone in the government told Visa and Mastercard to cut off Wikileaks. But there's no evidence of that.

You know, evidence. The sort of thing that people want against Assange. One of those legal things we like to have in the States, from time to time.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[sjames]

If you have a wad of data that should be generally released for the public good, Wikileaks will host it, thus datahosting. Recognizing that many who have such data are short on cash, the public is invited to pay for the hosting service on a donation basis. As the datahosting really is in the public interest, many choose to do just that.

Poker

[Nom du Keyboard]

The USA has managed to stop payment processors from handling payments to gaming and poker sites. If they can do this then they can stop donations to Wikileaks and make it stick.

This is a clear case of abuse... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, this is also business as usual for them. They have been down that path and they know how to handle this. Wikileaks is going to be in court for decades. Look at what Microsoft did with the DOJ: Guity! Condemned! and... nothing. Try installing google as a search engine in IE8 or IE9 for Windows 7 now. Good luck. You need a registry hack to do it.

The only thing that could work is a class action against the credit cards by their customers. I don't see that happening.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[IamTheRealMike]

Hmm, big claims require big proof, anonymous coward. In the complaint DataCell has filed they say their merchant agreement explicitly mentioned Sunshine Press, and that they also provided hosting and software development services.

They also say Teller (the acquirer) claims there was no violation of VISA/MC rules, and that they audited DataCell and found them to be in 100% compliance.

But anyway, not that any of this matters. As you point out, the actual cause of this is certainly that "somebody" in the US Government had a quick word with these companies. That's completely unacceptable behavior and I hope VISA/MC get slapped for it.

Made up probability

[Anonymous Coward]

You provide no evidence whatsoever for your number. And indeed from the EU bank law and the charter on bank institution to NOT be allowed to discreminate agaisnt customer, I rather see it as : 40% chance they try to draw it out to dry wikileak of money but finally giving up when they get their charter smeared on their face in european court, and 60% chance they just give up quickly knowing they will be bitchslapped in court for breaking their charter. See the problem is that breaking law make it a law case, as opposed to a civil case. If wikileak isn't dumb they jsut bring them ebfore the EU court of law and VISA/mastercard are fucked.

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[Anonymous Coward]

Your facts are wrong. Datacell is a company which runs a datacenter in Iceland -- you falsely claim that their only business is collecting donations for Wikileaks. Just because they are a small datacenter operator, and the WikiLeaks donations were the majority of their transactions, does not mean that their core business is not what they say it is. Datacell was incorporated in Iceland in July 2009, and their ÍSAT code is 63.11.0 - "Gagnavinnsla, hýsing og tengd starfsemi", which translates as "Data processing, hosting and related operations".

In fact the story of Datacell is a curious one, as the owners of the company founded a company in Iceland in 2007 named IceCell, and intended to enter the Wireless Carrier market in Iceland. However before they launched the Icelandic economic crash came, in the fall of 2008, and apparently they switched focus over to datacenters it seems.

I am Icelandic and was involved with getting Julian and Daniel (who has now left WikiLeaks) here in 2009, and I'm in the IT business and know of the Datacell guys, they are no shell-company for WikiLeaks donations, and this explanation about breach of terms is just an empty justification for the purely political action taken by these commercial companies against a veritable freedom fighting organization.

Next time, get your facts straight before starting a post with "The fact here is:".

Credit card fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

There is something more going on here though. At one point some one tried to donate to wiki rake using my credit card details. I canceled the card. Donations are my choice, not some random credit card thirds choice. So I hazard a guess that the blockade may not be entirely ideological.

Why not just punish those who donate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of trying to strong arm CC companies into not accepting the payments, why not just have those same companies report US citizens making donations to the US government to be placed on the no-fly list for "providing material support to terrorists"? Wouldn't that be far easier?

Re:They were in breach with Visa and Mastercard te

[cavebison]

The fact here is: Someone in the US Government told Visa and Mastercard to get rid of this customer.

Hows does anything you said prove (ie. "fact" infers you have proof) that the government told them to block Wikileaks? You actually said it was Wikileaks' fault.

good for them, hope they win

[hesaigo999ca]

Good for them, we should not allow a financial org like visa to tell us what type of business we should have, if they make money from our money, then they should still provide the services they advertise...and the fact they renegged on it, tells me they should lose.