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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[Opportunist]

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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[Jiro]

Military operations include activities other than shooting people with guns.

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

[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).

PRICELESS

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"...for everything else..."

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

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 :)

Should have used Bitcoin.

[earls]

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

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.

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: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: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:... 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.