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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

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 :)

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%.

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.

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.