Wikileaks Suspends Publishing Of Cables Due To "Financial Blockade"

lee1 writes "Wikileaks has had to cease publishing classified files due to what the organization calls a 'blockade by US-based finance companies' that, according to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has 'destroyed 95% of our revenue.' Assange also opined that 'A handful of US finance companies cannot be allowed to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket.' According to Assange the group was taking 'pre-litigation action' against the financial blockade in Iceland, Denmark, the UK, Brussels, the United States, and Australia. They have also filed an anti-trust complaint with the European Commission."

Comments

BoA Leaks

[AdamJS]

Publish them already. I simply cannot believe that in all of the Wikileaks organization, not a single copy or backup had been made. There's got to be something, especially with a bundle of files so damaging that they managed to turn one of your own against you. I just can't handle the idea of that level of competence in a modern internet organization tasked with anonymizing its sources. It's too scary.

$3.5 million?

[Spy Handler]

Reuters:

WikiLeaks would need $3.5 mln over the next 12 months to maintain its current levels of operations, he said.

Either they've signed up for the world's most expensive hosting plan, or Assange and his friends are running up quite a nightclub tab.

Finance companies shouldn't run the media

[captainpanic]

It's weird that the financial companies can control the media in such a way.

I thought that credit card companies had some legal obligation to transfer money from A to B, unless the money was actually criminal money? But last time I checked, Assange was accused (not convicted) of rape. And the Wikileaks organization as a whole wasn't accused of anything in a legal court. Or am I missing something?

Wait a second....

[Anonymous Coward]

You threaten to publish the secret, evil, nefarious ways of financial institutions, claim to have a hard drive full of incriminating information, and now these same financial institutions now won't deal with you?

Why... I never. How demonic indeed!

Re:Wait a second....

[dkleinsc]

Well, good for them that legality is all that matters and public opinion has nothing to do with it.

When it comes to the actions of the US government, legality is supposed to be what matters.

They made it clear they wanted attention and money, not to show the injustices done in the world.

If I had information that suggested that powerful people were committing heinous crimes and getting away with it, I'd want that information spread far and wide. That would necessarily entail having attention, and would require funding. This is all regardless of whether Julian Assange is a jerk who two-timed a couple of Swedish gals.

Re:Wikileaks done in by its own leak

[shentino]

Considering it was a rogue newspaper bungling the encryption key and forcing their hand so that the bad guys weren't the only ones that had access, I very much doubt the egg on Wikileaks's face was truly their own.

Someone fucked up, wikileaks got blamed for making the best of a bad situation, and some secret operative somewhere in the guardian is probably giving the agency he works for a jolly laugh of "eeeeeeeeggcellent"

Intelligence networks have been trying like clockwork to get Wikileaks shut down ever since their parent governments started getting embarrassed by the leaks.

Infiltrating a news organization and spilling an already compromised key for the sole purpose of embarrassing and discrediting wikileaks would be very useful and if that's what really happened I would not be the least bit surprised.

Oh, and if I suddenly stop posting on slashdot...feel free to get even more suspicious.

Finance companies control legislation.

[Anonymous Coward]

When a powerful multinational corporation does something that's not legal, it will be made legal afterwards.

Example #1: Citibank bought Travelers, knowingly violating the Glass-Steagal act. Result, Glass-Steagal was repealed (Joe Biden voting against, oddly enough) with the current, totally predictable results.

Example #2: Telcos performed warrantless wiretaps for the Bush administration without proper authorization. They (hilariously) claimed to be doing so out of patriotism, but when the FBI missed a billing cycle the telcos suddenly stopped having this vaunted "patriotism" that somehow justified trampling US laws. Result, congress granted telcos immunity from prosecution (both McCain and Obama rushing back to DC from the campaign trail to cast votes in favor).

They do what they want, and then they buy enough government to make it legal. The only time there is any issue is when two zaibatsus have conflicting goals - the people don't matter any more, which is what OWS is about.

Re:Wikileaks done in by its own leak

[EnergyScholar]

This author must dispute two statements of fact in the above post:

• Incorrect statement one: "That leak put many people in harm's way, including a lot of people trying to help overthrow oppressive regimes or criminal enterprises." On what basis do you make that claim, besdies the fact that Fox news repeated it a lot? The un-redacted cables had already been widely distributed between five different journalistic outlets. This means, of course, that various intelligence agencies had also got hold of them. Thus, anyone with Intelligence Community (IC) connections, which includes large criminal organizations, ALREADY able to get to the un-redacted cables. When the un-redacted cables were generally released this only allowed regular people with no IC connections to ALSO look at them. As an example, if you were an Afghani feeding intelligence about the Taliban to the US government, and you happened to be mentioned in a Cable, you had no way to determine whether or not your name was mentioned, because you could only see the redacted cables, even though the Pakistani Intelligence Agencies, which has been thoroughly infiltrated by the Taliban, DOES have access to the cables. The release of the un-redacted cables allows you to see that you are, or are not, mentioned in the cables, and take appropriate action. The un-redacted were ALREADY available to all the big players.
• What big problems of credibility exist? Has Wikileaks ever lied, or provided demonstrably false information? On what basis do you make that assertion, besides hearing it on Fox news? Sounds to me like you are parroting Fox News ...

FYI: the un-redacted cable release came from a confluence of several events:

1. Wikileaks posted an original, encrypted version of the cable on the wikileaks site and pointed a Guardian reporter at it
2. Wikileaks privately told the Guardian reporter the secret password to decrypt the file
3. Someone else grabbed a copy of the encrypted file and it floated around on the 'net
4. The Guardian published the secret password in a book
5. The combination of the encrypted un-redacted cables file, and the guardian-published key, allowed anyone to get the entire set of cables

It is not so simple

[bussdriver]

The corporate media and the fickle public will NEVER digest a huge leak -- it has to be slowly leaked out over time so if we hear anything we hear the SAME bit of leak information at the same time everywhere and not too much that it gets skipped over.

If you dump it all out on a friday, you'll only hear about some diplomat screwing some presidents wife for the next few weeks and maybe a couple things the station doesn't mind reporting. Then the whole thing dies down and they don't talk about the rest of it anymore. Something like that happens all the time; especially on friday media dumps. (most people don't read the paper; tv, radio are not watched friday night or much on the weekend either.)

Re:It is not so simple

[IgnoramusMaximus]

So basically what you're saying is they have to manipulate it into something other than what it is for people to care?

That is why I say Western "democracies" are doomed. A combination of carefully nurtured apathy and misdirection onto utter nonsense (sporting events, "reality" shows etc) and a coordinared effort by the oligarchy-controlled "free press" has pretty much irreversibly poisoned the whole thing to the point that only a major shock would snap the populace out of it. And the powers that be are doing everything possible to make sure that even by then it will be too late.

And if you do not believe me, just look at the blatant violations of the most basic clauses of the US Constitution (the ones that got the Founding Fathers incited to revolution in the first place) by the US government and the accompanying lack of any reaction whatsoever from the dazed public....

In Jefferson's time blood would be flowing in the streets if such a thing was tried. Today there is some twitching about to find the remote and change the channel ... ooh, the Bumville Asshats are playing the Barnburg Jackasses for the Stupid Cup! Who cares about all that concentration of money and power thing!

Better yet, not only there is near total apathy but a slew of apologists come out sneering dismissively to defend the indefensible as "necessary measures" or "its all not so bad compared to North Korea" etc.

So, are Wikileaks admitting defeat or greed?

[Rogerborg]

The Man cut the money hose to stop us leaking, so we'll show him... why, by golly, we'll not leak anything until we get more money in our pockets.

Yes, well done, very convincing.

Re:If you can't beat 'em, starve 'em

[king neckbeard]

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.