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EFF Spinoff Pools Donor Dollars To Prevent WikiLeaks-Style Payment Blockades
nonprofiteer writes "Two years ago, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Western Union and Bank of America cut off all funding to WikiLeaks. A group of free information advocates wants to prevent a similar financial blockade on information from happening again. Daniel Ellsberg, John Perry Barlow, and EFF staffers are founding the Freedom of the Press Foundation, an org that will raise money and channel it to edgy media groups that might suffer from a WikiLeaks-style embargo. When donors give to the Foundation, they can choose to have their funding passed on to any media group under the Foundation's umbrella (currently WikiLeaks, Muckrock, The National Security Archives and UpTake). That strategy aims to make it harder to cut funding to any of those organizations, or any added in the future. And because the site is encrypted, donors who worry about being identified as giving to any particularly controversial group can do so without being identified. It's like Tor for charitable giving."
Obviously, the immediate worry is that the Freedom of the Press Foundation will just get itself on the banned list and they don't seem to mention this in the article. Since this is a US organization it would also be subject to National Security Letters, they also don't address this...
My enthusiasm is tempered a bit, but I think this is really encouraging.
IIRC the payment processors have performed this economic blockade without due process or a legal ruling, so to clobber this organisation would take a court hearing, which may be what EFF is angling for.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Which, given how critical access to their services is, is a pretty scary situation. We have a small number of private entities who get to decide who, essentially, has access to 'money' and who does not. They need no court order, and are often willing to do what the DoJ asks as long as the volumes are small....they will not cut off big spenders, but poor organizations that could never afford to take them or the government to court are easy targets..
I'm the treasurer for a small 501(c)3 (ITT4AS501(c)3), not a lawyer, but here's what our legal counsel has told us in the past: we can give money to whomever we want provided that the "regrant" is to further the goals of the corporation, as set forth in the corporate charter that was approved by the state. Depending on how the charter was drawn up, that can be either pretty broad or really, really, really broad. There are a few limits - if you start embezzling large amounts, or if most of the proceeds of the organization wind up in the pockets of one person, then the IRS will come sniffing around. But regrants in general are absolutely permissible.