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Swedish Pirate Party Presses Charges Against Banks For WikiLeaks Blockade
davecb writes "Rick Falkvinge reports today that the Swedish Pirate Party has laid charges
against at least Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal before the Finansinspektionen for refusing to pass on money owed to WikiLeaks. The overseer of bank licenses notes (in translation) that 'The law states, that if there aren't legal grounds to deny a payment service, then it must be processed.'"
I look forward to seeing Paypal get a taste of having to follow rules.
what the fuck are you even talking about?
What? It's not like the pirate party decide the outcome.
What they have done is of course to ask Finansinspektionen to investigate it and is the organization which look after the financial markets in Sweden. I assume the actual charges will go from someone with the authority to do so. Not from the Pirate party.
They're actually filing what would be called a complaint in the US with their financial regulatory authority, if I'm understanding this correctly.
This shouldn't have been posted. Pressing charges is total bullshit. Pressing charges is a criminal justice thingy which is done by a prosecutor. What they've done is the equivalent of sending a politely worded mail to finansinspektionen asking them to look into the matter to determine if anyone has done anything wrong.
Dollars to doughnuts finansinspektionen will conclude that no one in sweden has done anything wrong - and everyone else is based outside of sweden, which means that if finansinspektionen actually thought it merited investigateion they'd defer to some EU instance.
There was no legal basis for these payment processors to refuse to transfer payments to wikileaks -who had not and have not (as far as I know) been identified as a terrorist or organized crime group....
the payment processors were just sucking up to the corporatist powers and should be punished for refusing to allow legal commerce and monetary transactions -of course they were probably leaned on at the time by the state department or someone and threatened with sanctions or aiding and abetting or giving comfort or some BS
the ultimate end to this would be refusing to send donations to the EFF, ALCU, greenpeace, PETA (OK I know the last two are borderline hippie/batshit crazy) and other radical and democratic groups....so as not to rock the plutocratic ship of state.
-I'm just sayin'
Yes, prosecuting people for political dissent is the exact same thing as prosecuting people for breaking banking laws.
And yeah. I assume that to do banking business in Sweden you have to follow Swedish laws. And the "finance inspection" looks after the market looking for people who don't.
The headline suits from bad translation. What they did is filed a complaint.
The headline suits from bad translation. What they did is filed a complaint.
Goddamn spell correction! -suits +suffers.
yes, you are.
The headline suits from bad translation. What they did is filed a complaint.
If the official is not mis-quoted, then the complaint is as good as pressing charges. From TFA:
Johan Terfelt, who oversees the Finansinspektionen unit for payment providers, confirms that the authority has received the filed charges ....
He also states there's no room at all for arbitrary randomness, and gives a careful hint at a possible outcome: "The law states, that if there aren't legal grounds to deny a payment service, then it must be processed."
I am fairly certain no one had any legal grounds to deny payments to Wikileaks. How could they?
Well, the legal grounds amount to some nice men in dark suits told Visa that since wikileaks were terrorists, they could possibly run into some unspecified trouble if they paid that money.
Make no mistake about it, it was pressure applied to these companies to stop payment, and VISA may find themselves in the middle of two governments who differ in their interpretation of what is required here.
One side will say they were funding terrorism, and the money needs to be withheld (if not seized), and the other side will say there isn't sufficient legal basis to withhold.
Bring on the popcorn.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Good journalists report what governments don't like reported. Wikileaks did nothing more than journalism. It was a good thing, it gave strength to the people wanting democracy in the African Spring.
The attacks on Wikileaks and on Assange (no I don't accept the rape charges are anything other than malicious) amount to attacks on journalism.
Well, the legal grounds amount to some nice men in dark suits told Visa that since wikileaks were terrorists, they could possibly run into some unspecified trouble if they paid that money.
Unspecified?
I thought it was "... be in violation of, and prosecuted under, the U.S. banking laws prohibiting transferring funds to recognized (i.e. on the government's public list) terrorist organizations."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
But why do private banks (businesses) have to accept payment processing from anyone. They are not governmental agencies, shouldn't they be allowed to chose who they do business with?
Wikileaks appears to be absent from those lists.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Make no mistake about it, it was pressure applied to these companies to stop payment, and VISA may find themselves in the middle of two governments who differ in their interpretation of what is required here.
Except that even in US it isn't a "legal" status to be told that by men in dark suits that Wikileaks are terrorists. It would have to be on the official terrorist list or such
So VISA is is in the middle of two governments, where one had taken to operating by the rules of convenience. The actual law is almost certainly the same on both sides.
Bring on the popcorn.
Indeed. I think VISA is one of the very few entities that cannot simply be crushed by the US government. They just need to be prodded into action by another government...
I notice that again it takes the Pirate Party to stand up against these bullies. And still there are people that cannot see further than the name, or assert that it's just people "wanting to download stuff for free".
Hats off to the Swedish Pirate Party!
Popcorn? Your idea of a show might differ from mine.
I remember the dim and distant past (2008), when the US was found to have violated multiple WTO rules and treaties by blocking Mastercard/Visa transactions on gambling websites based in Antigua. The Antiguans were jubilant at winning their case, until the US made it clear that nothing was going to change - it simply didn't care. And there's no-one who could hold it to account.
I expect much the same to happen this time. There will be a brief sideshow in some sort of court. But if Visa/Mastercard lose, nothing at all will change. Worst case, perhaps the Swedish government will stop accepting those credit cards in payment, but that's about it.
When in the EU, for EU law 'banks" seem to have some EU arm. That takes care of any privacy and local data protection laws. ... did a US financial services corporation get a US banking bailout...
Any real law lays with the HQ in the USA and that would fall under U.S. laws and political requests.
It will be an interesting day. Will the EU suits turn up? The US suits fly in? Or will it just be a closed door 'chat' between legal teams?
The real risk with an open court is the EU/US banking version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLibel_case
What is a bank? What is a financial services corporation
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Releasing the 7,000 page history of American-Vietnam relations ie. the "Pentagon Papers" was journalism. Releasing classified assessments of Iraq by the Bush Administration or military in ~2005 would have been journalism. The wholesale release of 200,000+ classified diplomatic cables on a wide variety of topics is just massive theft of American secrets.
Imagine if Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, failed to pass money sent to the New York Times for their paywall, because New York Times had published leaks about President Assad's attacks on civilians?
You see what I've done there, I've substituted one news reporting company 'New York Times' for another 'Wikileaks' and one government 'Syria' for another 'USA'.
Reporting leaks is not illegal, it's journalism, and Syria might not like it, and they may try to attack the journalists by cutting off money, but it would be WRONG FOR VISA AND MASTERCARD to go along with Syria's wish and cut off money to the New York Times.
If Visa and Mastercard are agents of the USA government, then can we continue to let them operate in Europe for example. They'll be leaking private transaction data, blocking transfers and generally acting against the laws we have.
I'm old, I remember Nixon and his attacks on the Washington Post over the Watergate leaks.
https://ssl1.washingtonpost.com/opinions/woodward-and-bernstein-40-years-after-watergate-nixon-was-far-worse-than-we-thought/2012/06/08/gJQAlsi0NV_story.html
" The wholesale release of 200,000+ classified diplomatic cables on a wide variety of topics is just massive theft of American secrets."
Wikileaks didn't steal squat, and 200,000 documents makes it 28 times better reporting than the 7000 Pentagon papers. If they're managed to leak the Nixon tapes aswell then perhaps it would have been be 29 times better. We learned so much from the documents they released, so did Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Kenya...
The biggest attack on them was the collateral murder video, where the originally killing of a journalist thinking it was an RPG was a tragic mistake, the approval to attack the people coming to their aid was a bad decision and the coverup was the crime being exposed. The USA military cannot get so big that they can cover their mistakes.
Really Visa and Mastercard should not be attacking journalists on behalf of Nixon. Which is basically what they're doing. Nixon attacked the Washington Post to try to suppress the Watergate leaks, Bush/Obama are attacking Wikileaks to cover up their embarrassment and the mistakes of the military and government.
Visa and Mastercard should be ashamed, but more than that, non USA countries should ask themselves what crimes Visa and Mastercard are committing by acting as agents of a foreign power and attacking journalists.
Today it's Wikileaks.
Tomorrow it's New York Times paywall subscription fees.
The day after it's BBC license fees.
A shameful attack on journalism.
You're creating an imaginary distinction where there is none.
The New York .Times actually did an assessment of what they reported on, not a document dump. You fail, miserably. Wikileaks has nothing in common with journalism.
Make no mistake about it, it was pressure applied to these companies to stop payment, and VISA may find themselves in the middle of two governments who differ in their interpretation of what is required here.
One side will say they were funding terrorism, and the money needs to be withheld (if not seized), and the other side will say there isn't sufficient legal basis to withhold.
When they became international money handlers, I bet they thought they could get all the perks of global power and none of the liabilities that come with governance. Certainly, the ones that inherited the company after decades of prosperity and peace thought so.
Naivete is so cute.
You're defining journalism as reporting + censorship. It isn't the censorship part that makes it journalism, it's reporting part.
Good journalism is reporting the stuff warts and all. Wikileaks 100% documents dumps, is the best kind of journalism. Uncensored, full naked truth.
Propaganda is where you only report the stuff approved by governments. You fail because you're praising New York Times partial government censorship.
This is not a criminal complaint. In the US to file this type of complaint all you'd have to do is try to donate to Wikileaks, and then sue the bank in Federal Court. Literally anyone could do it. Assuming there was any chance in hell the Judge you drew would actually rule against he Feds on this case, you'd have standing to sue.
Nobody bothers because under US Law Wikileaks really doesn't have a leg to stand on. They are an organization dedicated to leaking secrets, including legitimately classified US Government Documents, they don't hold themselves to the same standards journalists do, therefore they are a Criminal Conspiracy and giving money to them makes you a co-conspirator.
I am fairly certain no one had any legal grounds to deny payments to Wikileaks. How could they?
Same way they have grounds to acquire a Drug Lord's assets and auction them to the highest bidder before he's convicted.
If you're involved in an organization designed to break US Law you just don't get much protection from US Law.
He's exaggerating. Wikileaks weren't declared terrorists. They weren't formally declared anything.
But they are clearly out to break US Law, and if you give money to people who break US Law you are a co-conspirator. The men in dark suits made sure Visa/Mastercard knew this, and Visa/Mastercard decided not to risk it. Wikileaks does not like this, and loudly proclaims that a) leaking Classified information isn't illegal under US Law, and b) they're the victims of a nefarious illegal conspiracy to crush them.
If they were right about a) Jonathan Pollard would be free. If they were right about b) they'd be suing in US Courts.
That's the problem with everyone who depends on international law for anything.
International Law between two sovereigns is precisely what the two sovereigns say it is. They are allowed to change their minds. Groups like the EU work because the sovereigns have added EU laws to their domestic legal codes, not due to some complicated theory of international law.
This is the big difference between the US and the EU. The US got stronger protection of freedom of speech... from the government. The EU got stronger protection of freedom... from business. In the US, your hate group is safe from government interference and it is totally by accident that all the big corps seem to follow party lines. But hey, no censorship from the state, you just won't be able to bank, rent, work or buy. But total freedom otherwise.
In the EU, hate groups are not as safe from state influence but most countries got a national bank that is obligated to give an account to anyone. Well until the right-wingers privatized them with "pledges" that no-one would go without a bank account... unless the bank objected to them in some way or wanted more money for an account. But hey, you are free to bank with any bank, not their fault their are only a handful of banks and they all got the same policy. Dutch banks refused to bank for Martijn, pedo support group that promotes child love but not rape. The same banks do NOT cancel the accounts of actual child molesters. So according to Dutch banks it is okay to rape kids but not to talk about it. Same banks neither ban any hate group from using their services. Just pure coincedence that the government wanted Martijn gone and the banks wanted the same thing.
The A-Team had this as a regular plot, were a farmer or something was being forced out of business by restricting their access to say a sales platform or refusing to sell seed or other equipment. It is a ploy as old as time, you are free to buy your stuff elsewhere, just not from MY store and that other stores are not practical... well that is just to bad.
Real freedom comes not just from a line on a piece of parchment saying your are free to speak and think what you want but from the ability to EXERCISE said freedom. The right to own property is a big one in the west, it is one of the defining difference between capitalism and communism. Yet am I free to own property if nobody will sell it to me? Blacks in the US were legally allowed to buy a house LONG before they actually COULD buy a house if their white neighbors didn't want to. Freedom without the ability to exercise it, is meaningless.
The reason the EU used to have more protection in place to force essential services to serve EVERYONE is that we have had a far longer, history of NOT doing it. And well... done to people who got more of a say. "Kein Juden" was NOT official German policy for a long time, shops were free to do what they pleased just if they didn't do it, they windows would mysteriously be smashed in. The American south segregation was not entirely different in idea but its support was different and lets face it, on slashdot there are few black people, segregation happened to other people. The holocaust also but it is unthinkable to have a popular kids show with a car painted with the nazi flag. What flag is painted on the General Lee again? A flag that symbolizes what?
Exclusing undesirables is a very old EU practice, it practically defines the middle ages and even the enlightenment and then it culminated in the Holocaust and most human rights laws in the EU were written with that horrific image in mind. The US human right laws were written by slave owners whose own women couldn't vote. The US protects high level free speech for those who can afford it. The EU tries/tried to protect it for everyone, EVEN undesirables because the alternative... well... you know... the Germans had to be stopped from electing Hitler as their greatest German by excluding him from the list (despite being Austrian and the list allowing Austrians with would be like Britains biggest hero including Americans). Our old leaders had seen our worst and wrote laws to protect us.
The old Dutch Postbank (national bank part of the postal service including telephone service) HAD to give EVERYONE a bank account. For FREE! Yes Americans, reliable banking WITH interest and pay services. FOR FREE! ZERO COST. To ANYONE! And yet Yanks wonder
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Mod parent up. The FBI doesn't drop charges if you plead guilty, they drop additional charges if you go to court.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Couldn't they apply the same logic to any news organization in the US?
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Manning (or so the prosecutors say) leaked the information, not Wikileaks. That was illegal under US law, and the US has jurisdiction. Wikileaks, on the other hand, is not and has never been a US organisation, and are thus not under US jurisdiction. They are registered in Sweden, and I think their infrastructure is placed there as well, so the legality of whatever they have on their servers is a matter of Swedish law. After all, Sweden is a sovereign country, where US laws doesn't apply.
Couldn't they apply the same logic to any news organization in the US?
Not really. News organizations put out dozens of non-secret stories every day. Most of their stories are actually things everyone quoted wants reported.
When they do break some secret there's generally an angle that's the public interest. "So-and-so is taking bribes," or "That-idiot-Johnson-is-lying-about-Vietnam." They have experienced reporters to tell them which secrets are news-worthy and which aren't. They also have paid analysts who help make sure they aren't going off half-cocked. When they do break a secret they try to ensure that innocents don't get screwed.
Wikileaks did not even try. Two guys charged with treason, another exiled, and a Chinese lawyer started receiving death threats after their un-redacted cables got published, apparently solely because they were too damn lazy to keep these four names secret.
Turns out the only thing worse then Cable News Journalism is Assange pretending to be a Journalist.
So if a Rwandan dude put every French diplomatic cable on a Congolese website, do you seriously think the French would be like "we have no jurisdiction, so we'll just have to be good losers?"
The US government was (and is) certainly a major force here. The trail is even easier to follow, if you look at the hosting. After the Wikileaks servers were initially overwhelmed by DDOS attacks, they moved to Amazon EC2. On 29 November 2010, Ms. Clinton stated that the US would "aggressively" go after Wikileaks. Two days later, on 1 December 2010, Amazon threw Wikileaks off of EC2.
According to the fine print in the Amazon Terms-and-Conditions, they can do this for any reason or no reason. Which is not unusual, but it *is* unusual to see a company actually make use of such terms. It is surely coincidental that, at that point in time, Amazon was completing for some pretty big cloud-service contracts with the federal government.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Why is a third party who is not related to wikileaks even able to press charges against companies who provide a service to someoneelse (or in this case, won't provide).
Also you have to remember those companies are american companies and have to follow american laws, wikileak is publishing illegal documents which makes it a federal offence if the companies would keep providing the service..
Also, wikileaks isn't the 'robin-hood' website many believe, it also has it's own agenda which is far from friendly and without own interest...
All most people care about is the 'tabloid'newsfactor of wikileaks and don't care at all about the people who might get hurt (with that I mean physically) by the publishing the documents.. Also the don't tell the real story (as seen with the originally edited chopper video, which if you've seen the whole video gives a rather completely different view on the matter, but Wikileaks chose to only show these moments to get the attention)..
And if you people really think that wikileaks ammounts to any change in the world, please get real, don't be as naive as you seem to be...
Which US law are they breaking/trying to break? I'm curious as people keep mentioning this, but as far as I know, they haven't done anything illegal and there's been no charges filed.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Sweden's JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets that protect the country from brutal russian invasion are powered by 90% US-made F404 derived turbine engines. The new JAS-39NG version that sweden wants to sell to the swiss is powered by the 100% made in USA GE F-414 engine. Mess around VISA for Wikileaks and the turbines will become embargoed.
(Happened already in 1979, when the swedes sold the previous JA/AJ-37 jet fighter-bomber plane type to India. They were using a heavily customized version of the DC-9's turbine engine core for powerplant and the USA embargoed that in order to let britions sell the Jaguar instead...)
Also, the armament of the JAS-39 is the 100% US-made AMRAAM missile, it is toothless without that. Those can not only be embargoed for sale, but the already sold ones in swedish stockpile can be disabled via electronic codes embedded in the tamper-proof firmware of the onboard active radar seeker head.
All in all, Sweden better not put a toe out of line, else Uncle Sam will... Do you copy!?
I would certainly hope they would follow the law in whatever path they choose to take... Does that sound absurd?
This is about Swedish law, not US law.
I can see how that definition could appeal to some:
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-new-york-times-admits-that-virtually-every-major-news-organization-allows-the-news-to-be-censored-by-government-officials
Russia, Saudi, Iraq, Afghanistan, France, Brazil, UK, Sweden, and many many more have all had leaks about stuff they did.
The USA are doing so many things, there's more to leak.
What is happening is you're only reading about the USA because you're a 'merkin and therefore that's all the news you want to read.
And that act, if it applies, ONLY applies to Bradley Manning. Not Wikileaks.
It didn't apply to the papers who also printed it.
It didn't apply to the reporters who uncovered Nixon at Watergate.
It doesn't apply to Wikileaks.
And Visa/Mastercard can still be fined or even closed down by a soverign state in theri jurisdiction and, by application to WTO, the world.
Do you think it would be LEGAL if they did so? What if it were the USA? Syria have problems with US papers printing leaked information. Would it be fine for them to arrest all US diplomats under terrorist charges?
That would STILL be illegal.
Just like it's illegal to murder someone, but if you defend yourself with minimum necessary force, and the assailant dies, you are not guilty.
Just because you can evict people for being disruptive (but you'd have to give a refund if they had bought food but not finished) doesn't mean you can refuse to serve the disabled or blacks or whatever.
cool story bro
They could revoke banking rights for those companies in Sweden, right? Big fines and more big fines per day they refuse to process the money? No?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Took long enough, but better late than never.
Pollard and Manning both signed non-disclosure agreements that said they would be subject to punishment under UCMJ and civil law if they ever released any classified information. They voluntarily put themselves under these restrictions in order to get jobs that required access to this information.
Journalistic organizations, and I'll put WL under that for now, never agreed to this. They are passing on information that was given to them and have a claim to freedom of speech.
As far as giving money, WL hasn't been convicted or even indicted for breaking US law. I don't think they're even on one of thoses lists that legally kicks in sanctions. I believe their US legal status is along the lines of "the government doesn't like what they're doing." From a legal standpoint, how can you be a co-conspirator in nothing?
Well, the swedish payment providers are within reach.
Swedish banking law mandates that all banks are required by law to provide deposit accounts for every swedish legal enity. Only reason for refusing such accounts are if the account holder uses the account for strictly illegal activity, and the bank has to provide enough evidence of that.
So anybody should be able to hold a deposit account at any swedish bank and make deposits towards it. It's just to make a SWIFT transaction towards that account in order to transfer money. The problem is that SWIFT transactions usually cost a lot.
Credit Card companies handle the transactions, they develop technology, they market their brands but the ARE NOT BANKS!
Fact is, they're nothing like banks. But believing that they are is one of the most common misconceptions about basic consumer finance.
Got a problem with your credit card bill? Don't call Visa, CALL THE BANK THAT ISSUED IT.
But they are clearly out to break US Law,
If it's so clear, why has wikileaks never been charged with anything? Oh, that's right, you are making up shit to justify your personal opinion where your opinion differs from reality. Just try to not shoot up any schools.
Learn to love Alaska
The French would just surrender to the Martians as a pre-emptive strike. But yes, if it's 100% legal (because of sovereignty), then it's 100% legal. There is no concept of "it would have been illegal here, so we'll treat it like they did it here" in international law. You can start a war over it, but not prosecute them. There's also no problem with jurisdiction. If what he did was illegal in US law, then have a trial and find him guilty in absentia, then issue warrants for the convicted criminal for extradition. The US could charge someone with something and get an extradition. But they never have because no US law was broken.
Learn to love Alaska
So if a Rwandan dude put every French diplomatic cable on a Congolese website, do you seriously think the French would be like "we have no jurisdiction, so we'll just have to be good losers?"
France would probably be annoyed and hiss a lot about it, but unless the Rwandan dude has broken any local laws he goes free. France is free to vote in laws that allows them to block the domains and/or IPs of the Congolese host in France, but other than that they can't do much.
No, but they would be just as wrong to pursue it extra-judiciously. Just because everybody else would do so doesn't make an action right, period. Stop apologizing for people who are in the wrong.
Let me assure that no one prefers the US rules, thats why we dont have 20-30 dead people every few months due to sane gun control for a start. And we have good universal health care, social security etc.