Swedish Pirate Party Presses Charges Against Banks For WikiLeaks Blockade 234
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.'"
Excellent. (Score:5, Insightful)
I look forward to seeing Paypal get a taste of having to follow rules.
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Funny)
Corporations are people too, Sweden has just unilaterally declared war on an American citizen, our drones will be there and filled with democracy and liberty for the Swedish people soon.
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Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Insightful)
I look forward to seeing Paypal get a taste of having to follow rules.
They do need to be reigned in.
But perhaps Visa and Mastercard need to be put in their place even more. I can usually avoid PayPal in my everyday life, but Visa and Mastercard together pretty much control the world of online purchases. They cannot be allowed pick and choose who gets the payment and who doesn't.
Aren't there any equivalent US laws? Or is no one in US interested in prosecuting?
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Informative)
Who do you think pushed to get Wikileaks payments blocked? The US Government.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11945875 [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Interesting)
Who wants to bet that Visa and Mastercard will follow the telecoms into getting retroactive immunity?
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Informative)
I may be wrong, but I don't think Congress can grant retroactive immunity for a corporation's operation in another country. They may grant immunity for US operations, but if they chose to operate in a foreign country they are subject to that foreign country's laws.
Potentially this could put Paypal, Visa, and MasterCard between a rock and a hard place.
Just like the hosting... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Just like the hosting... (Score:4, Interesting)
It is quite possible that Amazon tossed wikileaks off their server in response to Ms. Clinton's announcement so they wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of the US government coming in and seizing their equipment.
You know.... proactively protecting their other paying customers from losing their hosted services and/or data by getting rid of a customer that creates a risk.
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Informative)
Place blame on exactly who's shoulders it belongs:
- Barack Obama (D) made it national policy to aggressively prosecute whistleblowers of all stripes (including Bradley Manning), and proudly supported the effort to cut off funding of Wikileaks despite the demonstrable fact that the organization has not been convicted or blamed for any crimes in any court of law.
- Joe Lieberman (I) did the actual organizing of all the payment processors to cut off payments.
- Lest you think this was all the Democrats' idea, Mitch McConnell, Dick Cheney, and quite a few other prominent Republicans fully supported these moves. Probably because it made their guys look bad too.
Make no mistake about it: There was absolutely nothing legal about what the US government did to Wikileaks, but there was little to no opposition within the government. Julian Assange had a point during his extradition trial when he argued that the United States could not be trusted to follow its own laws. The trouble, of course, was that the UK and Sweden were happy to bend over when the US asked them to, and it was Ecuador with the cajones to stand up to them.
This is the big difference between the US and the (Score:3)
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 influe
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Shadow??? We don't need no steekin' shadow. We do it in broad daylight.
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Interesting)
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The release of US classified information is illegal everywhere. Otherwise anyone who spied on the US Government while in Paris would be fine.
That's not the case with any of the rules you mentioned.
This sounds like a lot of nonsense. If the release of US classified information is illegal in Paris, that is, according to French law, then you're right with regards to spying in Paris. And it could be, since the US and France are NATO allies. However, that does not make the same true everywhere else. I highly doubt that for example Iran has a similar stance on spying on the US.
That's not to say that anyone who spies on the US government in a country where that's legal is safe. The US has quite a record
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That's one view of sovereignty.
Problem is it's not the sole view. In terms of people who actually matter it's not even the main view. Very few governments would hear about one of their citizens selling them out to a foreign enemy, and be like "oh shit that guy's smart, he did it all in Iran so we can't touch him." Your view is restricted to a) people who have no power, and b) people who really want to justify not giving one of their spies back to his home country.
You can argue that all these folks are wrong
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Okay, so what US laws did Wikileaks break? How are the legal proceedings against the organisation going? Anyone been extradited to the US to stand trial?
No?
So on what legal grounds did Visa, Mastercard, et al, block payments to Wikileaks? I'm pretty sure they haven't blocked donations to Bradley Manning's defence fund; he being the only person actually charged with a crime directly relating to Wikileaks' activities.
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Espionage Act of 1917. Apparently the entire point of the organization is to violate this Act, because they have yet to post any significant leaks from any other country in the entire world.
Nobody's been charged, which means nobody's been extradited. However that doesn't mean they can't be inconvenienced by the investigation. It's not like a US Cop can't drag a suspect downtown for interrogation if he feels like it.
And if you're gonna argue the Visa/Mastercard policy is more then an inconvenience you're gonna have to explain why Wikileaks isn't fighting that in US Court. It wouldn't be hard to do, if they can keep Bradley Manning's fund topped up surely they can run their own, but they aren't doing it. This means they think they'd lose.
So where they charged? If not, what is the basis of the embargo? I understand that in the US you might actually have a system where you can block somebody from doing any financial transactions without any kind of law order, but in Europe the rules can be quite different.
A probable outcome will be, that the financial organizations will be ordered to forward all payments originated from Sweden to Wikileaks or face a possible ban from operating in Sweden, and if so they will all comply. It could also be, tha
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Sorry, but the Espionage Act of 1917 is not a Swedish law.
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I understand, the New York Times also reported (some of) Manning's leaks. Are you claiming the New York Times broke the law?
There was also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers [wikipedia.org]
Are you claiming that the New York Times should not have released the Pentagon Papers and in fact did so illegally?
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No.
The NYT is a legitimate journalist organization. They have rights that random dudes do not. That's why they aren't being investigated.
The editorial board exercised the exact same first amendment right that is afforded to every other US citizen. The difference is optics.
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How do you define a legitimate journalist organization? More importantly, how does US law define it?
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes there are US Laws. Trouble is Wikileaks broke them.
Bullshit they did. American military who released the information may have a case to answer, not those who distributed it. Otherwise, why isn't, for example, the New York Times having its bank accounts frozen? It published "Wikileaks" stories on its front page.
The whole fucking world isn't legally beholden to the US government, and US laws, and the US is just being a bully to use tactics like this to strike out at people who embarrassed it.
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the NYT is not under investigation because it's a legitimate journalist organization.
In-fucking-credible.
"It is easy to believe in freedom of speech for those with whom we agree." -- Leo McKern.
s for "the whole fucking world," you do realize that legally speaking every state in the whole fucking world is supposed to enforce the laws of every other state?
Really? So the US enforces the blasphemy laws of Saudi Arabia?
In actual fact, countries enforce the laws of foreign countries very selectively, only when they have a specific treaty saying so, and often not even then.
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the NYT is not under investigation because it's a legitimate journalist organization.
In-fucking-credible.
"It is easy to believe in freedom of speech for those with whom we agree." -- Leo McKern.
It's easy for me to oppose the "freedom of speech" that results in Chinese dissidents getting death threats.
The entire world is not a nice democracy, therefore leaking un-redacted diplomatic cables that include the names of Chinese dissidents is anti-freedom. Period. End of story. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
s for "the whole fucking world," you do realize that legally speaking every state in the whole fucking world is supposed to enforce the laws of every other state?
Really? So the US enforces the blasphemy laws of Saudi Arabia?
In actual fact, countries enforce the laws of foreign countries very selectively, only when they have a specific treaty saying so, and often not even then.
Good selective quoting there. The bit you missed ("you agree to enforce everyone-else's rules in areas where they have sovereignty") makes clear that the blasphemy law thing is a straw man.
I can
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Interesting)
Good selective quoting there. The bit you missed ("you agree to enforce everyone-else's rules in areas where they have sovereignty") makes clear that the blasphemy law thing is a straw man.
I can only give it a two out of five, tho. Way too transparent.
Well from a Europeans point of view I can't see how you could accept blocking all payments from an organization that has not had charges raised against it. I understand it follows the same path of locking up people without a trial and even ordering execution of citizens etc, but that sounds like something China or Russia would be doing (so not that far fetched).
So what you are saying is that if the US decides to go against all common sense and due procedure, we should abide to your laws even when no charges have been raised... Actually it seems that the whole case would be based on what is considered as "press", so I guess it would fit your whole current view on the law and freedom that you would retroactively make a definition that Wikileaks does not fill or require all press organizations to get a yearly governmental approval to be covered by the legal protection "press entities" are entitled to.
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Good selective quoting there. The bit you missed ("you agree to enforce everyone-else's rules in areas where they have sovereignty") makes clear that the blasphemy law thing is a straw man.
Yes, of course the US doesn't enforce Saudi laws. Countries agree to enforce other countries' laws, when they agree with them. Which was my point.
It's easy for me to oppose the "freedom of speech" that results in Chinese dissidents getting death threats.
Umm WTF? Are you seriously saying that the US govt is persecuting Assange and Wikileaks to defend Chinese dissidents? If you believe that, I've got a bridge you might like to buy.
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What is this "legitimate journalist" bullshit? Is there a list of legitimate journalists? How do you apply to be legitimate and can you get it rescinded?
That bit about enforcing other countries laws is only down to what is specified in treaties - it's not by any means automatic and even when specified by a
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organization's main goal is to break US Law, then you don't get to do business with US-Based Financial Firms.
Prisoners are allowed to own a business while in prison.
Are you sure the intent of a corporation can be used to ban their operation in the US ?
e.g Would someone associated with the mafia (but not charged) be banned from running a legitimate buisness ?
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/Just/ because they are drug lords?
Re: Excellent. (Score:3)
Bradley Manning broke the law. Wikileaks did not. They had no obligation to keep that information secret, and are protected (even as a non-US entity) by the first amendment protections for free speech and a free press. Same reason it was legal for the NYT to publish the "Pentagon papers" in the 70s even though they remained classified until last year.
The US government has itself stated the same thing. If what Wikileaks did was illegal, they would have been prosecuted. They were not.
Re:Excellent. (Score:5, Informative)
In case anyone else was wondering what Finansinspektionen was, the following is taken from wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Finansinspektionen (FI; Financial Supervisory Authority in English) is the Swedish government agency responsible for financial regulation in Sweden. It is responsible for the oversight, regulation and authorisation of financial markets and their participants. The agency falls under the Swedish Ministry of Finance and regulates all organisations that provide financial services in Sweden.
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I look forward to seeing Paypal get a taste of having to follow rules.
Sorry, but as a swede I can safely say that "Finansinspektionen" has no real teeth. They will not do anything about this. Too bad though.
Hope I am proven wrong.
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It's a political move. FI may not have any teeth, but by forcing them to address the matter it is bound to get at least some publicity. If they actually end up doings omething about it then that's just a bonus.
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Isn't that the same as Visa and Mastercard?
I thought they were being targeted as a "payment processor", not as a bank.
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Paypal probably will not get in trouble since technically they do not behave like a bank and move around other people's money, but instead take the money and promise to give it to someone else... but in that intermediate state they own it, which is why they keep getting away with confiscating it.
Are you sure about that? I would imagine that it actually differs from one country to another as financial and taxation law varies and book-keeping will generally be done in a way to minimize overhead. At least I have a recollection that Paypal will not accept bookkeeping in a way that it would consider Paypal to be offering the actual service that is being payed for, but from that point onwards it get's fairly grey. Also, it's not just about actual Paypal payments, they also own Zong which does quite a lot
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Paypal IS a bank in Europe, inc in Luxembourg. Oddly the EU wasnt fooled by "we're not a bank" Paypal, unlike the US
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"I look forward to seeing Paypal get a taste of having to follow rules."
Yeah... like having to use ACTUAL monetary exchange rates when dealing internationally, rather than some inflated figure they made up.
here here! (Score:5, Insightful)
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'
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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
They were placed on double-secret probation.
TO-GA!
TO-GA!
Seriously though, it may well have been the case that they received a nice friendly National Security Letter that ordered them to halt payment processing.
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.
If any of those groups dared to publish embarrassing and damaging information about secret US actions, etc, of the scale and scope that WL did, then I'd expect the talking-heads in the State-run US MSM and the politicians to engage in a full-on media-blitz of propaganda to pave the way to do just that
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"Seriously though, it may well have been the case that they received a nice friendly National Security Letter that ordered them to halt payment processing."
National Security Letters have nothing to do with business transactions, and have no power to alter them.
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Mea culpa.
You are absolutely correct. Thanks! :)
Now that I re-think it, it's more than likely it was because they were told that the IRS and every other government agency and department they could toss in would be up their asses until they died if they didn't cooperate.
Strat
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Call it an extra judical request? A chat over drinks at the club? Lunch?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11945875 [bbc.co.uk]
Just a 'letter"?
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The situation with the Pentagon Papers is not identical. The Pentagon Papers were a multi-volume book about the Vietnam War. They had all the context needed to make sense. They also showed us lots of things we didn't know. This means that a responsibly-handled publication was in the public interest. What about either War did this tell us that we didn't know? How can a dump of totally un-redacted cables be considered responsible?
And, perhaps most importantly, what are the odds that Roberts Court does not fin
Re:here here! (Score:5, Insightful)
The situation with the Pentagon Papers is not identical. The Pentagon Papers were a multi-volume book about the Vietnam War. They had all the context needed to make sense. They also showed us lots of things we didn't know. This means that a responsibly-handled publication was in the public interest. What about either War did this tell us that we didn't know? How can a dump of totally un-redacted cables be considered responsible?.
I was a teenager at the time and remember. The PP were a series of classified reports requested by SoD Robert McNamara that were published by the NYT in a series of news articles over a period of time.
Both the PP and the WL cables were classified material. What form the classified material is in (reports, book, etc) was and is immaterial, as are any subjective views of how informative or "responsible" they may or may not be. If one is legal, so must the other be. The law does not change depending on whether the government favors or disfavors a particular instance. At least, it should not if the government respects and obeys the rule of law. If the government is free to do whatever it wants to whomever it wants whenever it wants for whatever reasons it may choose, that's a tyranny.
The government tried at that time to prevent the NYT from publishing the PP and were planning to prosecute Sheehan and possibly editors at the NYT. Much as now, the propaganda and inflammatory accusations against the NYT and Sheehan by the government and those supporting the government's position abounded. The courts did not allow the government to prevent publication nor prosecute Sheehan or the others.
I'm certain that the US government has not moved against WL in the legal venue in a court of law precisely because they know the courts would have to completely reverse themselves on a major already-decided fundamental legal question, and their chances of that happening are remote at best.
Strat
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If the Pentagon papers case had been as clear-cut as you're saying the Times would have won at the District Court level, but they lost. The Court was weighing the interests of the public to know this information with the interests of the government to keep it secret.
Stewart and White said "the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in [national defense and international affairs] may lie in an enlightened citizenry - in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect th
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Since these leaks did not make the public more informed, or critical
That's YOUR opinion. It made ME more informed and critical, as it did many, many others.
Law cannot be based on subjective standards, or it is no law at all. And yes, many current laws around things like obscenity/pornography are in that category and should rightly be abolished or at least re-written to clear and unambiguous and consistent standards.
Strat
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Since these leaks did not make the public more informed, or critical
That's YOUR opinion. It made ME more informed and critical, as it did many, many others.
Then you were incredibly poorly informed before, because everything Wikileaks claims to have revealed was very well-known before Wikileaks revealed it.
Drone strikes are old news. Pakistani double-dealing is older. Afghanistan was a tough slog when invaded Iraq in '03.
Law cannot be based on subjective standards, or it is no law at all. And yes, many current laws around things like obscenity/pornography are in that category and should rightly be abolished or at least re-written to clear and unambiguous and consistent standards.
Strat
Then no-one will ever fully have the rule of law, because human life does not fit into neat, objective categories. If it did we wouldn't need a Supreme Court.
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Then you were incredibly poorly informed before, because everything Wikileaks claims to have revealed was very well-known before Wikileaks revealed it.
The exact same claim could be made for the Pentagon Papers as well.
Precisely the point.
The US government did not and is not pursuing this through the judicial system exactly because it is pursuing an extra-legal policy regarding WL/Assange that they
Journalists (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
What if it was the New York Times (Score:2)
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 b
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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'.
Of course the NYT would just publish that, and not accidentally get two Zimbabwean Generals charged with Treason.
That's the problem with Wikileaks. They just publish everything. They assume the US is the absolute worst government in the world, and don't really care that actual people get hurt badly as long as the US gets embarrassed.
You're thinking of propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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You're creating an imaginary distinction where there is none.
Pirate Party (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
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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.
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The headline suits from bad translation. What they did is filed a complaint.
Goddamn spell correction! -suits +suffers.
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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?
Re:Sweden doesn't have a judiciary? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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."
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Wikileaks appears to be absent from those lists.
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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.
I
Re:Sweden doesn't have a judiciary? (Score:5, Insightful)
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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?"
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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.
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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 [wikipedia.org]
What is a bank? What is a financial se
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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.
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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.
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Mod parent up. The FBI doesn't drop charges if you plead guilty, they drop additional charges if you go to court.
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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 Gove
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Couldn't they apply the same logic to any news organization in the US?
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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
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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
Re:Unkown Lamer, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! (Score:5, Interesting)
Dollars to doughnuts finansinspektionen will conclude that no one in sweden has done anything wrong...
Since Wikileaks has its headquarters in Sweden (specifically BECAUSE if its strong journalistic shield laws), and no doubt tried to collect the money there, one end of the transaction is under Sweedish banking law. No doubt some of their contributors are also making donations in Sweden, putting the entirety of those transactions under Swedish law.
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Dollars to doughnuts finansinspektionen will conclude that no one in sweden has done anything wrong...
Since Wikileaks has its headquarters in Sweden (specifically BECAUSE if its strong journalistic shield laws), and no doubt tried to collect the money there, one end of the transaction is under Sweedish banking law. No doubt some of their contributors are also making donations in Sweden, putting the entirety of those transactions under Swedish law.
Only if those transactions did not involve sending the money through any international financial institutions. If a Swede runs money to another Swede through France French laws apply.
Moreover it's likely there's some reciprocity between Swedish laws and US Laws. Wikileaks biggest activity was breaking US Laws on classified information, which is illegal in the US, which generally means that Sweden has an obligation to stop them.
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Wikileaks biggest activity was breaking US Laws on classified information, which is illegal in the US, which generally means that Sweden has an obligation to stop them.
No, Sweden has no obligation to stop them - just like the US isn't obliged to stop an American from doing something in the US that would be illegal in Sweden.
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Think about Cuba- your Canadian and European banks credit card is fine.
This EU probe could bring a lot of US banking laws to the surface
If they win - wikileaks gets funding in a part of the world.
If they lose - a cute multinational financial services corporation is found to be a just another US financial services corporation...
A lot of tourist and family funds could be lost to other financial cor
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VISA Europe is a membership association owned entirely by its membership (which are European Banks, including Swedish banks)
FWIW, they are not the same company as VISA, Inc. which operates in the US. The US division was sold off in an IPO years ago
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Visa probably has to agree to swedish law to accept money for swedish businesses
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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?
Because "private" banks are heavily-regulated and must obey banking laws, both domestically in the countries they operate in, and internationally. The laws and regulations, both in the US and Sweden, say that they may not discriminate in this manner against anyone that has not been legally sanctioned/convicted and/or placed on an official terrorist list. Neither of which is the case for WL.
Strat
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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?
Because "private" banks are heavily-regulated and must obey banking laws, both domestically in the countries they operate in, and internationally. The laws and regulations, both in the US and Sweden, say that they may not discriminate in this manner against anyone that has not been legally sanctioned/convicted and/or placed on an official terrorist list. Neither of which is the case for WL.
Strat
So if I told a Loan Officer "Don't worry, the money I use to murder my wife will not come from this loan," he would have to lend it to me? He couldn't decide that it would be bad PR to lend me money, and show me the door?
Wikileaks is very open about publishing leaks. Their best leak is a massive US-data dump. As far as the US Government is concerned that was illegal. As far as most Americans are concerned Assange is a batshit crazy anti-American loony. You don't have to do business with people you think are
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You don't have to do business with people you think are about to be charged with major crimes. You don't have to do business with people who piss off your other customers.
You don't have to run a company, but if you do, there are certain rules you have to follow. Not doing business with blacks because it pisses off your other customers is, for example, not an option. Not moving money to people because you think they might be charged for something might not be, either. If you don't like that, you are free to not run a bank. If nobody wants to run a bank under those circumstances, we might have to rethink them.
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People keep asserting it's illegal for banks not to do business with alleged criminals. I find it interesting that nobody can quote the actual statute.
Which law are you referring to?
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So if I told a Loan Officer "Don't worry, the money I use to murder my wife will not come from this loan," he would have to lend it to me? He couldn't decide that it would be bad PR to lend me money, and show me the door?
Nope. Nobody ever forced those people to get into the banking business.
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So if I told a Loan Officer "Don't worry, the money I use to murder my wife will not come from this loan," he would have to lend it to me? He couldn't decide that it would be bad PR to lend me money, and show me the door?
Nope. Nobody ever forced those people to get into the banking business.
Which law makes that illegal?
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So if I told a Loan Officer "Don't worry, the money I use to murder my wife will not come from this loan," he would have to lend it to me?
Seriously?
You're trying to equate walking into a bank and publicly admitting planning/conspiring to commit felony capitol murder with the freezing of assets of an organization that has not been indicted or charged, never mind convicted, of any unlawful activity?
Really? 0.o
I have to ask; am I being trolled here?
Strat
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It comes with being monopolies. Some countries like Sweden, have regulations to prevent abuse of monopolies. Even pass laws specifically for certain important services.
In the US, you cannot say that you will not serve African American people in your restaurant, even though it is a private business. Private business doesnt mean you can choose to offer services. This true in pretty much any country.
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And yet many people wearing perfectly legal outfits are thrown out of my place of employment for not wearing shoes...
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If it sends the money via the US (ie: Mastercard and Paypal), it most certainly is. They have to follow the laws of the US AND every country they operate in. That's why Mastercard Iraq can't operate in Iran.
If Sweden doesn't want financial companies with these restrictions operating in Sweden they can ban them, but they'll also lose access to them.
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Health issues. Completely different.
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Really?
We sell drywall, not food.
Heck last time I went to a food joint a couple kids got thrown out just for talking loud. The Freedom of Contract does exist, and it is a thing.
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Nope. They get special powers and privileges by being global financial institutions. If they were willing to give up that power, and take responsibility for EVERY transaction they process, then perhaps it would be ok.
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Because if they don't, then governments will have to run a system for electronic exchange of money themselves, and the banks REALLY don't want that to happen when they're getting so fat skimming from nearly every transaction in the economy.