Wikileaks Suspends Publishing Of Cables Due To "Financial Blockade" 316
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."
Re:Wikileaks done in by its own leak (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/ [salon.com]
Re:Wikileaks done in by its own leak (Score:5, Informative)
This author must dispute two statements of fact in the above post:
FYI: the un-redacted cable release came from a confluence of several events:
Re:Wait a second.... (Score:5, Informative)
The 'financial blockade' predates the threat to publish stuff about Bank of America. When the leaks about Iraq were published, the US government, with Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) leading the way, worked with PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and other financial institutions to cut off funding that went through any US-based corporation.
Note that Wikileaks had not (and still hasn't) done anything illegal in the United States: Publishing classified information that was handed to you is protected under the First Amendment, as decided in the Pentagon Papers case.
Re:Wikileaks done in by its own leak (Score:5, Informative)
Except it did.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703428604575419580947722558.html?KEYWORDS=julian+assange+rights+groups [wsj.com]
Amnesty International went after Assange in 2010, a year after that award when they learned how he put civilians in danger. And yet in every interview on the matter, Assange insists he did nothing wrong. In this article, he blasts others for being lazy, when he was the lazy one who didn't bother redacting names. And if you bother taking two seconds to Google such matters, you'll find several quotes where he says he won't redact civilian names unless people give him $200,000.