WikiLeaks says funding has been blocked after government blacklisting
Founder Julian Assange hits out at decision by Moneybookers, which collects the whistleblowing website's donations
- David Leigh and Rob Evans
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 October 2010 17.55 BST
The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government.
Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist.
Phi Beta Iota: This is interesting at multiple levels and requires further investigation. As best we can tell, WikiLeaks is not subject to US secrecy REGULATIONS and US laws do not apply–if anyone knows differently, please let us know. We believe Moneybookers when they say the US Government did not call on them. This reeks of lawyers with too much power over simple business decisions. We do not trust WikiLeaks management to be completely honest. Finally, it is not possible to censor information once it is out. As John Perry Barlow said so famously at OSS '92, “The Internet interprets censorship as an outage, and routes around it.”
From where we sit, the US Government could more constructively use its time in self-examination: 1) Why are the names of sources in message traffic? They should be IDENS in completely separate messages, ONCE, and then cryptonyms thereafter. It is obvious most of the USG, especially the Department of State but also most of DoD, is still sophmoric when it comes to security of sources. 2) Why are we covering up what appear to be war crimes meriting investigation? Is this really in our best interest? Do we really think that a) this is not going to come out eventually, or that b) if we cover it up it is going to reduce in any way the blowback from those that do know? All it does is keep truth off the table. As the Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi likes to say,
When things are not going well, until you get the truth out on the table, no matter how ugly, you are not in a position to deal with it.
INTEGRITY. What a concept.
