WikiLeaks scores big win against Visa

Court demanded that Visa stop its financial blockade against WikiLeaks. 

|
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/File
In this Feb. 1, 2012 file photo, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, arrives at the Supreme Court in London.

WikiLeaks declared victory Thursday in the first round of its campaign against the financial blockade imposed by Visa and MasterCard after an Icelandic court ordered their local partner to resume processing credit card donations to the secret-spilling site.

Visa and MasterCard were among half a dozen major U.S. financial firms to pull the plug on WikiLeaks following its decision to begin publishing about 250,000 State Department cables in late 2010.

WikiLeaks says that the ensuing blockade has led to a 95 percent fall in revenue, something which founder Julian Assange says has forced him to focus on fundraising at the expense of his site's publication work.

The judgment, handed down by Reykjavik District Court, is "a very important milestone in our campaign," WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said in a telephone interview. Lawsuits remain active in Denmark and in Belgium, he said, but the Icelandic win was "a small but very important step in fighting back against these powerful banks."

The District Court ordered Visa and MasterCard's local partner, Valitor, to resume funneling donations to WikiLeaks' payment processor, DataCell, within two weeks or face 800,000 kronur (about $6,000) in daily fines, according to DataCell lawyer Sveinn Andri Sveinsson.

The implications of the judgment, which Valitor plans to appeal, weren't immediately clear.

Even if Valitor is eventually forced to comply with the judgment, it isn't clear whether Visa or MasterCard would allow their customers to make donations to DataCell or WikiLeaks. Both companies have refused to deal with WikiLeaks for the better part of two years, leading to allegations that they had bowed to U.S. pressure to starve the organization of funds.

Neither Visa Inc. nor MasterCard Inc. immediately returned emails seeking comment on the judgment.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to WikiLeaks scores big win against Visa
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0712/WikiLeaks-scores-big-win-against-Visa
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe