Iceland May Ban Mastercard and Visa Over WikiLeaks

Iceland, on the way to economic recovery since it decided to let its troubled lenders fail two years ago, is considering taking away the operating licenses from Mastercard and Visa in the country over their ban on donations to WikiLeaks.

From Raw Story on 12/13/2010:

Credit card companies that prevented card-holders from donating money to the secrets outlet WikiLeaks could have their operating licenses taken away in Iceland, according to members of the Icelandic Parliamentary General Committee.

Representatives from Mastercard and Visa were called before the committee Sunday to discuss their refusal to process donations to the website, reports Reykjavik Grapevine.

"People wanted to know on what legal grounds the ban was taken, but no one could answer it," Robert Marshall, the chairman of the committee, said. "They said this decision was taken by foreign sources."

The committee is seeking additional information from the credit card companies for proof that there was legal grounds for blocking the donations.

Marshall said the committee would seriously review the operating licenses of Visa and Mastercard in Iceland.

(Full article at the link)

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"Operation Payback" Takes Down Visa and Mastercard Sites

Well, you wanted a cyber war, Mr. Obama. Now you've got it. Good luck to you.

"Operation Payback" took down the website of Mastercard, and then proceeded to do the same at Visa's website. It was successful in less than a minute. The entity behind "Operations Payback" didn't like it when Mastercard and Visa did the bidding of the government and stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.

Paypal froze the WikiLeaks account under the government pressure, preventing WikiLeaks from receiving donations.

And yet another popular Internet site has caved in to the government's demand and removed the user behind "Operation Payback": Twitter.

Ah, the futility of the action by Twitter, and they should know it. Now you can follow "Operation Payback" again, on Twitter, at these accounts:

@AnonOpsNet
@Anon_Operations
@Op_Payback

Let's see, the next thing that Obama the cyber warrior (with Senator Rockefeller in tow) may do is to demand that Twitter hand over the information of the followers of "Operation Payback" and WikiLeaks, and harass them as "terrorists" and "traitors".

Doesn't seem odd to you that the ruling class and their wannabes are all up in arms against WikiLeaks and its founder over a bunch of diplomatic cables many of which, many say, are no more than petty gossips, childish temper tantrums? Absolutely nothing happened when WikiLeaks leaked the war documents.

Isn't it ironic that the companies who must depend on free flow of information in the cyberspace - Amazon, Twitter, Paypal, Facebook - cave in to the government pressure very easily and curtail that freedom (and the First Amendment, by the way)?

UK's Guardian had a poll on December 5, asking readers "Would you donate to WikiLeaks if you could?" The result?

86.7% YES
13.3% no

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