4 ms·

There's another point of view on this story, which is, shortly put, "we don't negotiate with terrorists".

geuis 16y ago
Who's the terrorist in this situation? Its wrong to immediately put Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and other related parties into the "right" side and to put the people behind the DDoS attacks into the "wrong" side. They are not victims, but instead are attacking Wikileaks by cutting off their ability to get funds. Who's right in this situation?
- xentronium 16y ago
  I don't say that visa, paypal and mastercard are right, I say that's how they perceive the situation and what they will probably say to public in press releases. Showing weakness by negotiations with the Legion is inappropriate for them in given circumstances.
- alex_c 16y ago
  That can be debated, but from the perspective of the decision makers at Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal - who would presumably be the ones saying "we don't negotiate with terrorists" - the terrorist is obviously Anonymous.
- xenophanes 16y ago
  Visa is a private company. If they are wrong, it's wrong in the same way as Apple's app store policies -- you can object to them, compete with them, complain about them, even jailbreak your phone, but you'd definitely be wrong to DDoS the app store website b/c your app was rejected. Visa isn't attacking anyone when they reject customers for any reason, just like Apple isn't attacking anyone when they reject apps. Attacking is the wrong word. It's refusing to cooperate with, even "discriminating against" (but not the various illegal types like racism or sexism), being unfriendly to, maybe "being a jerk", whatever, but there is no attacking when a business makes legal business decisions, especially one that they think lots of their customers would prefer (Why else would they do it? I'm guessing Visa is run by soulless bureaucrats just trying to make money and keep their jobs and they don't care about having a political agenda).
  - sirrocco 16y ago
    You said : Why else would they do it ? And someone above posted this link : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-russia-visa-mastercard http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-rus... Visa and Mastercard are different from Apple because they did what they did when the government stepped in.
electromagnetic 16y ago
I thought it was allegedly the terrorists motives to destroy the things we love - peace, democracy, rule of law etc. It seems rather ironic that the US state department is strong arming companies to its will in a draconian way rather than actually playing by the law or you know using that funny Democracy word and enacting a new law so they can actually play by the fucking law. All I see recently is our government pulling the terrorist card to do an action that is in essence terrorism by our governments definition. Given that our governments fucked the definition of terrorism now that it no longer means to incite terror but means to oppose us - us being the government. Here in Canada we're still finding out the list of laws the government broke during the G8 and G20 summits. Not to mention the government was actually misinforming people to get them to think they were complying with the law (providing ID around the checkpoints, not just while passing through) when they really were being coerced into volunteering information. I'm sorry but I'm calling this "war on terror" as a terrorist win, cause they're not only in our governments but are our governments.

geuis 16y ago

Who's the terrorist in this situation? Its wrong to immediately put Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and other related parties into the "right" side and to put the people behind the DDoS attacks into the "wrong" side. They are not victims, but instead are attacking Wikileaks by cutting off their ability to get funds. Who's right in this situation?

xentronium 16y ago
I don't say that visa, paypal and mastercard are right, I say that's how they perceive the situation and what they will probably say to public in press releases. Showing weakness by negotiations with the Legion is inappropriate for them in given circumstances.
alex_c 16y ago
That can be debated, but from the perspective of the decision makers at Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal - who would presumably be the ones saying "we don't negotiate with terrorists" - the terrorist is obviously Anonymous.
xenophanes 16y ago
Visa is a private company. If they are wrong, it's wrong in the same way as Apple's app store policies -- you can object to them, compete with them, complain about them, even jailbreak your phone, but you'd definitely be wrong to DDoS the app store website b/c your app was rejected. Visa isn't attacking anyone when they reject customers for any reason, just like Apple isn't attacking anyone when they reject apps. Attacking is the wrong word. It's refusing to cooperate with, even "discriminating against" (but not the various illegal types like racism or sexism), being unfriendly to, maybe "being a jerk", whatever, but there is no attacking when a business makes legal business decisions, especially one that they think lots of their customers would prefer (Why else would they do it? I'm guessing Visa is run by soulless bureaucrats just trying to make money and keep their jobs and they don't care about having a political agenda).
- sirrocco 16y ago
  You said : Why else would they do it ? And someone above posted this link : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-russia-visa-mastercard http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-rus... Visa and Mastercard are different from Apple because they did what they did when the government stepped in.

electromagnetic 16y ago

I thought it was allegedly the terrorists motives to destroy the things we love - peace, democracy, rule of law etc. It seems rather ironic that the US state department is strong arming companies to its will in a draconian way rather than actually playing by the law or you know using that funny Democracy word and enacting a new law so they can actually play by the fucking law. All I see recently is our government pulling the terrorist card to do an action that is in essence terrorism by our governments definition. Given that our governments fucked the definition of terrorism now that it no longer means to incite terror but means to oppose us - us being the government. Here in Canada we're still finding out the list of laws the government broke during the G8 and G20 summits. Not to mention the government was actually misinforming people to get them to think they were complying with the law (providing ID around the checkpoints, not just while passing through) when they really were being coerced into volunteering information. I'm sorry but I'm calling this "war on terror" as a terrorist win, cause they're not only in our governments but are our governments.