WikiLeaks could be forced to shut down by year's end

[Shawn Knight]

Wikileaks is on the verge of shutting down unless the organization is able to overcome blockades put in place by US financial institutions. Founder Julian Assange said on Monday at a news conference in London that the group needs $3.5 million over the next year to continue normal operations.

Wikileaks is run solely through supporter donations and if those backers are unable to funnel money to the organization, “we will simply not be able to continue by the turn of the year,” said Assage. MasterCard and Visa stopped processing donations to the organization in December 2010. Several others have since followed, including Bank of America, eBay, PayPal and Western Union – the sum of which represented 95 percent of Wikileaks’ revenue.

Wikileaks is only taking in roughly $10,000 per month now, a far cry from the $3.5 million goal that Assange and company need to keep things afloat in 2012. In the interim, the group has had to stop the processing of thousands of secret documents in order to address lawsuits they have filed against the aforementioned financial channels. Assange has now vowed to use all of Wikileaks’ efforts to fight “corrupt financial institutions.”

As their name suggests, Wikileaks is known for publishing confidential documents obtained through various sources, or whistle-blowers. The organization hit the web in 2006 and has since released sensitive data regarding the war in Afghanistan and other high-profile political cables.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/45988-wikileaks-could-be-forced-to-shut-down-by-years-end.html

 

[treetops]

its sad that these companies\banks let people donate through them to Nazi and KKK hate organizations but pick on wikileaks because they posted info on politicians that they no doubt have in there pockets.

 

[Guest]

I'm sure some millionaire will find a way to make a generous donation.

 

[learninmypc]

WikiLeaks Says It Could Close

 

[ramonsterns]

Awww, finanshial distwict has a boo boo and needs to thwow tantwums to dwaw attention. Who's a gweedy bastawd? Yesh, you are. Ugaboogabooga, yesh, you are.

 

[gwailo247]

So just to clarify, they haven't leaked ****, but they're out of money. Hmmm.

A dingo should have eaten baby Assange, we wouldn't have this problem.

 

[paynetrain007]

Not to say I agree with the Nazi or KKK but there is a far cry from simply hating a people group/free speech and what wikileaks does. They put a lot of people in danger by releasing private information that is not their right in the first place. Stolen property and traitorous acts which harm governmental relations. Basically they are like anonymous. They are not helping anyone's freedom's just hurting people, including people who protect our country.

 

[Guest]

The truth isn't popular.

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

If Wikileaks shuts down, it couldn't come soon enough. Their irresponsible actions have put far too many people's lives in jeopardy and strained relations between nations.

 

[revam1]

Libya will invest.

 

[Muggs]

Corporations succeed where governments have failed.

 

[Guest]

If the secrets that Wikileaks publicized was true and they were secrets preciously hidden by politicians and etc, caused factions between nations, then good! If you don't keep secrets, then Wikileaks is unneeded. The fact that there were secrets, means treachery. If our Secretary of State is hiding something that could cause displeasure with another nation, then she shouldn't be hiding it, better yet, she shouldn't have it.

Moral, be honest and don't have a forked tongue. The reason that important people didn't like Wikileaks is because it exposed, not lies (otherwise they wouldn't care so much, unless the lie caused harm, but knowing the source of Wikileaks info, there aren't much lies), but truths that they didn't want known. Money is single worst, greatest thing on the planet.

 

[Guest]

I would say one more thing, it is not Wikileaks that put people in jeopardy and nations in conflict, it was the hypocrites that had the secrets in the first place. No secrets, no pain.

 

[Burty117]

Guest said:
I would say one more thing, it is not Wikileaks that put people in jeopardy and nations in conflict, it was the hypocrites that had the secrets in the first place. No secrets, no pain.

I agree with this, if there were no secrets in the first place, no one would have been in jeopardy.
I really don't get how people can single handedly blame Wikileaks for putting peoples lives at risk when they were at risk the whole time, we just didn't know it yet.

 

[Guest]

But I thought the Wikileaks guy got killed by his brother recently..? Oh...wait, that was just the most recent South Park : ).

Even if Assange has completely honest and morally sound intentions, this is not the way to accomplish your goal, whatever that may be...I mean has he actually accomplished anything? besides spending others money and creating law suits (which of course fund the 'evil' people don't forget) ?!?

I'll be honest and say I don't know how the public should address the wrongdoings that go on, especially at an international level. But simply publishing whatever 'restricted' info you can get your hands on, just to publish it, seems childish..almost like a game..except we are talking about real people, in real life..

 

[gwailo247]

Guest said:
But I thought the Wikileaks guy got killed by his brother recently..? Oh...wait, that was just the most recent South Park : ).

Even if Assange has completely honest and morally sound intentions, this is not the way to accomplish your goal, whatever that may be...I mean has he actually accomplished anything? besides spending others money and creating law suits (which of course fund the 'evil' people don't forget) ?!?

LOL, That South Park was funny.

But its very clear to anyone that reads his bio that he's just someone who wants attention. I'm sure he thinks he's way too complex of an individual that "daddy issues" are too simple of a way to describe him, but that's all he is. He had a magic piece of information drop into his lap, and he parlayed that into global fame. That's all he ever wanted. If it wasn't WL, he would be doing something else, whatever keeps his name in the news.

The second I found out that he edited the helicopter attack video, the site's credibility went out the window for me. And his gestapo tactics in controlling the information and the site just confirmed that.

 

[Wagan8r]

To all of the people saying that there shouldn't be any governmental secrets, you're just being naïve. How many secrets do you have in your own life that you keep from others? Let's lower the bar. How many things about you would you just rather other people didn't know? Your drinking problem, your porn addiction, your bad habits, etc. Is YOUR life an open book? Now, what if somebody came along and stole your diary/journal or filmed you doing one of your less respectable actions and then made it available to everyone in the world? Wouldn't you be pissed?

Let me guess, "But that's different."

Grow up.

 

[Guest]

Ahh there are government secrets. I think though, that you are the one that needs to understand. If the secrets are treacherous then it is wrong but there are normal secrets that are in the government for good reason, for example when the U.S was tracking Bin Laden, they didn't tell anybody, which was a good thing too. Now let me tell you another secret, Nazi Germany concentration camps, that wasn't exactly public news for a little while or at least, Du Frurer wasn't excited to tell anybody.
So in a sense, yes the government has secrets that should never be told, thank you for pointing that out, and it really isn't Assange's job to publicize them but there are things that government and companies don't want you to know that should be. Some are pretty easy to guess though sometimes, example: how do you think Obama paid for his big, black bus?

 

[learninmypc]

If Wikileaks shuts down, it couldn't come soon enough. Their irresponsible actions have put far too many people's lives in jeopardy and strained relations between nations.

I agree 1000% :grinthumb

 

[Burty117]

Wagan8r said:
To all of the people saying that there shouldn't be any governmental secrets, you're just being naïve. How many secrets do you have in your own life that you keep from others? Let's lower the bar. How many things about you would you just rather other people didn't know? Your drinking problem, your porn addiction, your bad habits, etc. Is YOUR life an open book? Now, what if somebody came along and stole your diary/journal or filmed you doing one of your less respectable actions and then made it available to everyone in the world? Wouldn't you be pissed?

Let me guess, "But that's different."

Grow up.

To be fair, no one gives me money every time they buy an item, No one gives me a cut of their pay check and I don't get any money for anything that gets inported/exported out the country I live in.

See what i'm getting at? I agree that I have one or two secrets that no one knows about, but I'm sure the moment people start pouring £££ into my bank account every second of every day to allow me to run a country i'm sure as hell it will get out some how and i'm sure as hell I would not keep any secrets about where the money goes.

Now I agree if there is something that really should stay a secret as a matter of life or death then that changes things. But so far no one has actually been killed, or even scratched due to what wikileaks has un-covered am I correct?

I'm not a massive WikiLeaks fan, I found reading articles on their website fascinating at best but you seem to think that people high up in the government deserve to hide every bad deed they do? And when someone questions it we (such as myself) need to "grow up" and are "naïve".

 

[Wagan8r]

burty117 said:

Wagan8r said:
To all of the people saying that there shouldn't be any governmental secrets, you're just being naïve. How many secrets do you have in your own life that you keep from others? Let's lower the bar. How many things about you would you just rather other people didn't know? Your drinking problem, your porn addiction, your bad habits, etc. Is YOUR life an open book? Now, what if somebody came along and stole your diary/journal or filmed you doing one of your less respectable actions and then made it available to everyone in the world? Wouldn't you be pissed?

Let me guess, "But that's different."

Grow up.

To be fair, no one gives me money every time they buy an item, No one gives me a cut of their pay check and I don't get any money for anything that gets inported/exported out the country I live in.

See what i'm getting at? I agree that I have one or two secrets that no one knows about, but I'm sure the moment people start pouring £££ into my bank account every second of every day to allow me to run a country i'm sure as hell it will get out some how and i'm sure as hell I would not keep any secrets about where the money goes.

Now I agree if there is something that really should stay a secret as a matter of life or death then that changes things. But so far no one has actually been killed, or even scratched due to what wikileaks has un-covered am I correct?

I'm not a massive WikiLeaks fan, I found reading articles on their website fascinating at best but you seem to think that people high up in the government deserve to hide every bad deed they do? And when someone questions it we (such as myself) need to "grow up" and are "naïve".

Sure, I suppose I came across the wrong way. The point that I was trying to make was that governmental secrets are necessary at times and governmental intentions/activity also need to be private. I definitely think that corruption should be exposed and punished. However, exposing illegal activity shouldn't itself be conducted illegally. When that happens, you get into vigilante justice, which is "justice" as seen only by the vigilante, not the greater populace.

 

[Guest]

Ahh ok that was my point when I answered you, thank you for the clarification.

 

[Burty117]

Wagan8r said:
Sure, I suppose I came across the wrong way. The point that I was trying to make was that governmental secrets are necessary at times and governmental intentions/activity also need to be private. I definitely think that corruption should be exposed and punished. However, exposing illegal activity shouldn't itself be conducted illegally. When that happens, you get into vigilante justice, which is "justice" as seen only by the vigilante, not the greater populace.

Ok that makes more sense, and yes I agree with you on that. I was just clarifying.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Wagan8r said:
However, exposing illegal activity shouldn't itself be conducted illegally. When that happens, you get into vigilante justice, which is "justice" as seen only by the vigilante, not the greater populace.

One of the more insightful things I've read in a comments section lately.

The current Occupy Wall Street movement is a reaction to 'corporate greed' and they want rich people to pay more tax. More tax goes to the govt and the hope then is that the govt can distribute wealth and create jobs.

The wikileaks supporters also dislike large financial institutions. But the part that doesn't make sense to me is... Wikileaks is opposed to the govt.

You guys are mad at rock (corps), for keeping down scissors (wikileaks) and you want to empower paper (govt) to help our economy. But you're forgetting how paper and scissors dont' get along all that well.

 

[Guest]

Wiki must survive, we need the Truth!