Due to the excessive costs of various lawsuits and the problems of a blockcade by nearly all large credit cards, WikiLeaks has stopped leaking and is diverting all power to shields aggressive fundraising in order to get enough money to fight the credit card companies in court. Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union all refused to accept donations for WikiLeaks on December 7th of 2010 and the situation has reached a particularly dire point.
While it seems that the companies engaged in the blockade have gotten what they’ve wanted, WikiLeaks doesn’t look like it’ll be going down easy. The site is not shutting down and is, instead, fundraising like crazy. On every page a “donate” window pops up and upon clicking the donate button, users are provided with several walkthroughs explaining exactly how they can donate so that the money actually gets to WikiLeaks.
Things do not look particularly good for WikiLeaks, but I think that this battle is far from over. If the resulting press from this announcement drives enough supporters to donate, WikiLeaks could very well manage to win in court if there are, in fact, no lawful grounds for this blockade as the site claims.
We also need not forget that Anonymous has come to Wikileaks’ aid in the past and are not above fighting fire with fire and directly attacking WikiLeaks’ enemies. What with their recent take-down of a child pornography website, Anonymous seems to be in one of their “righteous” moods, so to speak. It’s not unlikely that Operation Leakspin Part 2 might take place before WikiLeaks is down for the count.
At the moment, however, things look grim. Unless WikiLeaks does get funds fast, it may go under before it gets a chance to fight. Only time will tell how this will play out.
- WikiLeaks has filed suit, but going to court costs a lot of money
- Amazon has dropped out on WikiLeaks too
- And it’s generally a bad idea to mess with things Anonymous likes
