Wikileaks On The Verge of A Complete Shutdown Due to “Financial Blockade”

Whistleblowing website Wikileaks will have to shut down by the end of year unless a “financial blockade” – imposed on the site by US financial services companies such as Mastercard, Visa and Paypal – can be lifted, thus allowing for donations to stream into the site.

Whistleblowing website Wikileaks will have to shut down by the end of year unless a “financial blockade” – imposed on the site by US financial services companies such as Mastercard, Visa and Paypal – can be lifted, thus allowing for donations to stream into the site.

[quote]”If WikiLeaks does not find a way to remove this blockade, given our current levels of expenditure, we will simply not be able to continue by the turn of the year,” said Assange in a press conference on Monday, as quoted by Reuters.[/quote]

Assange added that with over 95 percent of its original revenue stream now blocked off by the major financial payment firms, the website had little option but to temporarily suspend all publishing activities for the time being and devote all effort into battling the financial restrictions that had been placed upon it since December of last year.

Back in December, Visa and MasterCard had stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks after the United States government had criticized Wikileaks for releasing thousands of sensitive US diplomatic cables from its embassies all over the world.

The impact of this proved to be particularly fatal for the website as monthly donations to the organisation fell from €100,000 (US$139,160) a month in 2010, to around €6,000 this year.

The website now needs over US$3.5 million over the next year just to cover its operating cost, said Assange, adding that his organisation was ready to fight the “dangerous, oppressive and undemocratic precedent” that have been set by the financial firms.

[quote]“The blockade is outside of any accountable, public process. It is without democratic oversight or transparency.”

“The US government itself found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to a US financial blockade. But the blockade of WikiLeaks by politicised US finance companies continues regardless.”[/quote]

In July this year, WikiLeaks filed a complaint to the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission, accusing Visa and MasterCard of breaching antitrust provisions set out by the EU Treaty.

Assange said that he hoped the European Commission would make a decision to hold a full investigation by mid-November.

Till then though, Assange assured the public that any donations to Wikileaks would not be used in defending him against legal proceeding brought against him in an extradition case.

Wikileaks last published on its site in early September this year when it released its full archive of 251,000 un-redacted documents.