I see in the news from BBC News that Visa has now suspended money transfer to Wikileaks. This follows the same line as Mastercard, Paypal, Amazon ,Moneybookers and more large international companies have started to do since Wikileaks started to release the U.S Embassy cables.
What is interesting about the Wikileaks case is it has exposed the political blackmail that is currently ongoing against Wikileaks. It is obvious by the reactions of the big companies that they are being blackmailed by the U.S Government and other large governments into submissions to stop trading with Wikileaks. They do this because it’s is in there best business interest with the government. Not because of some pesky principles that they sometimes claim to have.
It is a serius matter that the U.S government gets away with this in the face of the public. As they are here bypassing the founding rules of the U.S constitution and due process of the law. The U.S government has also failed to show what law Wikileaks is currently breaking by releasing the U.S Embassy cables. This means just one thing, the U.S government is breaking it’s own law and is acting in a unlawful manner. That has to stop now, and for a good reason. This is against the freedom of speech that the western countries claim to uphold. It is however clear that the western governments have forgot that with freedom of speech comes the price that your secret doing might become a public knowledge on the terms of the people, not on the government terms. This is a fact and the political system of the western world has to live with that, since anything else is just a dictatorship and nothing less.
The voters in the offending countries should protest to there governments with full strength and show no mercy as it is clear that the government is not going to show the public no mercy when it comes down to it.
Live the free world and free speech!
BBC News
Wikileaks’ Visa payments suspended (BBC News)