Today we pour out a 40 for our homies who blew the door out of a lot of government secrets that in the long run, no one gave a shit about anyway because it wasn't news on who the next American Idol was. But sure enough, Wikileaks is done for, at least for now.
Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, has announced that the whistleblowing website is suspending publishing operations in order to focus on fighting a financial blockade and raise new funds.
Assange, speaking at a press conference in London on Monday, said a banking blockade had destroyed 95% of WikiLeaks' revenues.
He added that the blockade posed an existential threat to WikiLeaks and if it was not lifted by the new year the organisation would be "simply not able to continue".
The website, behind the publication of hundreds of thousands of controversial US embassy cables in late 2010 in partnership with newspapers including the Guardian and New York Times, revealed that it was running on cash reserves after "an arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade" by the Bank of America, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Western Union.
WikiLeaks said in a statement: "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."
Assange said donations to WikiLeaks were running at €100,000 a month in 2010, but had dropped to a monthly figure of €6,000 to €7,000 this year.
This had cost the organisation a cumulative €40m to €50m, he claimed, assuming donations had stayed at their 2010 level without the financial blockade.
Assange said WikiLeaks was facing legal cases in Denmark, Iceland, the UK and Australia, as well as an existing action in the EU.
He is also fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden to answer allegations of sexual misconduct.
The Guardian, New York Times, El País, Der Spiegel and Le Monde worked with WikiLeaks in publishing carefully selected and redacted US embassy cables in December, but have since criticised the website's decision to publish its full archive of 251,000 unredacted documents in early September.
I think we should take a moment of silence. But instead we gonna sing them out, yo.
Any last words, Wiki?
Dear Donor,If only there was an electronic crypto-currency that could be used to facilitate international transfers of money... a... bitcoin, if you will. Oh, if only. I'm really confused on why they don't just sell some dirt to China. I mean, they're paying out the ass for shit like the Osama down helicopter black box and are lending money left and right to America's debt situation.
on behalf of the whole WikiLeaks project, we in the Wau-Holland-Stiftung (WHS) want to thank you for your generous donations in 2010. Your donations were vital to making the historic disclosures of 2010 possible. Without your help, the WikiLeaks project would not have been able to deliver on making freedom of information a reality.
As you are aware, since December 2010 WikiLeaks has come under a politically motivated attack to cut off donations and debilitate its financial capabilities; our own foundation is subject to an investigation of its charitable status by the tax authorities in Germany. The financial blockade has not achieved its goals. You can still financially
support WikiLeaks and help the project withstand this politically motivated attack - and here is how:
wikileaks.org/support.
Today, 24th October 2011, WikiLeaks is initiating a campaign against the unlawful and arbitrary blockade imposed by PayPal, Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, and Western Union to prevent you and other people like you who want to donate to the WikiLeaks project and keep it strong. WikiLeaks has initiated litigation proceedings in several countries. Your support is more vital than ever. If you would like to learn more about the blockade, visit
http://wikileaks.org...-Blockade.html.
You can join Julian Assange, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Bernd Fix from WHS at the press conference about the financial blockade against WikiLeaks and WHS via live stream http://www.ustream.t...frontline-club. The event will be held in London's Frontline Club at 12:45 (local time) on Monday, 24 October 2011.
Best regards,
Board of directors, Wau-Holland-Stiftung
I'm sure many of you are wondering if this is a good or bad thing. I mean, on the plus side, our secrets aren't going to be spilled. On the bad, Julian Assange may have been creepy as fuck and a rapist, but WikiLeaks was a decent threat to government overstepping and dirty shit happening in the shadows. But then again, that's why they got shut down, now isn't it.
Maybe we haven't really seen the last of it, or at least Assange. Even if by now all of Bradley Manning's stuff has been leaked out already, the precedent has been set with a million copy-cats. So WikiLeaks going under probably doesn't change anything. Besides, I know that various governments are monitoring everything sent to Wikileaks these days. Probably for the better if sources are to be protected.
Now if only Assange would release the wikileaks of all those Bank of America and other banking leaked documents as a final fuck you.
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