Eric Holder, the Unconstitutional Embargo on Wikileaks Donations and Observing the Obvious

[EFerrari]

Yesterday I tried to bring this up to Thom in a call but didn't do a very good job. The proposition is that if money is speech, our government is violating our civil rights when it created a financial embargo against Wikileaks.

Glen Greenwald did better on DemocracyNow! today:

"AMY GOODMAN: That was Julian Assange. Overall, respond to what has happened to WikiLeaks and what’s happened to Julian Assange.

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, it is an example of the government, through extra-judicial and extralegal means, shutting down a group that has challenged and subverted it. The reason why all these companies cut off funds is because the government pressured and demanded that they do so. So, no due process, no accusation of criminal activity. You could never charge WikiLeaks with a crime. They’re engaged in First Amendment activity. And the government has destroyed them through their pressure and influence over the private sector. It’s actually quite frightening to think that the government can just shut down any group that challenges it, through this kind of control over the flow of their money."

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/10/26/glenn_greenwald_on_occupy_wall_st...

Yesterday, Thom suggested that if our government forced the financial institutions to stop doing business with Wikileaks, that would be a 1st Amendment violation. But, really, that standard is too high any more. We have seen people lose their jobs and their funding over patently untrue smears over and over again. Van Jones, ACORN,Shirley Sherrod. It's obvious that our system is so corrupted that actual facts aren't necessary to ruin a person any more. A whisper is enough even from a known contaminated source like Breitbart.

Then, we have the fact that the embargo on Wikileaks was a political decision, not a financial one. Before the government intervened, no financial institution here had any problem processing donations.

And, we have Eric Holder saying on Dec 6. 2010 that he had other "tools" besides the Espionage Act to deal with Wikileaks. Of course, since most of us want to believe the best of Mr. Holder, extralegal coercion probably isn't the first option that would come to mind but,

"Asked if he might mount a prosecution under the Espionage Act, Holder said: "That is certainly something that might play a role, but there are other statutes, other tools at our disposal." Holder added that he had given the go-ahead for a number of unspecified actions as part of a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks. "I personally authorized a number of things last week and that's an indication of the seriousness with which we take this matter and the highest level of involvement at the department of justice," he said."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-cables-founder-jul...

That was also the day MasterCard pulled the plug on Wikileaks:

"MasterCard said it was cutting off payments because WikiLeaks is engaging in illegal activity. "MasterCard rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal," spokesman Chris Monteiro said."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20024776-281.html

Now, I don't know where MasterCard got the impression Wikileaks was engaging in illegal activities but it's not a stretch to assume that Mr. Holder or his staff placed a call making that allegation on the heels of his statements on the same day. Post PATRIOT Act, the DoJ does have legislation to levy against entities or individuals who it decides are acting against American interests and apparently, they are using them.

I suppose I can't let go of this point easily because it was chilling to see one donation servicer after another shut Wikileaks out. No charges, no investigation, no trial. Just shut them out. Maybe because I'm bi-cultural, family from Latin America with some experience of the way authoritarian governments behave, this embargo and how it came about strikes me as unbelievably unAmerican. Or, it used to be unAmerican.

Since then, we've seen Obama argue in court that his secret hit list is none of the Court's business and that he doesn't have to disclose either the names on it or the evidence that put them there. He's arguing, it's none of our business either. More recently, we've seen Mr. Holder try to introduce a rule change that would allow the government to lie about FOIA requests. This administration is at least just as interested in controlling the information available to the public as Bush's was. And I confess that it was a lot easier to object to this opacity by policy design when it was Dick Cheney's idea.

But it really is time to stop justifying the unacceptable. The Obama administration set out to destroy Wikileaks and while they won't succeed, it should give us pause that they did so without hesitation. They tried to kill an organization that is responsible for more real ,hard news than any other in the last few years at a minimum. And those of us who are more or less serious about repairing this mess on our hands, about restoring the rule of law and accountability of our government, must observe the obvious and protest this embargo. We have to take issue with this administration closing down a media outlet because their output was unfavorable for them.

I know Thom doesn't agree that money is speech. I don't believe it is, either. But if that is the rule for the elite at the moment, it is also the rule for the rest of us until we get it changed. Blocking our money from getting to a media organization we support is unconstitutional and injurious to the public, worse coming from the highest law enforcement official in the land. It's also obvious that the same extra-legal process could be used against anyone, against Amy Goodman, against Thom. Once a tool works for you, it's easy to develop the habit of using it.

Time to observe the obvious.

[gratuitous]

1. Oh, "due process" is just so, so . . . 20th century

We don't need to investigate, so war criminals walk free among us. We don't need to bring charges when a well-placed (or even poorly placed) drone missile solves our problem for us. And if we can persuade the money-grubbing credit card companies that staying in business is more important than making another buck off of our designated enemies, then the muscle will be applied, and the big finance boyz will happily engage in very atypical behavior - what did the government promise or threaten that caused VISA and Master Card to forego the money they could have made off of facilitating donations to WikiLeaks?

What's most shocking is the support the Obama administration gets from alleged liberals for these repressive actions.

[truedelphi]

2. Ain't it funny how the buying power of any of the Forbes Five Hundred is protected

And the people those executives bring us to vote for are for those who will be sure and protect "Corporate Personhood" rather than those who have real personhood.

But let someone or some organization get money because they are truly doing activist work, and they are shut down. Look at what happened on the Lakota reservation, when one of the Indians** started growing hemp. he failed to have all the 2K documents he needed to have, so he has been in court for years trying to avoid a prison sentence. Meanwhile the forty or so people he was employing, with good wages and benefits,go unemployed!

Anyway thank you for this OP, and a big K & R.

:kick:



**Ever since Dennis Means has claimed that the word is not offensive, I have started using it too.

[EFerrari]

5. Exactly. Money can't only be speech for the 1%

but that is how it's working.

[sabrina 1]

3. What they did to Wikileaks should scare all journalists

well, REAL journalists. Is there something other than Paypal they could use. I don't want to use Paypal either.

We have no power. They decide who we see on TV, what is okay for us know and to listen to. We haven't made enough of a stink about this, like a massive boycott, worldwide, of Paypal.

[EFerrari]

4. That may be because the responsibility has been diluted

as we more or less have refused to call the moving party, this administration, out on what it did.