
PayPal: "State Department Said It Was Illegal" - jeremyjarvis
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/08/paypal-vp-on-blocking-wikileaks-state-department-told-us-it-was-illegal/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=hellotxt&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+UK
======
Zak
Ok, so Paypal was told by a high-level Federal agency that Wikileaks was
illegal. Freezing the account seems like the safe response to that.

I'm sure, by now, Paypal has figured out that Wikileaks isn't illegal - based
on all the calls by lawmakers to ban it, if nothing else. Have they restored
the account yet?

~~~
alnayyir
>Have they restored the account yet?

Are you kidding me? That Machiavellian sanity-grinder gave Notch, a legitimate
indie developer selling a game about digging through dirt, Hell on Earth just
to get his money.

PayPal doing the right thing, _snorts_ I'll sprout wings and shave my eyebrows
off first.

I'd sooner trust the IRS to do right by me than PayPal.

Disclosure: My first entrepreneurial effort was annihilated in concert by UPS,
PayPal, and eBay.

~~~
fexl
Just last week someone asked on HN "what are the legal consequences of
donating to an organization that is branded a "terrorist organization"? Can
you be punished retroactively?"

I replied that yes, you can, and you should not expect rationality or good
faith from these people, only savagery. I was down-voted into oblivion. This
filled me with confidence, so I donated that very day. Later that afternoon,
Paypal caved. Evidently I was the last straw. ;)

~~~
thecoffman
Ya the same here. I donated when Paypal caved and then I donated again when
MasterCard caved. Between that and my vocal opposition to the new TSA policies
I'm pretty sure I'm on every list the government has at this point /tinfoil
hat.

~~~
fexl
I'm with you man, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. I cast
my fate to the wind years ago. And by the way, I think the use of tin foil is
highly underrated and needlessly ridiculed.

What I want to know is, why should harmless fuzz-balls like us have to worry
about anything in life? We are but simple people, minding our own business in
honest toil, needing only our daily ration of beer and bread. Now if I could
just write that with an Irish accent.

------
eli
Seems like an awful lot of feigned shock about paypal.

Paypal has a long history of closing account for arbitrary reasons or for no
apparant reason at all. This is _especially_ true of accounts for taking
donations (rather than ones selling physical products). If you Google around
you can find dozens of people complaining about closed accounts who were
taking donations for completely innocuous projects.

By comparison, "because the gov't told us it was illegal" seems like a pretty
solid reason. The cost of just paying lawyers to figure out if Wikileaks might
actually be breaking any laws surely costs more than Paypal is likely to make
in transaction fees.

~~~
thwarted
_paying lawyers to figure out if Wikileaks might actually be breaking any laws
surely costs more than Paypal is likely to make in transaction fees._

Maybe they can use some of the money they collect in interest from having
money in frozen accounts.

(edited to include more of what I was quoting since it seemed ambiguous as to
what I was saying they could do)

~~~
rdtsc
I am pretty sure they already do this. Any bank that doesn't do that is a
joke. The higher the total number of frozen account the larger the amount of
immediately available cash. They can use that for whatever they can use cash
for, since they are the ones that control the freeze times.

At the start of the week the VP probably asks so "how much guarnteed money do
we get to play with this week?" and then they get a number and they can do
whatever they want, say provide short term loans or invest it some other way.

------
ntoshev
Interestingly, DDoS attacks against Wikileaks can only delay dissemination of
information a little bit. DDoS attacks against PayPal, on the other hand, can
be effective in costing them real money, for every hour they are down.

If I were attacking them, I would target the APIs that merchants use instead
of the main site. The main site has probably been DDoSed before, APIs are a
subtler target. I imagine a successful attack there would have a broader and
deeper impact.

Also, have browsers been used for DDoS before? I imagine with the popularity
Wikileaks has, you can ask people to keep a page open if they want to
participate, and share that page on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook. The page would
repeatedly create requests loading the target urls in an iframe or as a script
tag.

In this approach one would have to get rid of the referrer header, I guess. So
open the urls using SSL. The SSL handshake would cause additional load.

Not sure how effective would that be compared to a traditional botnet that can
delay TCP and SSL handshakes; things browsers can't do.

~~~
cosmicray
> DDoS attacks against PayPal, on the other hand, can be effective in costing
> them real money, for every hour they are down.

Ever heard the term 'collateral damage' ? If PayPal gets trashed (or at least
significantly service impaired) that is going to hurt people way beyond
PayPal. People who are trying (as I am) to keep up with the Christmas/Holiday
rush, and wondering why so many orders, paid via PayPal, are not completing.

An attack on PayPal is an attack on the wider business side of the web.
Basically PayPal is the guy caught in the middle of a dispute (between
Wikileaks/hacker community and the US Gov/Dept of State).

~~~
michaelchisari
_People who are trying (as I am) to keep up with the Christmas/Holiday rush_

The same argument could be made against a work strike, or a mass protest, or
an act of civil disobedience.

There's very few examples in history of important issues being pushed forward
in a way that was convenient for everyone.

~~~
steveklabnik
One might even make the claim that many important issues were only pushed
forward specifically _because_ it was inconvenient for everyone.

------
meadhikari
PayPal should have fought this instead of panicking and complying with the
State Department. If it's true their exact words to PayPal were that Wikileaks
was performing "illegal activities", then they are liars. There is nothing
illegal about Wikileaks. In fact, PayPal should have stood their ground.

~~~
eli
The State Department didn't say anything to Paypal. See the updated post.

------
DanielBMarkham
I'm completely against making WL into a terrorist organization. But that's
where we are headed -- or something very close to it. They're not publishers
-- at least not in any normal sense I can fathom -- but they are certainly not
terrorists either.

My point being: if PayPal and others want to play hardball and refuse to shut
down their payments because WL aren't criminals, the other side will just up
the ante by making them criminals. This is a no-win situation for PayPal and
other vendors associated with this CF.

Ironically, the vendors who are voluntarily shutting off WL are probably doing
the most to help the cause in the long term by not pushing the matter. WL
supporters should really hope for a long spell of lowering the volume and
everybody behaving like adults for a while. Probably won't happen, though.

~~~
sausagefeet
> but they are certainly not terrorists either

They certainly are instilling terror in US leaders :)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I know you're trying to be funny, but my definition of a terrorist is somebody
who uses stealth to deliberately target civilians in an effort to affect
political change.

So, as funny as you are, they're pretty close, just no banana.

If it came out, however, that Assange and pals were considering that any
civilian casualties they might cause as a key part of their effort to enact
change, I might think very differently. So far, happily, that's not the case.

I also think "fear" is a little bit self-congratulatory. Looks to me from
watching politicians of every country and party respond, the appropriate
phrase is much closer to "pissed off"

~~~
kurtosis
"my definition of a terrorist is somebody who uses stealth to deliberately
target civilians in an effort to affect political change."

Shouldn't the definition of terrorism include the fact that they are
_violently_ targeting civilians? Economic or computer terrorism that doesn't
actually hurt or kill anyone doesn't meet the definition in my view - and the
publishing work or WL definitely doesn't either.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
(Massively edited)

No.

The point is that the use of stealth and fear to purposely sway voters is a
deliberate circumvention of the act of an intelligent population making an
educated choice by voting.

The actions which may induce this fear are not germane. Ruining commerce for a
week, if it causes real harm to economic participants and sways voters, is
good enough.

You can release _too much_ information and also interfere, perhaps even scare
and cause harm. Using the fact that "it's only the truth" is not enough. It's
a red herring. So they are walking a very fine line here, but as far as I can
tell they're on the correct side of it. At least as far as the terrorism
definition goes.

~~~
alex_c
I never thought I'd be having this discussion on HN, but by that definition
Fox News (and to a lesser extent other networks and/or "commentators") would
qualify as a terrorist organization.

As much as I dislike Fox News, actually extending the definition of terrorism
far enough to include them, and Wikileaks, would dilute the definition to the
point of uselessness (or, worse, to the point of including anyone you don't
agree with who is trying to induce political change).

I should probably start staying out of the WL discussions here, this is
starting to sound too much like /r/politics :(

~~~
DanielBMarkham
All I'm saying is that a clear definition of terms is required if you would
like to discuss this. Here or anywhere.

You are welcome to come up with your own terms -- perhaps you are correct in
that the search for terms is political and contentious. Don't know.

I came up with my definition many years ago, because the word "terrorism" is
way overloaded. I would encourage you to come up with your own. I do not care
what that definition is, as long as it is consistent (And btw, once you get
something, I'd love to hear it)

As technologist, I think part of our job in this entire WL issue is to be able
to help the average layman understand the issues involved. So -- agreement or
not -- we should all think through on our own what our analysis is. As anal as
they are, semantics matter.

And no, voluntarily watching a TV news channel does not count as terrorism
under my definition, unless it also includes dancing with the stars, which I
think should be outlawed worldwide (wink)

I think we can separate advocacy from semantics. If not, then we're stuck in
these arguments no matter what we do or try. The issue here is that
technology, our bread and butter, is becoming intertwined with just about
everything in the entire world. And most of the people and system is it now
affecting are completely unprepared to deal with it.

~~~
alex_c
I agree that definitions are important, but most people's definitions of
terrorism involve something going boom. I'm not as interested in coming up
with my own definition as I am in using the terms and definitions that are
least likely to be misinterpreted by the largest number of people.

That in itself is a loaded topic... trying to redefine a term is usually
either a losing battle (because people won't listen), or an underhanded
strategy (because people won't notice). We don't always have the luxury of
attaching a glossary to a conversation ;)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
This has actually turned into a great technology discussion.

The first thing you have to do, if you're programming inside a business, is
come to agreement on terms. The initial thing most people try is some sort of
dictionary approach, but after a while you end up realizing that a critical
part of a project team's work is to create working definitions of common
concepts. This is called the problem domain language (insert long talk which
includes Ludwig Wittgenstein here) Words mean something because of the
semantic web they are presented in. They have no meaning on their own.

So "Customer" or "Account", while sounding like clear terms, are actually the
same problem as "terrorism" Unless you come up with (and own) a definition,
analysis will be impossible because of contradictions.

Sorry. Slipped into teacher mode.

This is just stuff I do all the time, so I don't have a problem with creating
working definitions, no matter what the topic is. I'd much rather be
considered an oddball with my own definitions than circling my tail trying to
pin down what things like "war" or "terrorism" is. Because if I'm creating my
definitions, I can ensure consistency. Can't do that when you turn that job
over to somebody else. Language is extremely slippery.

~~~
rue
I thought it was common to invent new terms or repurpose neutral ones rather
than subvert common, loaded terms for your own purposes?

I would not call it "oddball", I would call it either "intentionally
misleading" or - granting benefit of doubt - a "misjudgment causing more harm
than good".

How about "cyberterrorism", a reasonably established term?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
The word itself doesn't matter. That's the whole point.

Call it "foo". The point is that I create a symbol that has these attributes.
We can then reason about this symbol.

You cannot do this by picking up an already-loaded term and working with it.
It doesn't work. So by redefining "foo" or "terrorism" or "cyber-terrorism" or
whatnot, you then have to go back to where the old word was used in context
and see if it works. In some cases it works. In some cases it does not. You
find out all sorts of interesting things by slightly formalizing your language
in this manner.

------
zmmmmm
Am I the only one for whom this seems like a case of mass fail in reading
comprehenson? Did anyone actually read the letter?

Nowhere in the letter does the State Department say that what Wikileaks is
doing is illegal. They use ambiguous and misleading language to imply that but
in effect they just keep stating that the original leaker broke the law. If
anything, by omission of a direct claim of illegality, this letter is
confirmation by the State Department that what Wikileaks did was in fact,
TOTALLY LEGAL.

Of course, given that PayPal routinely suspends accounts for absolutely no
reason at all we can hardly be surprised if they suspend this one. They've
always done this and nobody expects more of them.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>this letter is confirmation by the State Department that what Wikileaks did
was in fact, TOTALLY LEGAL.

I don't know USA law that well, certainly not whatever your equivalent of the
UK Official Secrets Act is or your counter-espionage laws. But it stricts me
as a no-brainer to assume that publishing documents classified by the
government as restricted (or above, secret, top-secret, etc.) would be a
criminal offence with a pretty hefty jail sentence attached.

Is it really not a crime in the US to publish or hold without clearance
documents classified as "secret"?

------
patio11
2.9% plus 30 cents a transaction wouldn't buy a lot of loyalty from me,
either. If the Internet cheering squad sent them six figures, that would just
about cover what it cost to ring legal and schedule, but not actually run, a
meeting to decide what to do about this. Legal would, predictably, say that
Paypal was not in the business of taking on risk for people whose business
model is trolling Joe Lieberman.

~~~
jacquesm
> 2.9% plus 30 cents a transaction wouldn't buy a lot of loyalty from me,
> either.

And here I was thinking you were a man of principles ;)

> If the Internet cheering squad sent them six figures, that would just about
> cover what it cost to ring legal and schedule, but not actually run, a
> meeting to decide what to do about this.

I think the French company OVH went about this the right way, the first thing
they did upon finding out that they had wikileaks as a customer they went to a
judge to get a ruling.

PayPal could have done the same thing easily.

~~~
patio11
I am a man of principles. Your mistaken assumption is that they are _your_
principles. :)

~~~
ntoshev
Do you think a payment provider owes their users exactly as much loyalty as
big are the fees they have collected from them?

Because this is what your comment suggests, and that's a rather unprincipled
statement in my book, whatever your principles are. For example, if Paypal
acted by this statement, they would allow payment for porn as long as it was
profitable for them.

~~~
jacquesm
You must have missed my ;) in that bit, it was a reference to this thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1949965>

------
JunkDNA
Reading about these stories the last few days, it occurs to me the Wikileaks
strategy is a major factor here. They have not been selective and released
_actual_ stuff that rises to the level of true whistle blowing. While the
things released (thus far) might be _interesting_ in the way a tabloid article
about a celebrity is interesting, they are hardly at the level of the Pentagon
Papers. The world has not learned any deep dark secrets about how the US
government operates. Given this situation, when the government leans on PayPal
and Amazon, there's nothing for them to hold on to and say, "We're going to
fight this because we think the public has a right to know X". X needs to be
something pretty important to take that position and all the heat it brings.

~~~
mike-cardwell
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/212910/wikileaks_founder_prai...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/212910/wikileaks_founder_praised_by_pentagon_papers_exposer.html?tk=rss_news)

First paragraph

"Daniel Ellsberg, the man responsible for outing the now famous Pentagon
Papers in 1971, and a group of ex-intelligence officers have thrown their
weight behind WikiLeaks and its founder, saying the current attempt to label
WikiLeaks' leaks as trivial compared to the Pentagon Papers is wrong."

~~~
JunkDNA
He's entitled to his opinion, but I'm still waiting for someone to point me to
information in the wikileaks dump that is a genuine public service. I'm not
arguing that the wikileaks dump is _trivial_. There is information in there
that is genuinely _harmful_ from the perspective of the State Department and
US government. What I'm arguing is that there's nothing _actionable_ there. I
haven't read a single thing that made me say, "wow, what I thought I knew
about US foreign policy is all wrong". If that were there, it would be a
different ballgame.

~~~
ajays
Are you still waiting for someone to put some food in your mouth too?

These leaks are more than just about the US foreign policy; they're a glimpse
into the shady dealings of the "Powerful" all over the world!

Want examples? How about the revelation that Jordan, UAE, Saudis, etc. are
urging the US to attack Iran? The details about who ordered the hacking of
Google in China? The revelation that rich royals in Saudi Arabia are snorting
cocaine, while the average citizens there are caned for showing some skin?
Come on! Open your eyes and read the damn things.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"Are you still waiting for someone to put some food in your mouth too?"_

This is not the level of discourse I've come to expect from HN. Please, lay
off the ad hominem snarkiness.

~~~
mikeklaas
"Ad hominem" doesn't mean "arguments that are phrased meanly/snarkily"

~~~
potatolicious
You're right, it isn't quite ad hominem - it is however uncivil, mean-
spirited, and a personal put-down, all of which IMHO does not belong on HN.

That's the problem with this WikiLeaks thing, even highly educated, supposedly
level-headed people start frothing at the mouth and lose any semblance of
rational discourse. There are few moderates and way too many extremists - on
both sides.

------
allenp
Does anyone know if it is possible to get a freedom of information act inquiry
to find out if the state department really did advise/request PayPal to do
this?

~~~
swaits
No need. Pease see the updated text in the post.

~~~
dfox
it is interesting to note that the text qouted in the updated article does not
say that what wikileaks is doing is illegal, only that initial release of
leaked data to wikileaks was illegal.

------
citricsquid
I don't have anything against Paypal or any of the other companies who blocked
Wikileaks. I guess in a perfect world it is bad, but if Paypal (and whoever
else) weren't to do it and the US government _did_ get angry then who'd be
affected? That's right, every other customer (including me).

The problem isn't with these companies (although I suspect a lot of this is
about how everyone already "hates" Paypal) it's with the governments. It
saddens me that these companies are being targeted, people should be shouting
at the government(s) putting pressure on the companies, not DDoSing the
companies.

I'd rather wikileaks had their account closed than the service I receive be
affected, however selfish that may be.

~~~
eli
I agree. Actually, I'd go farther. Why is it wrong for the government to
discourage people from doing business with someone they don't like?

~~~
steveklabnik
> Italian Fascism and most other fascist movements promote a corporatist
> economy whereby, in theory, representatives of capital and labour interest
> groups work together within sectoral corporations to create both harmonious
> labour relations and maximization of production that would serve the
> national interest.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism>

~~~
eli
Mussolini went just a wee bit further than _complaining_ about dissidents, no?

~~~
steveklabnik
It's all in steps.

~~~
eli
I think it was a coup, actually.

~~~
steveklabnik
Coups don't just happen overnight.

------
samiq
when has paypal been known for defending their users? or even going the extra
mile to talk and try to figure it out themselves? ... it's not only a
nightmare to work with them as developer, it's also one to have them as a
general service providers.

------
jeremyjarvis
Yeah, and they've got no ulterior motives? due process anyone?

~~~
dtf
You don't want to piss off the State Department. They can make things very
difficult you in the future. At least, I suspect this might be the strategic
thinking of PayPal, Amazon, EveryDNS, MasterCard, Visa, most national media
organizations and any other business large enough to care.

~~~
Seth_Kriticos
Nobody doubts that. Insisting on due process (wait for an official subpoena
form a court) would be the legally and ethically correct thing, especially if
you want to avoid bad reputation. But wikileaks is pissing off an incredible
amount of people, and it's probably a bad idea to stand in the crossfire, so
their reaction to try getting out of the story is understandable.

IMO the argumentation of PayPal is pathetic. They did not even have the balls
to admit that they just wanted to stay out of trouble and trying to shift the
blame to someone else.

On the other hand, from what I know they don't have much reputation left
anyway, so it's a bit of a moot point.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Due process is a requirement that the government respect the rights due a
person or organization under the law and isn't really relevant here, as the
government isn't taking direct action and a private business has the right to
not do business with anyone they want. Also, a subpoena is a written order to
compel testimony or evidence. I think you mean a court order.

~~~
Dylan16807
The idea is that the government should be using due process instead of
applying unofficial pressure, and better behavior for the businesses would be
to insist on that.

------
mcantelon
So:

1) Paypal lied to the public. 2) The State dept. effectively ordered content
off the web, not unlike China. 3) Paypal hasn't restored service to Wikileaks,
even though it's a legal organization.

------
jdp23
As an entrepreneur, this is exactly the kind of situation I'm worried about: a
service provider (PayPal, Amazon, etc.) shutting me down based on nothing more
than somebody in the government disapproving of some of the content on my
site.

------
nphase
_“One of the signs that you’re a successful payments company is that hackers
start to target you, this case isn’t anything different.”_

What a non-answer.

------
jeremyjarvis
updated the title from "State Department Told Us It Was Illegal" to "State
Department Said It Was Illegal" following update on TechCrunch post.

------
mikecane
If the State Department were to declare Wikileaks illegal, would that make
everyone holding Wikileaks Insurance an Enemy of the State?

~~~
samfoo
Luckily, the State Department doesn't have the power to declare something
illegal. Please stop adding to the hyperbole of the already heated reactions.

~~~
wnoise
If by something you mean "act", well, they do, it just has no legal effect.

On the other hand, they do have the power to declare organizations terrorists.
This is 8 USC 1182, thanks to the patriot act.

<http://www.state.gov/s/ct/list/>

------
freechoice1
Well I've cancelled one of my account with Paypal now. More to come.

