Bank of America (and other organizations) refuses to do business with Wikileaks.
While Wikileaks behavior is extremely controversial to say the least, neither Wikileaks nor its founder Julian Assange have been convicted in any crime.

What about stopping accounts of murderers, pedophiles and other criminals?
Can or should a business be involved in such decisions?
can a business pick it customers? on what basis? shouldn't all customers treated equally?

I think PayPal or Amazon cut ties with WikiLeaks because they were "inciting people to perform illegal acts" (such as leaking documents), which was in violation of their internal policy. To me this is a sort of parallel judicial system, where PayPal can judge what will lead to "incitement to illegal acts" and so can other authorities (such as the government) and they need not agree. So I wonder, should PayPal be allowed to make their own judgement, or must they rely on the judgement of some legal government authority? Are company rules a subset of the legal system, or a parallel system.

For my own opinion, I see nothing wrong with what WikiLeaks has done, and so I see PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Amazon, and the Bank of America as having acted unintelligently.

I see them as acting in their own best interests and what they possibly perceive as their customers' best interests; no one, in the ordinary course of business, wants to upset the USA.

yissar

Banks routinely shut down business and even personal accounts of accused felons before any convictions. Additionally, many web based businesses have terms of services that you can't violate without losing your privilege (Not RIGHT, but PRIVILEGE) to access. Those don't require a conviction either. I have to disagree with mcfate concerning what constitutes the illegal act. Its the unlawful access and stealing the classified information that is the illegal act that is being incited, not the leaking.

How many of you have actually accessed the wikileaks site and read or downloaded the classified information? Would it surprise you to know that if you are the holder of a US Security Clearance and you do so that you are subject to disciplinary action?

As I understand it the "leaking" is the distribution of internal information externally by a member of the organisation (the "whistleblower"), and the "publication" is done by a journalist organisation. I'm an Australian, and under Australian law the first part (the "leaking") can be illegal, but the second part (the "publication") is protected. This is why newspapers are not brought to court for publishing leaked documents that have been given to them. It is a crime to publish certain details (how to commit a crime, for example), but the Wikileaks cables don't include these.

As far as I know Washington is trying to determine how much assistance, if any, Assange gave to the whistleblower (alleged to be Manning). If he gave concrete assistance then he is not just a recipient, but involved in theft. If he gave no assistance, then he is just the recipient, and has technically (as I understand it what has been published about this scenario) committed no crime.

I understand that Manning did not legally have access to all the cables that he passed on to Wikileaks.

If they pin Assange for assisting in the crime, does that mean that his website Wikileaks has performed an illegal act, or just Assange? And if it has been found to have performed an illegal act, does that mean that the newspapers have also?




I suppose the big question for this forum is not, Is this illegal? Is it done routinely? or Is it in [such and such's] best interests? but On what grounds do we find it ethical or unethical? I, myself, find the idea that government will say one thing to the public and act differently in private as a ridiculous breach of the power we vest in them to represent us. I commend the people that have striven to be honest and reveal the dishonesty in this situation.

As a business, or an individual, I can refuse to do business with anyone I want for any reason I want as long as they are not a member of a protected class that I am discriminating against.

If I ran a movie theater and chose to not show Michael Moore's propoganda films, that's my right. If I run a radio station and don't want to air Limbaugh, that's my business, too.

I'll admit, I'm not particularly concerned what happens to Mr. Assange. As an egomaniac, he's getting the fame he's wanted.

I believe what patrickt wrote is the crook of the matter.

Isn't serving some people and not others the definition of discrimination?
What is the criteria to select?
Doesn't it put the business owner is position of judge?

Is there a difference between a small business (like neighborhood min-market) and a global international business?
Should there be such difference?

Of course it’s your right. But the fact that you have a right to do something doesn’t mean that it is ethical to do it.


I share this view. However we must avoid thinking that we are only obliged to behave ethically towards people that we like/agree with/care about.

Consider this: A proportion of the people who are charged and convicted for accessing child pornography over the internet are identified because they have given their credit card details to a commercial supplier of child pornography.

Foolish behaviour, you might think. But it means that banks are apparently willing to register pornographers – child pornographers – as merchants for credit card transactions, to provide services to them, and to accept payment of commissions from them.

What kind of a world is it in which the likes of Bank of America will provide services to child pornographers, but not to Wikileaks?

Of course, for the most part the bank doesn’t know that its customer is a child pornographer. The bank doesn’t ask, and the pornographer is very unlikely to tell. And the bank not asking is not due to any desire to facilitate, or turn a blind eye, to child pornography; it’s simply that the bank doesn’t need to know the precise nature of the goods and services that a merchant is selling in order to provide payment services to him. And, since they don’t need to know it, they don’t ask. They are not policemen; they are not concerned to know whether your business is illegal or immoral or socially undesirable, any more than a taxi driver wants to be told why you are going to your destination before he agrees to take you there.

What underpins the freedom of a civil society – and especially a society founded on free enterprise and free markets – is the freedom of the individual to go about his affairs without unnecessary government intervention. In particular, the free market won’t work unless things like banking and payment services, communications services, etc, are readily available to all who want them.

Obviously this isn’t an absolute right. We have, for example, money-laundering laws under which transactions can be scrutinised and prevented. But there are criteria for that, and a a legal framework for that, and a process for that, and an opportunity for those aggrieved to challenge the denial of service to them.

No such process has been invoked here; there have been no proceedings against Wikileaks in the US. And yet not only Bank of America but a variety of financial services companies, internet providers, etc, are declining to do business with them. And I think there is little doubt that what underlies is the is the desire of the US government to put a stop to the activities of Wikileaks, and the gentle or not so gentle suggestion of the US government to Bank of America and others that, really, they don’t want to be doing business with that kind of customer. .

I think it sets a dangerous precedent if people start being denied access to financial services, access to markets, access to sources of information, and ultimately access to participation in civil society simply because they are out of favour with a powerful government. We should demand that governments above all should use the laws and legal processes which they themselves have set up. If the US government moves against Wikileaks, it should be accountable for that in the US courts. Bank of America should not be in the business of knowing or guessing what the US government would like them to do, and then doing it.

How should it be decided who is in the "protected class"?

The legislature decides it.

“Protected class” is a phrase that comes from (discussion of) US anti-discrimination law. Someone is said to be in a “protected class” when they can complain that they have been unlawfully discriminated against.

In fact the phrase is a bit of a misnomer. US anti-discrimination law doesn’t identify classes of people who enjoy protection against discrimination. Instead it identifies grounds of discrimination which are forbidden, but in general everyone is entitled to the same protection. So, for example, if it is forbidden to discriminate on the grounds of religion, then everyone – Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists – can complain if they are discriminated against because of their religious characteristics. Thus there is no special “protected class” of people who enjoy freedom from religious discrimination while the rest of us are left to the mercy of the bigots.

But, of course, establishing that a particular instance of discrimination is not forbidden by US (or any other) law does not establish that it is not unethical.

As I posted elsewhere; in India there is Government discrimination against foreigners, my son says that I'm just a miserable old tightwad but I see racial discrimination in entry fees that say "Indians R10 and Foreigners R257".
It's only a bit over $3 but I see it as racial discrimination, besides which the particuar attraction, Elephanta Caves, isn't really worth the R10; far more interesting, visually and as examples of engineering are the big guns and their emplacements on a hill on the island, entry is free.
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In Australia, as I understand it, there is no legal requirement for a business to serve anyone.

We see something not entirely dissimilar in Australia when visitors are refused age discounts, even if they are of the required age and can establish it with, e.g., a passport. Or when non-residents are charged much higher university fees than residents.

I think some of these instances are cheeseparing, myself, but you can justify them on the basis that people who support tourist infrastructure, universities, museums, public transport etc through their taxes shouldn't have to pay the same to use them as visitors who have never paid a penny towards them in taxes.

It occurs to me that money is pretty much mandatory infrastructure for living. I am required to make and pay money to live - even if I made all my own food, clothing, electricity, etc., I would still need to rent or buy land to live on. If money is mandatory infrastructure for the public, then I feel that banks should not have individual discretion to cut funds like "other" businesses.

If the refusal of service is on the grounds of race, disability, religion, gender etc then there is the possibility of a breach of the relevant anti-discrimination legislation. The airlines have been involved in a number of ongoing issues.
http://www.piac.asn.au/legal-help/publi ... ation-air-

Also in Australia there is no legal requirement to accept money for a service that is about to be rendered.
If you're selling tomatoes you may ask for payment in cabbages.

But you must calculate the value of the cabbages in monetary terms in order to quantify and pay GST to the government.

mcfate,

The banks aren't cutting your access to money. Some banks are cutting access to their services for moving money as it violates their terms of service. You can still have your money. If you aren't willing to abide by their rules they don't have to accept your money for a merchant account. You can go to a different service provider. The key is you have to abide by the terms of service.

No one is stopping you from hand carrying the money from one place to the other. it may not be convenient but the option still exists.

Is GST collected on barter exchanges? It would seem that when you finally converted the bartered item to cash, then the value is set and Caeser gets his portion.

Well, it's supposed to be, but this isn't widely upheld, as you can imagine. Also, if your bartered items were tomatoes, as in the example above, they might never be exchanged for cash, as they could be eaten. If one of the barter items is solving a complex problem, fixing a leak, or something like that, it, too, is never converted into cash (though people who do it for a living could use their normal rate).



I suppose this is one of those things that works in practice but not in theory. As there is not enough printed and minted currency to cover the total amount of electronic money, someone has to have their money in a bank, and therefore requires the bank to move it around. This is because banks create new electronic credit entries when they create a loan, but do not print or mint the corresponding amount.

Tomatoes and cabbages, unless cooked, are not subject to GST in Australia.

mcfate

The last i checked, commercial banks like Bank of America, don't mint any coinage or print any money in the 21st Century. So it would seem that argument about banks depriving Assange of money doesn't hold water.

Though the bankers keep forgetting this lesson, you must be creditworthy to get credit. Credit is not a "right" it is a privilege. Based on the recent economic meltdown in some places not much of a privilege as it was handed out like candy.