Precious metal purchasing act - Not good for the US

Dogmatix said:
^ besides your defence of the state, that's a good point. How much power do Visa/Mastercard and Paypal wield?

I'd never really considered it.

Donations to Wikileaks dropped by 98% after Visa, Mastercard and PayPal decided to block them.

Their remaining source of funds was coming from people mailing cash to them at a PO box.

Honestly, that's scary - no oversight, no recourse, just a bunch of faceless corporations refusing to do business with you.
 
Big A.D. said:
Dogmatix said:
^ besides your defence of the state, that's a good point. How much power do Visa/Mastercard and Paypal wield?

I'd never really considered it.

Donations to Wikileaks dropped by 98% after Visa, Mastercard and PayPal decided to block them.

Their remaining source of funds was coming from people mailing cash to them at a PO box.

Honestly, that's scary - no oversight, no recourse, just a bunch of faceless corporations refusing to do business with you.
The fact that the US Govt banned Wikileaks websites etc, jailed Bradley Manning, with senators etc calling on all businesses to cease dealing with them and were trying to get them listed as a terrorist organisation had nothing to do with it of course. Luckily we have the EU parliament now effectively banning the act of refusal of service initiated by pressure from foreign Governments.
 
bordsilver said:
Big A.D. said:
Dogmatix said:
^ besides your defence of the state, that's a good point. How much power do Visa/Mastercard and Paypal wield?

I'd never really considered it.

Donations to Wikileaks dropped by 98% after Visa, Mastercard and PayPal decided to block them.

Their remaining source of funds was coming from people mailing cash to them at a PO box.

Honestly, that's scary - no oversight, no recourse, just a bunch of faceless corporations refusing to do business with you.
The fact that the US Govt banned Wikileaks websites etc, jailed Bradley Manning, with senators etc calling on all businesses to cease dealing with them and were trying to get them listed as a terrorist organisation had nothing to do with it of course. Luckily we have the EU parliament now effectively banning the act of refusal of service initiated by pressure from foreign Governments.

Which is a whole other topic about whether the government has the right to interfere with a business's right to voluntarily transact (or not) with whomever it wishes.

I guess my point was that government at least has some kind of moral prerogative to it's actions and we can argue about what that should be as part of the public discourse. Corporations are legally programmed to have no morals at all.

Depending on the circumstances, I think you could find yourself in a worse position being on a corporate "sh*t list" than a government one.
 
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