WikiLeaks to sue Visa, MasterCard for blocking donations

WikiLeaks, the "whistleblower" organization that publishes private and classified documents, is planning to sue Visa and MasterCard for supposedly blocking donations meant for organization's operations. Hacktivist group Anonymous said that the announcement came half a year after Visa and MasterCard faced distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks for their policy. "(WikiLeaks and DataCell) gave prior notice to the parties involved on June 9: Visa, Mastercard, and Danish-based Teller, which manages credit card transactions on behalf of the former two companies. Teller was willing to reinstate services, as the press release notes, but was ordered by Visa and MasterCard not to do so," Anonymous said in an entry on its blog site. DataCell is WikiLeaks' credit card processing partner. Visa and MasterCard suffered a DDoS late last year from Anonymous and WikiLeaks supporters for holding back financial donations. MasterCard's site was attacked last week, with the hacker "Ibomhacktivist" claiming that the attack was motivated by MasterCard's suspension of WikiLeaks' ability to accept donations. "MasterCard.com DOWN!!!, thats what you get when you mess with @wikileaks @Anon_Central and the enter community of lulz loving individuals :D," the hacker said in a tweet. But MasterCard spokesperson Jennifer Stalzer said that the incident was due to an ISP outage "that impacted multiple users." "MasterCard's corporate, public-facing Website experienced intermittent service disruption, due to a telecommunications/Internet Service Provider outage that impacted multiple users. It is important to note that no cardholder data has been impacted and that cardholders can continue to use their cards securely," she said in an email, The Hacker News reported. Anonymous said that WikiLeaks and DataCell "plan to take legal action against Visa and MasterCard via a complaint to be lodged with the EU Commission." Representing Wikileaks and DataCell are two law firms - a Danish firm by the name of Bender von Haller Dragested and Reykjavik Law Firm in Iceland. Anonymous said WikiLeaks accused the two credit card companies of "engaging in an unlawful, U.S. influenced, financial blockade" that began in December and continues to this day. Wikileaks and DataCell allege the credit card firms' constitute a violation of Articles 101(1) and 102 of the European Union Competition Rules, and also violate Danish merchant laws. Anonymous said Visa and MasterCard have so far refused to comment on these proceedings. — TJD, GMA News