Wikileaks, the wiki-based site for whistle-blowers, has been facing increasing pressure from the U.S. government since its July release of more than 90,000 war documents from the war in Afghanistan.
Today, the Guardian is reporting that this pressure has finally hit where it hurts the most – in the pocket – as the site’s funding has been blocked.
The Guardian article quotes an email supplied by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, saying that Moneybookers, the site that had been collecting Wikileaks’ donations, terminated the business relationship due to external pressures.
When Assange emailed to ask what the problem was, he says he was told in response by Daniel Stromberg, the Moneybookers e-commerce manager for the Nordic region: “When I did my regular overview of my customers, I noticed that something was wrong with your account and I emailed our risk and legal department to solve this issue.
“Below I have copied the answer I received from them: ‘Hi Daniel, you can inform him that initially his account was suspended due to being accessed from a blacklisted IP address. However, following recent publicity and the subsequently addition of the WikiLeaks entity to blacklists in Australia and watchlists in the USA, we have terminated the business relationship.'”
77PR, the public relations firm for Moneybookers, denies the claim, saying “We have never had any request, inquiry or correspondence from any authority regarding this former customer.”
Currently, the Wikileaks site says it is down for maintenance.
