Hasta La Creative!

Will we see an open-source revolution in 2013?

There is justice in Ireland.

The supreme court of Iceland passed a ruling on April 24, 2013 ordering Valitor – a.k.a Visa Iceland – to resume processing online donations to WikiLeaks within two weeks. And if they don’t follow through, the judge will hold them to it by charging Valitor a nice daily fine of $6,830 until it complies.

“This is a victory for WikiLeaks and freedom of information,” Reporters Without Borders declared, “The arbitrary blocking of payments put in place by financial service companies was completely illegal and has now been condemned as such by a country’s highest court.”

Reporters Without Borders put forth this statement:

We hope that this ruling will put a stop to the controversial decisions that Visa has been taking until now in connection with WikiLeaks and that Visa will instruct all of its partners and subcontractors around the world to comply. It would be strange, and unacceptable, if only Valitor were obliged to provide a service to WikiLeaks in Iceland while all the other subcontractors, including those in the rest of Europe and the United States, were not.

Over the next few months, we demand that all other financial service companies – MasterCard, American Express, and Visa Europe – which have all been directly or indirectly involved in blocking payments to WikiLeaks adhere to the logic of the Iceland ruling. Else, we now have the power and support to legally force them to do so …

And by the end of 2013, we raise a unified and unstoppable global rallying cry for full-transparency, freedom of expression … a true open-source revolution is at our fingertips at long last.

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