Amid news that News Corp is playing games with its BSkyB bid (and even that Murdoch might sell News International entirely), the Guardian reports that Gordon Brown, like everyone else in England it seems, was hacked by “journalists across News International.”

Journalists from across News International repeatedly targeted the former prime minister Gordon Brown, attempting to access his voicemail and obtaining information from his bank account, his legal file as well as his family’s medical records.

[snip]

Separately, Brown’s tax paperwork was taken from his accountant’s office apparently by hacking into the firm’s computer. This was passed to another newspaper.

Brown was targeted during a period of more than 10 years, both as chancellor of the exchequer and as prime minister. Some of the activity clearly was illegal. Other incidents breached his privacy but not the law.

So here’s a question I’m mystified that no one is asking.

A couple of Liberal Democrats are now reporting that, after having received non-public briefings on Andy Coulson’s role in the hacking scandal, they warned David Cameron not to hire Coulson as his spokesperson. But Cameron ignored those warnings.

The crisis engulfing David Cameron over phone hacking deepened on Saturday as Paddy Ashdown revealed that he had warned No 10 only days after the general election of “terrible damage” to the coalition if he employed Andy Coulson in Downing Street.

The former Liberal Democrat leader, who had been extensively briefed on details that had not been made public for legal reasons, was so convinced that the truth would eventually emerge that he contacted the prime minister’s office.

Ashdown, a key player as the Liberal Democrats agonised over whether to join in a coalition with the Tories, told the Observer that, based on what he had been told, it was obvious Coulson’s appointment as Cameron’s director of communications would be a disaster.

“I warned No 10 within days of the election that they would suffer terrible damage if they did not get rid of Coulson, when these things came out, as it was inevitable they would,” he said.

Isn’t it possible that Cameron insisted on hiring Coulson because of his role in the scandal? That is, is it possible that, either before or after the election, Coulson shared some of this intelligence–which we know included personal information about Gordon Brown–with the Tories for political advantage?

Surprise surprise. Getting everyone insurance is not enough to eliminate medical bankruptcies. (h/t Susie)

To gauge whether healthcare reform in Massachusetts had eased bankruptcies, the researchers looked at a random sample of Massachusetts bankruptcy filers in July 2009, sending surveys to almost 500 households. They compared their results to national and Massachusetts data collected in 2007, before the Massachusetts reform was implemented in 2008.

They found that while the percentage was down slightly, medical bills still contributed to 52.9% of all bankruptcies in the state. Absolute numbers of medical bankruptcies were up by a third. Total bankruptcies in Massachusetts went up 51% between 2007 and 2009.

Families still faced substantial medical debt, they wrote, because healthcare costs continued to rise.

Who could have known?

Lucky for us we may never get to the point where national health care reform fails to prevent medical bankruptcies, since the TeaPartiers seem intent on crashing our economy but good because they don’t think the US should have to pay for Bush’s unfunded wars.

As we hear about how heroic this victory was over the next few days, remember what went into it: first, superior fitness. Thankfully these women did not rest on their reputation for greatness, but instead put in the hours of training to make sure that if they had to, they could beat one of the best teams in the world a person down.

And just as importantly? Offensive pressure. Relentless, fearless, offensive pressure.

Good luck, women!

There are a lot of sports deserving of some Trash Talk this weekend, including the one and only British GP from Silverstone, Derek Jeter…Jetah…, getting his 3,000th hit and the gleeful schadenfreude over The. Ohio. State. University. having to self forfeit all its wins from 2010. All are glorious sports stories, but we will start where we always do this time of year, with the F1 Circus.

This weekend is the British Grand Prix from historic Silverstone in Northamptonshire (and Buckinghamshire) England. Silverstone has evolved over the years and, in its current configuration is a fast track with several straightaways, coupled with two near hairpins and a smattering of other turns that make it a great track for racing and overtaking. Combined with the potential for the wet stuff, Silverstone holds promise for great races.

Aussie Mark Webber of Red Bull was fastest in practice, which was hampered in the second session by the rain. the Red Bull dominance continued into qualifying this morning with Webber taking P1, followed by teammate Sebastian Vettel in P2 and the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa in P3 and P4 respectively. Di Resta in the Force India, Maldonado in the Williams and Koayashi in the Sauber were pleasant surprises in P6-P8. Of the three upstarts, I think Kobayashi has the best chance to break through for a podium, but it will be really tough. Lewis Hamilton continues his downward slide from relevance with a P10 on the grid, barely ahead of the secondary Force India and Sauber machines. Brad Spurgeon has more.

One other thing, as Brad notes:

If you are in New York City or nearby, it will be possible to watch tomorrow’s race live at the City Winery. The producers of the documentary film about the late world champion Ayrton Senna, entitled “Senna,” are sponsoring the event to show off the race and then some previews of the film, which will be released in the United States on Aug. 12. The race is run in delayed time later Sunday on Fox, so this is a chance to see it live — or with only a slight delay. Reservations for the event, which starts at 7:30 a.m., can be made at [email protected].

Yeah, no shit. Once again, the Foxsuckers have decided to cravenly screw the American F1 fans. It is such total unadulterated bullshit it is hard to put into words. Rupert Murdoch and Fox deserve to be humiliated and pilloried for this MUCH more than that phone hacking kerfuffle. Fox truly sucks bags of big honking salted dicks.

Race day this year has a prediction for sunshine, but that is awfully tenuous at Silverstone. This would be slightly different from the conditions in 1961. As you may recall when this season of the F1 circus started, I pledged to occasionally harken back to 1961 as this is the 50th anniversary of the Yankee Champion, Phil Hill. I did not know Phil until about 1968 or so, and was too young to know anything in 1961, so I will have to rely on history to describe the British GP of that year, which was held at Aintree by Liverpool. 1961 was also a wet weekend, but the wet continued through the start of the race:

The 1961 British Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race, held on 15 July 1961 at the Aintree Circuit, near Liverpool. It was the fifth race of eight in the 1961 World Championship season. Following a wet weekend, with torrential rain affecting both qualifying and the race start, the Grand Prix was ultimately dominated by Scuderia Ferrari, with their drivers taking all three podium positions. The race was won by German Wolfgang von Trips, who had led for much of the race after starting from fourth place. This was von Trips’s second and last Grand Prix victory, as two races later he was killed in an accident during the 1961 Italian Grand Prix. Pole position winner Phil Hill drove to second place, on his way to winning the World Drivers’ Championship at the end of the season, and third place was taken by Hill’s American compatriot Richie Ginther.

So that was the British fifty years ago and looking forward to this year’s race. Sadly, as I will go into at the appropriate corresponding point in this year’s season, the winner of the 1961 British GP, the superb Wolfgang von Tripps did not go on to finish the season, which played large in Phil winning the Championship. That is a story for a later day.

Also in the news this week is the oh so sad passing of the Ohio State Buckeyes’ 2010 season:

The beleaguered Ohio State football program will vacate its 12 wins from last season, including its Sugar Bowl win over Arkansas.

The school announced the self-imposed penalties as it awaits what are likely to be even more serious penalties from the NCAA for a scandal that saw players trading memorabilia for tattoos. Longtime Coach Jim Tressel has already resigned and star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, at the center of the tattoo imbroglio, has left early for what he hopes is an NFL career.

Athletic Director Gene Smith said wiping out the 12-1 2010 season is a significant price for the university to pay for the school and the team. Four players caught up in the memorabilia-for-tattoos scandal are returning.

Here is what I want to know: if the 2010 season needs to be forfeited, why the hell doesn’t the 2009 season (and bogus Rose bowl win), which relied on the same tainted players and congenitally corrupt Sweater Vest coach and administration, have to be forfeited too? It was a long term pattern of abuse of NCAA rules that started long before the 2010 season. OSU is still pulling punches and acting with oblivious and insulting impunity.

Lastly, Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit today, a stud like home run, as well as his 3,001st and 3,002nd hits, the last a game winner for the Yankees. The man is all class and all style. A tip of the cap to Derek Jetah….Jetah.

Music this week courtesy of the one and only Ringo Starr, who turned 71 years young Thursday (and was serenaded with Paul McCartney signing “Birthday” for him).

So, that is it folks; let rip the hounds of trash!

Here I was steeling myself for a big rebuttal from Benjamin Wittes to my “Drone War on Westphalia” post on the implications of our use of drones. But all I got was a difference in emphasis.

In his response, Wittes generally agrees that our use of drones has implications for sovereignty. But he goes further–arguing it has implications for governance–and focuses particularly on the way technology–rather than the increasing importance of transnational entities I focused on–can undermine the nation-state by empowering non-state actors.

I agree emphatically with Wheeler’s focus on sovereignty here–although for reasons somewhat different from the ones she offers. Indeed, I think Wheeler doesn’t go quite far enough. For it isn’t just sovereignty at issue in the long run, it is governance itself. Robotics are one of several technological platforms that we can expect to  greatly enhance the power of individuals and small groups relative to states. The more advanced of these technological areas are networked computers and biotechnology, but robotics is not all that far behind–a point Ken Anderson alludes to at a post over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Right now, the United States is using robotics, as Wheeler points out, in situations that raises issues for other countries’ sovereignty and governance and has a dominant technological advantage in the field. But that’s not going to continue. Eventually, other countries–and other groups, and other individuals–will use robotics in a fashion that has implications for American sovereignty, and, more generally, for the ability of governments in general to protect security. [my emphasis]

Given DOD’s complete inability to protect our computer toys from intrusion, I’ll wager that time will come sooner rather than later. Iraqi insurgents already figured out how to compromise our drones once using off-the-shelf software.

Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

It may not take long, then, for a country like Iran or an entity like a Mexican drug cartel to develop and disseminate a way to hack drones. And given the way other arms proliferate, it won’t be long before drones are available on the private market. (Incidentally, remember how some of the crap intelligence used to trump up a war against Saddam involved a balsa-wood drone? Great times those were!)

So Wittes and I are in pretty close agreement here; he even agrees that the larger issue “ought to be the subject of wider and more serious public debate.”

But shouldn’t it be, then, part of the question whether facilitating this process serves national security or not?

In the interest of fostering some disagreement here–er, um, in an interest in furthering this discussion–I wanted to unpack the thought process in this passage from Wittes’ response to Spencer with what appears to be Wittes’ and my agreement in mind:

The point with merit is the idea that drones enable the waging of war without many of the attendant public costs–including the sort of public accounting that necessarily happens when you deploy large numbers of troops. I have no argument with him on this score, save that he seems to be looking at only one side of a coin that, in fact, has two sides. Ackerman sees that drones make it easy to get involved in wars. But he ignores the fact that for exactly the same reason, they make it easier to limit involvement in wars. How one feels about drones is partly conditioned by what one believes the null hypothesis to be. If one imagines that absent drones, our involvement in certain countries where we now use them would look more like law enforcement operations, one will tend to feel differently, I suspect, that if one thinks our involvement would look more like what happened in Iraq. Drones enable an ongoing, serious, military and intelligence involvement in countries without significant troop commitments.

As I read it, the logic of the passage goes like this:

1. Drones minimize the costs of involvement in wars
2. We will either be involved in these countries in a war or a law enforcement fashion
3. Therefore, we’re better off using drones than large scale military operations

Now, before I get to the implications of this logic, let me point out a few things.

First, note how Wittes uses “what happened in Iraq” as the alternative kind of military deployment? As I said in my last post in this debate, I do think Iraq may end up being what we consider our last traditional nation-state war for some time, so I suppose it’s a fair invocation of an alternative. But Iraq was also characterized, for years, by willfully insufficient planning, and it was an illegal war of choice in any case. If the only option is military intervention, why not compare drones with a more effectively-run more legitimate war, like the first Gulf War? Or why not admit the possibility of what we’ve got in Afghanistan, another incompetently executed war (largely because Bush moved onto Iraq before finishing Afghanistan) which now seems almost to serve as an incredibly expensive excuse to keep drones in the neighborhood.

Also, note the things Wittes doesn’t consider among the possibilities here, such as diplomacy or non-involvement. We’re not using drones (not yet, anyway) against Syria, Bahrain, or Ivory Coast, all of which share some similarities with Libya. So why–aside from the oil–should we assume we have to get involved in any case? Shouldn’t we first consider using tools that don’t create more failed states?

And even if we’re going to be involved militarily, there’s the additional choice of using just special forces, which has the same kind of small footprint and low cost, but–up until the point you use them to kill Osama bin Laden–slightly different legal and strategic implications than drones (though ultimately someone is going to capture members of our special forces and treat them as unlawful enemy combatants).

Mind you, I’m not saying these alternative tools necessarily are the ones we should be using, but we ought to remember the choice isn’t as simple as war versus law enforcement.

That said, Wittes is coming to this–and to the larger question of counterterrorism–from a perspective supporting significant (though not complete) use of a war framework. For those who do, doesn’t that make the logic I laid out above–added to the seeming agreement that drones are one new development undermining the nation-state–look something like this (the additions are in bold)?

1. Drones minimize the costs of involvement in wars but undermine nation-states
2. We will either be involved in these countries in a war or a law enforcement fashion
3. Given that binary choice, we favor a military involvement in these countries
4. Therefore, we’re better off using drones than large scale military operations
5. A consequence of that choice will be popularizing a technology that will undermine nation-states, including our own

Admittedly, I may be pushing the logic here, as well as the extent to which Wittes and I agree about the implications of drones. Nevertheless, this logic summarizes the reason we need more debate here–partly because we’re using tools without consent, partly because we’re not considering potential unintended consequences–particularly in the form of more failed states–of our choices. But also because, in the name of “national security,” we seem to be pursuing policies that will weaken our own nation-state. (Compare this with cyberwar, where, after we ratcheted up the strategy with Stuxnet, we are at least now–perhaps cynically–trying to establish an international regime to cover the new strategy.)

Now consider what’s happening at the same time, in the absence of a real debate about whether we need to launch drones against another country. We had 159 and 238 Americans die in tornadoes this year that were almost certainly an early example of the kinds of severe natural disasters we can expect from climate change; but we’re doing nothing as a country to prepare for more such events (including the historical flooding and its significant economic cost), much less to try to prevent climate change. We continue to let multinational banks guide our national policy choices, in spite of warnings that such an approach will bring about another crash. And no matter how relatively inexpensive drones are, we are spending billions on them, even while we’re firing the teachers that should be educating our next generation of engineers–eating our national security seed corn, if you will–because of budget woes.

In short, in a push to address one diminishing threat using the least costly military means, we may be hurting the viability of our nation-state. We’re fighting a transnational threat by empowering transnational threats. Meanwhile, the US is betraying its responsibility to provide its citizens security in the face of a number of much more urgent threats.

If the state is crumbling–and ours seems to be, literally, politically, and legally–then what becomes of the responsibility for national security? And how do you define the nation that national security must serve?

Update: Balsa for balsam fixed per Synoia.

Leon Panetta kicks off his new job as Secretary of Defense with a trip to Afghanistan. On the plane over there this morning, he told reporters that we just need to kill 10 or 20 leaders of al Qaeda and we will “strategically defeat” al Qaeda. (h/t Spencer)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared Saturday that the United States is “within reach” of “strategically defeating” Al Qaeda as a terrorist threat, but that doing so would require killing or capturing the group’s 10 to 20 remaining leaders.

Heading to Afghanistan for the first time since taking office earlier this month, Panetta said that intelligence uncovered in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May showed that 10 years of U.S. operations against Al Qaeda had left it with fewer than two dozen key operatives, most of whom are in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and North Africa.

“If we can be successful at going after them, I think we can really undermine their ability to do any kind of planning to be able to conduct any kinds of attack on this country,” Panetta told reporters on his way to Afghanistan aboard a U.S. Air Force jet. “That’s why I think” that defeat of Al Qaeda is “within reach,” he added.

To kill or capture those 20 leaders, mind you, we’ve got 100,000 troops in Afghanistan–where none of these key al Qaeda leaders are, according to Panetta–and will have 70,000 there after we withdraw the surge troops. So I’m guessing Panetta isn’t really promising we’ll end the war; we’ll just have tens of thousands of troops in harms way to do … something.

Compare Panetta’s characterization of what we’re up against with Charlie Savage’s description of the government’s justification for capturing Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame. As you read this, remember that Warsame was captured on April 19, over a week before the government killed Osama bin Laden and started analyzing the intelligence at OBL’s compound. Though, according to ProPublica, we already knew that OBL nixed a suggestion to make Anwar al-Awlaki the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Savage suggests that we nabbed Warsame on his way back to Somalia from a meeting with al-Awlaki.

Meanwhile, new details emerged about Mr. Warsame’s detention on a Navy ship after his capture in April aboard a fishing skiff between Yemen and Somalia, and about internal administration deliberations on legal policy questions that could have implications for the evolving conflict against Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

A senior counterterrorism official said Wednesday that Mr. Warsame had recently met with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical cleric now hiding in Yemen.

The Administration justified capturing Warsame based on an argument not that we’re at war against al-Shabaab as a group, but that a handful of al-Shabaab leaders adhere to al Qaeda’s ideology and “could” conduct attacks outside of Somalia.

While Mr. Warsame is accused of being a member of the Shabab, which is focused on a parochial insurgency in Somalia, the administration decided he could be lawfully detained as a wartime prisoner under Congress’s authorization to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.

But the administration does not consider the United States to be at war with every member of the Shabab, officials said. Rather, the government decided that Mr. Warsame and a handful of other individual Shabab leaders could be made targets or detained because they were integrated with Al Qaeda or its Yemen branch and were said to be looking beyond the internal Somali conflict.

“Certain elements of Al Shabab, including its senior leaders, adhere to Al Qaeda’s ideology and could conduct attacks outside of Somalia in East Africa, as it did in Uganda in 2010, or even outside the region to further Al Qaeda’s agenda,” said a senior administration official. “For its leadership and those other Al Qaeda-aligned elements of Al Shabab, our approach is quite clear: They are not beyond the reach of our counterterrorism tools.”

Now, logic dictates that this handful of leaders of a group that did not exist on 9/11 (and therefore couldn’t logically be included in the authorization of force against those who planned the attack) includes the Somalian al-Shabaab leaders included in Panetta’s 10-20 targets.

That is, among the 20 or so people we need to kill or capture to declare victory and go home try to invent some justification to keep 70,000 troops in Afghanistan, are people who simply “could” attack outside of Somalia, but may not have yet. And of course the nexus here seems to focus on al-Awlaki, a guy the Administration has declared a state secret, yet still feels free to leak details with impunity.

Don’t get me wrong, if Panetta is preparing to declare victory and come home, I’m all for it (if the Secretary of Defense actually brings these men and women home, which there’s no plan to do yet).

But there’s something fishy underlying even his claim we need to get these 10-20 leaders.

Greg Sargent has a post arguing that complaints about David Plouffe’s comments about unemployment are being distorted.

It seems Plouffe was actually asked a question about whether and how the unemployment rate would impact the Presidential race. He replied by claiming that the number itself wouldn’t impact people’s votes. In other words, Plouffe himself didn’t initially establish the political context. Plouffe then launched into a discussion about how the anemic recovery is experienced by people on a personal level. It was in that context that Plouffe reiterated that people won’t vote based on the numer alone.

You can accuse Plouffe of being wrong in claiming that people won’t vote based on the percentage of unemployed — I tend to think it may loom in people’s minds. You can argue that it was a misstep in that the quote does sound tone-deaf when reproduced without the surrounding context, and it’s understandable why people would see it as insensitive when viewed without that context.

But as Dave Weigel notes, the quote in isolation is widely being distorted in the media as a sign that Obama’s advisers have their heads in the sand about the economy.

Except that the transcript Sargent includes actually proves that Plouffe does have his head in the sand about the economy. After explaining that people don’t think of the economy in terms of unemployment numbers or GDP (I agree), he claims that people are actually feeling better about the economy.

The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers.

In fact, those terms very rarely pass their lips. So it’s a very one-dimensional view. They view the economy through their own personal prism. You see, people’s — people’s attitude towards their own personal financial situation has actually improved over time. You know, they’re still concerned about the long-term economic future of the country, but it’s things like “My sister was unemployed for six months and was living in my basement and now she has a job.”

There’s a — a “help wanted” sign. You know, the local diner was a little busier this week. Home Depot was a little busier. These are the ways people talk about the economy. [my emphasis]

Problem is, there’s a way to measure people’s attitude about their own personal situation, and it is not improving. Two key measures of consumer confidence, at least, show people’s attitude about their own personal situation has declined in the last month.

The consumer-sentiment gauge fell to 71.5 at the end of June from 74.3 in May. A preliminary June reading had pegged sentiment at 71.8.

The sentiment reading, which covers how consumers view their personal finances as well as business and buying conditions, averaged about 87 in the year before the start of the most recent recession.

[snip]

Earlier this week, a separate report showed that consumer confidence fell in June to the worst level in eight months on concerns about employment and income.

The Conference Board’s consumer-confidence index fell to 58.5 for the month from an upwardly revised 61.7 in May. Generally, when the economy is growing at a good clip, confidence readings are at 90 and above.

Now, consumer confidence may well turn around, and it has been going up with small hints of a turnaround. But it is not up right now–the Conference Board survey is worse than it has been for months.

Look, I’m not trying to make it easy for Mitt Romney to attack Barack Obama. But at every turn, the Administration does seem deaf to the complaints of ordinary people. Mitt’s no more in touch with those complaints, I’m sure. But that doesn’t mean Obama and his aides don’t have to start listening to the pain of real people.

At today’s press conference responding to the lousy jobs report, Obama offered a few suggestions for how to create jobs: patent reform, infrastructure investment, confidence fairies and … “free trade.”

But as the Economic Policy Institute has shown, these trade deals would actually cost jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector, which has finally begun to turn around. Colombia wouldn’t even be required to end its tolerance for the murder of labor organizers, as was originally going to be required. Not only that, but Republicans (the ones who actually want these trade deals) are now balking on funding Trade Adjustment Assistance as part of the deal, so workers whose jobs get sent to Korea can get training that will help them find a new one.

In short, Obama’s “solution” to the jobs crisis is–at least as Republicans envision it–a way to send jobs to a country where workers get killed for standing up to their employers without, at the same time, trying to help Americans adjust to losing their jobs.

Somehow, suggesting we address the jobs crisis by sending them overseas doesn’t make me believe in the confidence fairy.

BLS:

Total nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in June (+18,000). Following gains averaging 215,000 per month from February through April, employment has been essentially flat for the past 2 months. Employment in most major private-sector industries changed little in June, while government employment continued to trend down.

[snip]

Employment in government continued to trend down over the month (-39,000). Federal employment declined by 14,000 in June. Employment in both state government and local government continued to trend down over the month and has been falling since the second half of 2008.

Meanwhile, wages declined.

In June, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls decreased by 1 cent to $22.99. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.9 percent. In June, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees declined by 1 cent to $19.41.

And DC’s solution is going to be to fight about corporate jet tax breaks for another week while cutting more government jobs.

Well, I guess this will add to the evidence that Visa is refusing to accept donations from DataCell because it works with WikiLeaks.

For a few hours on Thursday, credit card donations once again flowed to WikiLeaks through a payment gateway at Icelandic hosting company DataCell. Then Visa shut it down again.

DataCell CEO Andreas Fink said his company had found a new payment acquirer, Valitor, willing to process payments to WikiLeaks, and accepted thousands of donations to the whistle-blowing website before running into problems around 3.30 a.m. Icelandic time.

[snip]

According to Visa representative Amanda Kamin, “An acquirer briefly accepted payments on a merchant site linked to WikiLeaks. As soon as this came to our attention, action was taken with the suspension of Visa payment acceptance to the site remaining in place.”

DataCell’s contract with Valitor contains no terms that forbid DataCell from accepting donations on behalf of WikiLeaks, Fink said.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Valitor’s brief acceptance of DataCell donations will get it in trouble under Visa’s merchant agreements. Or whether they got written threats of trouble.

Because that’s the kind of thing that might make Europe more concerned about this abuse of Visa and MasterCard’s monopoly position.