It also gets you soundbyte statements like "chip in your head" when in fact it's a fairly mundane technology that need not necessarily be implanted to have the same effect. You could hand his system to anyone and we could all have this extra-sensory experience. The article is strongly written from with the perspective that this is exclusive.
They don't have to be on the same level -- they both simply have to be engaged in the practice of journalism. And is the fact that they send people around the globe what makes them a journalistic entity? No. It's that they publish information that is important in some way, which is exactly what WikiLeaks does -- which makes them deserving of the same protection as the New York Times.
As the author of the post, maybe I can try and clear that up: my point was that while we have all failed to some extent -- by not supporting WikiLeaks and protesting things like the PayPal blockade and Amazon deletion and the government's dubious case -- the New York Times has failed by not using its national media platform to protest those things and their impact on free speech and freedom of the press. And my argument about why they didn't do that is in part that the NYT sees WikiLeaks as competition. Hope that helps.
Does it matter if anyone thinks WikiLeaks is a "good" thing?
These are the questions that matter:
Is WikiLeaks a journalistic entity? Why or why not?
Is it OK for a bank/financial entity to block donations to any entity, journalism or not?
*If money is speech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo) how is blocking donations not a criminal offence?
"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
Because Visa and Mastercard are private companies that can decide whom they want or don't want as customers. They'll deny you from being a merchant if you have poor credit, too. They take on risk with every new merchant they accept, and I can see how WikiLeaks might pose a greater risk than most. If a group's supporters are willing to DoS visa.com and mastercard.com, I wouldn't put it past them to make large donations with stolen credit card numbers either, and Visa and Mastercard are on the hook for the chargebacks.
And, of course, since money is speech, it's fully within your rights to donate to wikileaks (cash, check, wire transfer, money order), just as its within Visa's rights not to accept Wikileaks as a customer.
EDIT: And just to be clear, I'm not trying to argue that there are no political motivations behind the decisions of Visa and Mastercard. I'm just answering the question about why this isn't for some reason illegal.
before anyone gets too upset, I realize this analogy is not perfect -- as plenty of people have already pointed out. But I think the similarities are instructive.
I think the problem with this program is that it's tied not to the success of the company itself -- which everyone has a stake in -- but the success of social features with which many people at Google probably aren't even involved, and over which they have no control.
Perhaps the idea is that the Google employees will suddenly feel compelled to get all their family and friends to use the social stuff, and they'll in turn bring in their friends, and that will be enough to tip it into mainstream usage
Alexis, this was an incredible post -- tremendously moving. You deserve some big props for sticking it through all that and achieving what you did. My mother had an aneurysm just as I was making a big move at work, and that kind of thing really puts things in perspective -- as your post did. Bravo.
