Gaining renewed support
The newly formed Freedom of the Press Foundation is to support Wikileaks in its attempts to subvert payment blocks made over the past two years by Visa and MasterCard. It will be dedicated to promoting media transparency and contending censorship through supporting affiliated groups.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation stems from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and is backed by former whistle-blowers, and actors such as John Cusak. It will crowd-source for organisations engaged in public-interest journalism.
The block on payments to WikiLeaks followed its publication of sensitive US diplomatic cables and has so far choked off more than 95% of donations to the site. WikiLeaks resources have been severely depleted by the action, running primary cash reserves down from more than USD1m in 2010 to under USD1,000 as of December 2012.
The Foundation’s first ‘bundle’ will crowd-source funds for WikiLeaks, the National Security Archive, The UpTake and MuckRock News. Using a credit card, donors will be able to use a slider to set how much of their donation they wish each organisation to receive. The Foundation holds 501(c) charitable status, so donations are tax-deductible in the US. The amount of money paid to each organisation by individual donors will not be recorded.
Whitepapers
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