Alternatives To STASI/PayPAl

I just received this link via email. The news is a bit old, but I really haven’t seen much about it at all. It deserves to be aired out again.

PayPal’s Unholy Alliance With ADL Opens the Door to a Massive Security Breach
Two weeks ago, PayPal abruptly announced a major new partnership with the Anti-Defamation League to investigate the financial transactions of its users:

PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL), in partnership with ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), today announced a new partnership initiative to fight extremism and hate through the financial industry and across at-risk communities. This is the latest effort by PayPal in combating racism, hate and extremism across its platforms and the industry.

Let’s go to PayPal’s actual press release.

Through this collaboration, PayPal and ADL have launched a research effort to address the urgent need to understand how extremist and hate movements throughout the U.S. are attempting to leverage financial platforms to fund criminal activity. The intelligence gathered through this research initiative will be shared broadly across the financial industry and with policymakers and law enforcement.

Universal BS Translator: PayPal will (is) spy on their customers…

And share that data with an outside nongovernmental organization.

The intelligence gathered through this research initiative will be shared broadly across the financial industry and with policymakers and law enforcement.

UBST: And with the governments which people are criticizing. Note the lack of mention of subpoenas or warrants.

In addition to extremist and anti-government organizations, the initiative will focus on actors and networks spreading and profiting from all forms of hate and bigotry against any community.

UBST: And we won’t stop with potentially unlawful activities. We’re going to spy on, and share and report noncriminal speech we don’t like.

Perhaps this accounts in part for the drastic drop in PayPal donations I’ve experienced (one, in the past three months, which isn’t keeping up with my Internet access bills). It could well be that those more clued in simply don’t want to donate to — and thus be tied to — someone who routinely criticizes the governemt and politicians for constitutional violations.

Although another issue seems to be PayPal’s lust for telephone contact data. One person asked for an alternate means of donating because PayPal insists on being given the donor’s phone number (I suppose that makes it easier to collate data on users and their donors). Using a desktop computer, I was always presented with a “not now” button allowing me to skip the phone number requirement, but my source says that doesn’t appear when using a smart phone.

Please offer viable alternatives to PayPal in comments. I need something.

Although with the credit card reporting these days, cash might be best.

Huh. Doesn’t anyone else remember way back when the ADL had a decent reputation? Maybe not; I’m old.