Whistleblowers seek to restore funding 500 days after Visa, MasterCard and PayPal blocked donations.

US backers of transparency organization Wikileaks have announced plans to establish a foundation for the site seeking a way to allow donors to give money to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks once again. Wikileaks has undergone over 500 days of a “banking blockade” after Visa, MasterCard and PayPal blocked donations from going to the website.

WikiLeaks has lost 95% of its donation income since the blockade was called by US senator Joe Lieberman.

“Supporters based in the US are now in talks with Assange to establish a US-based foundation aimed at funding organizations cut off by private companies in situations with first amendment implications,” reports The Guardian.

Spearheading the campaign are Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers leaker, and John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the US online rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

“We now have organizations with the ability to stifle free expression with no bill of rights that applies to them – just terms of service,” he said.

Continue reading here.