24 Jan 2014 – The Australian – THE Australian WikiLeaks Party has taken thousands of dollars in donations via the global crypto-currency bitcoin since it registered in July last year but has no way of finding out where the transactions originated.
The party hierarchy, which The Australian yesterday revealed was in the middle of planning a second visit to war-torn Syria this Easter, insisted they were “broke” and had never taken donations from outside Australia.
National Council member Gail Malone, who registered the party in July last year, said she had no idea about donations, but added they were all local. “We have no outside donations, we have never taken donations from outside Australia,” she said.
A list of locations from small bitcoin donations paid to the party may contradict Ms Malone’s assertion. Payments appear to have been made from Lithuania, Hong Kong, Germany, the US, The Netherlands and Britain.
It’s understood the true identity of funds can be concealed when using bitcoin. Multiple payments were made from a location off the African nation of Cameroon, although this is likely to be a false location designed to mask the donor’s true location.
Bitcoin is a digital currency designed to allow web users to buy and sell services and products in masked transactions – often for underground or illegal things but increasingly for mainstream uses. One bitcoin is worth about $950.
Bitcoin user and University of Western Australia software researcher David Glance said there was “every reason to believe people making donations to WikiLeaks are paranoid and therefore would want to protect their identities”….. Read more
