Bank of America vs. Wikileaks Battle is Heating Up

Wikileaks founder Assange says banks are attacking him and vows to release incriminating documents about them.

The battle between Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the financial industry is heating up. On Friday, following in the footsteps of PayPal, MasterCard and Visa, Bank of America said it would no longer process payments to Wikileaks. "This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments," the bank said in a statement.

Wikileaks retaliated with two Tweets on its Twitter page: "We ask that all people who love freedom close out their accounts at Bank of America" and "Does your business do business with Bank of America? Our advise is to place your funds somewhere safer."

And in an interview with CNBC in the British countryside where he is staying with a journalist supporter, Assange said his organization has been attacked by banks in the United States, United Kingdom, Dubai and Switzerland. He did not say how the banks were attacking the company, but he added, "So yes, of course, we are continuing to release information about the banks."

Assange indicated in a Forbes interview that Wikileaks is planning a major document release in January that will expose corruption in banks. He also told Computerworld in 2009 that Wikileaks is sitting on a hard drive from a Bank of America executive.