Banca Etica Suspends A/I's Account While Condemning the Sanctions Behind It

alqph

The ground works for debanking were laid when all of the mainstream press cheered on the debanking of Canadian truckers. Now their opponents use it and it gets very little press coverage. It needs to stop. I would not do well in this autistici.org group and they'd probably kick me out on some CoC grounds with their draconian rules and social pressure, but I still cannot get over the fact that you can just destroy a service provider with very little evidence. All parties need to stop this.

buran77

> The Italian bank says A/I’s account showed no previous anti-money-laundering concerns—but fears U.S. secondary sanctions could endanger services for 130,000 customers and members. > Banca Etica strongly condemns the use of counterterrorism tools to target political opponents. Evaluations are underway to prevent the closure of the bank account following A/I's inclusion on the US list of terrorist organizations. This isn't the usual debanking as a political statement, but rather the bank trying not to be sanctioned by the US, a country already bleeding all its soft power and veering heavily into hard power and coercion. The sanctioning of the ICC prosecutor already showed beyond any doubt the level of moral bankruptcy. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

mdp2021

> an Italian bank maintaining relationships with an OFAC-listed entity could be subject to "secondary sanctions" that would involve the cessation of all services provided by US intermediaries. This would mean that all Banca Etica customers would be unable to use credit and debit cards (which currently rely on a substantial monopoly by US operators) «A substantial monopoly by US operators»: very strong words, very important words: those "US operators" are the part that is responsible for having destroyed monetics in the eu - the part that forced NFC on bank cards. Of course the problem should have been solved immediately. now we have banks with crippled services here.

impossiblefork

I think what's needed here is for A/I to go the ECHR. A state failing to prevent foreign sanctions from restricting the freedom of association of its citizens is certainly a breach of article 11. It doesn't matter whether it's caused by a foreign state, the duty of Italy is clearly to ensure freedom of association in practice.

mlok

"A/I" = "Austistici/Inventati" Collective "Autistici/Inventati is a Tuscan collective that develops independent IT services and provides email addresses, websites, blogs, and newsletters to other activists and collectives."

josefritzishere

The supposed "land of the free" is suppressing political speech at home and abroad.

tomjen3

This ironically is a place where the EU needs to make draconian rules.

tevon

Ok I agree that de-banking is not a good thing overall from a political perspective. But in this case, it seems fairly clear that A/I was providing services to organizations listed as Terrorist Organizations by the US, UK, and Canada. Seems like the best way around this is... don't do business with terrorists? I'd understand more if these were ONLY deemed by the US, but this is an international group.

sph

Ethical Bank? Isn't that an oxymoron?

diegoeche

It _looks_ like A/I was providing services to the PKK. A/I intentionally selects politically aligned groups, provides them with encrypted communications, hosting, anonymity and other infrastructure, and among the groups receiving those services was the PKK.

etdznots

If only there was some technology they could have used for uncensorable transacting

axus

Can you use your bank account to buy crypto currency? Liability shifting is one feature of crypto.

csense

So...what happens to the money in the account? AFAIK normally when your account is closed, your bank gives you a cashier's check which you can use to open an account at another bank. But given that they're in OFAC, what if no other bank will have them? Does someone who works for A/I have to drive to Italy and pick up a briefcase full of cash? Or does the money stay in the bank, inaccessible to A/I, until A/I proves they aren't terrorists? Which could be...forever, since it's basically impossible to improve you're not a terrorist once you're formally included on The Big List Of Terrorists? How do you hire a lawyer to argue your case if the money you would use to pay them has already been taken away?

MadrasThorn

Italy can protest but their actions in Africa and Iran seem very close with russias. Italian oil and gas firms still operate in Iran as well as Italian soldiers in Niger post Russian takeover.