Former EFF Activism Director's New Book, Transaction Denied, Explores What Happens When Financial Companies Act like Censors

A U.S. citizen who teaches Persian poetry classes online is suddenly unable to receive payments or access funds when his account is flagged and frozen by Paypal and its subsidiary Venmo. A Muslim city councilwoman in New York City has a Venmo payment blocked because she uses the name of a Bangladeshi restaurant in the transaction. Online hubs for erotic storytelling repeatedly lose their payment accounts. Others active in drug legalization fights struggle to keep their bank accounts. These may sound like one-off issues, but they are not. They occur with frightening regularity, as former EFF Ac