Is this true?
http://rt.com/usa/bitcoin-exchange-seized-crackdown-begins-334/
Well, it is a bit exaggerated. The problem is, that Dwolla is a service provider at Mt. Gox, who does the transfer between bitcoin and USD. "unlicensed money transmitting business" in the article is better explained in this article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/15/the-feds-are-cracking-down-on-mt-gox-not-on-bitcoin/ which has a link to the official warrant PDF file, too. Dwolla didn't register properly as a money transmitter with the Treasury Department, but they do work as a money transmitter (see page 4 of the PDF).
And the quote from Senator Chuck Schumer is just hilarious: "Literally, it allows buyers and users to sell illegal drugs online, including heroin, cocaine, and meth, and users do sell by hiding their identity through a program that makes them virtually untraceable". That's right, but so does paper money. And looks like you don't have to use Mt. Gox, in Australia a Google search shows
http://www.bitinnovate.com , but I don't know this service. Can't be much shadier than Mt. Gox
I keep hearing about Bitcoin, but really don't have much clue.
Is it as easy as simply signing up and putting a donation link on the website?
Yes. As answered by Spikee, you can use Bitpay. There are even car dealers who use this service:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1blys0/overland_park_jeep_dodge_chrysler_ram_now/It's as easy as setting up an account at Bitpay and registering an AUD bank account with it. They give you a bitcoin address, which you can post on your website. If someone transmits bitcoins to this address, it will be converted to AUD by Bitpay and transfered to your bank account (minus 1% fee).
If you want to own your own bitcoin, like paper money in a real life wallet, maybe to try paying something with it (for example Worpress and Reddit accepts it), then you could do what Bored@Work advised. You could either use a local client on your PC, like the official Bitcoin Qt client from
http://bitcoin.org , which needs 16 GB harddisk space because it needs to download all transaction in the bitcoin network (which initially needs some hours). With this client you can create your own bitcoin address, which you post on your website. When someone transfers money to it, you'll see it in the client. Your wallet can be password protected and can be backuped anywhere (it's 128 kB on my PC).
Or you could use a webservice. A nice one is
http://blockchain.info/wallet/ The advantage is that it is easier to use. The disadvantage is, that it is an external provider, so it could be shut down by government, in contrast to your own wallet on your PC. They would need to censor all internet transfers worldwide to prohibit bitcoin. Currently there are thousands of miners worldwide (that's the people you create new bitcoins and who are needed to do bitcoin transactions on the network), with a computing capacity of more than 1 exaflop:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/bitcoin-network-speed-8-times-faster-than-top-500-supercomputers-combinedBTW: you can even print your own bitcoin money, instead of using just boring Bitcoin wallet data backups:
http://www.bitaddress.org