WikiBlogParts

EX-Swiss Banker Linked to WikiLeaks Goes on Trial

2011-02-02T17:37:00.002+00:00

Former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer admitted on Wednesday he sent private client data to tax authorities as he went on trial for breaching bank secrecy, but denied blackmail and a bomb threat against Julius Baer.

Elmer, 55, among the first to use WikiLeaks to publish private bank documents, said he took his information to the website after Swiss authorities failed to act on it.

"The ethics of business leadership on both sides of the Atlantic have disappointed me," he said, adding that he wanted to expose illegal offshore activity in the Cayman Islands.

Elmer said Baer waged a campaign of "psychoterror" against him and his family and offered him 500,000 francs to keep quiet. He said he had never taken payments in return for secret data.

But he admitted writing anonymous emails in 2005 threatening to send client details to tax authorities and the media if Julius Baer did not stop unspecified actions against employees.

"The situation was very threatening. We were very scared and I thought the bank was behind it. That is why I sent the emails," Elmer told the court.

Wearing a black suit and a red shirt, Elmer also admitted charges that he sent details of tax evasion to Swiss tax authorities, but he denied he made a bomb threat against the Zurich headquarters of his former employer, Julius Baer, threatened a Baer employee and tried to blackmail the bank.

Powerful Opponent

Prosecutor Alexandra Bergmann said the reason Elmer denied those charges was because they contradicted a defence strategy that he acted out of altruistic and public interest motives.
Elmer's lawyer Ganden Tethong Blattner said her client and his family had paid for standing up to a powerful opponent.

"This is the story of a man who discovered misdeeds and was under constant surveillance for more than a year. This great pressure was aimed at silencing him," she said.

Tethong Blattner accused Swiss prosecutors of uncritically adopting evidence provided by Julius Baer's private investigators without doing their own investigations.

Julius Baer says Elmer waged a "campaign of personal intimidation and vendetta" against the bank after it refused his demands for financial compensation following his 2002 dismissal.

Prosecutors are asking for Elmer, who ran Baer's office in the Cayman Islands until he was fired in 2002, to be sentenced to an eight-month jail term and to pay a 2,000 Swiss franc ($2,083) fine.

A verdict is expected later on Wednesday.

Wednesday's case does not concern his publication of bank data on WikiLeaks, but earlier alleged breaches of bank and corporate secrecy in Switzerland and threats against Baer.

The trial in Zurich drew broad media attention and about a dozen protesters gathered in front of the court building. Members of the left-wing Alternative Liste party held up a banner, saying:

"They want to hang Rudi, they let Kaspar off the hook," in a reference to UBS chairman Kaspar Villiger.

Switzerland was forced last year to give details of about 4,450 UBS accounts to U.S. authorities as part of a deal to settle a tax probe into its biggest bank despite strict secrecy laws.

None of its bankers were prosecuted in Switzerland.

"We think those who expose the distasteful side of Swiss finance need our support," said protester Walter Angst.

Elmer, a certified auditor who also worked at Credit Suisse and KPMG, said Swiss bank secrecy should not be relevant, since the documents he leaked referred to accounts in Cayman.

Swiss bank secrecy has come under global attack in recent years, with neighbouring Germany buying secret data from informants in its bid to track down tax evaders.

On Monday, the banker handed over compact discs he said contained information on some 2,000 offshore banking clients to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a media event in London.

Elmer helped put WikiLeaks in the spotlight after he used the site to leak secret data, prompting Julius Baer to launch a lawsuit against the Web site in 2008. It later dropped its bid to block the site after an outcry from free-speech advocates.

WikiLeaks Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize

2011-02-02T17:32:00.001+00:00

Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian politician behind the proposal said on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for nominations expired.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee accepts nominations for what many consider as the world's top accolade until February 1, although the five panel members have until the end of the month to make their own proposals.

Norwegian parliamentarian Snorre Valen said WikiLeaks was "one of the most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency" in the 21st century.

"By disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is a natural contender for the Nobel Peace Prize," Valen said.

Members of all national parliaments, professors of law or political science and previous winners are among those allowed to make nominations. The committee declined to comment on the WikiLeaks proposal or any other nominations.

Washington is furious at WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange for releasing tens of thousands of secret documents and diplomatic cables which it says have harmed U.S. interests abroad, including peace efforts.

Assange, An Australian, faces extradition to Sweden from Britain for questioning in a sex case which he and his supporters say is a smear campaign designed to close down WikiLeaks, a non-profit organization funded by the public and rights groups.

Awarding WikiLeaks the prize would be likely to provoke criticism of the Nobel Committee, which has courted controversy with its two most recent choices, jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo and President Barack Obama a few months after his election.

NOBEL DEFINITION STRETCHED

The prize was endowed by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who said in his will it was to be awarded to whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

In past decades the committee, appointed by the Norwegian parliament, has stretched Nobel's definition to include human rights, climate activism and even micro-financing, which have been a source of criticism from Nobel traditionalists.

Nobel watchers say a prize for WikiLeaks would highlight the growing role of specialist Internet sites and broad access social media in bringing about world change.

Sites such as Twitter and YouTube have played important roles in mobilizing people in countries with a tight grip on official media, such as Egypt where mass anti-government protests have been taking place.

Kristian Berg Harpviken of the PRIO peace think tank in Oslo agreed that innovative use of "new tools for bringing about peace" could be a major theme in this year's Nobel, but he said he expected the prize to go to a woman after a series of male recipients.

His strongest tip was the Russian human rights group Memorial and its leader, Svetlana Gannushkina.

The nomination deadline may make it difficult for Middle East nominees should mass protests there produce peace.

Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei won the prize in 2005 as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Although theoretically possible, no individual has won the peace prize twice. The Red Cross has won three times.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/02/wikileaks-nominated-nobel-peace-prize/#ixzz1Cp7Zbwjy

The day Julian Assange threatened to sue The Guardian over the US embassy cables story

2011-01-06T14:59:00.003+00:00

The WikiLeaks US embassy cables revelations caused a world-wide sensation. But the story behind their publication turns out to be just as sensational too.

It transpires that the partnership between the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and The Guardian was anything but straightforward.

According to a Vanity Fair article by Sarah Ellison, there were rows, legal threats and a series of shocks before the newspaper was able to publish what she calls "one of the greatest journalistic scoops of the last 30 years."

She has reconstructed a blow-by-blow account of the twists and turns of the strained relationship between The Guardian - and other papers, including the New York Times - and Assange.

He emerges as an enigmatic, erratic and high-handed individual whose changes of mind and mood bedevilled the process of publishing the documents.

Assange is now under police bail in Britain, facing extradition to Sweden for questioning about claims of sexual assault. But Ellison's report sticks only to his dealings with The Guardian.

She tells how The Guardian's Nick Davies and Ian Traynor made the original contact with Assange in June last year. From that sprang the first revelatory cache of military logs of the war in Afghanistan.

The Guardian, having brought the New York Times on board, then got its first inkling of the difficulties it might have with Assange. Without consulting the paper, Assange arranged for Germany's Der Spiegel to join the partnership.

It also became clear that there was a major difference between the ethos of the newspapers and that of WikiLeaks. While the papers' editors were not prepared to publish anything that might lead to reprisals, WikiLeaks was happy to allow the names of Afghan civilians to be posted on its website.

Assange did not favour redaction. Ellison quotes The Guardian's investigations editor, David Leigh, as saying:

"We were starting from: 'Here's a document. How much of it shall we print?' Whereas Julian's ideology was, 'I shall dump everything out and then you have to try and persuade me to cross a few things out.' We were coming at it from opposite poles."

By this time, WikiLeaks colleagues noted that Assange was "becoming increasingly autocratic and dismissive." So did The Guardian.

Just before publication of the Afghan logs, a furious Davies was shocked to discover that Assange had unilaterally given the database to Channel 4.

Next came the war logs relating to the war in Iraq, and Assange sprang yet another surprise on The Guardian by demanding that the Bureau of Investigative Journalism should have access to the material.

This meant a delay in publishing. Leigh agreed to that, but only if Assange would gave the paper another batch of documents - the so-called "package three" - which was the highly sensitive US embassy cables.

According to Leigh, Assange told him: "You can have package three tonight, but you have to give me a letter signed by the Guardian editor saying you won't publish package three until I say so." Assange got his letter

Meanwhile, there were continuing problems of WikiLeaks's refusal to redact as The Guardian started its Iraq war logs publication on 23 October amid what Ellison refers to as "a growing sense of unease among the media outlets, both with one another and with Assange."

The NY Times went so far as to publish a critical profile of Assange in which it quoted his anonymous former colleagues as speaking of his "erratic and imperious behaviour, and a nearly delusional grandeur."

The Guardian then discovered that a former WikiLeaks volunteer had leaked "package three" to the freelance journalist, and freedom-of-information campaigner, Heather Brooke.

Leigh, having invited Brooke to join The Guardian team, realised that by obtaining the data from a source other than Assange, the paper was released from its promise to wait for Assange's green light to publish.

Leigh passed on the documents to Der Spiegel and the NY Times, and the three titles were poised to publish on 8 November. With seven days to go, Assange and his lawyer stormed into the office of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and threatened to sue.

Rusbridger, Leigh and executives from Der Spiegel then spent a marathon session with Assange, his lawyer and another WikiLeaks member, Kristin Hrafnsson, before "an uneasy calm" was restored.

Ellison writes of that crucial meeting in detail:

"Assange was pallid and sweaty, his thin frame racked by a cough that had been plaguing him for weeks. He was also angry, and his message was simple: he would sue the newspaper if it went ahead and published stories based on the quarter of a million documents that he had handed over to The Guardian just three months earlier...
"Rusbridger somehow kept all parties at the table — a process involving a great deal of coffee followed by a great deal of wine. Ultimately, he agreed to a further delay, allowing Assange time to bring in other media partners, this time France's Le Monde and Spain's El País."

In the end, The Guardian and the other four papers were able to publish, thus sparking a hugely critical response from the US administration, which is seeking ways to prosecute Assange.

But, as we have seen, it had been a rocky road for The Guardian way before it faced up to that controversy. Ellison writes:

"When I asked Rusbridger if he had any regrets about the way his paper handled the cables or the way it worked with WikiLeaks, he said, "No," but his response was so tentative that it seemed to reveal how fragile the project was in his mind.
"I think given the complexity of it all, touch wood, as I speak at the moment, it is remarkable it has gone so well. Given all the tensions that were built into it, it would have been surprising to get out of it without some friction, but we negotiated it all quite well."

Source: Vanity Fair

Why American journalists have failed to support WikiLeaks

2011-01-05T13:10:00.002+00:00

US journalists are not offering support to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, according to an interesting article in Newsweek.

"You might expect the American media to respond assertively [in defence of press freedom]," it says. "But the pushback has been piecemeal and somewhat muted."

Though some journalistic bodies - such as the Committee to Protect Journalists - have called on the US government not to prosecute Assange, other organisations have refused to comment on ther whole business.

They include the American Society of Magazine Editors and the National Association of Broadcasters.

The Society of Professional Journalists did issue "a statement on ethical journalism" that is "tortured" and "somewhat inscrutable", which says their members could not reach a consensus on the probity of WikiLeaks's actions.

Individual newspaper and magazine editors have also avoided issuing statements on the matter, although the Washington Post editorial page came out against prosecution, Don't charge WikiLeaks.

By contrast, the New York Times, which received earlier WikiLeaks document dumps, has not run an editorial on the subject and did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment.

"There's a lot of hair-splitting going on about whether WikiLeaks is journalism or Assange is a journalist," says Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. "To me that is not a relevant question. WikiLeaks is a publisher; Assange is a publisher."

Nineteen professors — a little more than half the faculty — at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism did sign a letter to the Obama administration arguing against prosecution.

It said: "While we hold varying opinions of WikiLeaks' methods and decisions, we all believe that in publishing diplomatic cables WikiLeaks is engaging in journalistic activity protected by the First Amendment."

The letter was the first, and so far the only, one from an American journalism-school faculty on the subject.

So why are American journalists hesitant to speak up for Assange? The Newsweek article offers three reasons.

1. A refusal to engage in advocacy. American journalists, unlike many of their foreign counterparts, have a strong commitment to objectivity and nonpartisanship. At many mainstream media organisations, signing petitions is verboten, and many journalists impose such rules on themselves.

2. Opposition to Assange's purpose. That same notion of objectivity shared by journalists makes many of them suspicious of WikiLeaks's journalistic bona fides. Assange has an advocacy mission: to disrupt the functioning of governments. Many mainstream journalists might see associating with Assange as inappropriately endorsing an advocacy mission.

3. Opposition to Assange's methods. Some journalists, while perhaps believing Assange should not be prosecuted, are so disgusted with his approach that they are reluctant to speak up for him in public.

For example, Sam Freedman, a journalism professor at Columbia University, did not sign the letter circulated by his colleagues, explaining that it "did not adequately criticise the recklessness — the disregard for the consequences of human lives — of a massive dump of confidential info."

Source: Newsweek

History

2010-12-22T17:16:00.003+00:00

WikiLeaks first appeared in public on the Internet in January 2007.[11] The site states that it was “founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa”.[1] The creators of WikiLeaks have not been formally identified.[12] It has been represented in public since January 2007 by Julian Assange and others. Assange describes himself as a member of WikiLeaks’ advisory board.[13] News reports in The Australian have called Assange the “founder of Wikileaks”.[14] According to Wired magazine, a volunteer said that Assange described himself in a private conversation as “the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest”.[15] As of June 2009[update], the site had over 1,200 registered volunteers[1] and listed an advisory board comprising Assange, Phillip Adams, Wang Dan, C. J. Hinke, Ben Laurie, Tashi Namgyal Khamsitsang, Xiao Qiang, Chico Whitaker and Wang Youcai.[16] Despite appearing on the list, when contacted by Mother Jones magazine in 2010, Khamsitsang said that while he received an e-mail from WikiLeaks, he had never agreed to be an advisor.[17]

WikiLeaks states that its “primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.”[1][18]

In January 2007, the website stated that it had over 1.2 million leaked documents that it was preparing to publish.[19] An article in The New Yorker said

One of the WikiLeaks activists owned a server that was being used as a node for the Tor network. Millions of secret transmissions passed through it. The activist noticed that hackers from China were using the network to gather foreign governments’ information, and began to record this traffic. Only a small fraction has ever been posted on WikiLeaks, but the initial tranche served as the site’s foundation, and Assange was able to say, “[w]e have received over one million documents from thirteen countries.”[20][21]

Assange responded to the suggestion that eavesdropping on Chinese hackers played a crucial part in the early days of WikiLeaks by saying “the imputation is incorrect. The facts concern a 2006 investigation into Chinese espionage one of our contacts were involved in. Somewhere between none and handful of those documents were ever released on WikiLeaks. Non-government targets of the Chinese espionage, such as Tibetan associations were informed (by us)”.[22] The group has subsequently released a number of other significant documents which have become front-page news items, ranging from documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in the Afghanistan war to corruption in Kenya.[23]

The organization’s stated goal is to ensure that whistle-blowers and journalists are not jailed for emailing sensitive or classified documents, as happened to Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after publicising an email from Chinese officials about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.[24]

The project has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.[25] In the United States, the leaking of some documents may be legally protected. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution guarantees anonymity, at least in the area of political discourse.[26] Author and journalist Whitley Strieber has spoken about the benefits of the WikiLeaks project, noting that “Leaking a government document can mean jail, but jail sentences for this can be fairly short. However, there are many places where it means long incarceration or even death, such as China and parts of Africa and the Middle East.”[27]

On 24 December 2009, WikiLeaks announced that it was experiencing a shortage of funds[28] and suspended all access to its website except for a form to submit new material.[29] Material that was previously published was no longer available, although some could still be accessed on unofficial mirrors.[30][31] WikiLeaks stated on its website that it would resume full operation once the operational costs were covered.[32][33] WikiLeaks saw this as a kind of strike “to ensure that everyone who is involved stops normal work and actually spends time raising revenue”.[34] While it was initially hoped that funds could be secured by 6 January 2010,[35] it was only on 3 February 2010 that WikiLeaks announced that its minimum fundraising goal had been achieved.[36]

On 22 January 2010, PayPal suspended WikiLeaks’ donation account and froze its assets. WikiLeaks said that this had happened before, and was done for “no obvious reason”.[37] The account was restored on 25 January 2010.[38]

On 18 May 2010, WikiLeaks announced that its website and archive were back up.[39]

As of June 2010, WikiLeaks was a finalist for a grant of more than half a million dollars from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation,[40] but did not make the cut.[41] WikiLeaks commented, “Wikileaks was highest rated project in the Knight challenge, strongly recommended to the board but gets no funding. Go figure”. WikiLeaks said that the Knight foundation announced the award to “’12 Grantees who will impact future of news’ – but not WikiLeaks” and questioned whether Knight foundation was “really looking for impact”.[41] A spokesman of the Knight Foundation disputed parts of WikiLeaks’ statement, saying “WikiLeaks was not recommended by Knight staff to the board.”[42] However, he declined to say whether WikiLeaks was the project rated highest by the Knight advisory panel, which consists of non-staffers, among them journalist Jennifer 8. Lee, who has done PR work for WikiLeaks with the press and on social networking sites.[42]

On 17 July Jacob Appelbaum spoke on behalf of WikiLeaks at the 2010 Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City, replacing Assange due to the presence of federal agents at the conference.[43][44] He announced that the WikiLeaks submission system was again up and running, after it had been temporarily suspended.[43][45] Assange was a surprise speaker at a TED conference on 19 July 2010 in Oxford, and confirmed that WikiLeaks was now accepting submissions again.[46][47]

Upon returning to the U.S. from Holland, on 29 July, Appelbaum was detained for three hours at the airport by U.S. agents, according to anonymous sources.[48] The sources told Cnet that Appelbaum’s bag was searched, receipts from his bag were photocopied, his laptop was inspected, although in what manner was unclear.[48] Appelbaum reportedly refused to answer questions without a lawyer present, and was not allowed to make a phone call. His three mobile phones were reportedly taken and not returned.[48] On 31 July, he spoke at a Defcon conference and mentioned his phone being “seized”. After speaking, he was approached by two FBI agents and questioned.[48]
Administration

According to a January 2010 interview, the WikiLeaks team then consisted of five people working full-time and about 800 people who worked occasionally, none of whom were compensated.[34] WikiLeaks has no official headquarters. The expenses per year are about €200,000, mainly for servers and bureaucracy, but would reach €600,000 if work currently done by volunteers were paid for.[34] WikiLeaks does not pay for lawyers, as hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal support have been donated by media organisations such as the Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association.[34] Its only revenue stream is donations, but WikiLeaks is planning to add an auction model to sell early access to documents.[34] According to the Wau Holland Foundation, WikiLeaks receives no money for personnel costs, only for hardware, travelling and bandwidth.[49] An article in TechEYE.net wrote

As a charity accountable under German law, donations for Wikileaks can be made to the foundation. Funds are held in escrow and are given to Wikileaks after the whistleblower website files an application containing a statement with proof of payment. The foundation does not pay any sort of salary nor give any renumeration [sic] to Wikileaks’ personnel, corroborating the statement of the site’s German representative Daniel Schmitt (real name Daniel Domscheit-Berg)[50] on national television that all personnel works [sic] voluntarily, even its speakers.[49]

Site management issues

There has been public disagreement between Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who was suspended by Assange and on 28 September announced he would leave the company.[51][52][53] In October 2010, it was reported that Moneybookers, which collected donations for WikiLeaks, had ended its relationship with the site. Moneybookers stated that its decision had been made “to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities, agencies or commissions.”[54]
Hosting

WikiLeaks describes itself as “an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking”. WikiLeaks is hosted by PRQ, a Sweden-based company providing “highly secure, no-questions-asked hosting services.” PRQ is said to have “almost no information about its clientele and maintains few if any of its own logs.” The servers are spread around the world with the central server located in Sweden.[55] Julian Assange has said that the servers are located in Sweden (and the other countries) “specifically because those nations offer legal protection to the disclosures made on the site”. He talks about the Swedish constitution, which gives the information providers total legal protection.[55] It is forbidden according to Swedish law for any administrative authority to make inquiries about the sources of any type of newspaper.[56] These laws, and the hosting by PRQ, make it difficult to take WikiLeaks offline. Furthermore, “Wikileaks maintains its own servers at undisclosed locations, keeps no logs and uses military-grade encryption to protect sources and other confidential information.” Such arrangements have been called “bulletproof hosting.”[57][58]

On 17 August 2010, it was announced that the Swedish Pirate Party will be hosting and managing many of WikiLeaks’ new servers. The party donates servers and bandwidth to WikiLeaks without charge. Technicians of the party will make sure that the servers are maintained and working.[59][60] Some servers are hosted in the converted former NATO nuclear bunker CyberBunker[61]

WikiLeaks is based on several software packages, including MediaWiki, Freenet, Tor, and PGP.[62] WikiLeaks strongly encouraged postings via Tor due to the strong privacy needs of its users.[63]
Policies

The “about” page originally read: “To the user, Wikileaks will look very much like Wikipedia. Anybody can post to it, anybody can edit it. No technical knowledge is required. Leakers can post documents anonymously and untraceably. Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility and veracity. Users can discuss interpretations and context and collaboratively formulate collective publications. Users can read and write explanatory articles on leaks along with background material and context. The political relevance of documents and their verisimilitude will be revealed by a cast of thousands.”[64]

However, WikiLeaks established an editorial policy that accepted only documents that were “of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical interest” (and excluded “material that is already publicly available”).[65] This coincided with early criticism that having no editorial policy would drive out good material with spam and promote “automated or indiscriminate publication of confidential records.”[66] It is no longer possible for anybody to post to it or edit it, as the original FAQ promised. Instead, submissions are regulated by an internal review process and some are published, while documents not fitting the editorial criteria are rejected by anonymous WikiLeaks reviewers. By 2008, the revised FAQ stated that “Anybody can post comments to it. [...] Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility and veracity.”[67] After the 2010 relaunch, posting new comments to leaks was no longer possible.[68]

Verification of submissions

WikiLeaks states that it has never released a misattributed document. Documents are assessed before release. In response to concerns about the possibility of misleading or fraudulent leaks, WikiLeaks has stated that misleading leaks “are already well-placed in the mainstream media. [Wikileaks] is of no additional assistance.”[69] The FAQ states that: “The simplest and most effective countermeasure is a worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinize and discuss leaked documents.”[70]

According to statements by Assange in 2010, submitted documents are vetted by a group of five reviewers, with expertise in different fields such as language or programming, who also investigate the background of the leaker if his or her identity is known.[71] In that group, Assange has the final decision about the assessment of a document.[71]
Investigations, censorship and alleged harassment
Police raid on German WikiLeaks domain holder’s home

The home of Theodor Reppe, registrant of the German WikiLeaks domain name, wikileaks.de, was raided on 24 March 2009 after WikiLeaks released the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) censorship blacklist.[72] The site was not affected.[73][74][75]
Chinese (PRC) censorship

The Chinese (PRC) government uses its Golden Shield Project to attempt to censor every web site with “wikileaks” in the URL, including the primary .org site and the regional variations .cn and .uk. However, the site is still accessible from behind the Chinese firewall through one of the many alternative names used by the project, such as “secure.sunshinepress.org”. The alternate sites change frequently, and WikiLeaks encourages users to search “wikileaks cover names” outside mainland China for the latest alternative names. Mainland search engines, including Baidu and Yahoo!, also censor references to “wikileaks”.[76]
Potential future Australian censorship
Wikinews has related news: Portions of Wikileaks, Wikipedia blocked in Australia

On 16 March 2009, the Australian Communications and Media Authority added WikiLeaks to their proposed blacklist of sites that will be blocked for all Australians if the mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme is implemented as planned.[77][78]

The black listing was removed 30th November 2010 [79]
Thai censorship

The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) is currently censoring the website WikiLeaks in Thailand[80] and more than 40,000 other webpages[81] due to the emergency decree in Thailand imposed because of political instabilities (Emergency decree declared beginning of April 2010[82]). When trying to access the WikiLeaks website, internet users are redirected to this webpage.
Alleged harassment and surveillance

According to The Times, WikiLeaks and its members have complained about continuing harassment and surveillance by law enforcement and intelligence organizations, including extended detention, seizure of computers, veiled threats, “covert following and hidden photography.”[83]

After the release of the 2007 airstrikes video and as they prepared to release film of the Granai airstrike, Julian Assange has said that his group of volunteers came under intense surveillance. In an interview and Twitter posts he said that a restaurant in Reykjavik where his group of volunteers met came under surveillance in March; there was “covert following and hidden photography” by police and foreign intelligence services; that an apparent British intelligence agent made thinly veiled threats in a Luxembourg car park; and that one of the volunteers was detained by police for 21 hours. Another volunteer posted that computers were seized, saying “If anything happens to us, you know why … and you know who is responsible.”[84] According to the Columbia Journalism Review, “the Icelandic press took a look at Assange’s charges of being surveilled in Iceland [...] and, at best, have found nothing to substantiate them.”[85]

WikiLeaks has claimed that Facebook deleted their fan page, which had 30,000 fans.[86][87][88][89]
UK censorship

On 25 November 2010, the UK Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee sent DA-Notices to UK newspapers regarding an expected major publication by WikiLeaks of a “huge cache” of U.S. diplomatic cables.[90][91] According to Index on Censorship, “DA-notices point to a set of guidelines, agreed by the government departments and the media”, and compliance is voluntary.[90] According to the information technology journal Thinq, DA-Notices “are generally adhered to.”[91]
Reception
Support
Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg has been a frequent defender of WikiLeaks. Following the November 2010 release of U.S. diplomatic cables, Ellsberg rejected criticism that the site was endangering the lives of U.S. military personnel and intelligence assets stating “not one single soldier or informant has been in danger from any of the WikiLeaks releases. That risk has been largely overblown.”[92]
Amnesty International

In 2009 Amnesty International awarded WikiLeaks their Media Award for exposing “extra judicial killings and disappearances” in Kenya. [93]
Index on Censorship

In 2008 Index on Censorship presented Wikileaks with their inaugural Economist New Media Award.
Ecuadorian Government

In late November 2010 the government of Ecuador made what was, apparently, an unsolicited public offer to Julian Assange to establish residency in Ecuador. Deputy Foreign Minister Kinto Lucas stated “we are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just on the Internet, but in various public forums.” [94] Lucas went on to state his praise for WikiLeaks and Assange calling them “[people] who are constantly investigating and trying to get light out of the dark corners of [state] information.”[95]
Criticism

WikiLeaks has attracted criticism from a variety of sources[96].
John Young

In 2007 John Young, operator of cryptome, left his position on the WikiLeaks Board of Directors accusing the group of being a “CIA conduit.” Young subsequently retreated from his assertion but has continued to be critical of the site.[97] In a 2010 interview with CNET.com Young accused the group of a lack of transparency regarding their fundraising and financial management. He went on to state his belief that WikiLeaks could not guarantee whistleblowers the anonymity or confidentiality they claimed and that he “would not trust them with information if it had any value, or if it put me at risk or anyone that I cared about at risk.”[98]
Steven Aftergood

Citing the leaking of the sorority rituals of Alpha Sigma Tau, Steven Aftergood has opined that WikiLeaks “does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals.” Aftergood went on to state that WikiLeaks engages in unrestrained disclosure of non-governmental secrets without compelling public policy reasons and that many anti-corruption activists were opposed to the site’s activities.[99]
Amnesty International

In 2010 Amnesty International joined several other human rights groups criticizing WikiLeaks for not adequately redacting the names of Afghan civilians working as U.S. military informants from files they had released. Julian Assange responded by offering Amnesty International staff the opportunity to assist in the document vetting process. When Amnesty International appeared to express reticence in accepting the offer Assange disclaimed the group as “people who prefer to do nothing but cover their asses.” Other groups that joined Amnesty International in criticizing WikiLeaks subsequently noted that, despite their displeasure over the issue of civilian name redaction, they generally appreciated WikiLeaks work. [100]
Reporters Without Borders

In an August 2010 open letter, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders praised WikiLeaks past usefulness in exposing “serious violations of human rights and civil liberties” but criticized the group over a perceived absence of editorial control, stating “indiscriminately publishing 92,000 classified reports reflects a real problem of methodology and, therefore, of credibility. Journalistic work involves the selection of information. The argument with which you defend yourself, namely that Wikileaks is not made up of journalists, is not convincing.”[101]
United States Government

Many of the governments and organizations whose files have been leaked by WikiLeaks have been critical of the organization. Following the November 2010 release of United States diplomatic cables, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the group saying, “this disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests, it is an attack on the international community.”[102] In an editorial published in The News, an English-language Pakistani newspaper, U.S. ambassador Cameron Munter said the United States “condemned” WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables.[103] Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee of the United States House of Representatives has stated his support for listing Wikileaks as a “foreign terrorist organization” explaining that “WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.”[104]
Other activities
Icelandic Modern Media Initiative

In August 2009, Kaupthing, a large bank, succeeded in obtaining a court order gagging Iceland’s national broadcaster, RUV, from broadcasting a risk analysis report showing the bank’s substantial exposure to debt default risk. This information had been leaked by a whistleblower to WikiLeaks and remained available on the WikiLeaks site; faced with an injunction minutes before broadcast the channel ran with a screen grab of the WikiLeaks site instead of the scheduled piece on the bank. Citizens of Iceland felt outraged that RUV was prevented from broadcasting news of relevance.[105] Therefore, WikiLeaks has been credited with inspiring the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a bill meant to reclaim Iceland’s 2007 Reporters Sans Frontieres ranking as first in the world for free speech. It aims to enact a range of protections for sources, journalists, and publishers.[106][107] Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a former volunteer for WikiLeaks and member the Icelandic parliament, is the chief sponsor of the proposal.
Possible move to Switzerland

On 4 November 2010, Julian Assange told Swiss public television TSR that he is seriously considering seeking political asylum in neutral Switzerland and setting up a Wikileaks foundation in the country to move the operation there.[108][109] According to Assange, Switzerland and Iceland are the only countries where WikiLeaks would feel safe to operate.[110][111]
Leaks
Pre-2009
Apparent Somali assassination order

WikiLeaks posted its first document in December 2006, a decision to assassinate government officials signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys.[20] The New Yorker has reported that

[Julian] Assange and the others were uncertain of its authenticity, but they thought that readers, using Wikipedia-like features of the site, would help analyze it. They published the decision with a lengthy commentary, which asked, “Is it a bold manifesto by a flamboyant Islamic militant with links to Bin Laden? Or is it a clever smear by US intelligence, designed to discredit the Union, fracture Somali alliances and manipulate China?” … The document’s authenticity was never determined, and news about WikiLeaks quickly superseded the leak itself.[20]

Daniel arap Moi family corruption

On 31 August 2007, The Guardian (Britain) featured on its front page a story about corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi. The newspaper stated that the source of the information was WikiLeaks.[112]
Bank Julius Baer lawsuit
Main article: Bank Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks lawsuit

In February 2008, the wikileaks.org domain name was taken offline after the Swiss Bank Julius Baer sued WikiLeaks and the wikileaks.org domain registrar, Dynadot, in a court in California, United States, and obtained a permanent injunction ordering the shutdown.[113][114] WikiLeaks had hosted allegations of illegal activities at the bank’s Cayman Island branch.[113] WikiLeaks’ U.S. Registrar, Dynadot, complied with the order by removing its DNS entries. However, the website remained accessible via its numeric IP address, and online activists immediately mirrored WikiLeaks at dozens of alternative websites worldwide.[115]

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a motion protesting the censorship of WikiLeaks. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press assembled a coalition of media and press that filed an amicus curiae brief on WikiLeaks’ behalf. The coalition included major U.S. newspaper publishers and press organisations, such as the American Society of Newspaper Editors, The Associated Press, the Citizen Media Law Project, The E.W. Scripps Company, the Gannett Company, The Hearst Corporation, the Los Angeles Times, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the Newspaper Association of America, The Radio-Television News Directors Association, and The Society of Professional Journalists. The coalition requested to be heard as a friend of the court to call attention to relevant points of law that it believed the court had overlooked (on the grounds that WikiLeaks had not appeared in court to defend itself, and that no First Amendment issues had yet been raised before the court). Amongst other things, the coalition argued that:[115]

“Wikileaks provides a forum for dissidents and whistleblowers across the globe to post documents, but the Dynadot injunction imposes a prior restraint that drastically curtails access to Wikileaks from the Internet based on a limited number of postings challenged by Plaintiffs. The Dynadot injunction therefore violates the bedrock principle that an injunction cannot enjoin all communication by a publisher or other speaker.”[115]

The same judge, Judge Jeffrey White, who issued the injunction vacated it on 29 February 2008, citing First Amendment concerns and questions about legal jurisdiction.[116] WikiLeaks was thus able to bring its site online again. The bank dropped the case on 5 March 2008.[117] The judge also denied the bank’s request for an order prohibiting the website’s publication.[115]

The Executive Director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Lucy Dalglish, commented:

“It’s not very often a federal judge does a 180 degree turn in a case and dissolves an order. But we’re very pleased the judge recognized the constitutional implications in this prior restraint.”[115]

Guantánamo Bay procedures

A copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta–the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp–dated March 2003 was released on the WikiLeaks website on 7 November 2007.[118] The document, named “gitmo-sop.pdf”, is also mirrored at The Guardian.[119] Its release revealed some of the restrictions placed over detainees at the camp, including the designation of some prisoners as off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, something that the U.S. military had in the past repeatedly denied.[120]

On 3 December 2007, WikiLeaks released a copy of the 2004 edition of the manual,[121] together with a detailed analysis of the changes.[122]
Scientology

On 7 April 2008, WikiLeaks reported receiving a letter (dated 27 March) from the Religious Technology Centre claiming ownership of several recently leaked documents pertaining to OT Levels within the Church of Scientology. These same documents were at the center of a 1994 scandal. The email stated:
“ The Advanced Technology materials are unpublished, copyrighted works. Please be advised that your customer’s action in this regard violates United States copyright law. Accordingly, we ask for your help in removing these works immediately from your service.

– Moxon and Kobrin[123]
”

The letter continued on to request the release of the logs of the uploader, which would remove their anonymity. WikiLeaks responded with a statement released on Wikinews stating: “in response to the attempted suppression, Wikileaks will release several thousand additional pages of Scientology material next week”,[124] and did so.
Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account contents
Main article: Sarah Palin email hack

In September 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaigns, the contents of a Yahoo account belonging to Sarah Palin (the running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain) were posted on WikiLeaks after being hacked into by members of Anonymous.[125] It has been alleged by Wired that contents of the mailbox indicate that she used the private Yahoo account to send work-related messages, in violation of public record laws.[126] The hacking of the account was widely reported in mainstream news outlets.[127][128][129] Although WikiLeaks was able to conceal the hacker’s identity, the source of the Palin emails was eventually publicly identified as David Kernell, a 20-year-old economics student at the University of Tennessee and the son of Democratic Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell from Memphis,[130] whose email address (as listed on various social networking sites) was linked to the hacker’s identity on Anonymous.[131] Kernell attempted to conceal his identity by using the anonymous proxy service ctunnel.com, but, because of the illegal nature of the access, ctunnel website administrator Gabriel Ramuglia assisted the FBI in tracking down the source of the hack.[132]
BNP membership list

After briefly appearing on a blog, the membership list of the far-right British National Party was posted to WikiLeaks on 18 November 2008. The name, address, age and occupation of many of the 13,500 members were given, including several police officers, two solicitors, four ministers of religion, at least one doctor, and a number of primary and secondary school teachers. In Britain, police officers are banned from joining or promoting the BNP, and at least one officer was dismissed for being a member.[133] The BNP was known for going to considerable lengths to conceal the identities of members. On 19 November, BNP leader Nick Griffin stated that he knew the identity of the person who initially leaked the list on 17 November, describing him as a “hardliner” senior employee who left the party in 2007.[134][135][136] On 20 October 2009, a list of BNP members from April 2009 was leaked. This list contained 11,811 members.[137]
2009

In January 2009, over 600 internal United Nations reports (60 of them marked “strictly confidential”) were leaked.[138]

On 7 February 2009, WikiLeaks released 6,780 Congressional Research Service reports.[139]

In March 2009, WikiLeaks published a list of contributors to the Norm Coleman senatorial campaign[140] and a set of documents belonging to Barclays Bank that had been ordered removed from the website of The Guardian.[141]
Climatic Research Unit emails
Main article: Climatic Research Unit email controversy

In November 2009, controversial documents, including e-mail correspondence between climate scientists, were illegally released[142] from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU). According to the university, the emails and documents were obtained through a server hacking; one prominent host of the full 120MB archive was WikiLeaks.[143][144]
Internet censorship lists

WikiLeaks has published the lists of forbidden or illegal web addresses for several countries.

On 19 March 2009, WikiLeaks published what was alleged to be the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s blacklist of sites to be banned under Australia’s proposed laws on Internet censorship.[145] Reactions to the publication of the list by the Australian media and politicians were varied. Particular note was made by journalistic outlets of the type of websites on the list; while the Internet censorship scheme submitted by the Australian Labor Party in 2008 was proposed with the stated intention of preventing access to child pornography and sites related to terrorism,[146] the list leaked on WikiLeaks contains a number of sites unrelated to sex crimes involving minors.[147][148] When questioned about the leak, Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in Australia’s Rudd Labor Government, responded by claiming that the list was not the actual list, yet threatening to prosecute anyone involved in distributing it.[149] On 20 March 2009, WikiLeaks published an updated list, dated 18 March 2009; it more closely matches the claimed size of the ACMA blacklist, and contains two pages which have been independently confirmed to be blacklisted by ACMA.

WikiLeaks also contains details of Internet censorship in Thailand, including lists of censored sites dating back to May 2006.[150]
Bilderberg Group meeting reports

Since May 2009, WikiLeaks has made available reports of several meetings of the Bilderberg Group.[151] It includes the group’s history[152] and meeting reports from the years 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1980.
2008 Peru oil scandal

On 28 January 2009, WikiLeaks released 86 telephone intercept recordings of Peruvian politicians and businessmen involved in the “Petrogate” oil scandal. The release of the tapes led the front pages of five Peruvian newspapers.[153]
Nuclear accident in Iran

On 16 July 2009, Iranian news agencies reported that the head of Iran’s atomic energy organization Gholam Reza Aghazadeh had abruptly resigned for unknown reasons after twelve years in office.[154] Shortly afterwards WikiLeaks released a report disclosing a “serious nuclear accident” at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility in 2009.[155] The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) released statistics according to which the number of enriched centrifuges operational in Iran mysteriously declined from about 4,700 to about 3,900 beginning around the time the nuclear incident WikiLeaks mentioned would have occurred.[156][157]

According to media reports the accident may have been the direct result of a cyberattack at Iran’s nuclear program, carried out with the Stuxnet computer worm.[158][159]
Toxic dumping in Africa: The Minton report

In September 2006, commodities giant Trafigura commissioned an internal report about a toxic dumping incident in the Ivory Coast,[160] which (according to the United Nations) affected 108,000 people. The document, called the Minton Report, names various harmful chemicals “likely to be present” in the waste — sodium hydroxide, cobalt phthalocyanine sulfonate, coker naphtha, thiols, sodium alkanethiolate, sodium hydrosulfide, sodium sulfide, dialkyl disulfides, hydrogen sulfide — and notes that some of them “may cause harm at some distance”. The report states that potential health effects include “burns to the skin, eyes and lungs, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of consciousness and death”, and suggests that the high number of reported casualties is “consistent with there having been a significant release of hydrogen sulphide gas”.

On 11 September 2009, Trafigura’s lawyers, Carter-Ruck, obtained a secret “super-injunction”[161] against The Guardian, banning that newspaper from publishing the contents of the document. Trafigura also threatened a number of other media organizations with legal action if they published the report’s contents, including the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation[160] and The Chemical Engineer magazine.[162] On 14 September 2009, WikiLeaks posted the report.[163]

On 12 October, Carter-Ruck warned The Guardian against mentioning the content of a parliamentary question that was due to be asked about the report. Instead, the paper published an article stating that they were unable to report on an unspecified question and claiming that the situation appeared to “call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1689 Bill of Rights”.[164] The suppressed details rapidly circulated via the internet and Twitter[165][166][167] and, amid uproar, Carter-Ruck agreed the next day to the modification of the injunction before it was challenged in court, permitting The Guardian to reveal the existence of the question and the injunction.[168] The injunction was lifted on 16 October.[169]
Kaupthing Bank

WikiLeaks has made available an internal document[170] from Kaupthing Bank from just prior to the collapse of Iceland’s banking sector, which led to the 2008–2009 Icelandic financial crisis. The document shows that suspiciously large sums of money were loaned to various owners of the bank, and large debts written off. Kaupthing’s lawyers have threatened WikiLeaks with legal action, citing banking privacy laws. The leak has caused an uproar in Iceland.[171] Criminal charges relating to the multibillion euro loans to Exista and other major shareholders are being investigated. The bank is seeking to recover loans taken out by former bank employees before its collapse.[172]
Joint Services Protocol 440

Joint Services Protocol 440 (“JSP 440″) is the name of a British 2001 Ministry of Defense 2,400-page restricted document for security containing instructions for avoiding leaks in the information flow due to hackers, journalists, and foreign spies.[173][174] The protocol was posted on WikiLeaks on 3 October 2009.
9/11 pager messages

On 25 November 2009, WikiLeaks released 570,000 intercepts of pager messages sent on the day of the September 11 attacks.[175][176][177] Bradley Manning (see below) commented that those were obvious NSA intercepts.[178] Among the released messages are communications between Pentagon officials and New York City Police Department.[179]
2010
U.S. Intelligence report on WikiLeaks

On 15 March 2010, WikiLeaks released a secret 32-page U.S. Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report from March 2008. The document described some prominent reports leaked on the website which related to U.S. security interests and described potential methods of marginalizing the organization. WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange said that some details in the Army report were inaccurate and its recommendations flawed,[180] and also that the concerns of the U.S. Army raised by the report were hypothetical.[181] The report discussed deterring potential whistleblowers via termination of employment and criminal prosecution of any existing or former insiders, leakers or whistleblowers. Reasons for the report include notable leaks such as U.S. equipment expenditure, human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay and the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah.[182]
Baghdad airstrike video
Main article: July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike

On 5 April 2010, WikiLeaks released classified U.S. military footage from a series of attacks on 12 July 2007 in Baghdad by a U.S. helicopter that killed 12, including two Reuters news staff, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, on a website called “Collateral Murder”. The footage consisted of a 39-minute unedited version and an 18-minute version which had been edited and annotated. Analysis of the video indicates that the pilots thought the men were carrying weapons (which were actually camera equipment). When asked if they were sure that the men were carrying weapons, they answered in the affirmative.[183] The military conducted an “informal” investigation into the incident, but has yet to release the investigative materials (such as the sworn statements of the soldiers involved or the battle damage assessment) that were used, causing the report to be criticized as “sloppy.”[184]

In the week following the release, “Wikileaks” was the search term with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights.[185]
Arrest of Bradley Manning
Main article: Bradley Manning

A 22-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, PFC (formerly SPC) Bradley Manning, was arrested after alleged chat logs were turned in to the authorities by former hacker Adrian Lamo, in whom he had confided. Manning reportedly told Lamo he had leaked the “Collateral Murder” video, in addition to a video of the Granai airstrike and around 260,000 diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks.[186][187] WikiLeaks said “allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect.”[188] WikiLeaks have said that they are unable as yet to confirm whether or not Manning was actually the source of the video, stating “we never collect personal information on our sources”, but that they have nonetheless “taken steps to arrange for his protection and legal defence.”[187][189] On 21 June Julian Assange told The Guardian that WikiLeaks had hired three US criminal lawyers to defend Manning but that they had not been given access to him.[190]

Manning reportedly wrote, “Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed.”[191] According to the Washington Post, he also described the cables as “explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective.”[192]
Afghan War Diary
Main article: Afghan War documents leak

On 25 July 2010,[193] WikiLeaks released to The Guardian, The New York Times, and Der Spiegel over 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009. The documents detail individual incidents including friendly fire and civilian casualties.[194] The scale of leak was described by Julian Assange as comparable to that of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s. The documents were released to the public on 25 July 2010. On 29 July 2010 WikiLeaks added a 1.4 GB “Insurance File” to the Afghan War Diary page. The file is AES encrypted and has been speculated to serve as insurance in case the WikiLeaks website or its spokesman Julian Assange are incapacitated, upon which the passphrase could be published (q.v.).[195]

About 15,000 of the 92,000 documents have not yet been released on WikiLeaks, as the group is currently reviewing the documents to remove some of the sources of the information. Speaking to a group in London in August 2010, Assange said that the group will “absolutely” release the remaining documents. He stated that WikiLeaks has requested help from the Pentagon and human-rights groups to help redact the names, but has not received any assistance. He also stated that WikiLeaks is “not obligated to protect other people’s sources…unless it is from unjust retribution.”[196]

According to a report on the Daily Beast website, the Obama administration has asked Britain, Germany and Australia among others to consider bringing criminal charges against Assange for the Afghan war leaks and to help limit Assange’s travels across international borders.[197] In the United States, a joint investigation by the Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation may try to prosecute “Mr. Assange and others involved on grounds they encouraged the theft of government property”.[198]

The Australia Defence Association (ADA) stated that WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange “could have committed a serious criminal offence in helping an enemy of the Australian Defence Force (ADF).”[199] Neil James, the executive director of ADA, states: “Put bluntly, Wikileaks is not authorised in international or Australian law, nor equipped morally or operationally, to judge whether open publication of such material risks the safety, security, morale and legitimate objectives of Australian and allied troops fighting in a UN-endorsed military operation.”[199]

WikiLeaks’ recent leaking of classified U.S. intelligence has been described by commentator of The Wall Street Journal as having “endangered the lives of Afghan informants” and “the dozens of Afghan civilians named in the document dump as U.S. military informants. Their lives, as well as those of their entire families, are now at terrible risk of Taliban reprisal.”[200] When interviewed, Assange stated that WikiLeaks has withheld some 15,000 documents that identify informants to avoid putting their lives at risk. Specifically, Voice of America reported in August 2010 that Assange, responding to such criticisms, stated that the 15,000 still held documents are being reviewed “line by line,” and that the names of “innocent parties who are under reasonable threat” will be removed.[201] Greg Gutfeld of Fox News described the leaking as “WikiLeaks’ Crusade Against the U.S. Military.”[202] John Pilger has reported that prior to the release of the Afghan War Diaries in July, WikiLeaks contacted the White House in writing, asking that it identify names that might draw reprisals, but received no response.[203][204]

According to the New York Times, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders criticized WikiLeaks for what they saw as risking people’s lives by identifying Afghans acting as informers.[205] A Taliban spokesman said that the Taliban had formed a nine-member “commission” to review the documents “to find about people who are spying.”[205] He said the Taliban had a “wanted” list of 1,800 Afghans and was comparing that with names WikiLeaks provided, stating “after the process is completed, our Taliban court will decide about such people.”[205]
Love Parade documents

Sometime after the Love Parade stampede in Duisburg, Germany on 24 July 2010, the local news blog Xtranews published internal documents of the city administration regarding Love Parade planning and actions by the authorities. The city government reacted by acquiring a court order on 16 August forcing Xtranews to remove the documents from its blog.[206] Two days later, however, after the documents had surfaced on other websites as well, the government stated that it would not conduct any further legal actions against the publication of the documents.[207] On 20 August WikiLeaks released a publication titled Loveparade 2010 Duisburg planning documents, 2007-2010, which comprised 43 internal documents regarding the Love Parade 2010.[208][209]
Iraq War Logs
Main article: Iraq War documents leak
Wikinews has related news: Wikileaks Releases Iraq War Logs

In October 2010, it was reported that WikiLeaks was planning to release up to 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War.[210] Julian Assange initially denied the reports, stating: “WikiLeaks does not speak about upcoming releases dates, indeed, with very rare exceptions we do not communicate any specific information about upcoming releases, since that simply provides fodder for abusive organizations to get their spin machines ready.”[211] The Guardian reported on 21 October 2010 that it had received almost 400,000 Iraq war documents from WikiLeaks.[212] On 22 October 2010, Al Jazeera was the first to release analyses of the leak, dubbed The War Logs. WikiLeaks posted a tweet that “Al Jazeera have broken our embargo by 30 minutes. We release everyone from their Iraq War Logs embargoes.” This prompted other news organizations to release their articles based on the source material. The release of the documents coincided with a return of the main wikileaks.org website, which had been offering no content since 30 September 2010.

The BBC quoted the Pentagon referring to the Iraq War Logs as “the largest leak of classified documents in its history.” Media coverage of the leaked documents focused on claims that the U.S. government had ignored reports of torture by the Iraqi authorities during the period after the 2003 war.[213]
Diplomatic cables release
Main article: United States diplomatic cables leak
Wikinews has news on this topic:

* Wikileaks to release thousands of secret documents; ‘international embarrassment’ likely, 27 November 2010
* Files will risk ‘countless’ lives, Obama administration warns Wikileaks, 28 November 2010
* Wikileaks website attacked; millions of files to be released tonight, 28 November 2010

On 22 November an announcement was made by the WikiLeaks twitter feed that the next release would be “7x the size of the Iraq War Logs.”[214][215] U.S. authorities and the media have speculated that they may contain diplomatic cables.[216] Prior to the expected leak, the government of the United Kingdom (UK) sent a DA-Notice to UK newspapers, which requests advance notice from the newspapers regarding the expected publication.[90] According to Index on Censorship, “there is no obligation on media to comply”. “Newspaper editors would speak to [the] Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee prior to publication.”[90] The Pakistani newspaper Dawn stated that the U.S. newspapers The New York Times and The Washington Post were expected to publish parts of the diplomatic cables on Sunday 28 November, including 94 Pakistan-related documents.[217]

On 26 November, via his lawyer Jennifer Robinson, Assange sent a letter to the US Department of State, asking for information regarding people who could be placed at “significant risk of harm” by the diplomatic cables release.[218][219] Harold Koh, Legal Adviser of the Department of State, refused the proposal, stating, “We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials.”[219]

On 28 November, Wikileaks announced it was undergoing a massive Distributed Denial-of-service attack,[220] but vowed to still leak the cables and documents via prominent media outlets including El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York Times.[221] The announcement was shortly thereafter followed by the online publication, by The Guardian, of some of the purported diplomatic cables including one in which United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently orders diplomats to obtain credit card and frequent flier numbers of the French, British, Russian and Chinese delegations to the United Nations Security Council.[222] Other revelations reportedly include that several Arab nations urged the U.S. to launch a first strike on Iran, that the Chinese government was directly involved in computer hacking, and that the U.S. is pressuring Pakistan to turn over nuclear material to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The cables also include unflattering appraisals of world leaders.[223] U.S. congressman Peter T. King called for WikiLeaks to be designated as a terrorist organization in response to the leak of the cables.[224]

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded to the leaks saying, “This disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy; it is an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conventions and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.” Julian Assange is quoted as saying, “Of course, abusive, Titanic organizations, when exposed, grasp at all sorts of ridiculous straws to try and distract the public from the true nature of the abuse.”[225]
Announcements on upcoming leaks

In May 2010, WikiLeaks said they had video footage of a massacre of civilians in Afghanistan by the U.S. military which they were preparing to release.[226][227]

In an interview with Chris Anderson on 19 July 2010, Assange showed a document WikiLeaks had on an Albanian oil well blowout, and said they also had material from inside BP,[228] and that they were “getting enormous quantity of whistle-blower disclosures of a very high caliber”[229] but added that they have not been able to verify and release the material because they do not have enough volunteer journalists.[230]

In October 2010, Assange told a leading Moscow newspaper that “The Kremlin had better brace itself for a coming wave of WikiLeaks disclosures about Russia.”[231][232] Assange later clarified: “we have material on many business and governments, including in Russia. It’s not right to say there’s going to be a particular focus on Russia”.[233]

In an interview with Forbes magazine, Assange announced that WikiLeaks was planning another “megaleak” for early in 2011, which this time would be from inside the private sector and involve “a big U।S. bank”.[233]

SOURCE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks: Julian Assange claims sexual assault accusers 'got into a tizzy'

2010-12-21T10:53:00.002+00:00

The Australian said it was “ridiculous” that the pair had gone to the authorities with their claims and pledged to fight extradition to Sweden, where he said he would not face "natural justice".

In an interview at the mansion in Norfolk where he is staying under strict bail conditions, he said he feared he would be held “incommunicado” and his Swedish gagged if he goes to the country.

He also claimed that the two women making the allegations had gone to Swedish police for advice rather than to push for charges.

Mr Assange told the BBC’s Today programme: “What is requested is that I be taken by force to Sweden and once there, be held incommunicado: That is not a circumstance under which natural justice can occur. I don't need to go back to Sweden.

"The law says I ... have certain rights, and these rights mean that I do not need to speak to random prosecutors around the world who simply want to have a chat, and won't do it in any other standard way.”

What is really achieved?

2010-12-17T15:29:00.001+00:00

The last 400,000 leaks have been heavily redacted and names removed and the Pentagon says they “contain nothing new” (to them) but also, the harm to them may be less than to others. For example, what if the U.S. Military has changed much of its systems so that these files may only throw some light on obsolete systems, procedure or facts already known or compromised to their adversaries (Israel and Iran), for example.

And what if, most of the damage by the release of the “Afghan logs” has been to Pakistan, and most of the damage from the “Iraq logs” is to Iran. Ahh but then what about the new information that can and will help human rights lawyers in England, and enable further cases to be taken against the British?

Yes. But this is Britain you are talking about. The British “judicial system” is geared toward money-making for lawyers, and endless delays, and justice delayed is almost never justice served. Memories will fade, new issues will replace old ones, and ten years from now by the time anything is achieved after constant delays, appeals, obfuscation and legal chicanery, this will not be big news.

What is the source of the leaks?

2010-12-17T15:28:00.002+00:00

Ahh, exactly. Manning? WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have never said it was Manning. And they continue to claim that no source has ever been compromised. And of course a fall guy is always needed. So let us assume for a moment that this was not Manning. But a much higher level within the U.S. DoD. And let us assume that these massive leaks (or deliberate security vulnerability) were “leaked” via WikiLeaks in order to achieve a few clear objectives:

What is WikiLeaks?

2010-12-17T15:23:00.001+00:00

WikiLeaks is largely the creation of Julian Assange and to this day from all we can see is very heavily influenced, if not outright controlled, by him. Since a few years when it first came on the scene as a little known site, it gained respect for being a repository of eventually a million or more documents and files that were leaked (or hacked and uploaded) to the site, from a wide range of countries around the world, but mostly from Asia.

WikiLeaks has consistently portrayed itself as a web site where those who leak (“sources”) will not be revealed and where those sources can securely and anonymously publish documents or files that they wish to leak in order for documents and files in the public interest to gain exposure and see the light of day. Journalists would then be able to further examine those documents and add context to them as well as give added exposure.

Who is Julian Assange?

2010-12-17T15:19:00.001+00:00

Julian Assange is an exceptionally talented and intelligent former computer “hacker” who strongly believes that governments and government departments and agencies need a lot more transparency in order to be kept in check against the excesses of abuses of power and office that so often comes with secrecy. Corruption itself is able to thrive where there is secrecy but not openness and this also applies to corporations, banks, and organisations.

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen something the Australian government and establishment media are not keen to highlight, for obvious reasons: there is an obligation to protect and assist Australian citizens, and this Aussie is being targeted by Australia's powerful military ~~ally~~ master, the United States government and notably the Pentagon (Department of Defence).

Much ado about Wikileaks

2010-12-15T15:10:00.000+00:00

THE battle for the soul of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has displaced from serious public dis-course from the scandalous revelations about Nigeria by Wikileaks. It is a website owned by Julian Assange, which burrows into the overt adventures of United States [US] in other countries.

The backdoor moves by members of the National Assembly to hijack the machinery of their parties have thrown up another major crisis in PDP, which has apparently tried to overshadow the Wikileaks report.

Two things emerge from the issues raised in the report. One is about the sovereignty of the country. The other is the quality of its leadership over the years. The two dovetail because of the concept of state, which Maclver sees as an“organisation of which government is the administrative organ.”

Wikileaks gave a graphic account of the enormous influence of the American government on Nigeria and how the Royal Dutch oil giant, Shell controls the system. It provides an insider account of the inner working of government in Nigeria, based on the whims and caprices of the US.

It is natural that no government, with a conviction that is in power, would openly admit that it had at any point in time admitted ever willingly relinquishing its powers or in part to any other country, no matter how power. Otherwise, it would not have the moral and legitimate right to be in office.

However, Nigerians know the capabilities, limits and weaknesses of our system, hence, Wikileaks merely amplified what had hitherto been discussed in hushed tones in many circle at home.
Such reports would have led to dire consequences for the local media if it had emanated from them, as the Nigerian media is treated with disdain and scorn by our local colonialists.

The scoop by the US website on Nigeria casts a slur on the integrity of our leaders, who often put their trust in leaders of other countries on critical national issues, including security, sovereignty and governance, instead of working to win the confidence, trust and understanding of their citizens.

A core Awoist, Chief Supo Sonibare, put the issue more succinctly when he situated the Wikileaks saga on the character of Nigerian leadership over the years. “Wikileaks has only confirmed the predatory nature of the leadership structure in our country. If we had worthy leaders, they would be engaging the USA and Shell in a patriotic reciprocal strategic manner. UAC was even more domineering with regard to its influence, control of the economy and contact with our founding fathers.” No foreigner can love Nigeria more than its citizens.

This principle underscores the importance the US government attaches to all its citizens wherever they reside in any part of the world. But our own foreign policy does not reflect such feelings nor actually places serious emphasis that our kind gesture to other nations must be transparently reciprocal. Besides, it does not take into account of the necessity for a sound domestic policy, which could make our independence as a sovereign state more meaningful.

The end of World War ll saw the emergence of the non-alignment movement, a concept, which though was not equated with neutrality. It was founded on the principle that other nation should not ally themselves to the defunct Soviet Union, or US in their cold war of supremacy.

Thus, their state, political, economic and social policies were to be based on domestic interests rather than on the basis of the interest of external powers. The foreign policy of a country is a weapon it deploys to influence or seeks to influence the external world based on her own domestic interest.

Furthermore, its foreign policy is dependent largely on the character of its political leadership, demographic structure, domestic reality, political structure, economy and military power.

More than 50 years after independence, we can only point at a few areas where we have been able to showcase our huge and diverse potential. These include areas of peacekeeping operations involving our military officers and men. We have failed to harness to greatness our advantage in human population and as an oil-producing nation. We are at the crossroads because of the untoward character of political leadership and its failure to build stable political institutions.

Advanced countries will continue to dictate the shape of government policies in our country, unless we take pragmatic steps towards achieving a sound economic base, stable political system. We must combine all the major instruments for implementing foreign policies like diplomacy, propaganda, militarism, and economic weapons to keep Wikileaks at bay.

Some facts about WikiLeaks

2010-10-29T13:11:00.002+01:00

Here are some facts about WikiLeaks: * WikiLeaks says it is a non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, journalists and the general public. Launched in 2006, it promotes the leaking of information to fight government and corporate corruption. * In October,

WikiLeaks released 400,000 secret U.S. files on the Iraq war. The documents involved sensitive subjects including abuse of Iraqi prisoners in U.S. custody, Iraqi rights violations and civilian deaths.

* In July, it released tens of thousands of secret U.S. military documents about the war in Afghanistan, offering them first to The New York Times, Britain's Guardian newspaper and Germany's Der Spiegel.

* The Pentagon said the Afghan war documents leak -- one of the largest in U.S. military history -- had put U.S. troops and Afghan informers at risk.

* Under the heading "Afghan War Diary," the 91,000 documents collected from across the U.S. military in Afghanistan cover the war from 2004 to 2010, WikiLeaks said in a summary.

* Although founder Julian Assange has given few interviews recently, a website, www.wikileaks.org, and a Twitter feed, www.twitter.com/wikileaks, occasionally release material.

* Assange is an Australian who spends much of his time in Sweden. Earlier this year, he was accused of molestation by two women there, a charge being investigated by the Swedish prosecutor's office. A complaint about attempted rape led to an arrest warrant, but that was quickly dropped. Assange has denied all charges.

* Sweden's media laws are among the world's most protective for journalists. In addition, Sweden's Pirate Party, which advocates reform of copyright law, has agreed to host WikiLeaks' servers, giving it additional legal protection.

* WikiLeaks has no connection to the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

WikiBlogParts Organisation

2008-12-10T15:04:00.000+00:00

WikiBlogParts is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public about WikikiNews. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists. We are a young organisation that has grown very quickly, relying on a network of dedicated volunteers around the globe.