“Yeah, can it possibly be true; it’s a worry isn’t it? That the rest of the world’s media is doing such a bad job that a little group of activists is able to release more of [classified] information than the rest of the world has combined” – Julian Assange
“Light them all up. Come on, fire!” – U.S. Soldier before opening fire on Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen
Wikileaks, one of the most controversial websites of the 21st century, describes itself as a non-profit media organization which was created by the Australian hacker and activist Julian Assange, who also serves as the face of the organization in public. Assange has also risen to worldwide fame and he generates massive media attention for his project, also because he currently awaits a decision of British courts, as he is charged with sexual molestation and rape charges in Sweden and want to extradite him. Assange also recently announced that he plans to run for a seat in the Australian Senate.
Wikileaks task, as they see it, is to distribute private, classified information of government or corporate misbehaviour to the public. And they have been very successful in doing so. In 2010 they released classified information about the Iraq War they obtained through PFC Bradley Manning, who was stationed near Baghdad in 2009/10 and is now in military jail, which apparently “isn’t really a fun place to be”. He confessed his “treason” to hacker Adrian Lamo, who in return revealed this fact to the U.S. authorities. As Wikileaks has no control over the behaviour of a source, it would be unfair to blame them for his arrest, although one of the major issues Wikileaks faces is the safety of their sources. Another person who came to fame by assisting Wikileaks would be Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer. Wikileaks faces hard times as many major credit card companies and banks refuse to collaborate, because of international, mostly U.S. pressure.
By October 2010 Wikileaks had released 400,000 classified documents, which included the footage of the Reuters journalists being shot and revelead that over 15,000 civilian casualties have not been reported by the U.S. Forces. Furthermore it showed the ignorance the Coalition forces had towards the investigation of war crimes commited by both foreign and local military and police forces.
Most of the involved countries disapproved of the release; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that it “puts the lives of United States and its partners’ service members and civilians at risk”.
Wikileaks does not, or if so only barely, act as a journalistic organization, as they usually publish their data to several global media partners. The respective journalists then examine the data they received and produce stories and headlines. In the case of the Iraq War files Wikileaks partners were The New York Times , The Guardian and Der Spiegel.
This behaviour was repeated when Wikileaks released the U.S. Diplomatic Cables, so called Cablegate, in 2010/11, with additional media partners from France and Spain.
The most recent, publicly noticed release were the “Global Intelligence Files” which included private emails from American intelligence company Stratfor.
If you want to know more about Wikileaks, the documentary Wikirebels is highly recommended.
Misachi Ogawa