WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press[5] organisation,[6] claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch.[7] WikiLeaks describes its founders as a mix of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.[8] Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director.[9] The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards a more traditional publication model and no longer accepts either user comments or edits.

In April 2010, WikiLeaks published gunsight footage from the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike in which Iraqi civilians and journalists were killed by an Apache helicopter, as the Collateral Murder video. In July of the same year, WikiLeaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 76,900 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review.[10] In October 2010, the group released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs in coordination with major commercial media organisations. This allowed every death in Iraq, and across the border in Iran, to be mapped.[11] In November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing U.S. State department diplomatic cables.

WikiLeaks has received praise as well as criticism. The organisation has won a number of awards, including The Economist's New Media Award in 2008[12] and Amnesty International's UK Media Award in 2009.[13][14] In 2010, the New York City Daily News listed WikiLeaks first among websites "that could totally change the news",[15] and Julian Assange received the Sam Adams Award[16] and was named the Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year in 2010.[17] The UK Information Commissioner has stated that "WikiLeaks is part of the phenomenon of the online, empowered citizen".[18] In its first days, an Internet petition calling for the cessation of extra-judicial intimidation of WikiLeaks attracted over six hundred thousand signatures.[19] Supporters of WikiLeaks in the media and academia have commended it for exposing state and corporate secrets, increasing transparency, supporting freedom of the press, and enhancing democratic discourse while challenging powerful institutions.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26]

At the same time, several U.S. government officials have criticized WikiLeaks for exposing classified information and claimed that the leaks harm national security and compromise international diplomacy.[27][28][29][30][31] Several human rights organisations requested with respect to earlier document releases that WikiLeaks adequately redact the names of civilians working with international forces, in order to prevent repercussions.[32] Some journalists have likewise criticised a perceived lack of editorial discretion when releasing thousands of documents at once and without sufficient analysis.[33] In response to some of the negative reaction, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed her concern over the "cyber war" against WikiLeaks,[34] and in a joint statement with the Organization of American States the UN Special Rapporteur has called on states and other actors to keep international legal principles in mind.[35]
History
Founding

The wikileaks.org domain name was registered on 4 October 2006.[3] The website was unveiled, and published its first document in December 2006.[36][37] The site claims to have been "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa".[8]

The creators of WikiLeaks have not been formally identified.[38] It has been represented in public since January 2007 by Julian Assange and others. Assange describes himself as a member of WikiLeaks' advisory board.[39] News reports in The Australian have called Assange the "founder of WikiLeaks".[40] According to Wired magazine, a volunteer said that Assange described himself in a private conversation as "the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organiser, financier, and all the rest".[41] As of June 2009[update], the site had over 1,200 registered volunteers[8] and listed an advisory board comprising Assange and eight other people.[42]
Purpose

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 behaviour in their governments and corporations."[8][39]

In January 2007, the website stated that it had over 1.2 million leaked documents that it was preparing to publish.[43] 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."[37][44]

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 was 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)".[45] 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.[46]

The organisation's stated goal is to ensure that whistleblowers 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.[38]

In an interview on The Colbert Report, Assange explained about the limit to the freedom of speech, saying, "[it is] not an ultimate freedom, however free speech is what regulates government and regulates law. That is why in the US constitution the bill of rights says that congress is to make no such law abridging the freedom of the press. It is to take the rights of the press outside the rights of the law because those rights are superior to the law because in fact they create the law. Every constitution, every bit of legislation is derived from the flow of information. Similarly every government is elected as a result of people understanding things".[47]

The project has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.[48] 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.[48] 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."[49]
Funding

On 24 December 2009, WikiLeaks announced that it was experiencing a shortage of funds[50] and suspended all access to its website except for a form to submit new material.[51] Material that was previously published was no longer available, although some could still be accessed on unofficial mirrors.[52] WikiLeaks stated on its website that it would resume full operation once the operational costs were covered.[51] WikiLeaks saw this as a kind of strike "to ensure that everyone who is involved stops normal work and actually spends time raising revenue".[53] While the organisation initially planned for funds to be secured by 6 January 2010,[54] it was not until 3 February 2010 that WikiLeaks announced that its minimum fundraising goal had been achieved.[55]

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".[56] The account was restored on 25 January 2010.[57] On 18 May 2010, WikiLeaks announced that its website and archive were back up.[58]

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,[37] but did not make the cut.[59] WikiLeaks commented via Twitter, "WikiLeaks was highest rated project in the Knight challenge, strongly recommended to the board but gets no funding. Go figure."[60] 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".[59] A spokesman of the Knight Foundation disputed parts of WikiLeaks' statement, saying "WikiLeaks was not recommended by Knight staff to the board."[60] 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.[60]
Operational challenges

On 17 July, Jacob Appelbaum spoke on behalf of WikiLeaks at the 2010 Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York City, replacing Assange because of the presence of federal agents at the conference.[61][62] He announced that the WikiLeaks submission system was again up and running, after it had been temporarily suspended.[61][63][64] Assange was a surprise speaker at a TED conference on 19 July 2010 in Oxford, and confirmed that the site had begun accepting submissions again.[65]

Upon returning to the US from the Netherlands, on 29 July, Appelbaum was detained for three hours at the airport by US agents, according to anonymous sources.[66] 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.[66] 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.[66] 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.[66]

Assange has acknowledged that the practice of posting largely unfiltered classified information online could one day lead the Web site to have "blood on our hands."[67][68] He expressed the view that the potential to save lives, however, outweighs the danger to innocents.[69] Furthermore, WikiLeaks has highlighted independent investigations which have failed to find any evidence of civilians harmed as a result of WikiLeaks' activities.[70][71]

On 25 September 2010, after being suspended by Assange for "suspended for disloyalty, insubordination and destabilization", Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the German spokesman for Wikileaks, told Der Spiegel that he was resigning, saying "WikiLeaks has a structural problem. I no longer want to take responsibility for it, and that's why I am leaving the project".[72][73][74] Assange accused Domscheit-Berg of leaking information to Newsweek claiming the Wikileaks team was unhappy with Assange's leadership and handling of the Afghan war document releases.[74] Domscheit-Berg left with a small group to start OpenLeaks.com, a new leak organisation and website with a different management and distribution philosophy.[75][76] Herbert Snorrason, also a 25-year old Icelandic university student, resigned after he challenged Assange on his decision to suspend Domscheit-Berg and was bluntly rebuked.[74] Iceland MP Birgitta Jonsdottir also left Wikileaks citing lack of transparency, lack of structure, and poor communication flow in the organisation.[77] According to The Independent, at least a dozen key supporters of WikiLeaks left the website in 2010.[78]
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.[53] 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.[53] 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, Los Angeles Times, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association.[53] Its only revenue stream is donations, but WikiLeaks has planned to add an auction model to sell early access to documents.[53] The Wau Holland Foundation helps to process donations to WikiLeaks. In July 2010, the Foundation stated that WikiLeaks was receiving no money for personnel costs, only for hardware, travelling and bandwidth.[79] An article in TechEye 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 former German representative Daniel Schmitt [real name Daniel Domscheit-Berg][80] on national television that all personnel works voluntarily, even its speakers.[79]

However, in December 2010 the Wau Holland Foundation stated that 4 permanent employees, including Julian Assange, had begun to receive salaries.[81]
Site management issues

Within WikiLeaks, there has been public disagreement between founder and spokesperson Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the site's former German representative who was suspended by Assange. Domscheit-Berg announced on 28 September 2010 that he was leaving the organisation due to internal conflicts over management of the site.[80][82][83]
Hosting

WikiLeaks describes itself as "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking".[84] The site is available on multiple servers and different domain names following a number of denial-of-service attacks and its severance from different Domain Name System (DNS) providers.[85][86]

Until August 2010, WikiLeaks was 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".[87] Currently, WikiLeaks is mainly hosted by Bahnhof in a facility that used to be a nuclear bunker.[88][89] Other servers are spread around the world with the central server located in Sweden.[90] 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.[90] It is forbidden according to Swedish law for any administrative authority to make inquiries about the sources of any type of newspaper.[91] These laws, and the hosting by PRQ, make it difficult to take WikiLeaks offline; such laws place an onus of proof upon any complainant whose suit would circumscribe WikiLeaks’ liberty, e.g., its rights, of exercising free speech online. 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."[87][92]

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.[93][94]

After the site became the target of a denial-of-service attack from a hacker on its old servers, WikiLeaks moved its site to Amazon's servers.[95] Later, however, the website was "ousted" from the Amazon servers.[95] In a public statement, Amazon said that WikiLeaks was not following its terms of service. The company further explained, "There were several parts they were violating. For example, our terms of service state that 'you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content... that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.' It's clear that WikiLeaks doesn't own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content."[96] WikiLeaks then decided to install itself on the servers of OVH in France.[97] After criticism from the French government, the company sought two court rulings about the legality of hosting WikiLeaks. While the court in Lille immediately declined to force OVH to shut down the WikiLeaks site, the court in Paris stated it would need more time to examine the highly technical issue.[98][99]


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