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WikiLeaks
Type of site
Whistleblower, wiki
URLhttp://www.wikileaks.org/
RegistrationPrivate

Wikileaks is a website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors. Within one year of its December 2006 launch, its database had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.[1]

History

The site and its project were secret until their existence was disclosed in a January 2007 article after Wikileaks invited the editor of Secrecy News to serve on their advisory board.[2] The site is being developed by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists from the U.S, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.[3] 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."[3][4] All current staff, developers, and employees of Wikileaks are unidentified as of January 2007.[5]

There are no ties between Wikileaks and the Wikimedia Foundation.[6] The website has stated that they already have over 1.2 million leaked documents that they are preparing to publish.[7] 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.[8]

Wikileaks aims to be "an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis."[9] Wikileaks developers have stated that there will be checks in place to keep the "completely anonymous" system from being flooded with false documents, pornography, and spam. All users will be able to comment on all documents, analyze them, and identify false material.[5] Their stated goal is to ensure that whistle-blowers and journalists are not thrown into jail for emailing sensitive or classified documents, such as what happened to Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2005 after publicising an email from Chinese officials about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.[10]

The project has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.[11] 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.[11] 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."[12]

Technology

The FAQ 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."[13]

However, Wikileaks abandoned the wiki model following early criticism that it promoted "automated or indiscriminate publication of confidential records."[14] It is no longer possible for "anybody [to] post to it", as the original FAQ promised. Instead, submissions are regulated by an internal review process and some are published, while others are censored by anonymous Wikileaks reviewers. The revised FAQ now states that "Anybody can post comments to it."[15]

Wikileaks is based on several software packages, including MediaWiki, Freenet, Tor, and PGP.[16]

Hosting, access and security

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". PRQ is owned by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij who, through their involvement in The Pirate Bay, have significant experience in withstanding legal challenges from authorities. Being hosted by PRQ makes 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." An unidentified individual working for Wikileaks is quoted as saying "Wikileaks certainly trusts no hosting provider". Such arrangements have been called "bulletproof hosting".[17]

Chinese censorship

The Chinese government currently attempts 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.ljsf.org" and "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".[18]

Potential future Australian censorship

Wikinews has related news:

On 16 March 2009, the Australian Communications and Media Authority added URLs to particular pages on Wikileaks to their blacklist, after blacklists from other countries were uploaded. These pages will be blocked for all Australians if the mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme is implemented as planned.[19][20]

Verification of submissions

Template:WikinewshasIn 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."[21] 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.[22]

Notable leaks

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. They said that their source of the information was Wikileaks.[23]

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.[24][25] Wikileaks had hosted allegations of illegal activities at the bank's Cayman Island branch.[24] Wikileaks' U.S. ISP, 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 alternate websites worldwide.[26]

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 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 others, the coalition argued that:[26]

"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."[26]

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.[27] Wikileaks was thus able to bring its site online again. The bank dropped the case on 5 March 2008.[28] The judge also denied the bank's request for an order prohibiting the website's publication.[26]

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."[26]

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.[29] The document, named "gitmo-sop.pdf", is also mirrored at The Guardian.[30] 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.[31]

On 3 December 2007, Wikileaks released a copy of the 2004 edition of the manual,[32] together with a detailed analysis of the changes.[33]

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 centre 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[34]

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",[35] and did so.

Hack of Sarah Palin's Yahoo account

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. The contents of the mailbox seemed to suggest that she used the private Yahoo account to send work-related messages in order to evade public record laws.[36] The hacking of the account was widely reported in mainstream news outlets.[37][38][39] Although Wikileaks was able to conceal the hacker's identity, the source of the Palin emails was eventually publicly identified in another way;[40] the hacker 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.[41]

BNP membership list

After being leaked 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.[42] 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.[43][44][45]

2009 leaks

In January 2009, over 600 internal United Nations reports (60 of them marked "strictly confidential") were leaked.[46]

On 7 February 2009, Wikileaks released 6,780 Congressional Research Service reports.[47]

In March 2009, Wikileaks published a list of contributors to the Norm Coleman senatorial campaign[48] and a set of documents belonging to Barclays Bank that had been ordered removed from the website of The Guardian.[49]

On March 19 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.[50] 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,[51] the list leaked on Wikileaks contains a number of sites unrelated to sex crimes involving minors.[52][53] 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.[54] Wikileaks has since published an updated list, which appears to be current as of March 18, 2009; it more closely matches the claimed size of the ACMA blacklist and contains several sites which have been independently confirmed to be blacklisted by ACMA.[55]

Police raid on German Wikileaks domain owner's home

The home of Theodor Reppe, owner of the German Wikileaks domain name, Wikileaks.de, was raided on 24 March 2009 on allegations of possession of child pornography. Wikileaks maintains that the allegations are based solely on their dissemination of lists of government blacklisted and blocked websites.[56][57][58]

See also

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References

  1. ^ "Wikileaks has 1.2 million documents?". Wikileaks. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  2. ^ Steven Aftergood (3 January 2007). "Wikileaks and untracable document disclosure". Secrecy News. Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  3. ^ a b "Wikileaks:About - Wikileaks". Wikileaks<!. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  4. ^ "Cyber-dissidents launch WikiLeaks, a site for whistleblowers". South China Morning Post. 11 January 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-02-12. Retrieved 2008-02-28. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 2007-02-21 suggested (help)
  5. ^ a b Paul Marks (13 January 2007). "How to leak a secret and not get caught". New Scientist. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  6. ^ Agence France Press (2007-01-11). "Chinese cyber-dissidents launch WikiLeaks, a site for whistleblowers". The Age. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  7. ^ Kearny (11 January 2007). "Wikileaks and Untraceable Document Disclosuree". Now Public News. Retrieved 2008-02-28., Wikileaks 29 December 2006.
  8. ^ "Wikileaks Releases Secret Report on Military Equipment". The New York Sun. 9 September 2007. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  9. ^ "Website wants to take whistleblowing online". CBC News. 11 January 2007. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  10. ^ "Leak secrets trouble free". Scenta. 15 January 2007. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  11. ^ a b Scott Bradner "Wikileaks: a site for exposure", Linuxworld, 18 January 2007. Retrieved 18 January 2007. Cite error: The named reference "LinuxworldWikileaks1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  12. ^ Staff Reports (18 January 2007). "Whistleblower Website Coming". Free-Market News Network. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  13. ^ "What is Wikileaks? How does Wikileaks operate?". Wikileaks. 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  14. ^ "Wikileaks and untracable document disclosure". Secrecy News. Federation of American Scientists. 3 January 2007. Retrieved 2008-08-21.
  15. ^ "What is Wikileaks? How does Wikileaks operate?". Wikileaks. 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-21.
  16. ^ "Is Wikileaks accessible across the globe or do oppressive regimes in certain countries block the site?". Wikileaks. 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  17. ^ Goodin publisher= The Register, Dan (21 February 2008). "Wikileaks judge gets Pirate Bay treatment". Retrieved 2009-03-13. {{cite web}}: Missing pipe in: |last= (help)
  18. ^ "Is Wikileaks blocked by the Chinese government?". Wikileaks. 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  19. ^ "Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day". The Age. 16 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
  20. ^ "Australia secretly censors Wikileaks press release and Danish Internet censorship list, 16 Mar 2009". Wikileaks. 16 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
  21. ^ Daniel Friedman "Web site aims to post government secrets", Federal Times, 4 January 2007.
  22. ^ wikileaks.org[dead link]
  23. ^ "The looting of Kenya". The Guardian. 31 August 2007. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  24. ^ a b "Wikileaks.org under injunction" (Press release). Wikileaks. 18 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-28.
  25. ^ "Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. et al. v. Wikileaks et al". News.justia.com. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  26. ^ a b c d e "Judge reverses Wikileaks injunction - THE INQUIRER". The Inquirer<!. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  27. ^ Philipp Gollner (29 February 2008). "Judge reverses ruling in Julius Baer leak case". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-03-01.
  28. ^ Claburn, Thomas (2008-03-06). "Swiss Bank Abandons Lawsuit Against Wikileaks: The wiki had posted financial documents it said proved tax evasion by Bank Julius Baer's clients". InformationWeek.
  29. ^ "Sensitive Guantánamo Bay Manual Leaked Through Wiki Site", Wired 14 November 2007
  30. ^ specific address at The Guardian.
  31. ^ "Guantanamo operating manual posted on Internet". Reuters. 2007-11-15. Retrieved 2007-11-15. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  32. ^ ""Camp Delta Operating Procedure (2004)"". Wikileaks.org. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  33. ^ ""Changes in Guantanamo SOP manual (2003-2004)"". Wikileaks.org. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  34. ^ "Church of Scientology collected Operating Thetan Documents, including full text of legal letter". 2008-06-04.
  35. ^ "Church of Scientology warns Wikileaks over documents". 2008-07-04.
  36. ^ "Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Palin Account -- Update". Wired.
  37. ^ Shear, Michael D. (18 September 2008). "Hackers Access Palin's Personal E-Mail, Post Some Online". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2008-09-18. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  38. ^ "FBI, Secret Service Investigate Hacking of Palin's E-mail". foxnews.com. 18 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  39. ^ Swaine, Jon (18 Sep 2008). "Sarah Palin's email account broken into by hackers". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  40. ^ "Palin Email Hacker Found". Slashdot. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
  41. ^ "Memo to US Secret Service: Net proxy may pinpoint Palin email hackers". TheRegister. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
  42. ^ "'BNP membership' officer sacked". BBC. Retrieved 2009-03-23.
  43. ^ "BNP membership list posted online by former 'hardliner'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
  44. ^ "BNP Membership List Exposed". Infoshop News. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
  45. ^ "Police officer faces investigation after being 'outed' as BNP supporter in membership leak". DailyMail. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
  46. ^ Radio, Britannia (2009-01-15). "Britannia Radio". Britanniaradio.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  47. ^ "Change you can download: a billion in secret Congressional reports". Wikileaks.org. Retrieved 2009-03-13.
  48. ^ Wikileaks.org
  49. ^ Wikileaks.org
  50. ^ Colin Jacobs (2009-03-19). "Leaked Government blacklist confirms worst fears". Electronic Frontiers Australia. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
  51. ^ Vivian Wai-yin Kwok (2009-03-19). "Aussie Internet Blacklist Has Gray Areas". Forbes.com. Retrieved 200903-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  52. ^ Asher Moses (2009-03-19). "Leaked Australian blacklist reveals banned sites". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
  53. ^ Liam Tung (2009-03-19). "Wikileaks spills ACMA blacklist". ZD Net Australia. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
  54. ^ Nic MacBean (2009-03-19). "Leaked blacklist irresponsible, inaccurate: Conroy". ABC News. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
  55. ^ "Australian government secret ACMA internet censorship blacklist, 18 Mar 2009". Wikileaks. 2009-03-20. Retrieved 2009-03-23.
  56. ^ Wikileaks raided by German police
  57. ^ Police raid home of Wikileaks.de domain owner over censorship lists
  58. ^ Police raid Wikileaks owner
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