international organization based in Sweden

WikiLeaks or Wikileaks is an international organization based in Sweden[2] that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of otherwise unavailable documents while preserving the anonymity of sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.[1] Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.[3]
The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.[1] Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (June 7, 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director.[4]
Wikileaks has won a number of awards, including the 2008 Economist magazine New Media Award.[5] In June 2009, Wikileaks and Julian Assange won Amnesty International's UK Media Award (in the category "New Media") for the 2008 publication of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances",[6] a report by the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights about police killings in Kenya.[7]
In April 2010, Wikileaks posted video from an incident in which Iraqi civilians were alleged to have been killed by U.S. forces, on a website called Collateral Murder. In July of the same year, Wikileaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 90,000 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review.[8]
In May 2010, the New York Daily News listed Wikileaks first in a ranking of "websites that could totally change the news".[9]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Administration
3 Hosting
3.1 Technology
3.2 Police raid on German Wikileaks domain holder's home
3.3 Chinese censorship
3.4 Potential future Australian censorship
3.5 Harassment and surveillance
3.6 Verification of submissions
3.7 Icelandic Modern Media Initiative
4 Notable leaks
4.1 Pre-2009
4.1.1 Apparent Somali assassination order
4.1.2 Daniel arap Moi family corruption
4.1.3 Bank Julius Baer lawsuit
4.1.4 Guantánamo Bay procedures
4.1.5 Scientology
4.1.6 Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account contents
4.1.7 BNP membership list
4.2 2009
4.2.1 Climatic Research Unit emails
4.2.2 Internet censorship lists
4.2.3 Bilderberg Group meeting reports
4.2.4 2008 Peru oil scandal
4.2.5 Toxic dumping in Africa: The Minton report
4.2.6 Kaupthing Bank
4.2.7 9/11 pager messages
4.3 2010
4.3.1 U.S. Intelligence report on Wikileaks
4.3.2 Baghdad airstrike video
4.3.2.1 Arrest of Bradley Manning
4.3.3 Afghan War Diary
4.4 Upcoming
5 Criticism
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
8.1 Interviews
[edit]History



Wikileaks spokesman Julian Assange, 2006
Wikileaks first appeared on the Internet in January 2007.[10] 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.[11] It has been represented in public since January 2007 by Julian Assange and others. Assange describes himself as a member of Wikileaks' advisory board.[12] News reports in The Australian have called Assange the "founder of Wikileaks".[13] As of June 2009, 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.[14] 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.[15]
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][16]
In January 2007, the website stated that it had over 1.2 million leaked documents that it was preparing to publish.[17] 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."[18]
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)".[19] 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.[20]
Their 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.[21]
The project has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.[22] 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.[22] 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."[23]
On 24 December 2009, Wikileaks announced that it was experiencing a shortage of funds[24] and suspended all access to its website except for a form to submit new material.[25] Material that was previously published was no longer available, although some could still be accessed on unofficial mirrors.[26][27] Wikileaks stated on its website that it would resume full operation once the operational costs were covered.[25][28] Wikileaks saw this as a kind of strike "to ensure that everyone who is involved stops normal work and actually spends time raising revenue".[29] While it was initially hoped that funds could be secured by 6 January 2010,[30] it was only on 3 February 2010 that Wikileaks announced that its minimum fundraising goal had been achieved.[31]
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".[32] The account was restored on 25 January 2010.[33]
On May 18, 2010, Wikileaks announced that its website and archive were back up.[34]
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,[35] but did not make the cut.[36] 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".[36] A spokesman of the Knight Foundation disputed parts of Wikileaks' statement, saying "WikiLeaks was not recommended by Knight staff to the board."[37] 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.[37]
On July 17, 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.[38][39] He announced that the Wikileaks submission system was again up and running, after it had been temporarily suspended.[38][40] Assange was a surprise speaker at a TED conference on 19 July 2010 in Oxford, and confirmed that Wikileaks was now accepting submissions again.[41][42]
Upon returning to the U.S. from Holland, on July 29, Appelbaum was detained for three hours at the airport by U.S. agents, according to anonymous sources.[43] 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.[43] 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.[43] On July 31, he spoke at a Defcon conference and mentioned his phone being "seized". After speaking, he was approached by two FBI agents and questioned.[43]
[edit]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.[29] 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.[29] 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.[29] Its only revenue stream is donations, but Wikileaks is planning to add an auction model to sell early access to documents.[29] According to the Wau Holland Foundation, Wikileaks receives no money for personnel costs, only for hardware, travelling and bandwidth.[44] 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 on national television that all personnel works voluntarily, even its speakers.[44]
[edit]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.” 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." Such arrangements have been called "bulletproof hosting."[45]
[edit]Technology
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."[46]
However, Wikileaks established an editorial policy that accepted only documents that were "of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical interest".[47] 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."[48] 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."[49] After the 2010 relaunch, posting new comments to leaks was not possible any more.[50]
Wikileaks is based on several software packages, including MediaWiki, Freenet, Tor, and PGP.[51] Wikileaks strongly encouraged postings via Tor due to the strong privacy needs of its users.[52]
[edit]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.[53] The site was not affected.[54][55][56]
[edit]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.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".[57]
[edit]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.[58][59]
[edit]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.”[60]
After the release of the 2007 airstrikes video and as they prepared to release film of the Granai massacre, 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."[61] 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."[62]
Wikileaks has claimed that Facebook deleted their fan page, which had 30,000 fans.[63][64][65][66]
[edit]Verification of submissions
Wikinews has news on these topics:
Huge interest takes Wikileaks offline
Church of Scientology's 'Operating Thetan' documents leaked online
Wikileaks spokesperson discusses recent court case with Wikinews
Representative for ACLU tells Wikinews their opinion on lifting of Wikileaks court injunction
Wikileaks.org restored as injunction is lifted
Wikileaks claims ‘abuse of process’ in court case that resulted in wikileaks.org being take offline
Rights groups: Forcing Wikileaks.org offline raises 'serious First Amendment concerns'
'Wikileaks.org' taken offline in many areas after fire, court injunction
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."[67] 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."[68]
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.[69] In that group, Assange has the final decision about the assessment of a document.[69]