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please note:{{hatnote|WikiLeaks is not a Wikimedia project and is thus not affiliated with Wikipedia. For a list of Wikimedia projects, see Wikimedia Foundation § Projects and initiatives.}}{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}{{short description|International non-profit organization publishing secret information, news leaks, and classified media}}{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2019}}{{EngvarB|date=December 2017}}
- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
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- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
,weblink, In April 2010, WikiLeaks released the Collateral Murder footage from the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike in which Iraqi journalists were among those killed. Other releases in 2010 included the Afghan War Diary and the "Iraq War Logs". The latter allowed the mapping of 109,032 deaths in "significant" attacks by insurgents in Iraq that had been reported to Multi-National Force â Iraq, including about 15,000 that had not been previously published.NEWS,weblink Wikileaks Iraq: data journalism maps every death, The Guardian, London, 23 October 2010, 26 July 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110107113804weblink">weblink 7 January 2011, no, NEWS,weblink Wikileaks Iraq: what's wrong with the data?, The Guardian, London, 25 October 2010, 26 July 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130609222435weblink">weblink 9 June 2013, no, In 2010, WikiLeaks also released the US State Department diplomatic "cables", classified cables that had been sent to the US State Department. In April 2011, WikiLeaks began publishing 779 secret files relating to prisoners detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.NEWS,weblink Guantánamo files lift lid on world's most controversial prison, Leigh, David, Ball, James, Burke, Jason, The Guardian, London, 25 April 2011, 25 April 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110626230514weblink">weblink 26 June 2011, no, In 2012, WikiLeaks released the "Syria Files," over two million emails sent by Syrian politicians, corporations and government ministries.NEWS,weblink Syria files: Wikileaks releases 2m 'embarrassing' emails, BBC, 5 July 2012, 20 April 2019, MAGAZINE,weblink Forbes, WikiLeaks Announces Massive Release With The 'Syria Files': 2.4 Million Emails From Syrian Officials And Companies, Andy, Greenberg, 5 July 2012, 20 April 2019, In 2015, WikiLeaks published Saudi Arabian diplomatic cables,NEWS,weblink New York Times, Cables Released by WikiLeaks Reveal Saudis' Checkbook Diplomacy, Ben, Hubbard, 20 June 2015, 20 April 2019, MAGAZINE,weblink WikiLeaks Begins Releasing Leaked Saudi Arabia Cables, Julia, Zorthian, Time Magazine, 19 June 2015, 20 April 2019, documents detailing spying by the U.S. National Security Agency on successive French Presidents,NEWS,weblink NSA spied on French presidents: WikiLeaks, Reuters, James, Regan, Mark, John, 23 June 2015, 20 April 2019, NEWS,weblink Hollande Condemns Spying by U.S., but Not Too Harshly, New York Times, Alyssa J., Rubin, Scott, Shane, 24 June 2015, 20 April 2019, and the intellectual property chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a controversial international trade agreement which had been negotiated in secret.NEWS,weblink Wikileaks release of TPP deal text stokes 'freedom of expression' fears, Sam, Thielman, The Guardian, 9 October 2015, 20 April 2019, NEWS,weblink TPP leaked: Wikileaks releases intellectual property chapter of controversial internet and medicine-regulating trade agreement, Doug, Bolton, The Independent, 9 October 2015, 20 April 2019, During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, WikiLeaks released emails and other documents from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.WEB,weblink Why it's entirely predictable that Hillary Clinton's emails are back in the news, The Washington Post, 12 November 2016, These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been attributed as a potential contributing factor to her loss.NEWS,weblink How Much Did WikiLeaks Hurt Hillary Clinton?, 23 December 2016, FiveThirtyEight, 15 February 2018, en-US, The evidence suggests WikiLeaks is among the factors that might have contributed to her loss, but we really can't say much more than that., The U.S. intelligence community expressed "high confidence" that the leaked emails had been hacked by Russia and supplied to WikiLeaks, while WikiLeaks denied their source was Russia or any other state.NEWS,weblink U.S. intel community 'confident' Russia directed hacks to influence election, Shabad, Rebecca, 7 October 2016, 23 October 2016, During the campaign, WikiLeaks promoted conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.NEWS,weblink No, John Podesta didn't drink bodily fluids at a secret Satanist dinner, Ohlheiser, Abby, 4 November 2016, The Washington Post, 8 November 2016, 0190-8286, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Fuels Conspiracy Theories About DNC Staffer's Death, NBC News, 8 November 2016, WikiLeaks ... is fueling Internet conspiracy theories by offering a $20,000 reward for information on a Democratic National Committee staffer who was killed last month ... in what police say was robbery gone wrong ... Assange implied this week in an interview that Rich was the source of the leak and even offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of his murderer. Meanwhile, the Russian government funded propaganda outlet RT had already been covering Rich's murder two weeks prior. RT and other Russian government propaganda outlets have also been working hard to deny the Russian government was the source of the leak, including by interviewing Assange about the Rich murder. ... The original conspiracy theory can be traced back to a notoriously unreliable conspiracy website, How Julian Assange turned WikiLeaks into Trump's best friend, Max Chafkin & Vernon Silver, 10 October 2016 (Bloomberg website) In private conversations from November 2015 that were later leaked, Julian Assange expressed a preference for a GOP victory in the 2016 election, explaining that "Dems+Media+liberals woudl [sic] then form a block to reign [sic] in their worst qualities. With Hillary in charge, GOP will be pushing for her worst qualities, dems+media+neoliberals will be mute."WEB,weblink In Leaked Chats, WikiLeaks Discusses Preference for GOP Over Clinton, Russia, Trolling, and Feminists They Don't Like, Lee, Micah, Currier, Cora, 14 February 2018, The Intercept, en-US, 15 February 2018, In further leaked correspondence with the Trump campaign on election day (8 November 2016), WikiLeaks encouraged the Trump campaign to contest the election results as being "rigged" should they lose.In 2016, WikiLeaks released nearly 300,000 emails it described as coming from Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party,NEWS,weblink President Erdogan emails: What is in the Wikileaks release about Turkey's government?, The Independent, Peter, Yeung, 20 July 2016, 20 April 2019, later found to be taken from public mailing archives,NEWS,weblink Wikileaks' dump of "Erdogan emails" turn out to be public mailing list archives, Cory, Doctorow, 29 July 2016, BoingBoing, 20 April 2019, and over 50,000 emails from the Turkish minister of energy.MAGAZINE,weblink Latest Wikileaks Dump Sheds New Light on Erdoganâs Power In Turkey, Robbie, Gramer, 7 December 2016, Foreign Policy, 20 April 2019, In 2017, WikiLeaks published internal CIA documents describing tools used by the agency to hack devices including mobile phones and routers.NEWS,weblink A scramble at Cisco exposes uncomfortable truths about U.S. cyber defense, Joseph, Menn, Reuters, 29 March 2017, 20 April 2019, NEWS,weblink Scott, Shane, Matthew, Rosenberg, Andrew W., Lehren, New York Times, WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents, 7 March 2017, 20 April 2019, WikiLeaks has drawn criticism for its alleged absence of whistleblowing on or criticism of Russia, and for criticising the Panama Papers' exposé of businesses and individuals with offshore bank accounts.NEWS,weblink How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West's Secrets, Erlanger, Jo Becker, Steven, 31 August 2016, The New York Times, 25 December 2016, Schmitt, Eric, 0362-4331, NEWS,weblink Putin dismisses Panama Papers as an attempt to destabilise Russia, Harding, Alec Luhn Luke, 7 April 2016, The Guardian, London, 0261-3077, 6 January 2017, The organization has additionally been criticised for inadequately curating its content and violating the personal privacy of individuals. WikiLeaks has, for instance, revealed Social Security numbers, medical information, credit card numbers and details of suicide attempts.NEWS,weblink Why Wikileaks Is Losing Its Friends, Joshua Brustein, 29 July 2016, Bloomberg News, NEWS,weblink Private lives are exposed as WikiLeaks spills its secrets, Raphael Satter, Maggie Michael, 23 August 2016, Associated Press, en-US, NEWS,weblink Snowden and WikiLeaks clash over leaked Democratic Party emails, Andrea Peterson, The Washington Post, 28 July 2016, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Isn't Whistleblowing, Tufekci, Zeynep, 4 November 2016, The New York Times, 5 November 2016, 0362-4331, {{TOC limit|3}}
, US: Leaked Gitmo Manual Out of Date
, Associated Press
, November 14, 2007
, 2007-11-14
, yes
,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20071118160838weblink">weblink
, November 18, 2007
, US: Leaked Gitmo Manual Out of Date
, Associated Press
, November 14, 2007
, 2007-11-14
, yes
,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20071118160838weblink">weblink
, November 18, 2007
Staff, name and foundingFile:Julian Assange August 2014.jpg|thumb|upright=.75|Julian AssangeJulian AssangeThe wikileaks.org domain name was registered on 4 October 2006.WEB, Whois Search Results: wikileaks.org,weblink Domaintools.com, 8 December 2016, The website was established and published its first document in December 2006.NEWS, WikiLeaks' War on Secrecy: Truth's Consequences, 2 December 2010, Calabresi, Massimo,weblink Time, New York, Reportedly spurred by the leak of the Pentagon papers, Assange unveiled WikiLeaks in December 2006., 19 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130520104123weblink">weblink 20 May 2013, yes, NEWS, Raffi, Khatchadourian, 7 June 2010,weblink No Secrets: Julian Assange's Mission for total transparency, The New Yorker, 8 June 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827012725weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, WikiLeaks is usually represented in public by Julian Assange, who has been described as "the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organiser, financier, and all the rest".NEWS,weblink The New York Times, WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety, 23 October 2010, Burns, John F., Somaiya, Ravi, 19 December 2010, NEWS,weblink Rudd Government blacklist hacker monitors police, The Australian, Sydney, Guilliatt, Richard, 30 May 2009, 17 June 2010, Sarah Harrison, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Farrell are the only other publicly known and acknowledged associates of Assange who are currently living.NEWS, Mostrous, Alexi, 4 August 2011,weblink He came for a week and stayed a year, London, The Times,weblink 4 August 2012, {{dead link|date=March 2015}}{{subscription required}} Harrison is also a member of Sunshine Press Productions along with Assange and Ingi Ragnar Ingason.WEB,weblink Wikileaks sets up shop in Iceland â Heated pavements far nicer than Gitmo TechEye,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140210200145weblink">weblink 10 February 2014, yes, . News.techeye.net (15 November 2010). Retrieved 22 November 2011.WEB,weblink Wikileaks starts company in Icelandic apartment IceNews â Daily News,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101122222226weblink">weblink 22 November 2010, no, . Icenews.is (13 November 2010). Retrieved 22 November 2011. WikiLeaks is not and never has been affiliated with the well-known website Wikipedia or Wikipedia's parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation. Gavin MacFadyen was acknowledged by Assange as a â³beloved director of WikiLeaksâ³ shortly after his death in 2016.NEWS, Gavin MacFadyen, 76, Mentor and Defender of WikiLeaks Founder, Dies,weblink The New York Times, 1 August 2018, WikiLeaks was originally established with a "wiki" communal publication method, which was terminated by May 2010.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Gets A Facelift, Gilson, Dave, 19 May 2010, Mother Jones, 17 June 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140429130452weblink">weblink 29 April 2014, no, San Francisco, Original volunteers and founders were once described as a mixture of Asian dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.WEB,weblink About WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks, 28 February 2012, 5 December 2012,weblink 10 April 2014, no, {{As of|2009|6}}, the website had more than 1,200 registered volunteers.NEWS, Rintoul, Stuart, WikiLeaks advisory board 'pretty clearly window-dressing',weblink The Australian, Sydney, 9 December 2010, 18 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140308001123weblink">weblink 8 March 2014, no, WEB,weblink Inside WikiLeaks' Leak Factory,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140429104335weblink">weblink 29 April 2014, no, . Mother Jones (6 April 2010). Retrieved 22 November 2011.Despite some popular confusion, related to the fact both sites use the "wiki" name and website design template, WikiLeaks and Wikipedia are not affiliated.NEWS,weblink Wiki giants on a collision course over shared name, Rawlinson, Kevin, Tom, Peck, 30 August 2010, The Independent, London, 1 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100912225910weblink">weblink 12 September 2010, yes, Wikia, a for-profit corporation affiliated loosely with the Wikimedia Foundation, purchased several WikiLeaks-related domain names as a "protective brand measure" in 2007.WEB,weblink Press:Wikia Does Not Own Wikileaks Domain Names, Wikia, Wikia, 13 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140510121146weblink">weblink 10 May 2014, no, On 26 September 2018, it was announced that Julian Assange had appointed Kristinn Hrafnsson as editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks while the organisation's statement said Assange was remaining as its publisher. His access to the internet was cut off by Ecuador in March 2018 after he tweeted that Britain was about to conduct a propaganda war against Russia relating to the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Ecuador said he had broken a commitment "not to issue messages that might interfere with other states" and Assange said he was "exercising his right to free speech".WEB, Julian Assange has stepped down as the editor of WikiLeaks,weblink 6 December 2018, WEB, With his internet cut off, Julian Assange steps down as editor of WikiLeaks,weblink 6 December 2018,
PurposeAccording to the WikiLeaks website, its goal is "to bring important news and information to the public ... One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth." Another of the organisation's goals is to ensure that journalists and whistleblowers are not prosecuted for emailing sensitive or classified documents. The online "drop box" is described by the WikiLeaks website as "an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to [WikiLeaks] journalists".WEB,weblink Electronic Privacy Information Center, EPIC v. DOJ, FBI: Wikileaks,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140214023818weblink">weblink 14 February 2014, no, In a 2013 resolution, the International Federation of Journalists, a trade union of journalists, called WikiLeaks a "new breed of media organisation" that "offers important opportunities for media organisations".WEB,weblink Global journalists' union supports Wikileaks, Alliance.org.au, 16 July 2013, 2 March 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131231025031weblink">weblink 31 December 2013, yes, Harvard professor Yochai Benkler praised WikiLeaks as a new form of journalistic enterprise,David Dishneau, Harvard prof is star witness at WikiLeaks trial, Associated Press (13 July 2016). testifying at the court-martial of Chelsea Manning (then Bradley Manning) that "WikiLeaks did serve a particular journalistic function," and that the "range of the journalist's privilege" is "a hard line to draw".Rainey Reitman, Transcript: Yochai Benkler Testifies at Bradley Manning Trial, Freedom of the Press Foundation (10 July 2013). Others do not consider WikiLeaks to be journalistic in nature. Media ethicist Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies wrote in 2011: "WikiLeaks might grow into a journalist endeavor. But it's not there yet."Kelly McBridge, "What Is WikiLeaks? That's the Wrong Question" in Page One: Inside the New York Times and the Future of Journalism (ed. David Folkenflik: PublicAffairs, 2011). Bill Keller of The New York Times considers WikiLeaks to be a "complicated source" rather than a journalistic partner. Prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams writes that WikiLeaks is not a journalistic group, but instead "an organization of political activists; ... a source for journalists; and ... a conduit of leaked information to the press and the public".Floyd Abrams, Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment (Yale University Press, 2013), p. 390. In support of his opinion, he said Assange's statements that WikiLeaks reads only a small fraction of information{{Clarify|reason=|date=April 2019}} before deciding to publish it, Abrams writes: "No journalistic entity I have ever heard ofânoneâsimply releases to the world an elephantine amount of material it has not read."
AdministrationAccording 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. WikiLeaks does not have any official headquarters. In November 2010 the WikiLeaks-endorsedWEB, Supporters,weblink Wikileaks,weblink 26 March 2014, no, news and activism site WikiLeaks Central was initiated and was administrated by editor Heather Marsh who oversaw over 70 writers and volunteers.NEWS, Dorling, Philip, Building on WikiLeaks,weblink The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 October 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120130183250weblink">weblink 30 January 2012, no, She resigned on 8 March 2012.WEB, Marsh, Heather, To Whom It May Concern,weblink WL Central, 8 March 2012, yes,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160203214040weblink">weblink 3 February 2016, WikiLeaks describes itself as "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking".NEWS,weblink Julian Assange: the whistleblower, The Guardian, London, Moss, Stephen, 14 July 2010, 7 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110626230605weblink">weblink 26 June 2011, no, The website is available on multiple servers, different domain names and has an official Darkweb version (available on the Tor Network) as a result of a number of denial-of-service attacks and its elimination from different Domain Name System (DNS) providers.NEWS, Raphael G., Satter, Peter Svensson, WikiLeaks fights to stay online amid attacks, 3 December 2010, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Bloomberg Businessweek,weblink 14 March 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101204043730weblink">weblink 4 December 2010, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks hit by new online onslaught, Randall, David, Cooper, Charlie, 5 December 2010, The Independent, 4 December 2010, London,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140419020654weblink">weblink 19 April 2014, yes, Until August 2010, WikiLeaks was hosted by PRQ, a company based in Sweden providing "highly secure, no-questions-asked hosting services". PRQ was reported by The Register website to have "almost no information about its clientele and maintains few if any of its own logs".NEWS,weblink Wikileaks judge gets Pirate Bay treatment, Goodwin, Dan, The Register, London, 21 February 2008, 7 December 2010, Later, WikiLeaks was hosted mainly by the Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof in the Pionen facility, a former nuclear bunker in Sweden.NEWS,weblink Pentagon-papirer sikret i atom-bunker, VG Nett, Oslo, Norwegian, 27 August 2010, 6 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100922042634weblink">weblink 22 September 2010, no, NEWS,weblink Wikileaks Servers Move To Underground Nuclear Bunker, Forbes (blog), 30 August 2010, 6 December 2010, Andy, Greenberg, Other servers are spread around the world with the main server located in Sweden.NEWS, Jagad och hatad â men han vägrar vika sig, Swedish, Chased and hated â but he refuses to give way, Fredén, Jonas, Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm,weblink 14 August 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100818113905weblink">weblink 18 August 2010, yes, 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 informationâproviders total legal protection. It is forbidden, according to Swedish law, for any administrative authority to make inquiries about the sources of any type of newspaper.NEWS, Därför blir Julian Assange kolumnist i Aftonbladet, Swedish, Helin, Jan, Aftonbladet (blog), Stockholm, 14 August 2010,weblink 15 August 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120820032744weblink">weblink 20 August 2012, no, These laws, and the hosting by PRQ, make it difficult for any authority to eliminate WikiLeaks; they place an burden of proof upon any complainant whose suit would circumscribe WikiLeaks' liberty, e.g. its rights to exercise 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".NEWS,weblink What is WikiLeaks?, This Just In (CNN blog), 25 July 2010, 6 August 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140114095005weblink">weblink 14 January 2014, no, After the site became the target of a denial-of-service attack on its old servers, WikiLeaks moved its website to Amazon's servers.NEWS, Gross, Doug, WikiLeaks cut off from Amazon servers,weblink CNN, 2 December 2010, 2 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131029192138weblink">weblink 29 October 2013, no, Later, however, the website was "ousted" from the Amazon servers. 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."NEWS,weblink Amazon says it dumped WikiLeaks because it put innocent people in jeopardy, Hennigan, W.J., 2 December 2010, Technology blog, Los Angeles Times, 23 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131001220315weblink">weblink 1 October 2013, no, WikiLeaks was then moved to servers at OVH, a private web-hosting service in France.NEWS,weblink Expulsé d'Amazon, WikiLeaks trouve refuge en France, 3 December 2010, Le Point, Paris, Poncet, Guerric, French, After criticism from the French government, the company sought two court rulings about the legality of hosting WikiLeaks. While the court in Lille immediately refused to force OVH to deactivate the WikiLeaks website, the court in Paris stated it would need more time to examine the complex technical issue.NEWS, French company allowed to keep hosting WikiLeaks, 8 December 2010, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Bloomberg L.P.,weblink 14 March 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130928231950weblink">weblink 28 September 2013, no, NEWS, French web host need not shut down WikiLeaks site: judge,weblink Agence France-Presse, France 24, 6 December 2010, 8 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131028131713weblink">weblink 28 October 2013, yes, {{Update after|2019|4|13}}WikiLeaks used EveryDNS, but was dropped by the company after distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against WikiLeaks hurt the quality of service for its other customers. Supporters of WikiLeaks waged verbal and DDoS attacks on EveryDNS. Because of a typographical error in blogs mistaking EveryDNS for competitor EasyDNS, the sizeable Internet backlash hit EasyDNS. Despite that, EasyDNS (upon request of a customer who was setting up new WikiLeaks hosting) began providing WikiLeaks with DNS service on "two 'battle hardened' servers" to protect the quality of service for its other customers.NEWS, Canadian firm caught up in Wiki wars, Steve, Ladurantaye,weblink The Globe and Mail, Toronto, 8 December 2010, 9 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110727052959weblink">weblink 27 July 2011, no, WikiLeaks restructured its process for contributions after its first document leaks did not gain much attention. Assange stated this was part of an attempt to take the voluntary effort typically seen in "Wiki" projects, and "redirect it to ... material that has real potential for change".BOOK,weblink A Companion to New Media Dynamics, Hartley, John, Burgess, Jean, Bruns, Axel, 9 January 2013, John Wiley & Sons, 9781118321638, en, Some sympathisers were unhappy{{Citation needed|date=October 2011}} when WikiLeaks ended a community-based wiki format in favour of a more centralised organisation. The "about" page originally read:WEB,weblink What is WikiLeaks? How does WikiLeaks operate?, 2008, WikiLeaks,weblink 16 February 2008, yes, 28 February 2008, 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").WEB,weblink WikiLeaks' submissions page, WikiLeaks,weblink 19 April 2008, yes, 17 June 2010, 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".NEWS,weblink Wikileaks and untraceable document disclosure, Aftergood, Steven, 3 January 2007, Secrecy News, 21 August 2008,weblink 11 March 2013, no, Federation of American Scientists, The original FAQ is no longer in effect, and no one can post or edit documents on WikiLeaks. Now, submissions to WikiLeaks are reviewed by anonymous WikiLeaks reviewers, and documents that do not meet the editorial criteria are rejected. By 2008, the revised FAQ stated: "Anybody can post comments to it. [ ... ] Users can publicly discuss documents and analyse their credibility and veracity."WEB,weblink What is Wikileaks? How does Wikileaks operate?, 2008, WikiLeaks,weblink 4 May 2008, yes, After the 2010 reorganisation, posting new comments on leaks was no longer possible.
Legal status{{Further|Reception of WikiLeaks}}The legal status of WikiLeaks is complex. Assange considers WikiLeaks a protection intermediary. Rather than leaking directly to the press, and fearing exposure and retribution, whistleblowers can leak to WikiLeaks, which then leaks to the press for them.NEWS, Light, Gilead, The Great Debate (blog), Reuters, The WikiLeaks story and criminal liability under the espionage laws, 26 August 2010,weblink 6 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130927175719weblink">weblink 27 September 2013, no, Its servers are located throughout Europe and are accessible from any uncensored web connection. The group located its headquarters in Sweden because it has one of the world's strongest laws to protect confidential source-journalist relationships.NEWS, WikiLeaks Secret Records Dump Stays in Legal Clear, Woolner, Ann, 28 July 2010,weblink Bloomberg, New York,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827013053weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, NEWS, Hennigan, W. J., WikiLeaks' new home is in a former bomb shelter,weblink 11 December 2010, Los Angeles Times technology blog, 2 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140413121631weblink">weblink 13 April 2014, no, WikiLeaks has stated it does not solicit any information. However, Assange used his speech during the Hack in the Box conference in Malaysia to ask the crowd of hackers and security researchers to help find documents on its "Most Wanted Leaks of 2009" list.NEWS, Nystedt, Dan, 28 October 2009, PC World Australia, Sydney, Wikileaks leader talks of courage and wrestling pigs,weblink 5 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140202203230weblink">weblink 2 February 2014, no, {{Update after|2019|4|13}}
Potential criminal prosecution{{See also|Julian Assange#United States criminal investigation}}The US Justice Department began a criminal investigation of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange soon after the leak of diplomatic cables began.NEWS, Savage, Charlie, U.S. Weighs Prosecution of WikiLeaks Founder, but Legal Scholars Warn of Steep Hurdles, 1 December 2010,weblink The New York Times, 5 December 2010, NEWS, Yost, Pete, Holder says WikiLeaks under criminal investigation,weblink 5 December 2010, Fox News Channel, 29 November 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131224090729weblink">weblink 24 December 2013, no, Former Attorney General Eric Holder affirmed the investigation was "not saber-rattling", but was "an active, ongoing criminal investigation". The Washington Post reported that the department was considering charges under the Espionage Act of 1917, an action which former prosecutors characterised as "difficult" because of First Amendment protections for the press.NEWS, Nakashima, Ellen, Markon, Jerry, WikiLeaks founder could be charged under Espionage Act,weblink 5 December 2010, The Washington Post, 30 November 2010, Several Supreme Court cases (e.g. Bartnicki v. Vopper) have established previously that the American Constitution protects the re-publication of illegally gained information provided the publishers did not themselves violate any laws in acquiring it.NEWS,weblink 6 December 2010, 26 July 2010, Pentagon Papers II? On WikiLeaks and the First Amendment, The Wall Street Journal (blog), Jones, Ashby,weblink 11 May 2013, no, Federal prosecutors have also considered prosecuting Assange for trafficking in stolen government property, but since the diplomatic cables are intellectual rather than physical property, that method is also difficult.NEWS, Savage, Charlie, U.S. Prosecutors Study WikiLeaks Prosecution,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101210180542weblink">weblink yes, 10 December 2010, 9 December 2010, The New York Times, 7 December 2010, Any prosecution of Assange would require extraditing him to the United States, a procedure made more complicated and potentially delayed by any preceding extradition to Sweden.NEWS, Anthony, Faiola, Jerry, Markon, WikiLeaks founder's arrest in Britain complicates efforts to extradite him,weblink 9 December 2010, 7 December 2010, The Washington Post, One of Assange's lawyers, however, says they are fighting extradition to Sweden because it might result in his extradition to the United States.NEWS,weblink Julian Assange's lawyers say they are being watched, Sam, Jones, The Guardian, London, 5 December 2010, 5 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110716001520weblink">weblink 16 July 2011, no, Assange's attorney, Mark Stephens, has "heard from Swedish authorities there has been a secretly empanelled grand jury in Alexandria, [Virginia]" meeting to consider criminal charges for the WikiLeaks case.NEWS, Assange attorney: Secret grand jury meeting in Virginia on WikiLeaks,weblink 13 December 2010, CNN, 13 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101223042726weblink">weblink 23 December 2010, no, In Australia, the government and the Australian Federal Police have not stated what Australian laws may have been violated by WikiLeaks, but then Prime Minister Julia Gillard has stated that the foundation of WikiLeaks and the stealing of classified documents from the United States administration is illegal in foreign countries.INTERVIEW, Gillard refines verdict on Assange, Julia, Gillard, 7 December 2010,weblink Lyndal Curtis, The World Today (Australian radio program), The World Today, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Radio (Australia), 12 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209143804weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, Gillard later clarified her statement as referring to "the original theft of the material by a junior U.S. serviceman rather than any action by Mr Assange."NEWS, Patricia, Karvelas, Party revolt growing over Prime Minister Julia Gillard's WikiLeaks stance, The Australian, Sydney, 14 December 2010,weblink 14 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130731185654weblink">weblink 31 July 2013, no, Spencer Zifcak, president of Liberty Victoria, an Australian civil liberties group, notes that without a charge or a trial completed, it is inappropriate to state that WikiLeaks is guilty of illegal activities.INTERVIEW, Robinson, Jennifer, Zifcak, Spencer, Saul, Ben, Law experts say WikiLeaks in the clear, There is no charge and there has been no trial and even given all of those things the Prime Minister had the confidence to say that Mr Assange was guilty of illegality. Now that seems to me to be completely inappropriate., Simon Lauder, The World Today (Australian radio program), The World Today, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Radio (Australia),weblink 7 December 2010, 12 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209143152weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, On threats by various governments towards Julian Assange, legal expert Ben Saul argues that Assange is the target of a global smear campaign to demonise him as a criminal or as a terrorist, without any legal basis.{{harvnb|Lauder|2010}}: statement by Dr Ben Saul, director of the Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney.WEB,weblink ABC News, Law experts say WikiLeaks in the clear, 7 December 2010, Lauder,weblink" title="archive.today/20120802042857weblink">weblink 2 August 2012, The US Center for Constitutional Rights has issued a statement emphasising its alarm at the "multiple examples of legal overreach and irregularities" in his arrest.WEB,weblink Statement on Arrest of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, 7 December 2010, 21 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140228040337weblink">weblink 28 February 2014, no,
Use of leaked documents in courtIn a UK Supreme Court judgement given on 8 February 2018, the court unanimously decided that a document leaked through WikiLeaks "could be admitted into evidence".WEB,weblink R (on the application of Bancoult No 3) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Respondent), United Kingdom Supreme Court, 8 February 2018, 11 September 2018, WEB,weblink Supreme Court considers important test of Vienna Convention in relation to Wikileaks documents, Brick Court Chambers, 12 February 2018, 11 September 2018, The appeal that led to this ruling centred on a US government cable provided by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks. The Chagos islanders argued that the document showed the UK's motive for setting up a marine park on their territory was improper, but it had been excluded from proceedings earlier in the case.WEB,weblink Leaked US documents can be used as evidence, rules UK Supreme Court, Russia Today, 9 February 2018, 11 September 2018, In an "important test of Vienna Convention in relation to Wikileaks documents", The Court ruled that "the cable should have been admitted into evidence before the Administrative Court", addressing the main issue. During this decision, the leaked document was said to not meet the criteria necessary to help the Chagos Refugee Group recover their homeland.
FinancingWikiLeaks is a self-described not-for-profit organisation, funded largely by volunteers, and is dependent on public donations. Its main financing methods include conventional bank transfers and online payment systems. According to Assange, WikiLeaks' lawyers often work pro bono. Assange has said that in some cases legal aid has been donated by media organisations such as the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Assange said in 2010 that WikiLeaks' only revenue consists of donations, but it has considered other options including auctioning early access to documents. During September 2011, WikiLeaks began auctioning items on eBay to raise funds, and Assange told an audience at Sydney's Festival of Dangerous Ideas that the organisation might not be able to survive.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}{{Update after|2019|4|13}}On 24 December 2009, WikiLeaks announced that it was experiencing a shortage of funds{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} and suspended all access to its website except for a form to submit new material. Material that was previously published was no longer available, although some could still be accessed on unofficial mirror websites at the time.WEB, WikiLeaks â Mirrors,weblink WikiLeaks, 18 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101207060201weblink">weblink 7 December 2010, yes, WikiLeaks stated on its website that it would resume full operation once the operational costs were paid.NEWS, Butselaar, Emily,weblink Dig deep for WikiLeaks, The Guardian, 29 January 2010, 30 January 2010, London,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827012108weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, WikiLeaks saw this as a kind of work stoppage "to ensure that everyone who is involved stops normal work and actually spends time raising revenue".NEWS, Leak-o-nomy: The Economy of Wikileaks (Interview with Julian Assange), Mey, Stefan,weblink 19 December 2010, Medien-Ãkonomie-Blog, 4 January 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101213110334weblink">weblink 13 December 2010, yes, While the organisation initially planned for funds to be secured by 6 January 2010,{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} it was not until 3 February 2010 that WikiLeaks announced that its minimum fundraising goal had been achieved.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}The Wau Holland Foundation helps to process donations to WikiLeaks. In July 2010, the Foundation stated that WikiLeaks was not receiving any money for personnel costs, only for hardware, travelling and bandwidth.NEWS,weblink Wau Holland Foundation sheds light on WikiLeaks donations â Hardware, ISP, travelling costs, TechEye.net, 13 July 2010, 1 August 2010, Daly, John W.,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110727011201weblink">weblink 27 July 2011, yes, An article in TechEye stated:
to WikiLeaks' personnel, corroborating the statement of the site's former German representative Daniel Schmitt [real name Daniel Domscheit-Berg] on national television that all personnel works voluntarily, even its speakers.}}However, in December 2010. the Wau Holland Foundation stated that 4 permanent employees, including Julian Assange, had begun to receive salaries.NEWS,weblink The Local, Berlin, Wikileaks donations still flowing, but not to Assange legal fund, 23 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131002143644weblink">weblink 2 October 2013, yes, In 2010, Assange said the organisation was registered as a library in Australia, a foundation in France, and a newspaper in Sweden, and that it also used two United States-based non-profit 501c3 organisations for funding purposes.WEB,weblink How WikiLeaks Keeps Its Funding Secret, 23 August 2015, 3 February 2015, On 22 January 2010, the Internet payment intermediary PayPal suspended WikiLeaks' donation account and froze its assets. WikiLeaks said that this had happened before, and was done for "no obvious reason".{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} The account was restored on 25 January 2010.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} On 18 May 2010, WikiLeaks announced that its website and archive were operational again.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}In 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, but did not make the final approval.NEWS, Cohen, Noam,weblink Knight Foundation Hands Out Grants to 12 Groups, but Not WikiLeaks, Media Decoder Blog, 17 June 2010, 1 August 2010, WikiLeaks commented via Twitter: "WikiLeaks was highest rated project in the Knight challenge, strongly recommended to the board but gets no funding. Go figure."NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks questions why it was rejected for Knight grant, Cook, John, 17 June 2010, Yahoo! News, 19 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110514045824weblink">weblink 14 May 2011, yes, WikiLeaks said that the Knight foundation announced the award to "'12 Grantees who will impact future of news' â but not WikiLeaks" and questioned whether Knight foundation was "really looking for impact". A spokesman of the Knight Foundation disputed parts of WikiLeaks' statement, saying "WikiLeaks was not recommended by Knight staff to the board." 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 websites.During 2010, WikiLeaks received â¬635,772.73 in PayPal donations, less â¬30,000 in PayPal fees, and â¬695,925.46 in bank transfers. â¬500,988.89 of the sum was received in the month of December, primarily as bank transfers as PayPal suspended payments on 4 December. â¬298,057.38 of the remainder was received in April.WEB,weblink "Project 04: Enduring freedom of information" Preliminary transparency report 2010, Wau-Holland-Stiftung (WHS) via Cryptome, 26 April 2011, The Wau Holland Foundation, one of the WikiLeaks' main funding channels, stated that they received more than â¬900,000 in public donations between October 2009 and December 2010, of which â¬370,000 has been passed on to WikiLeaks. Hendrik Fulda, vice-president of the Wau Holland Foundation, mentioned that the Foundation had been receiving twice as many donations through PayPal as through normal banks, before PayPal's decision to suspend WikiLeaks' account. He also noted that every new WikiLeaks publication brought "a wave of support", and that donations were strongest in the weeks after WikiLeaks started publishing leaked diplomatic cables.NEWS, Donations Were Never as Strong as Now, Spiegel International, Hamburg, 13 December 2010,weblink 15 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110715205752weblink">weblink 15 July 2011, no, NEWS, Financing WikiLeaks, Scott, Horton, Harper's Magazine, New York, 6 August 2010,weblink 15 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121019211817weblink">weblink 19 October 2012, no, The Icelandic judiciary decided that Valitor (a company related to Visa and MasterCard) was violating the law when it prevented donation to the site by credit card. A justice ruled that the donations will be allowed to return to the site after 14 days or they would be fined in the amount of US$6,000 a day.NEWS, Zetter, Kim,weblink WikiLeaks Wins Icelandic Court Battle Against Visa for Blocking Donations | Threat Level, Wired, 12 July 2012, 19 November 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130702005703weblink">weblink 2 July 2013, no,
2006â08WikiLeaks posted its first document in December 2006, a decision to assassinate government officials signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. In August 2007, the UK newspaper The Guardian published a story about corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi based on information provided via WikiLeaks.NEWS, The looting of Kenya,weblink The Guardian, 31 August 2007, 28 February 2008, London, Xan, Rice,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080131213722weblink">weblink 31 January 2008, no, In November 2007, a March 2003 copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta detailing the protocol of the US Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was released.NEWS,weblink Sensitive Guantánamo Bay Manual Leaked Through Wiki Site, Wired, New York, 14 November 2007, Singel, Ryan,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140210123003weblink">weblink 10 February 2014, yes, {{citation |url=https://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Camp_Delta_Standard_Operating_Procedure |title=Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160430004411weblink |archive-date=30 April 2016 |access-date=15 May 2016 |dead-url=no}} The document revealed that some prisoners were off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, something that the US military had in the past denied repeatedly.NEWS, Guantanamo operating manual posted on Internet, 15 November 2007,weblink Reuters, 15 November 2007,weblink 22 December 2008, no, In February 2008, WikiLeaks released allegations of illegal activities at the Cayman Islands branch of the Swiss Bank Julius Baer, which resulted in the bank suing WikiLeaks and obtaining an injunction which temporarily suspended the operation of wikileaks.org.PRESS RELEASE, Wikileaks.org under injunction,weblinkweblink 6 March 2008, WikiLeaks, 18 February 2008, 28 February 2008, The California judge had the service provider of WikiLeaks block the site's domain (wikileaks.org) on 18 February 2008, although the bank only wanted the documents to be removed but WikiLeaks had failed to name a contact. The website was instantly mirrored by supporters, and later that month the judge overturned his previous decision citing First Amendment concerns and questions about legal jurisdiction.NEWS,weblink Judge reverses Wikileaks injunction, The Inquirer, London, 2 March 2008, Orion, Egan, 23 September 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209125421weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, NEWS, Gollner, Philipp, Reuters,weblink Judge reverses ruling in Julius Baer leak case, 29 February 2008, 1 March 2008,weblink 10 December 2010, no, In March 2008, WikiLeaks published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology", and three days later received letters threatening to sue them for breach of copyright.NEWS,weblink Scientology threatens Wikileaks with injunction, The Register, London, 8 April 2008, 7 December 2010,weblink 15 February 2014, no, 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 a group known as Anonymous.NEWS,weblink Threat Level (Wired (magazine), Wired blog), Zetter, Kim, 17 September 2008, Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Palin Account â Update,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20090403071526weblink">weblink 3 April 2009, no, {{citation |url=https://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_account_2008 |title=Sarah Palin Yahoo account 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160329143446weblink |archive-date=29 March 2016 |access-date=15 May 2016 |dead-url=no}} In November 2008, the membership list of the far-right British National Party was posted to WikiLeaks, after appearing briefly on a weblog.NEWS,weblink 'BNP membership' officer sacked, BBC News, 23 March 2009, 21 March 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20090326060319weblink">weblink 26 March 2009, no, A year later, in October 2009, another list of BNP members was leaked.NEWS,weblink BNP membership list leaked, The Guardian, 20 October 2009, London, Robert, Booth, 20 October 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130130044736weblink">weblink 30 January 2013, no,
2009In January 2009, WikiLeaks released 86 telephone intercept recordings of Peruvian politicians and businessmen involved in the 2008 Peru oil scandal.NEWS,weblink Aparecen 86 nuevos petroaudios de Rómulo León, Terra Peru, Spanish, Lima, 28 January 2009, 8 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131017060119weblink">weblink 17 October 2013, no, During February, WikiLeaks released 6,780 Congressional Research Service reportsNEWS,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110122022922weblink">weblink yes, 22 January 2011, Thousands of Congressional Reports Now Available Online, Krebs, Brian, The Washington Post, 11 February 2009, 7 December 2010, followed in March by a list of contributors to the Norm Coleman senatorial campaignNEWS,weblink Coleman Senate campaign in donor data leak mess, CNET News, Mills, Elinor, 12 March 2009, 7 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131016213753weblink">weblink 16 October 2013, no, WEB,weblink The Big Bad Database of Senator Norm Coleman, Mirror.wikileaks.info, 11 March 2009, 17 December 2010,weblink 19 April 2014, yes, and a set of documents belonging to Barclays Bank that had been ordered removed from the website of The Guardian.NEWS,weblink Read all about it, The Guardian, London, Luft, Oliver, 6 July 2009, 7 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827011115weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, In July, it released a report relating to a serious nuclear accident that had occurred at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility in 2009.WEB,weblink Serious nuclear accident may lay behind Iranian nuke chief's mystery resignation, WikiLeaks, 16 July 2009, 16 October 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101203160534weblink">weblink's_mystery_resignation/, 3 December 2010, yes, Later media reports have suggested that the accident was related to the Stuxnet computer worm.WEB,weblink 6 mysteries about Stuxnet, Hounshell, Blake, Passport (blog), Foreign Policy, Washington DC, 27 September 2010, 28 September 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209181744weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, WEB, Woodward, Paul,weblink Iran confirms Stuxnet found at Bushehr nuclear power plant, Warincontext.org, 22 February 1999, 28 September 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209162332weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, In September, internal documents from Kaupthing Bank were leaked, from shortly before the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which caused the 2008â2012 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.WEB, Miklar hreyfingar rétt fyrir hrun, Large movements just before crash,weblink 31 July 2009, RÃV, RÃkisútvarpið (RÃV), Reykjavik, Icelandic, 22 September 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110809051437weblink">weblink 9 August 2011, yes, In October, Joint Services Protocol 440, a British document advising the security services on how to avoid documents being leaked, was published by WikiLeaks.NEWS, Tom, Chivers,weblink MoD 'how to stop leaks' document is leaked, The Daily Telegraph, London, 5 October 2009, 6 October 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110107215301weblink">weblink 7 January 2011, no, Later that month, it announced that a super-injunction was being used by the commodities company Trafigura to stop The Guardian (London) from reporting on a leaked internal document regarding a toxic dumping incident in Côte d'Ivoire.NEWS,weblink Margaronis, Maria, A gag too far, Index on Censorship, October 2009, 14 October 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209090937weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, WEB, Minton report secret injunction gagging The Guardian on Trafigura, WikiLeaks,weblink 15 October 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100830063054weblink">weblink 30 August 2010, yes, In November, it hosted copies of e-mail correspondence between climate scientists, although they were not leaked originally to WikiLeaks.NEWS, WikiLeaks.org aims to expose lies, topple governments, 29 November 2009, New York Post,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827011942weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, yes, NEWS, Were Russian security services behind the leak of 'Climategate' emails?,weblink Daily Mail, London, Stewart, Will, Delgado, Martin, 6 December 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110721212058weblink">weblink 21 July 2011, no, It also released 570,000 intercepts of pager messages sent on the day of the 11 September attacks.NEWS,weblink Egads! Confidential 9/11 Pager Messages Disclosed;November 2009, CBS News,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110502094524weblink">weblink 2 May 2011, 25 November 2009, 15 May 2016, Declan, McCullagh, no, NEWS,weblink 9/11 re-enacted: Wikileaks publishes September 11 pager messages, The Guardian,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130908081324weblink">weblink 8 September 2013, 15 May 2016, no, {{citation |url=https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Egads!_Confidential_9/11_Pager_Messages_Disclosed |title=Egads! Confidential 9/11 Pager Messages Disclosed |publisher=WikiLeaks |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091128081304weblink |archive-date=28 November 2009 |access-date=15 May 2016 |dead-url=no |df=}} During 2008 and 2009, WikiLeaks published the alleged lists of forbidden or illegal web addresses for Australia, Denmark and Thailand. These were originally created to prevent access to child pornography and terrorism, but the leaks revealed that other sites featuring unrelated subjects were also listed.NEWS,weblink Aussie firewall blocks Wikileaks, The Register, London, Oates, John, 18 March 2009, 17 December 2010,weblink 16 October 2013, no, NEWS,weblink Leaked Australian blacklist reveals banned sites, Moses, Asher, 19 March 2009, 19 March 2009, The Sydney Morning Herald,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131008013359weblink">weblink 8 October 2013, no, WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080116070133weblink">weblink 16 January 2008, Internet Censorship in Thailand, wikileaks.org, 17 June 2010,
2010File:2007-07-12 sun measurement.png|thumb|Gun camera footage of the airstrike of 12 July 2007 in Baghdad, showing the slaying of Namir Noor-EldeenNamir Noor-EldeenIn mid-February 2010, WikiLeaks received a leaked diplomatic cable from the United States Embassy in Reykjavik relating to the Icesave scandal, which they published on 18 February.WEB,weblink Classified cable from US Embassy Reykjavik on Icesave, 13 Jan 2010,weblink 8 July 2011, no, . WikiLeaks. Retrieved 22 November 2011. The cable, known as Reykjavik 13, was the first of the classified documents WikiLeaks published among those allegedly provided to them by United States Army Private Chelsea Manning (then known as Bradley). In March 2010, WikiLeaks released a secret 32-page US Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report written in March 2008 discussing the leaking of material by WikiLeaks and how it could be deterred.WEB,weblink U.S. Army worried about Wikileaks in secret report, Mccullagh, Declan, CNET News, 15 March 2010, 15 March 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131012034413weblink">weblink 12 October 2013, no, WEB,weblink U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120327022511weblink">weblink 27 March 2012, WikiLeaks, 15 March 2010, yes, Stephanie Strom, NEWS,weblink Pentagon Sees a Threat From Online Muckrakers, The New York Times, Stephanie, Strom, 17 March 2010, , New York Times, 17 March 2010. In April, a classified video of the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike was released, showing two Reuters employees being fired at, after the pilots mistakenly thought the men were carrying weapons, which were in fact cameras.NEWS, Video Shows U.S. Killing of Reuters Employees,weblink 6 April 2009, The New York Times, Bumiller, Elisabeth, Stelter, Brian, 7 April 2010, After the mistaken killing, the video shows US forces firing on a family van that stopped to pick up the bodies.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks: War, Lies, and Videotape (2011 movie), France, 12 September 2011, Production Co: Premières Lignes Télévision,weblink 12 December 2014, In the week after the release, "wikileaks" was the search term with the most significant growth worldwide during the last seven days as measured by Google Insights.NEWS,weblink Current Google Insights trends: Wikileaks posts classified military video, Masters, The Independent, London, 12 April 2010, Relaxnews,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827012515weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, yes, In June 2010, Manning was arrested after alleged chat logs were given to United States authorities by former hacker Adrian Lamo, in whom she had confided. Manning reportedly told Lamo she had leaked the "Collateral Murder" video, in addition to a video of the Granai airstrike and about 260,000 diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks.NEWS,weblink Kevin Poulsen, Kevin, Poulsen, Kim Zetter, Kim, Zetter, U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe, Wired, New York, 6 June 2010, 15 June 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131027125007weblink">weblink 27 October 2013, no, In July, WikiLeaks released 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009 to the publications The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel. The documents detail individual incidents including "friendly fire" and civilian casualties.NEWS, Afghanistan war logs: the unvarnished picture, The Guardian, 26 July 2010,weblink 26 July 2010, London,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110728043710weblink">weblink 28 July 2011, no, About 15,000 of the 92,000 documents have not yet been released by WikiLeaks, as the group is currently reviewing the documents to remove some of the sources of the information.{{Update after|2019|4|13}} WikiLeaks asked the Pentagon and human-rights groups to help remove names from the documents to reduce the potential harm caused by their release, but did not receive assistance.NEWS, Pentagon Slams WikiLeaks' Plan to Post More War Logs,weblink 13 August 2010, The Wall Street Journal, 12 August 2010, Barnes, Julian E., Whalen, Jeanne, New York,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131015111311weblink">weblink 15 October 2013, no, After the Love Parade stampede in Duisburg, Germany, on 24 July 2010, a local resident published internal documents of the city administration regarding the planning of Love Parade. The city government reacted by securing a court order on 16 August forcing the removal of the documents from the website on which it was hosted.NEWS, Konrad, Lischka,weblink Einstweilige Verfügung â Duisburg verbietet Blogger-Veröffentlichung zur Love Parade, German, Der Spiegel, 18 August 2010, Hamburg,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101224220127weblink">weblink 24 December 2010, no, On 20 August 2010, WikiLeaks released a publication entitled Loveparade 2010 Duisburg planning documents, 2007â2010, which consisted of 43 internal documents regarding the Love Parade 2010.WEB, Loveparade 2010 Duisburg planning documents, 2007â2010,weblink Mirror.wikileaks.info, 20 August 2010, 17 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101217182117weblink">weblink 17 December 2010, yes, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks releases documents on Love Parade tragedy, news.com.au Technology, 21 August 2010, NewsCore, Sydney,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131012015126weblink">weblink 12 October 2013, no, After the leak of information concerning the Afghan War, in October 2010, around 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War were released. The BBC quoted the US Department of Defense referring to the Iraq War Logs as "the largest leak of classified documents in its history". Media coverage of the leaked documents emphasised claims that the US government had ignored reports of torture by the Iraqi authorities during the period after the 2003 war.NEWS, Huge Wikileaks release shows US 'ignored Iraq torture', BBC News, 23 October 2010,weblink 23 October 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110720082422weblink">weblink 20 July 2011, no, On 29 July 2010 WikiLeaks added an "Insurance file" to the Afghan War Diary page. The file is AES encrypted.WEB,weblink Afghan War Diary, 2004â2010, WikiLeaks,weblink 23 July 2011, no, 28 February 2012, {{citation needed|date=October 2017}} There has been speculation that it was intended to serve as insurance in case the WikiLeaks website or its spokesman Julian Assange are incapacitated, upon which the passphrase could be published.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious 'Insurance' File, Zetter, Kim, 30 July 2010, Wired, 11 October 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121004083509weblink">weblink 4 October 2012, no, New York, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks website disconnected as US company withdraws support, Ward, Victoria, 3 December 2010, The Daily Telegraph, 3 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101204064107weblink">weblink 4 December 2010, no, London, After the first few days' release of the US diplomatic cables starting 28 November 2010, the US television broadcasting company CBS predicted that "If anything happens to Assange or the website, a key will go out to unlock the files. There would then be no way to stop the information from spreading like wildfire because so many people already have copies."NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Backup Plan Could Drop Diplomatic Bomb, Palmer, Elizabeth, 2 December 2010, CBS News, 3 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101203205140weblink">weblink 3 December 2010, no, CBS correspondent Declan McCullagh stated, "What most folks are speculating is that the insurance file contains unreleased information that would be especially embarrassing to the US government if it were released."
Diplomatic cables releaseOn 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers from Spain (El PaÃs), France (Le Monde), Germany (Der Spiegel), the United Kingdom (The Guardian), and the United States (The New York Times) started simultaneously to publish the first 220 of 251,287 leaked documents labelled confidential â but not top-secret â and dated from 28 December 1966 to 28 February 2010.NEWS, Shane, Scott, Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy,weblink 19 December 2010, The New York Times, 28 November 2010, Lehren, Andrew W., NEWS, Suarez, Kris Danielle,weblink 1,796 Memos from US Embassy in Manila in WikiLeaks 'Cablegate', ABS-CBN News, 30 November 2010, 19 December 2010, Manila,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120927221008weblink">weblink 27 September 2012, yes, WikiLeaks planned to release the entirety of the cables in phases over several months.{{update inline|date=October 2016}}File:Wikileaks protest Madrid 11th December 2.jpg|thumb|WikiLeaks supporters protest in front of the British Embassy in Madrid, 11 December 2010]]The contents of the diplomatic cables include numerous unguarded comments and revelations regarding: critiques and praises about the host countries of various United States embassies; political manoeuvring regarding climate change; discussion and resolutions towards ending ongoing tension in the Middle East; efforts and resistance towards nuclear disarmament; actions in the War on Terror; assessments of other threats around the world; dealings between various countries; United States intelligence and counterintelligence efforts; and other diplomatic actions. Reactions to the United States diplomatic cables leak varied. On 14 December 2010 the United States Department of Justice issued a subpoena directing Twitter to provide information for accounts registered to or associated with WikiLeaks.WEB,weblink Twitter Subpoena, Salon, 10 January 2011, Twitter decided to notify its users.NEWS,weblink Icelandic MP fights US demand for her Twitter account details, The Guardian, London, Rushe, Dominic, 8 January 2011, 10 January 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110725200602weblink">weblink 25 July 2011, no, The overthrow of the presidency in Tunisia of 2011 has been attributed partly to reaction against the corruption revealed by leaked cables.NEWS,weblink Tunisia's youth finally has revolution on its mind, 'Comment is Free' blog (The Guardian), "Sam", 13 January 2011, 20 January 2011, London,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130126223120weblink">weblink 26 January 2013, no, NEWS,weblink 'First Wikileaks Revolution': Tunisia descends into anarchy as president flees after cables reveal country's corruption, Daily Mail, 15 January 2011, 20 January 2011, London, NEWS,weblink The First WikiLeaks Revolution?, Dickinson, Elizabeth, 13 January 2011, Foreign Policy, Washington DC, 20 January 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209174447weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, yes, On 1 September 2011, it became public that an encrypted version of WikiLeaks' huge archive of un-redacted US State Department cables had been available via BitTorrent for months and that the decryption key (similar to a password) was available to those who knew where to find it.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks prepares to release unredacted US cables Media guardian.co.uk, London, The Guardian, James, Ball, 1 September 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130212090525weblink">weblink 12 February 2013, no, . Guardian. Retrieved 5 September 2011.WEB,weblink Leak at WikiLeaks: A Dispatch Disaster in Six Acts â SPIEGEL ONLINE â News â International,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20111104230036weblink">weblink 4 November 2011, no, . Spiegel.de. Retrieved 5 September 2011. Guardian newspaper editor David Leigh published the decryption key in his book, (WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy), so the files were now publicly available to anyone. Rather than let malicious actors publish selected data, WikiLeaks decided to publish the entire, unredacted archive in searchable form on its website.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}
2011â2015In late April 2011, files related to the Guantanamo prison were released.WEB,weblink The Guantanamo Files, WikiLeaks, 2 December 2011,weblink 26 March 2014, no, In December 2011, WikiLeaks started to release the Spy Files.WEB,weblink The Spy Files, WikiLeaks, 2 December 2011,weblink 26 March 2014, no, On 27 February 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor.WEB,weblink The Global Intelligence Files, WikiLeaks, 28 February 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121110190753weblink">weblink 10 November 2012, no, On 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files (emails from Syrian political figures 2006â2012).WEB,weblink Syria Files, WikiLeaks, 5 July 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120705131002weblink">weblink 5 July 2012, no, On 25 October 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Detainee Policies, files covering the rules and procedures for detainees in US military custody.WEB,weblink Press Release: The Detainee Policies, Wikileaks.org, 25 October 2012, 19 November 2012,weblink 7 April 2014, no, In April 2013 WikiLeaks published more than 1.7 million US diplomatic and intelligence documents from the 1970s, including the Kissinger cables.NEWS, WikiLeaks to release US diplomatic and intelligence documents from 1970s,weblink news.com.au, 8 April 2013, 8 April 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130408092632weblink">weblink 8 April 2013, no, File:Secret Laws,placard in front of Ecuador embassy.jpg|thumb|Placard in front of Embassy of Ecuador, London, 22 August 2012]]In 2013, the organisation assisted Edward Snowden (who is responsible for the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures) in leaving Hong Kong. Sarah Harrison, a WikiLeaks activist, accompanied Snowden on the flight. Scott Shane of The New York Times stated that the WikiLeaks involvement "shows that despite its shoestring staff, limited fund-raising from a boycott by major financial firms, and defections prompted by Mr. Assange's personal troubles and abrasive style, it remains a force to be reckoned with on the global stage."Shane, Scott. "Offering Snowden Aid, WikiLeaks Gets Back in the Game." The New York Times. 23 June 2013. Retrieved 25 June 2013. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130624143236weblink|date=24 June 2013}}In September 2013, WikiLeaks published "Spy Files 3", 250 documents from more than 90 surveillance companies.WEB,weblink Wikileaks overvÃ¥ket 20 overvÃ¥kningssjefer, DN.no, Dn.no,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131010012941weblink">weblink 10 October 2013, no, 2 March 2014, On 13 November 2013, a draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership's Intellectual Property Rights chapter was published by WikiLeaks.WEB,weblink WikiLeaks publishes secret draft chapter of Trans-Pacific Partnership, Steven, Musil, The Guardian (UK), 12 November 2013, 15 November 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209164317weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, WEB,weblink Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), Wikileaks, 13 November 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131113130522weblink">weblink 13 November 2013, no, On 10 June 2015, WikiLeaks published the draft on the Trans-Pacific Partnership's Transparency for Healthcare Annex, along with each country's negotiating position.Sydney Morning Herald: Medicines to cost more and healthcare will suffer, according to Wikileaks documents, 10 June 2015 On 19 June 2015 WikiLeaks began publishing The Saudi Cables: more than half a million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry that contain secret communications from various Saudi Embassies around the world.WEB,weblink The Saudi Cables, wikileaks.org, On 23 June 2015, WikiLeaks published documents under the name of "Espionnage Ãlysée", which showed that NSA spied on the French government, including but not limited to then President Francois Hollande and his predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac.Liberation.fr: WikiLeaks â Chirac, Sarkozy et Hollande : trois présidents sur écoute (French), 23 June 2015 On 29 June 2015, WikiLeaks published more NSA top secrets intercepts regarding France, detailing an economic espionage against French companies and associations.Spiegel.de: Wikileaks-Enthüllung, NSA soll auch französische Wirtschaft bespizelt haben (German), June 2015 In July 2015, WikiLeaks published documents which showed that the NSA had tapped the telephones of many German federal ministries, including that of the Chancellor Angela Merkel, for years since the 1990s.WEB,weblink Wikileaks: Und täglich grüÃt die NSA, kwi, 9 July 2015, handelsblatt.com, On 4 July 2015, WikiLeaks published documents which showed that 29 Brazilian government numbers were selected for secret espionage by the NSA. Among the targets were then-President Dilma Rousseff, many assistants and advisors, her presidential jet and other key figures in the Brazilian government.The Intercept: NSA'S Top Brazilian Political and Financial Targets Revealed by Wikileaks Disclosure (English), 4 July 2015File:Londres, Reunión con Julian Assange (9504697280).jpg|thumb|WikiLeaks supporters protest in front of the Ecuadorian embassy in London]]On 29 July 2015, WikiLeaks published a top secret letter from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Ministerial Meeting in December 2013 which illustrated the position of negotiating countries on "state-owned enterprises" (SOEs).Sueddeutsche.de: Kommerz statt Sozialstaat (German), 29 July 2015 On 31 July 2015, WikiLeaks published secret intercepts and the related target list showing that the NSA spied on the Japanese government, including the Cabinet and Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi and Mitsui. The documents revealed that United States espionage against Japan concerned broad sections of communications about the US-Japan diplomatic relationship and Japan's position on climate change issues, other than an extensive monitoring of the Japanese economy.The Saturday Paper: Exclusive: US bugs Japan on trade and climate (English), 31 July 2015 On 21 October 2015 WikiLeaks published some of John O. Brennan's emails, including a draft security clearance application which contained personal information.NEWS,weblink Wikileaks claims release of CIA boss John Brennan's emails, BBC News, 21 October 2015, 21 October 2015,
2016On 4 July 2016, WikiLeaks tweeted a link to a trove of emails sent or received by then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and released under the Freedom of Information Act.NEWS, Carissimo, Justin, WikiLeaks publishes more than 1,000 Hillary Clinton war emails,weblink 5 July 2016, The Independent (UK), 4 July 2016, The link contained 1258 emails sent from Clinton's personal mail server which were selected in terms of their relevance to the Iraq War and were apparently timed to precede the release of the UK government's Iraq Inquiry report.NEWS, Devaney, Tim, Wikileaks publishes Clinton war emails,weblink 5 July 2016, The Hill, 4 July 2016, On 19 July 2016, in response to the Turkish government's purges that followed the coup attempt,WEB, Can, Sezer, David, Dolan, Raissa, Kasolowsky, Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after ruling party email dump, 20 July 2016,weblink 21 July 2016,weblink 21 July 2016, no, WikiLeaks released 294,548 emails from Turkey's ruling Justice and Development party (AKP).NEWS,weblink Here's what's in the Wikileaks emails that Erdogan tried to ban, Yeung, Peter, 20 July 2016, The Independent, 25 July 2016, According to WikiLeaks, the material, which they claim to be the first batch from the "AKP Emails", was obtained a week before the attempted coup in the country and "is not connected, in any way, to the elements behind the attempted coup, or to a rival political party or state".WEB,weblinkweblink 22 July 2016, no, WikiLeaks â Search the AKP email database, wikileaks.org, 25 July 2016, After WikiLeaks announced that they would release the emails, the organisation was for over 24 hours under a "sustained attack".{{citation needed|date=October 2017}} Following the leak, the Turkish government ordered the site to be blocked nationwide.WEB,weblink Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after ErdoÄan party emails go online, Shaheen, Kareem, 20 July 2016, The Guardian, 25 July 2016, NEWS,weblink Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after release of 300,000 secret government emails, 20 July 2016, The Independent, 25 July 2016, NEWS,weblink Access to Wikileaks Blocked in Turkey as It Releases Emails, The Associated Press, 20 July 2016, The New York Times, 0362-4331, 25 July 2016, NEWS,weblink Turkey blocks access to WikiLeaks after ruling party email dump, 20 July 2016, Reuters, 25 July 2016, WikiLeaks had also tweeted a link to a database which contained sensitive information, such as the Turkish Identification Number, of approximately 50 million Turkish citizens, including nearly every female voter in Turkey.NEWS, Tufekci, Zeynep, WikiLeaks put Women in Turkey in Danger, for No Reason,weblink 3 December 2016, The World Post, 25 July 2016, The information first appeared online in April of the same year and was not in the files uploaded by WikiLeaks,NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks criticised for tweeting link to leaked database of millions of Turkish women, Murdock, Jason, 26 July 2016, International Business Times UK, 12 March 2017, but in files archived by Michael Best, who then removed it when the personal data was discovered.WEB, Best, Michael,weblinkweblinkglomardisclosure.com/2016/07/26/the%2Dwho%2Dand%2Dhow%2Dof%2Dthe%2Dakp%2Dhack%2Ddump%2Dand%2Dwikileaks%2Drelease/, yes, 1 September 2016, The Who and How of the AKP Hack, Dump and WikiLeaks Release, Glomar Disclosure, 26 July 2016, 30 July 2016, WEB, https:motherboard.vice.com/read/what-went-wrong-with-the-turkey-data-dump, How 'Kind of Everything Went Wrong' With the Turkey Data Dump, 28 July 2016, 30 July 2016, WEB,weblinkweblink yes, 10 August 2016, What a Hit Piece Against WikiLeaks Looks Like, 8 August 2016, Glomar Disclosure, 12 March 2017, On 22 July 2016, WikiLeaks released approximately 20,000 emails and 8,000 files sent from or received by Democratic National Committee (DNC) personnel.WEB,weblink Wikileaks Releases Nearly 20,000 Hacked DNC Emails, The Daily Caller, 22 July 2016, {{Better source|reason= Daily Caller is a deprecated source.|date=April 2019}} Some of the emails contained personal information of donors, including home addresses and Social Security numbers.NEWS, McCarthy, Kieran, WikiLeaks fights The Man by, er, publishing ordinary people's personal information,weblink The Register, 22 July 2016, 22 July 2016, Other emails appeared to criticise Bernie Sanders or showed favouritism towards Clinton during the primaries.NEWS, CNN, Theodore Schleifer and Eugene Scott, DNC treatment of Sanders at issue in emails leaked to Wikileaks,weblink 24 July 2016, CNN, 24 July 2016, NEWS, Peters, Maquita, Leaked Democratic Party Emails Show Members Tried To Undercut Sanders,weblink 24 July 2016, 23 July 2016, In July 2016, Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned her position as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee as a result of the evidence that the Democratic National Committee was "effectively an arm of Mrs. Clintonâs campaign" and had conspired to sabotage Bernie Sander's campaign.NEWS, Martin, Jonathan, Rappeport, Alan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Resign D.N.C. Post,weblink 19 April 2019, New York Times, 24 July 2016, On 7 October 2016, WikiLeaks started releasing series of emails and documents sent from or received by Hillary Clinton campaign manager, John Podesta, including Hillary Clinton's paid speeches to banks.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks pumps out Clinton emails, Bo Williams, Katie, 12 October 2016, Hattem, Julian, The Hill (newspaper), The Hill, 16 October 2016, NEWS,weblink Wikileaks' Podesta Email Release Reveals Massive Clinton 'Hits' File on Sanders, Derespina, Cody, 10 October 2016, Fox News Channel, 16 October 2016, WEB,weblink Hillary often lies, Chelsea a spoiled brat, Rosenberg, David, 11 October 2016, Arutz Sheva, 16 October 2016, WEB,weblink WikiLeaks: Julian Assange's Internet access 'cut', 18 October 2016, 25 October 2016, BBC, According to a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, "By dribbling these out every day WikiLeaks is proving they are nothing but a propaganda arm of the Kremlin with a political agenda doing Vladimir Putin's dirty work to help elect Donald Trump."WEB, Cheney, Kyle,weblink Hacked 80-page roundup of paid speeches shows Clinton 'praising Wall Street', Politico, 12 October 2016, 16 October 2016, The New York Times reported that when asked, President Vladimir Putin replied that Russia was being falsely accused. "The hysteria is merely caused by the fact that somebody needs to divert the attention of the American people from the essence of what was exposed by the hackers."NEWS,weblink Donald Trump Finds Improbable Ally in WikiLeaks, Healy, Patrick, 12 October 2016, David E., Sanger, The New York Times, 0362-4331, Haberman, Maggie, 19 October 2016, NEWS,weblink Cia Reportedly Preparing Major Cyber Assault Against Russia in Wake of Hack Attacks, 15 October 2016, Fox News Channel, 19 October 2016, On 17 October 2016, WikiLeaks announced that a "state party" had severed the Internet connection of Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy. WikiLeaks blamed United States Secretary of State John Kerry of pressuring the Ecuadorian government in severing Assange's Internet, an accusation which the United States State Department denied.WEB, Couts, Andrew,weblink WikiLeaks publishes more Podesta emails after Ecuador cuts Assange's Internet, The Daily Dot, 23 October 2016, The Ecuadorian government stated that it had "temporarily" severed Assange's Internet connection because of WikiLeaks' release of documents "impacting on the U.S. election campaign," although it also stated that this was not meant to prevent WikiLeaks from operating.WEB, Bennett, Cory,weblink Ecuador admits restricting Internet access for WikiLeaks over election meddling, Politico, 23 October 2016,
2017On 16 February 2017, WikiLeaks released a purported report on CIA espionage orders (marked as NOFORN) for the 2012 French presidential election.WEB,weblink Comment la CIA a espionné la présidentielle française de 2012, French, Libération, Jean-Marc Manach, 16 February 2017, WEB,weblink WikiLeaks releases secret 'CIA spy orders' exposing surveillance of French election, Jason Murdock, 16 February 2017, WEB,weblink La CIA s'est intéressée de près à la campagne présidentielle française de 2012, Le Monde, 16 February 2016, French, The order called for details of party funding, internal rivalries and future attitudes toward the United States. The Associated Press noted that "the orders seemed to represent standard intelligence-gathering."NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks: CIA ordered spying on French 2012 election, AP News, 17 February 2017, en-US, On 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks started publishing content code-named "Vault 7". In a series of tweets and a Facebook Live + Periscope press conference, WikiLeaks announced these documents contain CIA internal documentation of their "massive arsenal" of hacking tools including malware, virus projects, weaponised "zero day" exploits and remote control systems to name a few.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks claims to release thousands of CIA documents, 7 March 2017, CBS News, en, WEB,weblink Wikileaks 'reveals CIA hacking tools', Kelion, Leo, BBC, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents, The New York Times, Leaked documents, dated from 2013 to 2016, detail the capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),NEWS,weblink How the CIA Can Hack Your Phone, PC, and TV (Says WikiLeaks), Greenberg, Andy, 7 March 2017, Wired (magazine), Wired, en-US, NEWS,weblink Vault 7: CIA hacking tools were used to spy on iOS, Android and Samsung smart TVs, Murdock, Jason, 7 March 2017, International Business Times UK, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks posts trove of CIA documents detailing mass hacking, 7 March 2017, CBS News, en, and the operating systems of most smartphones (including Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.WEB,weblink Vault 7: Wikileaks reveals details of CIA's hacks of Android, iPhone Windows, Linux, MacOS, and even Samsung TVs, Computing (magazine), Computing, 7 March 2017, On 5 May 2017, WikiLeaks posted links to e-mails purported to be from Emmanuel Macron's campaign in the French 2017 presidential election. The documents were first relayed on the 4chan forum and by pro-Trump Twitter accounts, and then by WikiLeaks, who indicated they did not author the leaks.NEWS,weblink Emmanuel Macron's campaign hacked on eve of French election, Willsher, Kim, 6 May 2017, The Guardian, 6 May 2017, Henley, Jon, 0261-3077, NEWS,weblink U.S. Far-Right Activists Promote Hacking Attack Against Macron, Scott, Mark, 6 May 2017, The New York Times, 6 May 2017, 0362-4331, Experts have asserted that the WikiLeaks Twitter account played a key role in publicising the leaks through the hashtag #MacronLeaks just some three-and-a-half hours after the first tweet with the hashtag appeared.NEWS,weblink French election: Emmanuel Macron condemns 'massive' hack attack, 6 May 2017, BBC News, 6 May 2017, en-GB, NEWS,weblink U.S. far-right activists, WikiLeaks and bots help amplify Macron leaks: researchers, Volz, Dustin, Reuters UK, 7 May 2017, en-GB, The campaign stated that false documents were mixed in with real ones, and that "the ambition of the authors of this leak is obviously to harm the movement En Marche! in the final hours before the second round of the French presidential election."WEB,weblink France starts probing 'massive' hack of emails and documents reported by Macron campaign, The Washington Post, 6 May 2017, France's Electoral Commission described the action as a "massive and coordinated piracy action." France's Electoral Commission urged journalists not to report on the contents of the leaks, but to heed "the sense of responsibility they must demonstrate, as at stake are the free expression of voters and the sincerity of the election." Cybersecurity experts initially believed that groups linked to Russia were involved in this attack. The Kremlin denied any involvement.NEWS,weblink Macron Campaign Says It Was Target of 'Massive' Hacking Attack, Chan, Aurelien Breeden, Sewell, 5 May 2017, The New York Times, 6 May 2017, Perlroth, Nicole, 0362-4331, NEWS,weblink French candidate Macron claims massive hack as emails leaked, 6 May 2017, Reuters, 6 May 2017, NEWS,weblink French Candidate Emmanuel Macron Says Campaign Has Been Hacked, Hours Before Election, NPR, 6 May 2017, en, The head of the French cyber-security agency, ANSSI, later said that they did not have evidence connecting the hack with Russia, saying that the attack was so simple, that "we can imagine that it was a person who did this alone. They could be in any country."NEWS, Uchill, Joe,weblink No evidence of Russia behind Macron leaks: report, The Hill, 1 June 2017, en, In September 2017, WikiLeaks released "Spy Files Russia," revealing "how a St. Petersburg-based technology company called Peter-Service helped state entities gather detailed data on Russian cellphone users, part of a national system of online surveillance called System for Operative Investigative Activities (SORM)."WEB, Taylor, Adam,weblink WikiLeaks releases files that appear to offer details of Russian surveillance system, The Washington Post, 19 September 2017, 21 October 2017, Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov said that "there is some data here thatâs worth publishing. Anything that gets people talking about Russiaâs capabilities and actions in this area should be seen as a positive development."NEWS, Is it the Kremlinâs turn to get WikiLeaked?,weblink The Christian Science Monitor, 21 September 2017,
Claims of upcoming leaks{{Update section|date=March 2019}}In January 2011, Rudolf Elmer, a former Swiss banker, passed data containing account details of 2,000 prominent people to Assange, who stated that the information will be vetted before being made publicly available at a later date.NEWS, Wikileaks given data on Swiss bank accounts,weblink BBC News, 17 January 2011, 17 January 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110718233352weblink">weblink 18 July 2011, no, In May 2010, WikiLeaks said it had video footage of a massacre of civilians in Afghanistan by the US military which they were preparing to release.NEWS,weblink Whistleblowers on US 'massacre' fear CIA stalkers, Campbell, Matthew, 11 April 2010, The Sunday Times, 12 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110814061024weblink">weblink 14 August 2011, no, London, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks works to expose government secrets, but Web site's sources are a mystery, Warrick, Joby, 19 May 2010, The Washington Post, 21 May 2010, 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 British Petroleum,AV MEDIA,weblink Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks, July 2010, Chris Anderson (entrepreneur), Anderson, Chris, TED (conference), TED, 11:28, 2 August 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827013033weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, Assange2010ted, November last year ... well blowouts in Albania ... Have you had information from inside BP? Yeah, we have a lot ..., Videotape, and that they were "getting enormous quantity of whistle-blower disclosures of a very high calibre" but added that they had not been able to verify and release the material because they did not have enough volunteer journalists.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks founder: Site getting tons of 'high caliber' disclosures, Galant, Richard, 16 July 2010, CNN, 1 August 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131022000633weblink">weblink 22 October 2013, no, In December 2010, Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC Television that WikiLeaks had information it considered to be a "thermo-nuclear device" which it would release if the organisation needs to defend itself against the authorities.NEWS,weblink Wikileaks' Julian Assange to fight Swedish allegations, BBC News, 5 December 2010, 5 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827135254weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, In a 2009 interview with Computerworld magazine, Assange claimed to be in possession of "5GB from Bank of America". In 2010, he told Forbes magazine that WikiLeaks was planning another "megaleak" early in 2011, from the private sector, involving "a big U.S. bank" and revealing an "ecosystem of corruption". Bank of America's stock price decreased by 3%, apparently as a result of this announcement.NEWS,weblink Bank of America rumored to be in WikiLeaks' crosshairs, Rothacker, Rick, 1 December 2010, China Post, 1 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209222243weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, McClatchy Newspapers, Taipei, NEWS,weblink Bank of America Stock Steadies After WikiLeaks-Related Drop, Memmott, Mark, 1 December 2010, The Two-way (NPR news blog), 2 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209194105weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, NPR, Washington DC, Assange commented on the possible effect of the release that "it could take down a bank or two".NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks' Next Target: Bank of America?, De La Merced, Michael J., 30 November 2010, DealBook (New York Times blog), 2 December 2010, NEWS,weblink Bank of America's Risky WikiLeaks Strategy, Carney, John, 2 December 2010, CNBC, 5 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140212153613weblink">weblink 12 February 2014, no, In August 2011, Reuters announced that Daniel Domscheit-Berg had destroyed approximately 5GB of data cache from Bank of America, that Assange had under his control.NEWS,weblink Some of WikiLeaks' Bank of America data destroyed, 22 August 2011, Reuters, 20 August 2012,weblink 11 October 2011, no, In October 2010, Assange told a major Moscow newspaper that "The Kremlin had better brace itself for a coming wave of WikiLeaks disclosures about Russia".NEWS,weblink Bank raid could have been warning against planned WikiLeaks Russian corruption expose says Alexander Lebedev, Glen, Owen, Will, Stewart, 14 November 2010, Mail on Sunday, 28 November 2010, London,weblink" title="wayback.archive-it.org/all/20110927135719weblink">weblink 27 September 2011, no, NEWS, Fred, Weir,weblink WikiLeaks ready to drop a bombshell on Russia. But will Russians get to read about it?, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 October 2010, 29 November 2010, Boston,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827142121weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, Assange later clarified: "we have material on many businesses and governments, including in Russia. It's not right to say there's going to be a particular focus on Russia".NEWS, An Interview With WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, Andy, Greenberg, Forbes, 29 November 2010, New York,weblink 1 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101202041304weblink">weblink 2 December 2010, no,
AuthenticityWikiLeaks has contended that it has never released a misattributed document and that 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."NEWS,weblink Wikileaks: Is Julian Assange a hero, villain or simply dangerously naïve?, Trapido, Michael, 1 December 2010, NewsTime, 18 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110813024350weblink">weblink 13 August 2011, yes, Johannesburg, The FAQ states that: "The simplest and most effective countermeasure is a worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinise and discuss leaked documents."WEB,weblink Frequently Asked Questions, WikiLeaks,weblink 1 July 2007, 17 June 2010, According to statements by Assange in 2010, submitted documents are vetted by a group of five reviewers, with expertise in different topics such as language or programming, who also investigate the background of the leaker if his or her identity is known.NEWS,weblink Inside WikiLeaks' Leak Factory, Kushner, David, 6 April 2010, Mother Jones, 30 April 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140429130626weblink">weblink 29 April 2014, no, San Francisco, {{Update after|2019|4|13}} In that group, Assange has the final decision about the assessment of a document.Columnist Eric Zorn wrote in 2016 "So far, it's possible, even likely, that every stolen email WikiLeaks has posted has been authentic." but cautioned against assuming that future releases would be equally authentic.Eric Zorn, The inherent peril in trusting whatever WikiLeaks dumps on us, Chicago Tribune (13 October 2016). Writer Glenn Greenwald asserted that WikiLeaks has a "perfect, long-standing record of only publishing authentic documents."NEWS, Greenwald, Glenn, In the Democratic Echo Chamber, Inconvenient Truths Are Recast as Putin Plots,weblink The Intercept, However, cybersecurity experts agree that it is trivially easy for a person to fabricate an email or alter it, as by changing headers and metadata.Some of the releases, including many of the Podesta emails, contain DKIM headers. This allows them to be verified as genuine to some degree of certainty.NEWS, Tech blogger finds proof DNC chief's emails weren't 'doctored' despite claims,weblink 26 July 2019, Fox News, 24 October 2016, In July 2016, the Aspen Institute's Homeland Security Group, a bipartisan counterterrorism organisation, warned that hackers who stole authentic data might "salt the files they release with plausible forgeries." Russian intelligence agencies have frequently used disinformation tactics, "which means carefully faked emails might be included in the WikiLeaks dumps. After all, the best way to make false information believable is to mix it in with true information."Douglas Perry, How Russian disinformation could be driving the Hillary Clinton WikiLeaks email scandal, The Oregonian/OregonLive (18 October 2016).
Promotion of conspiracy theories
Murder of Seth Rich{{Further|Murder of Seth Rich}}WikiLeaks has promoted conspiracy theories about the murder of Seth Rich.NEWS,weblink Trump allies, WikiLeaks and Russia are pushing a nonsensical conspiracy theory about the DNC hacks, Rogin, Josh, 12 August 2016, The Washington Post, Trump campaign surrogates are fueling a conspiracy theory that a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer was connected to the hacking of the DNC, a theory being pushed by WikiLeaks and the Russian state-controlled press, NEWS,weblink How Seth Rich's death became an Internet conspiracy theory, Los Angeles Times, 26 October 2017, 0458-3035, NEWS,weblink Homicides remain steady in the Washington region, Bui, Lynh, 31 December 2016, The Washington Post, 26 October 2017, 0190-8286, Unfounded conspiracy theories, spread by some right-wing figures and media outlets, hold that Rich was the source of leaked emails and was killed for working with WikiLeaks.NEWS,weblink How the Murder of a D.N.C. Staffer Fueled Conspiracy Theories, Bromwich, Jonah Engel, 17 May 2017, The New York Times, 17 May 2017, 0362-4331, WikiLeaks fueled the conspiracy theories when it offered a $20,000 reward for information on Rich's killer and when Assange implied that Rich was the source of the DNC leaks.NEWS,weblink Fox retracts Clinton murder conspiracy, 23 May 2017, 26 October 2017, BBC News, en-GB, No evidence supports the claim that Rich was the source of the leaks.WEB,weblink WikiLeaks Fuels Conspiracy Theories About DNC Staffer's Death, Seitz-Wald, Alex, 2016-08-10, NBC News, en, 2019-04-14, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Is Fanning a Conspiracy Theory That Hillary Murdered a DNC Staffer, Stahl, Jeremy, 9 August 2016, Slate, 1091-2339, Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks organization appear to be actively encouraging a conspiracy theory that a Democratic National Committee staffer was murdered for nefarious political purposes, perhaps by Hillary Clinton. ... . There is of course absolutely zero evidence for this and Snopes has issued a comprehensive debunking of the premise itself, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the 2016 election said that Assange "implied falsely" that Rich was the source in order to obscure that Russia was the actual source.Mueller Report, vol I. p. 48: Beginning in the summer of 2016, Assange and WikiLeaks made a number of statements about Seth Rich, a former DNC staff member who was killed in July 2016. The statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen DNC emails.NEWS,weblink Seth Rich Was Not Source of Leaked D.N.C. Emails, Mueller Report Confirms, Mervosh, Sarah, 2019-04-20, The New York Times, 2019-04-24, en-US, 0362-4331, WEB,weblink 'A monster not a journalist': Mueller report shows Assange lied about Russian hacking, Knott, Matthew, 2019-04-19, The Sydney Morning Herald, en, 2019-04-24, WEB,weblink Mueller: Wikileaks used dead DNC worker in bid to cover Russia ties, Jamie Dupree, Cox Washington Bureau, ajc, english, 2019-04-24, The Guardian wrote that WikiLeaks, along with individuals and groups on the hard right, had been involved in the "ruthless exploitation of [Rich's] death for political purposes".NEWS,weblink The strange case of Fox News, Trump and the death of young Democrat Seth Rich, Pilkington, Ed, 7 August 2017, The Guardian, 26 October 2017, 0261-3077, The executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, an organization that advocates for open government, was critical of WikiLeaks' fueling of conspiracy theories surrounding the murder of Seth Rich: "If they feel like they have a link to the staffer's death, they should say it and be responsible about it. The insinuations, to me, are just disgusting."NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Is Getting Scarier Than the NSA, Vick, Karl, Time, 23 October 2017,
Democratic Party and Hillary ClintonWikiLeaks has popularized conspiracies about the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, such as tweeting articles which suggested Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta engaged in satanic rituals,NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks just tried to justify its behavior this year in a bizarre Election Day statement, Beauchamp, Zack, Vox, 8 November 2016, NEWS,weblink FALSE: Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta Involved in Satanic 'Spirit Cooking', Evon, Dan, snopes, 8 November 2016, en-US, implying that the Democratic Party had Seth Rich killed, claiming that Hillary Clinton wanted to drone strike Assange,NEWS,weblink To Silence Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton Proposed Drone Strike on Julian Assange?, LaCapria, Kim, snopes, 8 November 2016, en-US, suggesting that Clinton wore earpieces to debates and interviews,NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks piles on to Clinton earpiece conspiracy, Firozi, Paulina, 8 September 2016, TheHill, 8 November 2016, promoting conspiracy theories about Clinton's health,WEB,weblink WikiLeaks Plays Doctor, Gives Hillary Clinton Fake Disease, Collins, Ben, 25 August 2016, The Daily Beast, 29 December 2016, WEB,weblink WikiLeaks Feeds Conspiracy Theories That Hillary Clinton Has Parkinson's Or Head Injury Complications, Reporter, Dana Liebelson Staff, Post, The Huffington, 12 September 2016, HuffPost, 29 December 2016, and promoting a conspiracy theory from a Donald Trumpârelated Internet community tying the Clinton campaign to child kidnapper Laura Silsby.WEB,weblink WikiLeaks' Latest 'Find' Is a Conspiracy Theory From Trump's Subreddit, Collins, Ben, 4 November 2016, The Daily Beast, 10 November 2016,
Criticism and controversies
Allegations of anti-AmericanismWikiLeaks has been accused{{by whom|date=April 2019}} of purposely targeting certain states and people, and presenting its disclosures in misleading and conspiratorial ways to harm those people. Writing in 2012, Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating stated that "nearly all its major operations have targeted the U.S. government or American corporations."WEB,weblink How WikiLeaks Blew It, Foreign Policy, 8 November 2016, In a 2017 speech addressing the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CIA Director Mike Pompeo referred to WikiLeaks as "a non-state hostile intelligence service" and described founder Julian Assange as a narcissist, fraud, and coward.WEB,weblink Director Pompeo Delivers Remarks at CSIS â Central Intelligence Agency, www.cia.gov,
Allegations of anti-Clinton and pro-Trump biasAssange wrote on WikiLeaks in February 2016: "I have had years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and have read thousands of her cables. Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism. ... she certainly should not become president of the United States."NEWS,weblink Why Julian Assange Doesn't Want Hillary Clinton to Be President, The Observer, 24 June 2016, In July 2017, during an interview by Amy Goodman, Julian Assange said that choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is like choosing between cholera or gonorrhea. "Personally, I would prefer neither.""Assange: 2016 election is like choosing between 'cholera or gonorrhea'". Politico. 27 July 2016. WikiLeaks editor, Sarah Harrison, has stated that the site is not choosing which damaging publications to release, rather releasing information that is available to them.NEWS,weblink How Julian Assange Turned WikiLeaks into Trump's Best Friend, Bloomberg.com, 27 October 2016, In an Election Day statement, Assange criticized both Clinton and Trump, saying that "The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers."NEWS, WikiLeaks criticizes both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, condemns "McCarthyite" Russia accusations,weblink Salon, 9 November 2018, In conversations that were leaked in February 2018, Assange expressed a preference for a Republican victory in the 2016 election, saying that "Dems+Media+liberals woudl [sic] then form a block to reign [sic] in their worst qualities. With Hillary in charge, GOP will be pushing for her worst qualities, dems+media+neoliberals will be mute.".Having released information that exposed the inner workings of a broad range of organisations and politicians, WikiLeaks started by 2016 to focus almost exclusively on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.WEB,weblink WikiLeaks Turned Down Leaks on Russian Government During U.S. Presidential Campaign, Foreign Policy, 17 August 2017, In the 2016 US presidential election, WikiLeaks only exposed material damaging to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton. WikiLeaks even rejected the opportunity to publish unrelated leaks, because it dedicated all its resources to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. According to The New York Times, WikiLeaks timed one of its large leaks so that it would happen on the eve of the Democratic Convention.NEWS,weblink Assange, Avowed Foe of Clinton, Timed Email Release for Democratic Convention, Savage, Charlie, 26 July 2016, The New York Times, 23 October 2017, 0362-4331, The Washington Post noted that the leaks came at an important sensitive moment in the Clinton campaign, as she was preparing to announce her vice-presidential pick and unite the party behind her.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks releases thousands of documents about Clinton and internal deliberations, Hamburger, Tom, 22 July 2016, The Washington Post, 23 October 2017, Tumulty, Karen, 0190-8286, The Sunlight Foundation, an organisation that advocates for open government, said that such actions meant that WikiLeaks was no longer striving to be transparent but rather sought to achieve political goals.WikiLeaks explained its actions in a 2017 statement to Foreign Policy: "WikiLeaks schedules publications to maximize readership and reader engagement. During distracting media events such as the Olympics or a high profile election, unrelated publications are sometimes delayed until the distraction passes but never are rejected for this reason." On 7 October 2016, an hour after the media had begun to dedicate wall-to-wall coverage of the revelation that Trump had bragged on video about sexually harassing women, WikiLeaks began to release emails hacked from the personal account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.NEWS,weblink Access Hollywood and emails: One year later, Cohen, Marshall, CNN, 24 October 2017, NEWS,weblink True: Wikileaks dumped Podesta emails hour after Trump video, @politifact, 24 October 2017, en, CNN notes that due to extensive coverage of the Trump tapes, the leaks were an "afterthought" in news coverage. Podesta suggested that the emails were timed to deflect attention from the Trump tapes.In 2010, Donald Trump called WikiLeaks "disgraceful" and suggested that the "death penalty" should be a punishment for WikiLeaks' releases of information."Trump in 2010: WikiLeaks 'disgraceful,' there 'should be like death penalty or something'". CNN. 4 January 2017. Following the dump of e-mails hacked from the Hillary Clinton campaign, Donald Trump told voters, "I love WikiLeaks!"Hench, Mark (10 October 2016) "Trump: 'I love WikiLeaks.'" The Hill. (Retrieved 7 March 2017.) Trump made many references to WikiLeaks during the course of the campaign; by one estimate, he referenced disclosures by WikiLeaks over 160 times in speeches during the last 30 days of the campaign.NEWS,weblink Did Trump mention WikiLeaks over 160 times in October 2016?, @politifact, 9 May 2017, en, In October 2017, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a company working on behalf of the Trump presidential campaign, had contacted WikiLeaks about missing Hillary Clinton e-mails and the possibility of creating a searchable database for the campaign to use.NEWS,weblink Trump campaign analytics company contacted WikiLeaks about Clinton emails, CNN, Kara Scannell, Dana Bash and Marshall Cohen, CNN, 26 October 2017, NEWS,weblink The Latest: Trump_ It's disgrace Democrats paid for dossier, Associated Press, 26 October 2017, en-US, After this was reported, Assange confirmed that WikiLeaks had been approached by Cambridge Analytica but had rejected the approach. WikiLeaks did not disclose what the subject of Cambridge Analytica's approach was.NEWS,weblink Wikileaks' Assange Says He Rejected Overture From Trump-Linked Group, Ballhaus, Rebecca, 25 October 2017, The Wall Street Journal, 26 October 2017, 0099-9660,
Correspondence between WikiLeaks and Donald Trump Jr.In November 2017, it was revealed that the WikiLeaks Twitter account corresponded with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 presidential election.NEWS, Ioffe, Julia,weblink The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks, The Atlantic, 13 November 2017, en-US, The correspondence shows how WikiLeaks actively solicited the co-operation of Trump Jr., a campaign surrogate and advisor in the campaign of his father. WikiLeaks urged the Trump campaign to reject the results of the 2016 presidential election at a time when it looked as if the Trump campaign would lose. WikiLeaks asked Trump Jr. to share a claim by Assange that Hillary Clinton had wanted to attack him with drones. WikiLeaks also shared a link to a site that would help people to search through WikiLeaks documents. Trump Jr. shared both. After the election, WikiLeaks also requested that the president-elect push Australia to appoint Assange as ambassador to the US. After The New York Times published a fragment of Donald Trump's tax returns for one year, WikiLeaks asked Trump Jr. for one or more of his father's tax returns, explaining that it would be in his father's best interest because it would "dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality" and not come "through the most biased source (e.g. NYT/MSNBC)." WikiLeaks also asked Trump Jr. to leak his own e-mails to them days after The New York Times broke a story about e-mail correspondence between Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-affiliated lawyer; WikiLeaks said that it would be "beautifully confounding" for them to publish the e-mails and that it would deprive other news outlets from putting a negative spin on the correspondence. Trump Jr. provided this correspondence to congressional investigators looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Allegations of Russian influenceIn August 2016, after WikiLeaks published thousands of DNC emails, it was claimed that Russian intelligence had hacked the e-mails and leaked them to WikiLeaks. At the time, DNC officials made such claims, along with a number of cybersecurity experts and cybersecurity firms.NEWS,weblink Cyber-Experts Say Russia Hacked the Democratic National Committee, Lake, Eli, 25 July 2016, Bloomberg View, 23 October 2016, NEWS,weblink Here's What We Know About Russia and the DNC Hack, Glaser, April, Wired, 23 October 2016, en-US, Assange accused the Clinton campaign of stoking "a neo-McCarthy hysteria".NEWS, Assange blasts media for 'politicization' of election campaign in Fox interviews,weblink Fox News, 26 August 2016, In October 2016, the US intelligence community announced that it was "confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations". The US intelligence agencies said that the hacks were consistent with the methods of Russian-directed efforts, and that people high up within the Kremlin were likely involved. On 14 October 2016, CNN reported that "there is mounting evidence that the Russian government is supplying WikiLeaks with hacked emails pertaining to the U.S. presidential election."Jim Sciutto, Nicole Gaouette and Ryan Browne (14 October 2016). US finds growing evidence Russia feeding emails to WikiLeaks. CNN. Retrieved 14 October 2016. WikiLeaks has denied any connection to or co-operation with Russia. President Putin has strongly denied any Russian involvement in the election.In September 2016, the German weekly magazine Focus reported that according to a confidential German government dossier, WikiLeaks had long since been infiltrated by Russian agents aiming to discredit NATO governments. The magazine added that French and British intelligence services had come to the same conclusion and said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev receive details about what WikiLeaks publishes before publication.Russischer Geheimdienst nutzt WikiLeaks für Kampagnen Focus 23 September 2016 The Focus report followed a New York Times story that suggested that WikiLeaks may be a laundering machine for compromising material about Western countries gathered by Russian spies.How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West's Secrets The New York Times 31 August 2016On 10 December 2016, The Washington Post reported that the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that Russia intelligence operatives provided materials to WikiLeaks in an effort to help Donald Trump's election bid.NEWS,weblink Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House, 9 December 2016, The Washington Post, 10 December 2016, NEWS,weblink CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump win election, say reports, 10 December 2016, The Guardian, 10 December 2016, WikiLeaks has frequently been criticised{{by whom|date=April 2019}} for its alleged absence of whistleblowing on or criticism of Russia.In April 2016, WikiLeaks tweeted criticism of the Panama Papers, which had among other things revealed Russian businesses and individuals linked with offshore ties.WEB,weblink Putin associates had $2 billion in offshore accounts, report says, The Washington Post, 8 January 2017, The WikiLeaks Twitter account tweeted, "#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID and [George] Soros". Putin would later go on to dismiss the Panama Papers by citing WikiLeaks: "WikiLeaks has showed us that official people and official organs of the U.S. are behind this." According to The New York Times, both Assange claims are substance-free: "there is no evidence suggesting that the United States government had a role in releasing the Panama Papers."NEWS,weblink What Intelligence Agencies Concluded About the Russian Attack on the U.S. Election, Shane, Scott, 6 January 2017, The New York Times, 7 January 2017, 0362-4331, In 2012, as WikiLeaks was under a financial blockade, Assange began to host a television show that was distributed by Journeyman Pictures and aired on Russia Today.NEWS,weblink How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West's Secrets, Erlanger, Jo Becker, Steven, 31 August 2016, The New York Times, 6 January 2017, Schmitt, Eric, 0362-4331, NEWS,weblink Julian Assange's TV chatshow to air on 17 April, Josh, Halliday, The Guardian, 13 April 2012, 16 April 2019, Assange has never disclosed how much he or WikiLeaks were paid for his television show. Writing in Salon, Glenn Greenwald disputed that Assange represented the views of the Russian government in the show, arguing that the views Assange presented in his interview with Hassan Nasrallah were strongly critical of the Syrian government, a Russian ally.NEWS,weblink Attacks on RT and Assange reveal much about the critics, Glenn, Greenwald, Salon, 18 April 2012, 16 April 2019, After President Trump's National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn resigned in February 2017 due to reports over his communications with Russian officials and subsequent lies over the content and nature of those communications, WikiLeaks tweeted that Flynn resigned "after [a] destabilization campaign by U.S. spies, Democrats, press."NEWS,weblink Wikileaks: Flynn Resigned Due to 'Destabilization Campaign by U.S. Spies, Democrats, Press ', Haaretz, Haaretz, 14 February 2017, Press, The Associated, en, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks: Flynn leaving due to 'destabilization campaign' by Dems, media, Shelbourne, Mallory, 14 February 2017, TheHill, 14 February 2017, In April 2017, the WikiLeaks Twitter account suggested that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, which international human rights organisations and governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France, and Israel attributed to the Syrian government, was a false flag attack.WEB,weblink Analysis {{!, Trump loves a conspiracy theory. Now his allies in the fringe media want him to fall for one in Syria|website=The Washington Post|access-date=5 May 2017}} WikiLeaks stated that "while western establishment media beat the drum for more war in Syria the matter is far from clear", and shared a video by a Syrian activist who claimed that Islamist extremists were probably behind the chemical attack, not the Syrian government.In May 2017, cybersecurity experts stated that they believed that groups affiliated with the Russian government were involved in the hacking and leaking of e-mails associated with the Emmanuel Macron campaign; these e-mails were published on Pastebin but heavily promoted by WikiLeaks social media channels.In April 2017, CIA Director Mike Pompeo stated: "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is â a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia." Pompeo said that the US Intelligence Community had concluded that Russia's "primary propaganda outlet," RT had "actively collaborated" with WikiLeaks.NEWS,weblink CIA director calls WikiLeaks Russia-aided "non-state hostile intelligence service", Kathryn Watson, 13 April 2017, CBS News, In August 2017, Foreign Policy reported that WikiLeaks had in the summer of 2016 turned down a large cache of documents containing information damaging to the Russian government.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks rejected documents on Russia during 2016 election: report, Uchill, Joe, 17 August 2017, TheHill, 17 August 2017, WikiLeaks stated that, "As far as we recall these are already public ... WikiLeaks rejects all information that it cannot verify.WEB,weblink WikiLeaks Turned Down Leaks on Russian Government During U.S. Presidential Campaign, Foreign Policy, 23 August 2017, WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere". News outlets had reported on contents of the leaks in 2014, amounting to less than half of the data that was allegedly made available to WikiLeaks in the summer of 2016.In September 2017, WikiLeaks released the "Spy Files Russia," which detailed Russian government surveillance of internet and cellphone users in the country.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks releases files that appear to offer details of Russian surveillance system, Adam, Taylor, Washington Post, 19 September 2017, 16 April 2019,
Allegations of anti-semitismWikiLeaks has been accused of anti-semitism both in its Twitter activity and hiring decisions.WEB,weblink British magazine: Assange says Jewish conspiracy trying to discredit WikiLeaks, Haaretz, 23 October 2016, NEWS,weblink Here's What WikiLeaks Might Have Meant by That Anti-Semitic Tweet It Deleted, Stahl, Jeremy, 25 July 2016, Slate, 23 October 2016, 1091-2339, NEWS,weblink Why Does Wikileaks Have a Reputation for Anti-Semitism?, The Forward, 23 October 2016, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground, Ellis, Emma Grey, Wired, 23 October 2016, en-US, According to Ian Hislop, Assange claimed that a "Jewish conspiracy" was attempting to discredit the organization. Assange denied making this remark, stating "'Jewish conspiracy' is completely false, in spirit and in word. It is serious and upsetting."NEWS,weblink Julian Assange 'Jewish conspiracy' comments spark row, Quinn, Ben, 1 March 2011, The Guardian, 23 October 2016, 0261-3077, In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January 2015, the WikiLeaks Twitter account wrote that "the Jewish pro-censorship lobby legitimized attacks", referring to the trial of Maurice Sinet. In July 2016, the same account suggested that triple parentheses, or (((echoes))) â a tool used by neo-Nazis to identify Jews on Twitter, appropriated by several Jews online out of solidarity â had been used as a way for "establishment climbers" to identify one another. In leaked internal conversations, the WikiLeaks twitter account, thought to be controlled by Assange at the time, discussed an article critical of WikiLeaks by Associated Press reporter Raphael Satter. The WikiLeaks Twitter account went on call the journalist "a rat", adding "but he's Jewish" and encouraged others to troll him.NEWS,weblink 'Anti-Clinton' Wikileaks chat leaked, 2018-02-15, 2019-04-19, en-GB,
Exaggerated and misleading descriptions of the contents of leaksWikiLeaks has been criticised for making misleading claims about the contents of its leaks.NEWS,weblink The Truth About the WikiLeaks C.I.A. Cache, Tufekci, Zeynep, 9 March 2017, The New York Times, 10 March 2017, 0362-4331, NEWS,weblink The CIA Can't Crack Signal and WhatsApp Encryption, No Matter What You've Heard, Barrett, Brian, Wired, 10 March 2017, en-US, Media outlets have also been criticised for reporting on WikiLeaks' claims about the CIA leak, which were later retracted.According to University of North Carolina Professor Zeynep Tufekci, this is part of a pattern of behaviour.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} After the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, WikiLeaks announced that it would release e-mails belonging to Turkey's ruling conservative Justice and Development Party. WikiLeaks released Turkish emails and documents as a response to the Turkish government's crackdown on real or alleged government opponents that followed the coup attempt. When these e-mails were released, however, it "was nothing but mundane mailing lists of tens of thousands of ordinary people who discussed politics online. Back then, too, the ruse worked: Many Western journalists had hyped these non-leaks." According to Tufekci, there are three steps to WikiLeaks' "disinformation campaigns": "The first step is to dump many documents at once â rather than allowing journalists to scrutinise them and absorb their significance before publication. The second step is to sensationalise the material with misleading news releases and tweets. The third step is to sit back and watch as the news media unwittingly promotes the WikiLeaks agenda under the auspices of independent reporting."
Inadequate curation and violations of personal privacyWikiLeaks has drawn criticism for violating the personal privacy of individuals and inadequately curating its content. These critics include transparency advocates, such as Edward Snowden, the Sunlight Foundation and the Federation of American Scientists.WikiLeaks has published individuals' Social Security numbers, medical information, and credit card numbers. An analysis by the Associated Press found that WikiLeaks had in one of its mass-disclosures published "the personal information of hundreds of people â including sick children, rape victims and mental health patients". WikiLeaks has named teenage rape victims, and outed an individual arrested for homosexuality in Saudi Arabia. Some of WikiLeaks' cables "described patients with psychiatric conditions, seriously ill children or refugees". An analysis of WikiLeaks' Saudi cables "turned up more than 500 passport, identity, academic or employment files ... three dozen records pertaining to family issues in the cables â including messages about marriages, divorces, missing children, elopements and custody battles. Many are very personal, like the marital certificates that reveal whether the bride was a virgin. Others deal with Saudis who are deeply in debt, including one man who says his wife stole his money. One divorce document details a male partner's infertility. Others identify the partners of women suffering from sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C." Two individuals named in the DNC leaks were targeted by identity thieves following WikiLeaks' release of their Social Security and credit card information. In its leak of DNC e-mails, WikiLeaks revealed the details of an ordinary staffer's suicide attempt and brought attention to it through a tweet.WEB,weblink Publishing Hacked Private Emails Can Be a Slippery Slope, Fortune, 6 May 2017, NEWS,weblink Dear France: You Just Got Hacked. Don't Make The Same Mistakes We Did., BuzzFeed, 6 May 2017, en, WikiLeaks' publishing of Sony's hacked e-mails drew criticism for violating the privacy of Sony's employees and for failing to be in the public interest.NEWS,weblink Wikileaks has done far more damage to privacy than the NSA, Michael A. Cohen, Boston Globe, 6 January 2017, NEWS,weblink Civil liberties gurus happy to invade the privacy of others, 2 May 2015, The Guardian, 6 January 2017, 0261-3077, Michael A. Cohen, a fellow at the Century Foundation, argues that "data dumps like these represent a threat to our already shrinking zone of privacy." He noted that the willingness of WikiLeaks to publish information of this type encourages hacking and cyber theft: "With ready and willing amplifiers, what's to deter the next cyberthief from stealing a company's database of information and threatening to send it to Wikileaks if a list of demands aren't met?"The Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for open government, has criticised WikiLeaks for inadequate curation of its content and for "weaponised transparency," writing that with the DNC leaks, "Wikileaks again failed the due diligence review we expect of putatively journalistic entities when it published the personal information of ordinary citizens, including passport and Social Security numbers contained in the hacked emails of Democratic National Committee staff. We are not alone in raising ethical questions about Wikileaks' shift from whistleblower to platform for weaponised transparency. Any organisation that 'doxxes' a public is harming privacy."WEB,weblink On weaponized transparency, Alex Howard & John Wonderlich, 28 July 2016, Sunlight Foundation, The manner in which WikiLeaks publishes content can have the effect of censoring political enemies: "Wikileaks' indiscriminate disclosure in this case is perhaps the closest we've seen in reality to the bogeyman projected by enemies to reform â that transparency is just a Trojan Horse for chilling speech and silencing political enemies."In July 2016, Edward Snowden criticised WikiLeaks for insufficiently curating its content. When Snowden made data public, he did so by working with the Washington Post, the Guardian and other news organisations, choosing only to make documents public which exposed National Security Agency surveillance programs. Content that compromised national security or exposed sensitive personal information was withheld. WikiLeaks, on the other hand, made little effort to do either, Snowden said. WikiLeaks responded by accusing Snowden of pandering to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.University of North Carolina Professor Zeynep Tufekci has also criticised WikiLeaks for exposing sensitive personal information. She argued that data dumps, such as WikiLeaks, which violate personal privacy without being in the public interest "threaten our ability to dissent by destroying privacy and unleashing a glut of questionable information that functions, somewhat unexpectedly, as its own form of censorship, rather than as a way to illuminate the maneuverings of the powerful."In January 2017, the WikiLeaks Task Force, a Twitter account associated with WikiLeaks,NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks threatens to publish Twitter users' personal info, Jessica Guynn, 6 January 2017, USA Today, proposed the creation of a database to track verified Twitter users, including sensitive personal information on individuals' homes, families and finances.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users' homes, families and finances, Fung, Brian, Chicago Tribune, 6 January 2017, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks floats creating database of Twitter users' personal data, Mali, Meghashyam, 6 January 2017, The Hill, 6 January 2017, According to the Chicago Tribune, "the proposal faced a sharp and swift backlash as technologists, journalists and security researchers slammed the idea as a 'sinister' and dangerous abuse of power and privacy." Twitter furthermore bans the use of Twitter data for "surveillance purposes," stating "Posting another person's private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter rules."
Internal conflicts and lack of transparencyWithin WikiLeaks, there has been public disagreement between founder and spokesperson Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the website'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 website.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks' Woes Grow as Spokesman Quits Site, Bates, Theunis, 28 September 2010, AOL News, 22 October 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209122932weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, yes, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks chief lashes out at media during debate, Satter, Raphael G., 30 September 2010, PhysOrg.com, 22 October 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101020041136weblink">weblink 20 October 2010, no, Associated Press, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Spokesman Quits, Blasts Founder Julian Assange As Paranoid Control Freak, Admits To Using Fake Name, Blodget, Henry, 28 September 2010, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120306180126weblink">weblink 6 March 2012, no, Henry Blodget, File:Assange Domscheit-Berg.jpg|thumb|Julian Assange (left) with Daniel Domscheit-Berg who was ejected from WikiLeaks and started a rival "whistleblowerwhistleblowerOn 25 September 2010, after being suspended by Assange for "disloyalty, insubordination and destabilisation", 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."NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Spokesman Quits, 27 September 2010, Spiegel International,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101130022133weblink">weblink 30 November 2010, no, Hamburg, NEWS,weblink War of the WikiFreaks: Inside WikiLeaks by Daniel Domscheit-Berg (book review), Brown, Craig, 12 February 2011, Daily Mail,weblink" title="archive.today/20120916120301weblink">weblink 16 September 2012, no, London, NEWS,weblink Unpublished Iraq War Logs Trigger Internal WikiLeaks Revolt, Poulsen, Kevin, 27 September 2010, Wired, 14 February 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131020030321weblink">weblink 20 October 2013, no, Zetter, Kim, New York, Assange accused Domscheit-Berg of leaking information to Newsweek, with Domscheit-Berg claiming that the WikiLeaks team was unhappy with Assange's management and handling of the Afghan war document releases. Daniel Domscheit-Berg wanted greater transparency in the articles released to the public. Another vision of his was to focus on providing technology that allowed whistle-blowers to protect their identity as well as a more transparent way of communicating with the media, forming new partnerships and involving new people.WEB,weblink Interview with Daniel Domscheidt-Berg of Open Leaks, Jon, Stephenson, 29 March 2011, Scoop Independent News, 25 March 2015, Domscheit-Berg left with a small group to start OpenLeaks, a new leak organisation and website with a different management and distribution philosophy.NEWS,weblink Former WikiLeaks worker: Rival site under way, Nordstrom, Louise, 10 December 2010, The Washington Times, 13 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131025045922weblink">weblink 25 October 2013, no, While leaving, Daniel Domscheit-Berg copied and then deleted roughly 3,500 unpublished documents from the WikiLeaks servers,NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks defector blasts Assange in book â CNN, 12 February 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131022023545weblink">weblink 22 October 2013, no, . Edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 22 November 2011. including information on the US government's 'no-fly list' and inside information from 20 right-wing organisations, and according to a WikiLeaks statement, 5 gigabytes of data relating to Bank of America, the internal communications of 20 neo-Nazi organisations and US intercept information for "over a hundred Internet companies".NEWS,weblink Ex-Wikileaks man 'deleted files', 22 August 2011, BBC News, 3 December 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131020210919weblink">weblink 20 October 2013, no, In Domscheit-Berg's book he wrote: "To this day, we are waiting for Julian to restore security, so that we can return the material to him, which was on the submission platform."NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Defector Slams Assange in Tell-All Book Threat Level, Zetter, Kim, 10 February 2011, Wired,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209220641weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no, . Wired.com (10 February 2011). Retrieved 22 November 2011. In August 2011, Domscheit-Berg claimed he permanently deleted the files "in order to ensure that the sources are not compromised."WEB,weblink Assange Battle Escalates: Ex-Wikileaks Spokesman Destroyed Unpublished Files â SPIEGEL ONLINE â News â International,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110830185102weblink">weblink 30 August 2011, no, . Spiegel.de. Retrieved 22 November 2011.Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old Icelandic university student, resigned after he challenged Assange on his decision to suspend Domscheit-Berg and was bluntly rebuked. Iceland MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir also left WikiLeaks, citing lack of transparency, lack of structure, and poor communication flow in the organisation.NEWS,weblink Q&A: Former WikiLeaks spokeswoman Birgitta Jonsdottir, McMahon, Tamsin, 17 January 2011, National Post, 14 February 2011,weblink 20 February 2011, no, Toronto, According to the British newspaper, The Independent, at least a dozen key supporters of WikiLeaks left the website during 2010.NEWS,weblink Secret war at the heart of Wikileaks, Taylor, Jerome, 25 October 2010, The Independent,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140312085337weblink">weblink 12 March 2014, yes, London,
Non-disclosure agreementsThose working for WikiLeaks are reportedly required to sign sweeping non-disclosure agreements covering all conversations, conduct, and material, with Assange having sole power over disclosure.NEWS,weblink Here's What I Learned About Julian Assange While Working Alongside Him, BuzzFeed, 23 October 2016, The penalty for non-compliance in one such agreement was reportedly £12 million. WikiLeaks has been challenged for this practice, as it seen to be hypocritical for an organisation dedicated to transparency to limit the transparency of its inner workings and limit the accountability of powerful individuals in the organisation.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks Threatens Its Own Leakers With $20 Million Penalty, Poulsen, Kevin, Wired, 23 October 2016, en-US, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks, get out of the gagging game, 12 May 2011, The Guardian, 23 October 2016, 0261-3077,
Lawsuit by the Democratic National CommitteeOn 20 April 2018, the Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in federal district court in Manhattan against Russia, the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, alleging a conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 United States presidential election in Trump's favor.NEWS, Hamburger, Tom, Helderman, Rosalind S., Nakashima, Ellen, 20 April 2018, Democratic Party sues Russia, Trump campaign and WikiLeaks alleging 2016 campaign conspiracy,weblink The Washington Post, 20 April 2018, The suit was dismissed with prejudice on 30 July 2019. In his judgement, Judge John Koeltl said that WikiLeaks "did not participate in any wrongdoing in obtaining the materials in the first place" and was therefore within the law in publishing the information. He also said that the DNC case was "entirely divorced" from the facts. The suit could not be refiled due to its "substantive legal defect".NEWS, Re, Gregg, Judge dismisses DNC lawsuit against Trump campaign, Russia, WikiLeaks over hacking,weblink msm, 31 July 2019, 31 July 2019, The federal judge also wrote âThe DNCâs interest in keeping âdonor listsâ and âfundraising strategiesâ secret is dwarfed by the newsworthiness of the documents as a wholeâ...âIf WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNCâs political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them âsecretâ and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet.âKoeltl also said U.S. courts were not the place for the DNC to seek damages against Russia over the hacking. âRelief from the alleged activities of the Russian Federation should be sought from the political branches of the Government and not from the courtâweblink
ReceptionFile:Bilbao - Ribera de Deusto 04.JPG|thumb|upright=.75|Graffiti in BilbaoBilbao
Awards and praise
From interested partiesWikiLeaks has received praise as well as criticism. The organisation won a number of awards in its early years, including The Economist's New Media Award in 2008 at the Index on Censorship AwardsWEB, Winners of Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Announced,weblink Index on Censorship, 15 December 2010, 22 April 2008,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120723022557weblink">weblink 23 July 2012, no, and Amnesty International's UK Media Award in 2009.WEB, The Cry of Blood. Report on Extra-Judicial Killings and Disappearances,weblink Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, 15 December 2010, 2008,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209122323weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, yes, PRESS RELEASE, Amnesty announces Media Awards 2009 winners,weblink Amnesty International UK, 15 December 2010, 2 June 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131022182928weblink">weblink 22 October 2013, yes, In 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks first among websites "that could totally change the news,"NEWS,weblink 5 pioneering Web sites that could totally change the news, Reso, Paulina, 20 May 2010, Daily News, New York, 8 June 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110827012650weblink">weblink 27 August 2011, no, and Julian Assange received the Sam Adams AwardWEB, Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, WikiLeaks and Assange Honored,weblink Consortium News, 22 February 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140402104914weblink">weblink 2 April 2014, no, and was named the Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year in 2010.NEWS, Friedman, Megan, Julian Assange: Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year 2010,weblink 15 December 2010, Time, New York, 13 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131027124723weblink">weblink 27 October 2013, no, The UK Information Commissioner has stated that "WikiLeaks is part of the phenomenon of the online, empowered citizen."NEWS, Curtis, Polly,weblink Ministers must 'wise up not clam up' after WikiLeaks disclosures, The Guardian, London, 30 December 2010, 1 January 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110327023338weblink">weblink 27 March 2011, no, During its first days, an Internet petition in support of WikiLeaks attracted more than six hundred thousand signatures.NEWS,weblink Media says government's reaction to WikiLeaks 'troubling', The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 December 2010, 14 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209151331weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no,
Support for good use of free speechSympathisers of WikiLeaks in the media and academia commended it during its early years for exposing state and corporate secrets, increasing transparency, assisting freedom of the press, and enhancing democratic discourse while challenging powerful institutions.NEWS, Kampfner, John, Wikileaks shows up our media for their docility at the feet of authority,weblink 19 December 2010, The Independent, 29 November 2010, London,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120629145243weblink">weblink 29 June 2012, yes, NEWS, Shafer, Jack, Why I Love WikiLeaks,weblink 19 December 2010, Slate (magazine), Slate, 30 November 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110113032713weblink">weblink 13 January 2011, no, NEWS, Greenwald, Glenn, WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets,weblink 19 December 2010, Salon (website), Salon, 30 November 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110113112018weblink">weblink 13 January 2011, yes, NEWS, Gilmore, Dan, Defend WikiLeaks or lose free speech,weblink 19 December 2010, Salon (website), Salon, 6 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110101093621weblink">weblink 1 January 2011, yes, NEWS, First, They Came for WikiLeaks. Then ...,weblink 19 May 2011, The Nation, New York, 27 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110627055730weblink">weblink 27 June 2011, no, NEWS, Where's the democracy in hunting Wikileaks off the Net?,weblink 19 December 2010, Irish Independent, Dublin, 11 December 2010, Ruane, Medb, NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks, the New Information Cultures and Digital Parrhesia, Economic and Political Weekly, Nayar, Pramod K., Mumbai, 25 December 2010, 8 January 2011,weblink 1 September 2013, In 2010, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern over the "cyber war" being led at the time against WikiLeaks,PRESS RELEASE, UN human rights chief voices concern at reported 'cyber war' against WikiLeaks, 9 December 2010, United Nations,weblink 28 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140420125618weblink">weblink 20 April 2014, yes, and in a joint statement with the Organization of American States the UN Special Rapporteur called on states and other people to keep international legal principles in mind.WEB,weblink Joint Statement on WikiLeaks, Organization of American States, 28 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101223072449weblink">weblink 23 December 2010, no,
Public positions taken by politicians concerning WikileaksIn 2010, after WikiLeaks' release of classified U.S. government documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden likened Julian Assange to a "high-tech terrorist," stating that he had put people's lives in danger.NEWS,weblink Julian Assange like a hi-tech terrorist, says Joe Biden, Ewen, MacAskill, The Guardian, 19 December 2010, 23 April 2019, NEWS,weblink The Independent, Assange is a 'hi-tech terrorist', says Biden, David, Usborne, 20 December 2010, 23 April 2019, NEWS,weblink Analysis: WikiLeaks founder unlikely to be extradited soon, Raphael, Satter, 11 April 2019, 23 April 2019, Several Republicans who had once been highly critical of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange began to speak fondly of him after WikiLeaks published the DNC leaks and started to regularly criticise Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.NEWS,weblink Donald Trump, Julian Assange, and the Control of the Republican Mind, Chait, Jonathan, Daily Intelligencer, 6 January 2017, WEB,weblink How some Republicans learned to stop worrying and love Julian Assange, The Washington Post, 6 January 2017, Having called WikiLeaks "disgraceful" in 2010, President-Elect Donald Trump praised WikiLeaks in October 2016, saying, "I love WikiLeaks."NEWS,weblink Trump: 'I love WikiLeaks', Master, Cyra, 10 October 2016, TheHill, 6 January 2017, NEWS,weblink Trump in 2010: WikiLeaks 'disgraceful,' there 'should be like death penalty or something', CNN, Andrew Kaczynski, CNN, 6 January 2017, In 2019, Trump said "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. Itâs not my thing."https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/12/headlines/trump_claims_i_know_nothing_about_wikileaks_despite_praising_site_repeatedly_in_2016 Newt Gingrich, who called for Assange to be "treated as an enemy combatant" in 2010, praised him as a "down to Earth, straight forward interviewee" in 2017. Sean Hannity, who had in 2010 said that Assange waged a "war" on the United States, praised him in 2016 for showing "how corrupt, dishonest and phony our government is". Sarah Palin, who had in 2010 described Assange as an "anti-American operative with blood on his hands", praised Assange in 2017.NEWS,weblink Trump, Palin break with GOP, warm up to Assange, CNN, David Wright and Eugene Scott, CNN, 6 January 2017, Tulsi Gabbard spoke of the "chilling effect on investigative journalism", first of the US government's reclassification of Wikileaks (from "news organization" during the Obama administration to "hostile intelligence service" after the 2016 election), then of his arrest.NEWS, heavy.com, Tulsi Gabbard: The U.S. Governmentâs Treatment of Wikileaks Will 'Have a Chilling Effect on Investigative Reporting',weblink 9 March 2019, 21 April 2019, NEWS, CNN, 2020 Democrat says Assange arrest is 'slippery slope' for journalists, Americans,weblink Katie Bernard, 11 April 2019, 21 April 2019, NEWS, CNN, 2020 Democrat says Assange arrest is 'slippery slope' for journalists, Americans,weblink Katie Bernard, 11 April 2019, 21 April 2019, On 16 April 2019, Mairead Maguire accepted the 2019GUE/NGL Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers & Defenders of the Right to Information on Julian Assange's behalf.NEWS, Alan Jones, Canberra Times, Julian Assange wins EU journalism award, 17 April 2019, 20 April 2019,weblink
Concerns from U.S. governmentAt the same time, several US government officials have criticised WikiLeaks for exposing classified information and claimed that the leaks harm national security and compromise international diplomacy.NEWS, Associated Press,weblink Congress Mulls How to Stop WikiLeaks in Its Tracks, Fox News Channel, 7 April 2010, 17 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131103062429weblink">weblink 3 November 2013, no, NEWS, Paul, Richter, U.S. tries to contain damage from WikiLeaks disclosures, 19 November 2010,weblink Los Angeles Times, 14 March 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20101129222358weblink">weblink 29 November 2010, yes, NEWS,weblink Epstein, Jennifer, Bill Clinton: WikiLeaks will cost lives, Politico, 1 December 2010, 17 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120828070247weblink">weblink 28 August 2012, no, NEWS, Clinton blasts 'deeply distressing' leak of US sites, 6 December 2010,weblink Agence France-Presse, 14 March 2012,weblink 24 May 2012, NEWS,weblink Outrage and Apologies: Washington Fights to Rebuild Battered Reputation, Spiegel International, 6 December 2010, 17 December 2010, Hamburg,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110725173914weblink">weblink 25 July 2011, no, Several human rights organisations requested with respect to earlier document releases that WikiLeaks adequately redact the names of civilians working with international forces, to prevent repercussions.NEWS,weblink WikiLeaks asked to censor secret files, Herald Sun, Melbourne, 11 August 2010, 17 December 2010, Associated Press,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140322021625weblink">weblink 22 March 2014, no, Some journalists have likewise criticised a perceived lack of editorial discretion when releasing thousands of documents at once and without sufficient analysis.WEB,weblink Open letter to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange: "A bad precedent for the Internet's future", Reporters Sans Frontières, 12 August 2010, 17 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140328200448weblink">weblink 28 March 2014, no, In 2016, Harvard law professor and Electronic Frontier Foundation board member Jonathan Zittrain argued that a culture in which one constantly risks being "outed" as a result of virtual Watergate-like break-ins (or violations of the Fourth Amendment) could lead people to hesitate to speak their minds.WEB, Zittrain, Jonathan, Mass Hacks of Private Emails Aren't Whistleblowing, They Are at Odds with It,weblink Just Security, 24 October 2016, 24 October 2016, In April 2017, CIA Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks "a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia".NEWS, CIA chief calls WikiLeaks a 'hostile intelligence service', Warren Strobel & Mark Hosenball,weblink Reuters, 13 April 2017, Also in April 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that arresting Assange was a priority: "We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious. So yes, it is a priority. We've already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail."WEB, Perez, Evan,weblink US prepares charges to seek Julian Assange's arrest â CNNPolitics, Cnn.com, 2017-04-20, 2019-01-28,
Campaigns to discredit WikileaksIn 2011, hacktivist group Anonymous published a secret proposal presented by a Palantir Technologies employee to Hunton & Williams, a Washington, D.C. law firm, to attempt to discredit WikiLeaks and supporters such as Glenn Greenwald with disinformation and cyberattacks.NEWS,weblink Unlocking Secrets, if Not Its Own Value, Hardy, Quentin, 31 May 2014, The New York Times, 20 October 2016, Two other private security firms, Berico Technologies and HBGary, were also involved in the proposal.NEWS,weblink Anonymous: US security firms 'planned to attack WikiLeaks', Halliday, Josh, 15 February 2011, The Guardian, 0261-3077, 20 October 2016, NEWS,weblink Palantir's third black eye: i2 lawsuit settled, Owen, Thomas, 16 February 2011, Reuters, 20 October 2016, NEWS,weblink Palantir Apologizes For WikiLeaks Attack Proposal, Cuts Ties With HBGary, Greenberg, Andy, 11 February 2011, Forbes, 20 October 2016, WEB,weblink More facts emerge about the leaked smear campaigns, Greenwald, Glenn, 15 February 2011, Salon (website), Salon, 20 October 2016, Palantir temporarily suspended the employee, its CEO, Alex Karp, apologised to Greenwald, and a spokesperson said the company would have collapsed if it had carried out the proposal.
Spin-offsRelease of United States diplomatic cables was followed by the creation of a number of other organisations based on the WikiLeaks model.NEWS, Piven, Ben,weblink Copycat WikiLeaks sites make waves â Features, Al Jazeera, 17 December 2010, 18 December 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110108150656weblink">weblink 8 January 2011, no,
- OpenLeaks was created by a former WikiLeaks spokesperson. Daniel Domscheit-Berg said the intention was to be more transparent than WikiLeaks. OpenLeaks was supposed to start public operations in early 2011 but despite much media coverage, {{as of|2013|April|lc=y}} it is not operating.WEB,weblink Official (inactive) Web site, for OpenLeaks, 14 December 2018, OpenLeaks,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110221164331weblink">weblink 21 February 2011, yes, 14 December 2018, dmy-all,
- In December 2011, WikiLeaks launched Friends of WikiLeaks, a social network for supporters and founders of the website.WEB,weblink Wikileaks launches Social Network, Netzwelt.de, 19 December 2011, 24 August 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140324015155weblink">weblink 24 March 2014, no,
- On 9 September 2013WEB, Vanaf vandaag: anoniem lekken naar media via doorgeefluik Publeaks,weblink De Volkskrant, 22 February 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131008173321weblink">weblink 8 October 2013, no, a number of major Dutch media outlets supported the launch of Publeaks, which provides a secure website for people to leak documents to the media using the GlobaLeaks whistleblowing software.WEB, Handling ethical problems in counterterrorism An inventory of methods to support ethical decisionmaking,weblink RAND Corporation, 24 February 2014,
- RuLeaks is aimed at being a Russian equivalent to WikiLeaks. It was initiated originally to provide translated versions of the WikiLeaks cables but the Moscow Times reports it has started to publish its own content as well.NEWS,weblink Russia's Own WikiLeaks Takes Off, Razumovskaya, Olga, The Moscow Times, 21 January 2011, 21 January 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140209151358weblink">weblink 9 February 2014, no,
- Leakymails is a project designed to obtain and publish relevant documents exposing corruption of the political class and the powerful in Argentina.NEWS,weblink Argentina: Judge orders all ISPs to block corruption reporting website, 11 August 2011, 11 August 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121127154425weblink">weblink 27 November 2012, no, NEWS,weblink Argentina: Judge orders all ISPs to block the sites LeakyMails.com and Leakymails.blogspot.com, 11 August 2011, 11 August 2011,weblink 5 November 2013, no, NEWS,weblink Argentine ISPs Use Bazooka to Kill Fly, 19 August 2011, 19 August 2011,weblink 5 November 2013, no,
- Honest Appalachia,WEB,weblink Honest Appalachia,weblink 2 September 2013, yes, initiated in January 2012, is a website based in the United States intended to appeal to potential "whistleblowers" in West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina, and serve as a replicable model for similar projects elsewhere.NEWS,weblink Ove, Torsten, Honest Appalachia website aims to be localized WikiLeaks operation, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 15 January 2012, 15 January 2012, WEB,weblink About us, Blog.honestappalachia.org, 15 January 2012,weblink 22 May 2012, yes,
In popular culture
- Mediastan is a documentary released in 2013, directed by Johannes Wahlström, featuring the people behind Wikileaks.WEB, Mediastan,weblink
- (Underground: The Julian Assange Story) is a biography movie of the early life of Julian Assange, directed by Robert Connolly.
- The documentary (We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks) by director Alex Gibney premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.WEB, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks,weblink Sundance Film Festival,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130820153734weblink">weblink 20 August 2013, no,
- The Fifth Estate is a film directed by Bill Condon, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Assange. The film is based on Wikileaks defector Domscheit-Berg's book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange and the World's Most Dangerous Website, as well as WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding.NEWS, Brooks, Xan,weblink DreamWorks lines up WikiLeaks film based on Guardian book, The Guardian, March 2, 2011, March 29, 2013, London,
- War, Lies and Videotape is a documentary by French directors Paul Moreira and Luc Hermann from press agency Premieres Lignes. The film was first released in France, in 2011 and then broadcast worldwide.documentary {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407161600weblink |date=7 April 2014 }}
- The Source is a 2014 oratorio by Ted Hearne, with a libretto by Mark Doten that features WikiLeaks document disclosures by Chelsea Manning.NEWS, Zachary Woolfe, Shadowed, Clamoring, Blurry. And With Reason.,weblink 25 February 2017, The New York Times, 24 October 2014,
EcuadorOn 11 April 2019, Ecuador withdrew Julian Assange's asylum and invited the police into its embassy to arrest him. Later in April Ecuador detained Ola Bini and froze his bank accounts saying that he was under investigation for cyber-attack charges. Ecuador authorities said Bini was a key member of Wikileaks and close to Assange.NEWS, Collyns, Dan, Swedish man jailed in Ecuador over alleged WikiLeaks involvement,weblink 21 April 2019, The Guardian, 13 April 2019, NEWS, Ecuador arrests Ola Bini, Swedish software developer said to be tied to Julian Assange, trying to âflee countryâ,weblink 21 April 2019, AP, Agence France-Presse, The Washington Post, 12 April 2019,
See also{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
- 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak
- Accountability
- Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority
- Chilling Effects
- Classified information in the United States
- Data activism
- Digital rights
- Freedom of information
- Freedom of the press
- Freedom of the Press Foundation
- GlobaLeaks
- Information security
- Information warfare
- Mueller Report
- New York Times Co. v. United States
- Open government
- Open society
- 1993 PGP criminal investigation
- Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
- Speaking truth to power
- Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
- Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (2017)
- Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (2018)
- Transparency (social)
External links
- Courage Foundation official website An organization that supports whistleblowers and political prisoners
- content above as imported from Wikipedia
- "WikiLeaks" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 1:13am EDT - Wed, Sep 18 2019
- "WikiLeaks" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 1:13am EDT - Wed, Sep 18 2019
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Eastern Philosophy
History of Philosophy
History of Philosophy
M.R.M. Parrott