The WikiLeaks Diary
Revathi Sivakumar
WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website has become the centre of a global debate, and has shaken governments and corporate houses worldwide. It is currently being pilloried for its role in the release of thousands of confidential messages about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and American diplomacy everywhere; on trade and corporate transparency, on ecology, corruption, and Internet filtering etc.
Founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, an Australian activist and journalist, along with a group of activists and computer experts, this website has brought to light information as diverse as documents related to toxic dumping in Africa, protocols from Guantánamo Bay, e-mail messages from Sarah Palin’s personal account and 9/11 pager messages.
The website is run by five full-time volunteers and 800 to 1,000 experts who lend their services in areas like encryption, programming and writing news releases.
The modus operandi was to gather secrets, store them beyond the reach of retrievers, and then release them all over the world. The information is published on its own site, and housed on a few dozen servers around the globe, including countries such as Sweden, Belgium and the United States.

Global storm
It was the publication of massive amounts of confidential military field reports about the two wars in July 2010 that began to invite criticism from American officials for “endangering the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians”. The main suspect in the leaking of more than 90,000 classified documents about the Afghan war, and 150,000 classified diplomatic cables, is Pfc. Bradley Manning. Making the material on Iraq and Afghanistan available to a number of news organisations, including The New York Times and The Guardian, by early December, Wikileaks brought a vast quantity of sensitive information available to the public.
In late December, it also published 250,000 diplomatic cables, which led to anger and criticism from officials worldwide. In 2008, California Judge, Jeffrey S. White had ordered the American version of the site to be shut down after there was publication of confidential documents concerning a Swiss bank. Two weeks later the judge was forced to renege, partly because the order had little effect. The same information was available after all on a number of “mirror sites”.
But the final straw was the release of a cable related to December 2006, after a former K.G.B. officer, Alexander V. Litvinenko was said to have suffered radiation poisoning in London. Wikileaks’ revelations seemed to strengthen a theory that the British intelligence services had some hand in the poisoning leading to death. This led to an uproar in official circles.
Meanwhile, there were a number of legal troubles that began to stalk Julian Assange. He was charged of rape and molestation of two Swedish women. Although he has denied and denounced these allegations as false, asserting that the relations were consensual, the British police arrested him on a Swedish warrant in December 7, 2010. A London court initially denied him bail, but later released him on bail of $315,000. He is currently fighting extradition to Sweden.
His supporters condemned the Obama administration as the “unseen hand” trying to choke off WikiLeaks by denying it funds and suppressing its network.

Cyber war
Assange called himself a “refugee”, staying in the shadows with friends, and interacting through Twitter. But after his arrest and initial refusal to give him bail, he came under a cloud. His friends ensured that the releases of secret State Department cables would “continue as planned”.
Within 12 hours of the court decision to deny him bail, supporters of Assange (co-ordinated by Anonymous, a loosely affiliated group of activist computer hackers. They called their effort ‘Operation Payback’, which had earlier been started to punish companies that blocked Internet file sharing and movie downloads) began to attack the websites of his “enemies.” Several corporate websites went out of range, or slowed down. The website of MasterCard was attacked, since it had stopped processing donations. Amazon.com (which revoked the use of its computer servers), PayPal (which stopped accepting donations), Visa.com and websites of the Swedish prosecutor’s office, as well as the lawyer representing the two women who had accused him of sexual assault were also attacked.

Fraternity response
While Assange’s supporters looked at him as a crusader, his enemies, including the Obama government, are enraged by the revelations of secret information that threatened to compromise American security interests and lives. The US Army called it a threat to its operations in March 2010. Federal prosecutors in Washington are searching for evidence to charge him with helping the Army intelligence analyst who was suspected of leaking the information. American officials claim that they are conducting “a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature” into the WikiLeaks releases.
While Assange seems to be targeting US interests, the response from the US journalistic fraternity---usually a vocal body---seems to be muted. On their part, American newspaper and magazine editors have generally avoided issuing statements on the matter, although The Washington Post published an editorial against prosecution. Even The New York Times, which earlier published some of its documents, refuses to comment or publish an editorial. Most journalists, even if they believe that he should not be prosecuted, are disgusted with his approach to dump massive amounts of confidential information in utter disregard of lives.
However, many in the foreign press have come out strongly in his defence. In his home country of Australia, editors of most major papers signed a letter to Prime Minister Julia Gillard opposing prosecution of Assange in Australia or the U.S.
Will the leaks stop? That doesn’t seem likely. However, one thing is clear, while the debates and counter-debates continue to rain around him. Whether Assange gets away with it or not, he has certainly changed the entire definition of news, free and fair publication, media ethics and journalism.