Wikileaks
Wikileaks was founded in 2006. It's an international organization based in Sweden that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of otherwise unavailable documents while preserving the anonymity of sources.
It acts as an electronic dead drop for highly sensitive or secret information:the pure stuff, in other words, published straight from the secret files to the world. No filters, no rewriting, no spin.
Created by an online network of dissidents, journalists, academics, technology experts and mathematicians from various countries, the website also uses technology that makes the original sources of the leaks untraceable.
Julian Assange has never publicly admitted that he's the brains behind WikiLeaks, the website that has so radically rewritten the rules in the information era.
He did, however, register a website, Leaks.org, in 1999, "But then I didn't do anything with it", he said. In April the website released graphic, classified video footage of an American helicopter gunship firing on and killing Iraqis in a Baghdad street in 2007, apparently in cold blood.
The de-encrypted video, which WikiLeaks released on its own sites as well as on YouTube, caused an international uproar. In July 2010, Wikileaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 90,000 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review.
"Where does Assange see WikiLeaks in 10 years? It's not what I want the world to be. It's what I want the rest of the world to be", he replies.
The Free WikiLeaks website also calls for "the re-establishment of the WikiLeaks (wikileaks.org) Internet domain," and the restoration of Visa and MasterCard credit card services to enable the "freedom to move money" because no one has "proved Assange's guilt," or charged WikiLeaks with any crime. Many U.S.-based Internet companies have cut their ties to WikiLeaks, including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., Amazon.com, PayPal Inc. and Every DNS. Those moves have hurt WikiLeaks ability to accept donations and support publishing efforts.
-"WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States," says Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y, who has urged the Obama administration to "use every offensive capability of the U.S. government to prevent further damaging releases.
-Marine Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, says he is "not aware" that the Defense Department is behind any attempts to attack the WikiLeaks site, whose founder, Julian Assange, is in a British jail on a Swedish warrant accusing him of rape.
-The Pentagon fears that the 15,000 leaked documents about the war in Afghanistan that website WikiLeaks says it will soon post are "potentially even more damaging" than the more than 70,000 already published, said Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan.
-"The release of secret documents by WikiLeaks has had a negative impact on Defense Department operations as people and governments hold back information, fearing their identities will be revealed," Pentagon.
-Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder.
