WikiLeaks

Wikileaks which began operations in December 2006, which is a website devoted to making information that would otherwise be restricted, available to the public. It has both been praised for breaking information on scandals, but also for revealing information that is personal or otherwise of questionable public value. It describes itself as a production of Sunshine Press, "an non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public. ... Although our work produces reforms daily and is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the 2008 Index on Censorship-Economist Freedom of Expression Award as well as the 2009 Amnesty International New Media Award, these accolades do not pay the bills. Nor can we accept government or corporate funding and maintain our absolute integrity."

Origins
The founder is Julian Assange, about whom little is known, except that he appears to be an Australian in his thirties, who is in Africa, probably Kenya. He is known to have been raised in Melbourne, and was convicted, as a teenager, of hacking into websites. The founders were described as mostly Chinese dissidents, hackers, computer programmers and journalists. Early in the formation, the founders wrote to Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, saying, in an email released by John Young, We believe that injustice is answered by good governance and for there to be good governance there must be open governance," the email said. "New technology and cryptographic ideas permit us to not only encourage document leaking, but to facilitate it directly on a mass scale. We intend to place a new star in the political firmament of man." The email appealed to Ellsberg to be part of the "political-legal defences" the organisers recognised they would need once they started to get under the skin of governments, militaries and corporations: "We'd like … you to form part of our political armour. The more armour we have, particularly in the form of men and women sanctified by age, history and class, the more we can act like brazen young men and get away with it."

Chris McGreal, of the Guardian (UK)The Guardian, wrote "Assange, who describes what he does as a mix of hi-tech investigative journalism and advocacy, foresees a day when any confidential document, from secret orders that allow our own governments to spy on us down to the bossy letters from your children's school, will be posted on WikiLeaks for the whole world to see. And that, Assange believes, will change everything." But there are those who fear that WikiLeaks is more like an intelligence service than it would care to admit – a shadowy, unaccountable organisation that tramples on individual privacy and other rights. And like so many others who have claimed to be acting in the name of the people, there are those who fear it risks oppressing them. <

Cryptome and John Young
McGreal reported that the organisers approached John Young, owner of the long-established leaked document site, Cryptome.org, and asked him to register the WikiLeaks website in his name. According to McGreal, "Young obliged and was initially an enthusiastic supporter but when the organisers announced their intention to try and raise $5m he questioned their motives, saying that kind of money could only come from the CIA or George Soros. Then he walked away. 'WikiLeaks is a fraud,' he wrote in an email when he quit. 'Fuck your cute hustle and disinformation campaign against legitimate dissent. Same old shit, working for the enemy.' Young then leaked all of his email correspondence with WikiLeak's founders, including the messages to Ellsberg."

Steven Aftergood, who publishes Secrecy News for the Federation of American Scientists, declined to join Wikileaks.

U.S. government positions
The U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Army confirmed, to the New York Times, that Wikileaks was considered a security threat.

At Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald wrote that Wikileaks was targeted by the U.S. government, citing actions taken by Icelandic police against a leaker. Steven Aftergood, however, says that Icelandic police differ with the Salon account.