In February 2016, the United Nation’s Human Rights office announced that WikiLeaks founder,
Julian Assange, was being arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Assange was in prison and under house arrest, until his asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy
in London in 2012.
Since then he has been under constant surveillance by British law enforcement.
All this stems from his role in the disclosure of secret documents concerning the world’s
governments and militaries.
Although Assange has political asylum, his organization, WikiLeaks continues to publish
confidential information.
So, just how powerful is WikiLeaks?
Well, WikiLeaks was founded by Assange around 2006 as a journalistic platform for whistleblowers
to share evidence of illegal or corrupt activities.
However, since there is relative danger to mass publishing classified information, WikiLeaks
acts as a sort of intermediary for whistleblowers.
They are able to leak it to the press, without having anonymous whistleblowers accidentally
identified.
According to WikiLeaks, they have released more classified intelligence documents than
the rest of the world press combined.
The organization first received global attention in 2010.
WikiLeaks published the video of a US helicopter gunning down multiple journalists in Iraq,
entitled “Collateral Murder”.
Later that year, they also released thousands of internal military logs concerning the Afghan
War.
Their release painted the war as a failure, and disclosed the huge number of unreported
civilian deaths, higher terrorist activity, and the sponsorship of terrorism by Pakistan
and Iran.
Several months later, WikiLeaks released a similar cache of documents concerning the
Iraq War.
They detailed 15,000 unaccounted civilian deaths, and the US tolerating torture by Iraqi
security forces.
But perhaps the most damaging leak was that of US diplomatic cables in late 2010.
These were private communications between US State Department officials and diplomats,
discussing world leaders and international conflict.
Many outlined corruption and human rights abuses in US-friendly countries.
The publication of these cables even contributed to the collapse of the Tunisian government,
when it was revealed that the President’s family was corrupt and disproportionately
wealthy.
The response against WikiLeaks has been overwhelming.
The US government has said these leaks could threaten national security, and many countries
have openly condemned the organization.
The then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said “they might already have, on their
hands, the blood of some young soldier”.
One Canadian political advisor even called for the assassination of Julian Assange.
Additionally, since its inception, the US government and others have repeatedly attempted
to shut down the site, and arrest its founder.
Amazon has since blocked WikiLeaks from using its servers, and a number of countries have
censored their internet to prevent WikiLeaks access.
Payment services like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal have also blocked donations to WikiLeaks.
But in recent years, there have been a number of imitators, including region specific whistleblowing
organizations, which have been met with their own takedown notices.
WikiLeaks has sent governments scrambling, exposed corruption, and garnered a massive
international effort to stop the organization.
No matter how you look at it, there is no question that both the idea of WikiLeaks,
and the organization itself, are incredibly powerful in this new age of information.
One of the most famous recent whistleblowers is Edward Snowden, who leaked the existence
of mass surveillance by government organizations like the NSA.
Check out this video to learn more about Snowden’s journey over the past few years.
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