Wikileaks is an international organization that publishes classified media and secret information without revealing their sources. It was founded in 2006 by an Australian internet activist, Julian Assange, who is also the director. Julian Assange is a former computer hacker and was determined to make all the secrets public. A year after its establishment, the organization claimed to have more than 1.2 million documents in its database. Wikileaks is mainly based on volunteers from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa. Although it uses the name Wikileaks, it does not follow the “wiki” publishing method.
- Overview of operations and objectives –
Wikileaks is a non-profit organization and the founder, Julian Assange, had originally claimed to be the financier. The organization gets its information through three main ways. That is, these were through the use of spies, hackers, or via drop boxes, where anonymous people publish on their websites without revealing their identity. For example, someone who works for a government or a large company and has been entrusted with secrets may find that his employer engages in horrible acts and decides not to go to the police or the courts but to publish in Wikileaks. The organization has enough money to pay the people who give them the information. According to Assange, the main objective is to promote transparency and freedom of speech, bringing relevant news and information to the public. Another objective is to guarantee the safety of whistle blowers and journalists who wish to share sensitive information with the public. They insure it thanks to release boxes where volunteers leave their information online, remaining anonymous.
- Storia e struttura organizzativa –
The WikiLeaks domain name was registered in 2006 and the first document on the website was published in December of the same year. A Swedish internet provider, Bahnhof, hosts Wikileaks, and there are servers in different countries that offer legal protection to disclosures made to the site. The Swedish law forbids any administrative authority to question the news sources of any newspaper or media, and these laws make it almost impossible to eliminate Wikileaks. The organization does not have a formal organizational structure or an official headquarters. Julian Assange is the founder, director, financier and also the spokesman for WikiLeaks. In 2010, the team of organization consisted of five full-time workers and more than 800 people who occasionally worked without any of them being compensated. However, in 2014, four full-time workers, including Juan Assange, had begun to receive salaries.
- Major Hacks, Leaks and Global Notoriety –
One of the first major losses was a corruption story that saw the family of Daniel Arap Moi, a former president of Kenya. On the eve of the 2008 US elections, the content of a Yahoo account belonging to Sarah Palin was released after being violated. Sarah Palin was the racemate of then Republican presidential candidate John McCain. In 2009, the organization released 570,000 interceptions of pager messages allegedly sent in the September 11th attacks. In April 2010, they published a detailed video of the Baghdad air raid that showed the shooting to two Reuters employees. The pilots mistakenly thought that the men carried weapons that were, in fact, cameras.
The American forces were also shown in the video that shot at a family van that had stopped to collect the bodies. The most recent escape is that of a mine of emails sent or received by the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. They were a total of 1,258 e-mails and were sent to Clinton’s personal mail server and were selected based on relevance for the Iraq war. The exit is probably scheduled to precede the release of the British government’s investigation report on the war. 258 and were sent to Clinton’s personal mail server and were selected based on relevance for the Iraq war.
The exit is probably scheduled to precede the release of the British government’s investigation report on the war. 258 and were sent to Clinton’s personal mail server and were selected based on relevance for the Iraq war. The exit is probably scheduled to precede the release of the British government’s investigation report on the war.
- Challenges, controversies and criminal liability –
The biggest challenge for the WikiLeaks organization is financial constraints. The organization’s annual expenses are estimated at $ 300,000 and are expected to increase to $ 900,000 if the work currently done by the volunteers were to be paid. The company has repeatedly been accused of working with Russian agents to discredit NATO-affiliated governments. Even the British and French intelligence services have reached the same conclusion and have even stated that the Russian president and prime minister have always received details on what Wikipedia will publish. The United States Attorney General has launched criminal investigations against WikiLeaks regarding the loss of diplomatic cables released in 2010.
- Media representation and public approval –
The organization has received praise and criticism in equal measure. He has also won several awards including the Amnesty International UK Media Award in 2009. In 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks among the websites that had the potential to completely change the global news landscape.
