Part 1 of 2 - Assange and the Wikileaks.

[PointTracker]

In 2010, a man named Julian Assange headlined news all around the world for his controversial organization, Wikileaks. As of late, the issue no longer dominates the global spotlight to the same degree, but every now and then, the organization releases some type of document that stirs the pot yet again. The organization could be dangerous, but it could be revolutionary, and it may certainly go a long way in making governments far more transparent than they are.

Who is Julian Assange and what is Wikileaks?

Assange - The Messenger
Julian Assange (born 1971) is the 'editor-in-chief' of Wikileaks, and generally know to be the organization's frontman in the media. He is a journalist, computer programmer, former hacker and internet activist. His stepfather, Brett Assange, described him as a "very bright boy" with a "really good sense of equality and equity". His mother described him as "highly intelligent" with a "strong desire to do what he perceived as just".

Justice, even at the expense of the law. Beginning in his teenage years, Assange embarked on a hacking career that caught the attention of the Australian police, leading to a three year long chase and 25 charges against him. But the purpose of it was never to alter or destroy the contents of the hacked program/institution; ultimately, all charges in the case were dropped because the judge could find no evidence of an ill intention on Assange's part, just an "intelligent inquisitiveness". Assange himself maintained amongst his fellow hackers that the purpose of the activity was to share information, leaving everything unharmed. One forum called him "Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker".

A little peak into his blog (formerly at the website 'iq.org' but no longer) would reveal the kind of man Assange is. In one post, he discusses why we strive to 'do the right thing"'. "People are motivated to follow happiness and flee from pain". So, an altruistic act (altruism would be the unselfish concern for, or devotion to, the welfare of others) does not truly exist, because the reason someone would perform an altruistic act is in order to a) feel good about him/herself (achieve happiness), or to b) escape feelings of guilt (the kind of guilt one would feel from doing nothing). He suggest at the end of that post - "Insofar as we can affect the world, let it be to utterly eliminate guilt and fear as a motivator of man and replace it cell for cell with love for one another and the passion of creation."

Fastforward to 2006 - the creation of Wikileaks. In another post from his blog, Assange states: "The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership..." He continues: "Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

And finally, a nod to Wikileaks: "Only revealed injustice can be answered; for man to do anything intelligent he has to know what's actually going on." So what's going on?

A government's worst nightmare - Wikileaks
Assange's pursuit for justice, combined with a desire to see more openness in government, manifested as Wikileaks. It is an international non-profit organization that houses over 1 million private, confidential, secret documents and media belonging to governments all over the world. The name 'Wikileaks' is a combination of 'leaks' referring to the documents falling from private (government) to public (society's) hands, thus exposing them, and 'Wiki', in reference to the online database 'Wikipedia' where users can control and edit content as they please (however Wikileaks no longer accepts users editing content anymore).

How did Wikileaks obtain the content?
One of the largest leaks was provided by US Army Soldier Bradley Manning (born 1987) when he was stationed in Iraq. As an Army Intelligence Analyst, Manning had access to hundreds of thousands of classified government documents. He was shocked and dismayed by the contents of the documents, deciding it best for the public to be informed of the "almost criminal political back dealings" he came across. Manning relayed his concerns over a chat program to a former computer hacker, Adrian Lamo, who eventually turned him into the authorities. Before he was arrested, Manning managed to transfer the documents via CD to Wikileaks. He is currently being held in a medium security prison awaiting trial for serious offenses against the United States. That said, Manning was responsible for transmitting some of the most discussed, controversial content to Wikileaks. Wikileaks has also obtained content from a variety of other sources, but rather than verifying the source, Wikileaks prefers to focus on verifying the content itself regardless of where it came from.

What sort of content has been leaked?
* Approximately 250,000 US diplomatic cables; a diplomatic cable is a sort of confidential text message (like e-mail, but more secure) sent between diplomats or military officials. The cables leaked so far have been  embarrassing for many diplomats: Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, was described by diplomats as "paranoid", and Silvo Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, as "feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader". Certain cables discussed many Middle Eastern countries' concerns for Iran's nuclear program, requesting for the United States to disarm it. Other cables dealt with the Obama administration offering incentives (worth millions) to other nations to accept prisoners of Guantanamo Bay as the American government works to shut down the site entirely. Not only have the cables embarrassed diplomats worldwide, they may also function to jeopardize international relations.
* 'Collateral Murder'; this is the name of a video released in 2010, dating back to 2007, that shows point-of-view footage from an American Apache helicopter in Baghdad opening fire on several Iraqis - civilians, journalists, children - all presumed to be insurgents that allegedly posed a threat to the American soldiers. The video initially sparked a global outrage towards the soldiers due to their harsh, inhumane comments about the Iraqis being targeted and whether the strike was warranted in the first place. However, Wikileaks came under fire soon after for disseminating a modified (much shorter) version of the video that was allegedly taken out of context; the longer version of the video apparently shows men equipped with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The Wikileaks version can be viewed here, and the response to Wikileaks' video (the longer version of the video), can be seen here. Warning - they may be disturbing to some.
* Afghan War Logs; Approximately 92,000 US military documents chronicling the war in Afghanistan made its way into Wikileaks' hands from source unknown. They cover the period between July 2004 and December 2009, and are considered one of the biggest leaks in American military history. A couple of the more controversial leaks concern the following;
- that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (commonly abbreviated ISI), is supporting the Taliban; about 180 of the documents allege that the ISI has been arming, training and financing the Taliban since 2004, in the form of assassination plots on Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, attacks on NATO warplanes, American and NATO personnel, and against the embassies of Pakistan's neighbor India. The reports, if true, would seriously undermine the Pakistani government's credibility internationally; indeed the government could be considered a global threat. On the other hand, former officials with a wealth of experience in the region claim that the reports lack truth, and are composed of rumours and second-hand information.
- the injuries and deaths of hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan that have not been reported; the logs recount 144 incidents where foreign forces have wounded or killed civilians in situations that have not been accounted for publicly, including an instance where an American patrol killed 4 and wounded 18 civilians on a public bus after it allegedly did not heed the warning signs it was given. While NATO and eyewitnesses have given different accounts of what exactly happened, the fact remains that many such stories do fail to make it to the public spotlight.
- Iraq War Logs; the number of Afghan war logs leaked pale in comparison to the approximately 391,000 US Army field reports (over four times as many as the Afghan logs) documenting the war in Iraq from 2004 to 2009, published by Wikileaks in late 2010. The 'Collateral Murder' video discussed above was part of these leaks. Other leaks include a failure by the US government to account for (that is, record and make public), 15,000 additional violent Iraqi civilian deaths (as recorded by the Iraqi Body Count Project), and multiple reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder of detainees by Iraqi security and police forces that were ignored by US authorities. These reports state that prisoners were "shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death."

Part 2 of this article will discuss the legal angles of Wikleaks and the parties involved.


A couple of things to think about:
* What's your take on Wikileaks? Do you think there are things the government should keep secret from society, or should everything be put out into the public domain?
* Do you consider Assange a criminal/outlaw for what he has done? Are he, and Wikileaks, serving the greater good?

Works used for this article, and more information:
[Wikileaks, the official website, with a search function]
[Guardian document covering the leaks in the Afghan war logs]
[Guardian document covering the leaks in the Iraq war logs]
[Sunday Times article on Assange]