Wikileaks Information
“ WikiLeaks has probably produced more scoops in its short life than the Washington Post has
in the past 30 years ” — The National, November 19, 2009
In February 2008, the Wikileaks.org domain name was taken offline after the Swiss Bank Julius Baer sued Wikileaks and the wikileaks.org domain registrar, Dynadot, in a court in California, United States, and obtained a permanent injunction ordering the shutdown.[42][43] Wikileaks had hosted allegations of illegal activities at the bank's Cayman Island branch.[42] Wikileaks' U.S. ISP, Dynadot, complied with the order by removing its DNS entries. However, the website remained accessible via its numeric IP address, and online activists immediately mirrored Wikileaks at dozens of alternate websites worldwide.[44]
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a motion protesting the censorship of Wikileaks. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press assembled a coalition of media and press that filed an amicus curiae brief on Wikileaks' behalf. The coalition included major U.S. newspaper publishers and press organisations, such as: the American Society of Newspaper Editors, The Associated Press, the Citizen Media Law Project, The E.W. Scripps Company, the Gannett Company, The Hearst Corporation, the Los Angeles Times, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the Newspaper Association of America, The Radio-Television News Directors Association, and The Society of Professional Journalists. The coalition requested to be heard as a friend of the court to call attention to relevant points of law that it believed the court had overlooked (on the grounds that Wikileaks had not appeared in court to defend itself, and that no First Amendment issues had yet been raised before the court). Amongst other things, the coalition argued that:[44]
"Wikileaks provides a forum for dissidents and whistleblowers across the globe to post documents, but the Dynadot injunction imposes a prior restraint that drastically curtails access to Wikileaks from the Internet based on a limited number of postings challenged by Plaintiffs. The Dynadot injunction therefore violates the bedrock principle that an injunction cannot enjoin all communication by a publisher or other speaker."[44]
The same judge, Judge Jeffrey White, who issued the injunction vacated it on 29 February 2008, citing First Amendmentlegal jurisdiction.[45] Wikileaks was thus able to bring its site online again. The bank dropped the case on 5 March 2008.[46] The judge also denied the bank's request for an order prohibiting the website's publication.[44] concerns and questions about
The Executive Director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Lucy Dalglish, commented:
"It's not very often a federal judge does a 180 degree turn in a case and dissolves an order. But we're very pleased the judge recognized the constitutional implications in this prior restraint."[44
Guantánamo Bay proceduresA copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta – the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp – dated March 2003 was released on the Wikileaks website on 7 November 2007.[47] The document, named "gitmo-sop.pdf", is also mirrored at The Guardian.[48] Its release revealed some of the restrictions placed over detainees at the camp, including the designation of some prisoners as off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, something that the U.S. military had in the past repeatedly denied.[49]
On 3 December 2007, Wikileaks released a copy of the 2004 edition of the manual,[50] together with a detailed analysis of the changes.[51]
ScientologyOn 7 April 2008, Wikileaks reported receiving a letter (dated 27 March) from the Religious Technology
Centre claiming ownership of several recently leaked documents pertaining to OT Levels within the Church of Scientology. These same documents were at the centre of a 1994 scandal. The email stated:
“ The Advanced Technology materials are unpublished, copyrighted works. Please be advised that your customer's action in this regard violates United States copyright law. Accordingly, we ask for your help in removing these works immediately from your service. ” The letter continued on to request the release of the logs of the uploader, which would remove their anonymity. Wikileaks responded with a statement released on Wikinews stating: "in response to the attempted suppression, Wikileaks will release several thousand additional pages of Scientology material next week",[53] and did so.
Hack of Sarah Palin's Yahoo accountIn September 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaigns, the contents of a Yahoo account belonging to Sarah Palin (the running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain) were posted on Wikileaks. The contents of the mailbox seemed to suggest that she used the private Yahoo account to send work-related messages in order to evade public record laws.[54] The hacking of the account was widely reported in mainstream news outlets.[55][56][57] Although Wikileaks was able to conceal the hacker's identity, the source of the Palin emails was eventually publicly identified in another way;[58] the hacker attempted to conceal his identity by using the anonymous proxy service ctunnel.com, but, because of the illegal nature of the access, ctunnel website administrator Gabriel Ramuglia assisted the FBI in tracking down the source of the hack.[59] The hacker was revealed to be David Kernell, a 20-year-old economics student at the University of Tennessee and the son of Democratic Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell from Memphis.[60]
BNP membership listAfter briefly appearing on a blog, the membership list of the far-right British National Party was posted to Wikileaks on 18 November 2008. The name, address, age and occupation of many of the 13,500 members were given, including several police officers, two solicitors, four ministers of religion, at least one doctor, and a number of primary and secondary school teachers. In Britain, police officers are banned from joining or promoting the BNP, and at least one officer was dismissed for being a member.[61] The BNP was known for going to considerable lengths to conceal the identities of members. On 19 November, BNP leader Nick Griffin stated that he knew the identity of the person who initially leaked the list on 17 November, describing him as a "hardliner" senior employee who left the party in 2007.[62][63][64] On 20 October 2009, a list of BNP members from April 2009 was leaked. This list contained 11,811 members.[65]
2009 leaksIn January 2009, over 600 internal United Nations reports (60 of them marked "strictly confidential") were leaked.[66]
On 7 February 2009, Wikileaks released 6,780 Congressional Research Service reports.[67]
In March 2009, Wikileaks published a list of contributors to the Norm Coleman senatorial campaign[68]Barclays Bank that had been ordered removed from the website of The Guardian.[69] and a set of documents belonging to
Climate Research Unit e-mailsMain article: Climatic Research Unit hacking incidentIn November 2009, controversial documents, including e-mail correspondence between climate scientists, were leaked from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia to various sites; one prominent host of the full 120MB archive was Wikileaks.[70][71][72]
Internet censorship listsWikileaks has published the lists of forbidden or illegal web addresses for several countries.
On 19 March 2009, Wikileaks published what was alleged to be the Australian Communications and Media Authority's blacklist of sites to be banned under Australia's proposed laws on Internet censorship.[73] Reactions to the publication of the list by the Australian media and politicians were varied. Particular note was made by journalistic outlets of the type of websites on the list; while the Internet censorship scheme submitted by the Australian Labor Party in 2008 was proposed with the stated intention of preventing access to child pornography and sites related to terrorism,[74] the list leaked on Wikileaks contains a number of sites unrelated to sex crimes involving minors.[75][76] When questioned about the leak, Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in Australia's Rudd Labor Government, responded by claiming that the list was not the actual list, yet threatening to prosecute anyone involved in distributing it.[77] On 20 March 2009, Wikileaks published an updated list, dated 18 March 2009; it more closely matches the claimed size of the ACMA blacklist, and contains two pages which have been independently confirmed to be blacklisted by ACMA.[78]
Wikileaks also contains details of Internet censorship in Thailand, including lists of censored sites dating back to May 2006.[79]
Bilderberg Group meeting reportsSince May 2009, Wikileaks has made available reports of several meetings of the Bilderberg Group.[80] It includes the group's history[81] and meeting reports from the years 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1962, 1963, and 1980.
2008 Peru oil scandalOn January 28, 2009, Wikileaks released 86 telephone intercept recordings of Peruvian politicians and businessman involved in the "Petrogate" oil scandal. The release of the tapes lead the front pages of five Peruvian newspapers.[82]
Toxic dumping in Africa: The Minton reportIn September 2006, commodities giant Trafigura commissioned an internal report about a toxic dumping incident in the Ivory Coast,[83] which (according to the United Nations) affected 108,000 people. The document, called the Minton Report, names various harmful chemicals "likely to be present" in the waste — sodium hydroxide, cobalt phthalocyanine sulfonate, coker naphtha, thiols, sodium alkanethiolate, sodium hydrosulfide, sodium sulfide, dialkyl disulfides, hydrogen sulfide — and notes that some of them "may cause harm at some distance". The report states that potential health effects include "burns to the skin, eyes and lungs, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of consciousness and death", and suggests that the high number of reported casualties is "consistent with there having been a significant release of hydrogen sulphide gas".
On September 11, 2009, Trafigura's lawyers, Carter-Ruck, obtained a secret "super-injunction"[84]The Guardian, banning that newspaper from publishing the contents of the document. Trafigura also threatened a number of other media organizations with legal action if they published the report's contents, including the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation[83] and The Chemical Engineer[85] On September 14, 2009, Wikileaks posted the report.[86] against magazine.
On October 12, Carter-Ruck warned The Guardian against mentioning the content of a parliamentary question that was due to be asked about the report. Instead, the paper published an article stating that they were unable to report on an unspecified question and claiming that the situation appeared to "call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1689 Bill of Rights".[87] The suppressed details rapidly circulated via the internet and Twitter[88][89][90] and, amid uproar, Carter-Ruck agreed the next day to the modification of the injunction before it was challenged in court, permitting The Guardian to reveal the existence of the question and the injunction.[91] The injunction was lifted on October 16.[92]
Kaupthing BankWikileaks has made available an internal document[93] from Kaupthing Bank from just prior to the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which led to the 2008–2009 Icelandic financial crisis. The document shows that suspiciously large sums of money were loaned to various owners of the bank, and large debts written off. Kaupthing's lawyers have threatened Wikileaks with legal action, citing banking privacy laws. The leak has caused an uproar in Iceland and may result in criminal charges against the individuals involved.[94]
9/11 pager messagesOn November 25, 2009, Wikileaks released 570,000 intercepts of pager messages from the day of the September 11 attacks. Among the released messages are communications between Pentagon officials and New York City Police Department.[95]
U.S. Intelligence report on WikileaksOn March 15, 2010, Wikileaks released a secret 32 page U.S. Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report from March 2008. The document described some prominent reports leaked on the website which related to the security interests of the USA, and described potential methods of marginalizing the organization. Wikileaks editor Julian Assange said that some details in the Army report were inaccurate and its recommendations flawed. [96] The report recommended deterring potential whistleblowers via termination of employment and criminal prosecution of any existing or former insiders, leakers or whistleblowers. Reasons for the attack include notable leaks such as U.S. equipment expenditure, human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay and the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah. As to date no Wikileak source has been able to be discovered or prosecuted, the plan is assumed to have been ineffectual or not to have been implemented.[97]
Police raid on German Wikileaks domain owner's home
The home of Theodor Reppe, owner of the German Wikileaks domain name, Wikileaks.de, was raided on 24 March 2009 after WikiLeaks released the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) censorship blacklist.[98] The site was not affected.[99][100][101]