Wikileaks released more than 90,000 documents regarding the war in Afghanistan this week. The documents were handed to three major news outlets: The New York Times, U.K. newspaper The Guardian, and Germany’s Der Spiegel. All three outlets have begun pouring over the documents, trying to make sense of it all.
Some people, including Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, feel that the documents show strong wrong doing on the part of the US military in Afghanistan. Others have downplayed the significance of the documents, due to a lack of context or greater understanding of the situation at hand. One thing everyone can agree on is that these documents, when combined with the recent video footage titled “Collateral Murder” that Wikeleaks released, spell trouble for them. It is a fairly safe assumption that the US government will be launching a thorough investigation into how Wikileaks got their documents, and what other information is stored on their servers.
Julian Assange recently revealed that he might be charged as “a co-conspirator to espionage”. While nothing has come of those charges yet, Assange is concerned that he could be forcibly held by the US government for his involvement in both the recent document leak, and the Collateral Murder footage.
With all of the looming legal action hanging over Wikileaks, they do have one ray of hope: The Pirate Party. Sweden’s Pirate Party has offered to provide Wikileaks with servers, and web hosting if necessary. The Pirate Party recently offered The Pirate Bay, one of the largest bittorrent sites in the world, a similar deal, and The Pirate Bay accepted. Currently, Wikileaks gets their hosting from a company called PRQ, which is run by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, both of whom have worked with The Pirate Bay. Should the Swedish government cave to pressure from the US, and begin investigating PRQ, Wikileaks now has a second hosting option thanks to The Pirate Party.
It will be interesting to see what happens as this story plays out. The US government is almost guaranteed to go after Wikileaks as quickly as possible. The real question here is whether the Swedish government will cave in and investigate on behalf of the US. If that happens, Wikileaks may be fighting a losing battle for the safety of their sources.
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