Millions of people the world over saw the footage Wikileaks got their hands on in 2007 depicting a group of American soldiers gunning down a group of Iraqi citizens. That shocking footage was just the start for Wikileaks, and their quest to expose what’s really going on in the world.
Wikileaks.org was founded in 2007 by a group of self proclaimed Chinese dissidents, and hackers. The group began getting a hold of, and distributing leaked documents and video footage from all across the globe. Recently, the site’s founder, the mysterious, white haired Julian Assange has become disheartened by the lack of attention their leaked documents have been getting. Many of the leaks they get a hold of show strong evidence of serious wrong doings by important military and political figures, and Mr. Assange wants the world to know the truth.
In an effort to generate more attention for these leaked documents, Assange has formulated a new strategy. Wikileaks has begun offering exclusive early access to the documents they get a hold of to major media outlets. This past Monday, stories based on documents provided by Wikileaks ran in U.K. newspaper The Guardian, the New York Times, and Germany’s Der Spiegel. Each newspaper claims that Wikileaks gave them no information about how the documents were obtained, and each paper is in the process of trying to confirm whether or not the documents are legit. A spokesperson for Wikileaks wouldn’t give out any details about how the documents were obtained, but said only that they weren’t paid for.
Assange decided to work with just these three newspapers for now, citing expediency as the reason for not reaching out to other outlets. Wikileaks hopes to strike up partnerships woth more and more traditional media outlets as time goes on.
Obviously, there are some serious legal concerns over how Wikileaks gets their information. Simply put, it’s very likely that they’ll be investigated by the US government, and should sufficient evidence be found proving they obtained their documents in an illegal way, the site will have charges brought against it. If on the other hand, it’s determined that they didn’t act outside of the law to steal, or otherwise influence their sources to divulge the documents, there really won’t be much the government can do.
Partenering with traditional media outlets is a surprising move for Wikileaks, but with any luck, their message will reach a wider audience now.
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