WikiLeaks



Controlling the World!!

I didn’t know a great deal about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange until a few weeks ago. I thought it was something to do with Wikipedia… Apparently not. This is all about the leakage of certain confidential information about countries all around the world.

Some say that Julian Assange is a threat to national safety because he has leaked many documents that have incriminated many nations. However, looking into the history and researching Julian Assange he doesn’t do it to endanger lives he does it so that people can find out the truth about what really goes on behind closed doors.

Hacking into computers was a hobby for young Julian which he took with him into adulthood becoming his profession. At the age of just 16 Julian began hacking under the name “Mendax” and formed a group with 2 other people called the “International Subversives”. Four years later Mendax was found to be hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of Nortel, which is a Canadian telecommunications company. He was also reported to have had access to the Australian University; the USAF 7th Command Group in the Pentagon and other organisations. However, while Julian was found to be doing illeagal acts his knowledge assisted the police in 1993 where he helped the Victoria Police Child Exploitation Unit by providing technical advice and assissted in prosecuting persons. It wasn’t until the following year that Assange was finally charged, but it wasn’t until 1996 where Assange pleaded guilty in Melbourne’s Victoria County Court to 24 counts of hacking. The judge had regarded his offences as “quite serious” but there wasn’t any evidence to suggest he had done it to seek personal gain. The judge said he had acted out of “intellectual inquistiveness”. Assange was fined $2100 and was warned if he continued to hack he would be jailed. However, this did little to stop Julian Assange and in 1999 he came up with the idea of a leakers website. It was in 2006 where WikiLeaks became founded by Assange as the editor in chief; with the following year proving to make him well known. July 12 2007 was the leak that made Assange “famous”. The Baghdad airstrikes was a series of air-to-ground attacks conducted by the US army’s helicopters. Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in the incident as were many others. Chmagh's children are in the van and were seriously injured. This leaked video showed the world that the American soldiers were out of control and didn’t care or question what they were firing at. Subsequent leaks made by WikiLeaks also demonstrated the lack of consideration organizations have for their population and the dangers that can occur when trying to hide secrets.

Some of the other issues that have occurred:

·         February 2008 a Swiss bank gets WikiLeaks shut down after it published reports that suggested illegal activity, however, the ruling was overturned.

·         April 2008 there were top-secret documents published from the Church of Scientology, including a handwritten note from the founder- L.Ron Hubbard.

·         September 2008 a student David Kernell hacked into Sarah Palin’s email and was later jailed for it.

·         November 2008 the British National Party’s membership list was leaked by a disgruntled former party official. A police officer was later fired after being found to be on the list.

·         September 2009 WikiLeaks published a document about Trafigura. The metals company had obtained a super-injunction against a UK newspaper to prevent publication of a memo which suggested that they would dump toxic substances in Africa.

·         October 2009 WikiLeaks published a MoD security manual with other documents giving instructions on how to prevent leaks.

·         November 2009 there were 500,000 text messages from September 11 2001 in the US released.

·         April 2010 a US military video of a helicopter attack in Baghdad raised doubts about adherence to rules of engagement.

·         July 2010 WikiLeaks published over 90,000 partially redacted intelligence reports about the Afghanistan war which identified hundreds of informants and endangering lives.

·         October 2010 WikiLeaks showed that Iraq war logs suggested that allies had ignored evidence that prisoners would be tortured, under-reported civilian deaths as well as responsibility for deaths at checkpoints.

As a result of these leaks which has made journalistic history, powerful groups have retaliated aggressively. since December 2010 an arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade was imposed by the Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union. This blockade had destroyed 95% of WikiLeaks revenue. Interestingly enough, while the US government could find no lawful grounds to enforce a blockade, the US finance companies continued to do so without care.

It has been found that this violates competition laws and trade practice legislation of numerous states. This blockade has singled out an organization that hasn’t committed anything illegal in any country and has subsequently been cut off from its financial lifeline in every country. PayPal defended itself by stating on their website the reasons for freezing WikiLeaks account. They said it was due to a violation of their policy which stated that their service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. It’s been discovered that while it is a crime to leak classified information, receiving and publishing it is not.