And you probably didn't know it was taken down by a court order earlier in February. Heck, you probably have never heard of Wikileaks. The site is an example of why anonymity is important and why anonymity needs to be protected on the Internet.
About http://wikileaks.org :
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis. Our primary interests are in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact.
As of Friday evening, Feb 29, 2008, the home page says the following before redirecting to the main site :
"The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight!" -- Emile Zola, J'accuse! (1898)
If you do a view --> source on that short-lived page, you see the following comment :
"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Some recent news about the issues surrounding Wikileaks :
- Feb 20 : Judge Shuts Down Web Site Specializing in Leaks
- Feb 20 : Wikileaks Site Has a Friend in Sweden
- Feb 20 : Look before you leak
- Feb 21 : Stifling Online Speech
- Feb 23 : Whistle while you work
- Feb 27 : Wikileaks gets legal help after domain name deletion
- Feb 29 : Judge in Wikileaks Case Reverses Course
Some excerpts from the above articles :
- Those behind Wikileaks include Tibetan, Chinese and Thai political campaigners, an Australian hacking author, and Ben Laurie, a mathematician living in west London who is on the advisory board.
- [Laurie said:] "[H]ow do you reveal things about powerful people without getting your arse kicked? Whistleblowing is a practice which should be encouraged. I'm really quite surprised at Wikileaks' success. They've done a lot of interesting stuff. It seems people are prepared to take the risk."
- WikiLeaks.org exists so anonymous whistle blowers around the globe can document human rights offenses, corporate malfeasance, nuclear accidents, and the like. The world gets to see what nasty things those in power have been up to, while the leakers get to live their lives without being waterboarded (or worse).
- Wikileaks claims to have posted more than a million corporate and government documents that, it says, expose wrongdoing. It has posted, among other things, a 2003 operations manual from the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, military prison.
- Julius Baer Bank and Trust, a Cayman Islands branch of a Swiss bank, sued Wikileaks charging that it had illegally posted documents stolen by a former employee. The site said the documents “allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures” for money laundering, tax evasion and other misdeeds.
- Wikileaks landed an even bigger coup last August with a previously secret 110-page draft report by the international investigators Kroll, which revealed allegations of massive corruption in Kenya. The family of former Kenyan leader Daniel Arap Moi were reported to have siphoned off more than £1bn.
- In Thailand, Wikileaks has focused on efforts to block access to websites critical of the government.
- Laurie cautions that Wikileaks' vaunted encryption is not completely unbreakable. Codebreakers such as the US National Security Agency could probably crack it, he says. "If my life was on the line, I would not be submitting [documents] to Wikileaks."
