WikiLeaks Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels

WikiLeaks Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels

An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts.

Arms deliveries to militants: Cables describe the United States’ failing struggle to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel. One week after President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send “new” arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.

¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”

The 251,287 cables, first acquired by WikiLeaks, were provided to The Times by an intermediary on the condition of anonymity. Many are unclassified, and none are marked “top secret,” the government’s most secure communications status. But some 11,000 are classified “secret,” 9,000 are labeled “noforn,” shorthand for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and noforn.

Many more cables name diplomats’ confidential sources, from foreign legislators and military officers to human rights activists and journalists, often with a warning to Washington: “Please protect” or “Strictly protect.”

The Times, after consultations with the State Department, has withheld from articles and removed from documents it is posting online the names of some people who spoke privately to diplomats and might be at risk if they were publicly identified. The Times is also withholding some passages or entire cables whose disclosure could compromise American intelligence efforts. While the White House said it anticipated WikiLeaks would make public “several hundred thousand” cables Sunday night, the organization posted only 220 released and redacted by The Times and several European publications.

The cables show that nearly a decade after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States’ relations with the world. They depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, adding Australians who have disappeared in the Middle East to terrorist watch lists, and assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in Lahore, Pakistan, was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the American Consulate.

They show officials managing relations with a China on the rise and a Russia retreating from democracy. They document years of effort to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon — and of worry about a possible Israeli strike on Iran with the same goal.

Even when they recount events that are already known, the cables offer remarkable details.

For instance, it has been previously reported that the Yemeni government has sought to cover up the American role in missile strikes against the local branch of Al Qaeda. But a cable’s fly-on-the-wall account of a January meeting between the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the American commander in the Middle East, is breathtaking.

“We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Mr. Saleh said, according to the cable sent by the American ambassador, prompting Yemen’s deputy prime minister to “joke that he had just ‘lied’ by telling Parliament” that Yemen had carried out the strikes.

Mr. Saleh, who at other times resisted American counterterrorism requests, was in a lighthearted mood. The authoritarian ruler of a conservative Muslim country, Mr. Saleh complains of smuggling from nearby Djibouti, but tells General Petraeus that his concerns are drugs and weapons, not whiskey, “provided it’s good whiskey.”

Likewise, press reports detailed the unhappiness of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, when he was not permitted to set up his tent in Manhattan or to visit ground zero during a United Nations session last year.

Pfc. Bradley Manning Who?

Pfc. Bradley Manning

WASHINGTON — A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.

Scott Shane reported from Washington, and Andrew W. Lehren from New York. Reporting was contributed by Jo Becker, C. J. Chivers and James Glanz from New York; Eric Lichtblau, Michael R. Gordon, David E. Sanger, Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt and Ginger Thompson from Washington; and Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan.


Some of the cables, made available to The New York Times and several other news organizations, were written as recently as late February, revealing the Obama administration’s exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents. WikiLeaks posted 220 cables, some redacted to protect diplomatic sources, in the first installment of the archive on its Web site on Sunday.

The disclosure of the cables is sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. A statement from the White House on Sunday said: “We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.”

The White House said the release of what it called “stolen cables” to several publications was a “reckless and dangerous action” and warned that some cables, if released in full, could disrupt American operations abroad and put the work and even lives of confidential sources of American diplomats at risk. The statement noted that reports often include “candid and often incomplete information” whose disclosure could “deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world.”

The cables, a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates, amount to a secret chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism. Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:

¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”

¶ Thinking about an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.

¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”

¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

¶ A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.

¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.

Submitting information to WikiLeaks

Submitting information to WikiLeaks

NOTE: At the moment WikiLeaks is not accepting new submissions due to re-engineering improvements the site to make it both more secure and more user-friendly. Since we are not currently accepting submissions during the re-engineering, we have also temporarily closed our online chat support for how to make a submission. We anticipate reopening the electronic drop box and live chat support in the near future.
1. Material we accept

Wikileaks will accept restricted or censored material of political, ethical, diplomatic or historical significance. We do not accept rumor, opinion, other kinds of first hand accounts or material that is publicly available elsewhere. This is because our journalists write news stories based on the material, and then provide a link to the supporting documentation to prove our stories are true. It's not news if it has been publicly available elsewhere first, and we are a news organisation. However, from time to time, the editors may re-publish material that has been made public previously elsewhere if the information is in the public interest but did not have proper news analysis when first released.

If you are sending us something, we encourage you to include a brief description of why the documents is important and what the most significants parts are within the document. It will help our journalists to write up and released the story much faster.
2 Our anonymous electronic drop box

Wikileaks has an anonymous electronic drop box if you wish to provide original material to our journalists. Wikileaks accepts a range of material, but we do not solicit it. If you are going to send in material it should be done as securely as possible. That is why we have created our novel method of submission based on a suite of security technologies designed to provide anonymity. We have put a great deal of technical and design work into the drop box because we take the journalist-source relationship very seriously.
2.1 Its easy to submit

Our drop box is easy to use and provides military-grade encryption protection.

Submitting documents to our journalists is protected by law in better democracies. For other countries, the electronic drop box is there to offer help and protection. It is particularly designed to keep your identity hidden from everyone, including WikiLeaks. We never keep logs of who uses the drop box or where they are coming from.

There are several ways to send in material, but the most secure and anonymous is at the following link.

(currently closed for re-engineering security and useability improvements)

To add another layer of protection,you might also want to use the secure TOR network (http://suw74isz7qqzpmgu.onion/) Tor is a secure anonymous distributed network that provides maximum security.
2.2 Help with any questions about submitting

You can also chat to us online and we will answer any questions or solve any problems you might have with submitting (https://chat.wikileaks.org) (Currently temporarily closed with the electronic drop box for re-engineering.) Our chat is designed to be secure and anonymous. Visitors are protected by many layers of security. They can not see each other. There is a mechanism in place to stop logging and the server forbids potentially dangerous commands that could reveal other user's identity. Communication is secured with SSL encryption.
2.3 Protection for you

Wikileaks does not record any source-identifying information and there are a number of mechanisms in place to protect even the most sensitive submitted documents from being sourced. We do not keep any logs. We can not comply with requests for information on sources because we simply do not have the information to begin with. Similarly we can not see your real identity in any anonymised chat sessions with us. Our only knowledge of you as a source is if you provide a coded name to us. A lot of careful thought by world experts in security technologies has gone into the design of these systems to provide the maximum protection to you. Wikileaks has never revealed a source.
2.4 How it works

When WikiLeaks receives a document, our accredited journalists assess the submission. If it meets the criteria, our journalists then write or produce a news piece based on the document. This typically includes a description of the document, an analysis of why it is important, and an explanation of what it signifies to broader society. The news piece might also highlight the parts of the document that are most newsworthy. Our news stories are deliberately analytical regarding the wider significance of the document. We then link from the news piece to the original submission.

Submissions establish a journalist-source relationship. Online submissions are routed via countries which have strong shield laws to provide additional protection to sources and journalists.

Some documents submitted contain highly sensitive information. WikiLeaks has developed a harm minimisation proceedure to clean documents which might endanger innocent lives. In other instances, WikiLeaks may delay publishing some news stories and their supporting documents until the publication will not cause danger to such people. However in all cases, WikiLeaks will only redact the details that are absolutely necessary to this end. Everything else will be published to support the news story exactly as it appeared in the original document.

WikiLeaks has a overriding objective to publish and bring information into the public arena to encourage an informed society. It will stay doggedly true to this goal.
3. Directions for how to submit material

If you want to send us a message of your own, as opposed to a document, please see Contact.
3.1 Submissions via secure upload

Fast, easy and automatically encrypted with the best banking-grade encryption. We keep no records as to where you uploaded from, your time zone, browser or even as to when your submission was made (if you choose a non-zero publishing delay, we set the file time record to be the release date + a random time within that day).

If you are anonymously submitting a Microsoft word file (".doc") that you have edited at some stage, please try to send a PDF document (".pdf") instead, as Word documents may include your name or the name of your computer, see Word file redaction for further information. If you have no means to produce a PDF file your document will be converted by WikiLeaks staff.

The process your document will undergo is outlined for understanding submissions.
NOTE: At the moment WikiLeaks is not accepting new submissions due to re-engineering improvements the site to make it both more secure and more user-friendly. Since we are not currently accepting submissions during the re-engineering, we have also temporarily closed our online chat support for how to make a submission. We anticipate reopening the electronic drop box and live chat support in the near future.

You can also use secure TOR network (secure, anonymous, distributed network for maximum security)
3.2 Submissions via our discreet postal network

Submissions to our postal network offer a strong form of anonymity and are good for bulk truth-telling.

Steps:

1. First place your leak onto a floppy disk, CD, DVD or a USB Flash Drive. If you are using a floppy disks, please create two as they are often unreliable. If you only have paper documents, we will scan them if they are of significant political or media interest (if you are unsure whether this may be the case, please contact us first). This will delay the process however.
2. Post your information to one of our trusted truth facilitators listed below. You may post to whatever country in the list that you feel most suitable given the nature of the material and your postal service. If your country's mail system is unreliable, you may wish to send multiple copies, use DHL, FedEX or another postal courier service.

WikiLeaks truth facilitators will then upload your submission using their fast internet connection. If you use a floppy disk, be sure to send two for increased reliability.

You can use whatever return address you like, but make doubly sure you have written the destination correctly as postal workers will not be able to return the envelope to you.

After receiving your postal submission our facilitators upload the data to WikiLeaks and then destroy the mailed package.
3.3 High risk postal submissions

If your leak is extremely high risk, you may wish to post away from your local post office at a location that has no witnesses or video monitoring.

Many CD and DVD writers will include the serial number of the DVD or CD writer onto the CD/DVDs they write. If the post is intercepted this information can in theory be used to track down the manufacturer and with their co-operation, the distributor, the sales agent and so on. Consider whether there are financial records connecting you to the CD/DVD writer sale if your adversary is capable of intercepting your letter to us and has the will to do this type of expensive investigation. Pay cash if you can for the CD/DVD writer.

Similarly, CD and DVD media themselves include a non-unique manufacturing "batch number" for each group of around 10,000 CD/DVDs made. Pay cash when buying the CD or DVD. Try to choose a store without video cameras at the register.

Although we are aware of no instances where the above has been successfully used to trace an individual, anti-piracy operations have used the information to trace piracy outfits who sell tens or hundreds of thousands of counterfeit CDs or DVDs.

If you post it to us, a good option is to encrypt the USB file/CD file and then contact us at a later date via live online chat with the encryptin passphrase. That way if the post is intercepted, the data can not be copied.

If you suspect you are under physical surveillance, discreetly give the letter to a trusted friend or relative to post. On some rare occasions, targets of substantial political surveillance have been followed to the post office and have had their posted mail seized covertly. In this rare case if you are not intending to encrypt the data and if the police or intelligence services in your country are equipped to perform DNA and/or fingerprint analysis you may wish to take the appropriate handling precautions.
3.4 Postal addresses of our trusted truth facilitators

You may post to any country in our network.

Pick one that best suits your circumstances. If the country you are residing in has a postal system that is unreliable or frequently censored, you may wish to send your material to multiple addresses concurrently. For unlisted postal addresses, please contact us.

In Australia:

To: "WL" or any name likely to evade postal censorship in your country.

BOX 4080

Australia Post Office - University of Melbourne Branch

Victoria 3052

Australia

WikiLeaks Donations

WikiLeaks Donations Systems

WikiLeaks brings truth to the world by publishing fact-based stories without fear or favor. You can help support our independent media by donating financially.

Our organisation exists because of the work of many volunteers who have contributed thousands of hours to building WikiLeaks from the ground up. But we still need donations to pay for computers, expert programmers and other bills. You choose how much you can donate, we don't recommend any particular amount. Just do what you think is right.

There are four ways to donate:

1. Online Transfer via Credit Card
2. Bank Transfer [option 1: everyone]
3. Bank Transfer [option 2: tax deductible in Germany]
4. Paypal via Wau Holland Foundation
5. Postal Mail

1. Online Transfer via Credit Card

Using our friendly credit card processing partner Datacell Switzerland:
https://donations.datacell.com/
2. Bank Transfer - Option 1: via Sunshine Press Productions ehf:

Klapparhlid 30, 270 Mosfellsbaer, Iceland
Landsbanki Islands Account number 0111-26-611010
BANK/SWIFT:NBIIISREXXX
ACCOUNT/IBAN:IS97 0111 2661 1010 6110 1002 80
3. Bank Transfer - Option 2: via the not-for-profit Wau Holland Stiftung Foundation:

Bank Account: 2772812-04
IBAN: DE46 5204 0021 0277 2812 04
BIC Code: COBADEFFXXX
Bank: Commerzbank Kassel
German BLZ: 52040021
Subject: WIKILEAKS / WHS Projekt 04
4. PayPal via Wau Holland Foundation

WikiLeaks Donate button:
5. Via Postal Mail

You can post a donation via good old fashion postal mail to:

WikiLeaks
(or any suitable name likely to avoid interception in your country)
BOX 4080
Australia Post Office - University of Melbourne Branch
Victoria 3052
Australia

How To Wikileaks

About Wikileaks
Browse the diaries and make complex searches.
War Logs


1. Introduction to WikiLeaks
"Could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act." - Time Magazine
1.1 About WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists (our electronic drop box). One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth. We are a young organisation that has grown very quickly, relying on a network of dedicated volunteers around the globe. Since 2007, when the organisation was officially launched, WikiLeaks has worked to report on and publish important information. We also develop and adapt technologies to support these activities.

WikiLeaks has sustained and triumphed against legal and political attacks designed to silence our publishing organisation, our journalists and our anonymous sources. The broader principles on which our work is based are the defence of freedom of speech and media publishing, the improvement of our common historical record and the support of the rights of all people to create new history. We derive these principles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In particular, Article 19 inspires the work of our journalists and other volunteers. It states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. We agree, and we seek to uphold this and the other Articles of the Declaration.
1.2 How WikiLeaks works

WikiLeaks has combined high-end security technologies with journalism and ethical principles. Like other media outlets conducting investigative journalism, we accept (but do not solicit) anonymous sources of information. Unlike other outlets, we provide a high security anonymous drop box fortified by cutting-edge cryptographic information technologies. This provides maximum protection to our sources. We are fearless in our efforts to get the unvarnished truth out to the public. When information comes in, our journalists analyse the material, verify it and write a news piece about it describing its significance to society. We then publish both the news story and the original material in order to enable readers to analyse the story in the context of the original source material themselves. Our news stories are in the comfortable presentation style of Wikipedia, although the two organisations are not otherwise related. Unlike Wikipedia, random readers can not edit our source documents.

As the media organisation has grown and developed, WikiLeaks been developing and improving a harm minimisation procedure. We do not censor our news, but from time to time we may remove or significantly delay the publication of some identifying details from original documents to protect life and limb of innocent people.

We accept leaked material in person and via postal drops as alternative methods, although we recommend the anonymous electronic drop box as the preferred method of submitting any material. We do not ask for material, but we make sure that if material is going to be submitted it is done securely and that the source is well protected. Because we receive so much information, and we have limited resources, it may take time to review a source's submission.

We also have a network of talented lawyers around the globe who are personally committed to the principles that WikiLeaks is based on, and who defend our media organisation.
1.3 Why the media (and particularly Wiki leaks) is important

Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people. Better scrutiny leads to reduced corruption and stronger democracies in all society's institutions, including government, corporations and other organisations. A healthy, vibrant and inquisitive journalistic media plays a vital role in achieving these goals. We are part of that media.

Scrutiny requires information. Historically, information has been costly in terms of human life, human rights and economics. As a result of technical advances particularly the internet and cryptography - the risks of conveying important information can be lowered. In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government." We agree.

We believe that it is not only the people of one country that keep their own government honest, but also the people of other countries who are watching that government through the media.

In the years leading up to the founding of WikiLeaks, we observed the world's publishing media becoming less independent and far less willing to ask the hard questions of government, corporations and other institutions. We believed this needed to change.

WikiLeaks has provided a new model of journalism. Because we are not motivated by making a profit, we work cooperatively with other publishing and media organisations around the globe, instead of following the traditional model of competing with other media. We don't hoard our information; we make the original documents available with our news stories. Readers can verify the truth of what we have reported themselves. Like a wire service, WikiLeaks reports stories that are often picked up by other media outlets. We encourage this. We believe the world's media should work together as much as possible to bring stories to a broad international readership.
1.4 How WikiLeaks verifies its news stories

We assess all news stories and test their veracity. We send a submitted document through a very detailed examination a procedure. Is it real? What elements prove it is real? Who would have the motive to fake such a document and why? We use traditional investigative journalism techniques as well as more modern rtechnology-based methods. Typically we will do a forensic analysis of the document, determine the cost of forgery, means, motive, opportunity, the claims of the apparent authoring organisation, and answer a set of other detailed questions about the document. We may also seek external verification of the document For example, for our release of the Collateral Murder video, we sent a team of journalists to Iraq to interview the victims and observers of the helicopter attack. The team obtained copies of hospital records, death certificates, eye witness statements and other corroborating evidence supporting the truth of the story. Our verification process does not mean we will never make a mistake, but so far our method has meant that WikiLeaks has correctly identified the veracity of every document it has published.

Publishing the original source material behind each of our stories is the way in which we show the public that our story is authentic. Readers don't have to take our word for it; they can see for themselves. In this way, we also support the work of other journalism organisations, for they can view and use the original documents freely as well. Other journalists may well see an angle or detail in the document that we were not aware of in the first instance. By making the documents freely available, we hope to expand analysis and comment by all the media. Most of all, we want readers know the truth so they can make up their own minds.
1.5 The people behind WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks is a project of the Sunshine Press. It's probably pretty clear by now that WikiLeaks is not a front for any intelligence agency or government despite a rumour to that effect. This rumour was started early in WikiLeaks' existence, possibly by the intelligence agencies themselves. WikiLeaks is an independent global group of people with a long standing dedication to the idea of a free press and the improved transparency in society that comes from this. The group includes accredited journalists, software programmers, network engineers, mathematicians and others.

To determine the truth of our statements on this, simply look at the evidence. By definition, intelligence agencies want to hoard information. By contrast, WikiLeaks has shown that it wants to do just the opposite. Our track record shows we go to great lengths to bring the truth to the world without fear or favour.

The great American president Thomas Jefferson once observed that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We believe the journalistic media plays a key role in this vigilance.
1.6 Anonymity for sources

As far as we can ascertain, WikiLeaks has never revealed any of its sources. We can not provide details about the security of our media organisation or its anonymous drop box for sources because to do so would help those who would like to compromise the security of our organisation and its sources. What we can say is that we operate a number of servers across multiple international jurisdictions and we we do not keep logs. Hence these logs can not be seized. Anonymization occurs early in the WikiLeaks network, long before information passes to our web servers. Without specialized global internet traffic analysis, multiple parts of our organisation must conspire with each other to strip submitters of their anonymity.

However, we also provide instructions on how to submit material to us, via net cafes, wireless hot spots and even the post so that even if WikiLeaks is infiltrated by an external agency, sources can still not be traced. Because sources who are of substantial political or intelligence interest may have their computers bugged or their homes fitted with hidden video cameras, we suggest that if sources are going to send WikiLeaks something very sensitive, they do so away from the home and work.

A number of governments block access to any address with WikiLeaks in the name. There are ways around this. WikiLeaks has many cover domains, such as https://destiny.mooo.com, that don't have the organisation in the name. It is possible to write to us or ask around for other cover domain addresses. Please make sure the cryptographic certificate says wikileaks.org .
2. WikiLeaks' journalism record
2.1 Prizes and background
WikiLeaks is the winner of:

* the 2008 Economist Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award
* the 2009 Amnesty International human rights reporting award (New Media)

WikiLeaks has a history breaking major stories in major media outlets and robustly protecting sources and press freedoms. We have never revealed a source. We do not censor material. Since formation in 2007, WikiLeaks has been victorious over every legal (and illegal) attack, including those from the Pentagon, the Chinese Public Security Bureau, the Former president of Kenya, the Premier of Bermuda, Scientology, the Catholic & Mormon Church, the largest Swiss private bank, and Russian companies. WikiLeaks has released more classified intelligence documents than the rest of the world press combined.
2.2 Some of the stories we have broken

* War, killings, torture and detention
* Government, trade and corporate transparency
* Suppression of free speech and a free press
* Diplomacy, spying and (counter-)intelligence
* Ecology, climate, nature and sciences
* Corruption, finance, taxes, trading
* Censorship technology and internet filtering
* Cults and other religious organizations
* Abuse, violence, violation

War, killings, torture and detention

* Changes in Guantanamo Bay SOP manual (2003-2004) - Guantanamo Bay's main operations manuals
* Of Orwell, Wikipedia and Guantanamo Bay - In where we track down and expose Guantanamo Bay's propaganda team
* Fallujah jail challenges US - Classified U.S. report into appalling prison conditions in Fallujah
* U.S lost Fallujah's info war - Classified U.S. intelligence report on the battle of Fallujah, Iraq
* US Military Equipment in Iraq (2007) - Entire unit by unit equipment list of the U.S army in Iraq
* Dili investigator called to Canberra as evidence of execution mounts - the Feb 2008 killing of East Timor rebel leader Reinado
* Como entrenar a escuadrones de la muerte y aplastar revoluciones de El Salvador a Iraq - The U.S. Special Forces manual on how to prop up unpopular government with paramilitaries

Government, trade and corporate transparency

* Change you can download: a billion in secret Congressional reports - Publication of more than 6500 Congressional Research Reports, worth more than a billion dollars of US tax-funded research, long sought after by NGOs, academics and researchers
* ACTA trade agreement negotiation lacks transparency - The secret ACTA trade agreement draft, followed by dozens of other publications, presenting the initial leak for the whole ACTA debate happening today
* Toll Collect Vertraege, 2002 - Publication of around 10.000 pages of a secret contract between the German federal government and the Toll Collect consortium, a private operator group for heavy vehicle tolling system
* Leaked documents suggest European CAP reform just a whitewash - European farm reform exposed
* Stasi still in charge of Stasi files - Suppressed 2007 investigation into infiltration of former Stasi into the Stasi files commission
* IGES Schlussbericht Private Krankenversicherung, 25 Jan 2010 - Hidden report on the economics of the German private health insurance system and its rentability

Suppression of free speech and a free press

* The Independent: Toxic Shame: Thousands injured in African city, 17 Sep 2009 - Publication of an article originally published in UK newspaper The Independent, but censored from the Independent's website. WikiLeaks has saved dozens of articles, radio and tv recordings from disappearing after having been censored from BBC, Guardian, and other major news organisations archives.
* Secret gag on UK Times preventing publication of Minton report into toxic waste dumping, 16 Sep 2009 - Publication of variations of a so-called super-injunction, one of many gag-orders published by WikiLeaks to expose successful attempts to suppress the free press via repressive legal attacks
* Media suppression order over Turks and Caicos Islands Commission of Inquiry corruption report, 20 Jul 2009 - Exposure of a press gagging order from the Turks and Caicos Islands, related to WikiLeaks exposure of the Commission of Inquiry corruption report
* Bermuda's Premier Brown and the BCC bankdraft - Brown went to the Privy council London to censor the press in Bermuda
* How German intelligence infiltrated Focus magazine - Illegal spying on German journalists

Diplomacy, spying and (counter-)intelligence

* U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, 18 Mar 2008 - Classified (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks. Has been in the worldwide news.
* CIA report into shoring up Afghan war support in Western Europe, 11 Mar 2010 - This classified CIA analysis from March, outlines possible PR-strategies to shore up public support in Germany and France for a continued war in Afghanistan. Received international news coverage in print, radio and TV.
* U.S. Embassy profiles on Icelandic PM, Foreign Minister, Ambassador - Publication of personal profiles for briefing documents for U.S. officials visiting Iceland. While lowly classified are interesting for subtle tone and internal facts.
* Cross-border clashes from Iraq O.K. - Classified documents reveal destabalizing U.S. military rules
* Tehran Warns US Forces against Chasing Suspects into Iran - Iran warns the United States over classified document on WikiLeaks
* Inside Somalia and the Union of Islamic Courts - Vital strategy documents in the Somali war and a play for Chinese support

Ecology, climate, nature and sciences

* Draft Copenhagen climate change agreement, 8 Dec 2009 - Confidential draft "circle of commitment" (rich-country) Copenhagen climate change agreement
* Draft Copenhagen Accord Dec 18, 2009 - Three page draft Copehagen "accord", from around Friday 7pm, Dec 18, 2009; includes pen-markings
* Climatic Research Unit emails, data, models, 1996-2009 - Over 60MB of emails, documents, code and models from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, written between 1996 and 2009 that lead to a worldwide debate
* The Monju nuclear reactor leak - Three suppressed videos from Japan's fast breeder reactor Monju revealing the true extent of the 1995 sodium coolant disaster

Corruption, finance, taxes, trading

* The looting of Kenya under President Moi - $3,000,000,000 presidential corruption exposed; swung the Dec 2007 Kenyan election, long document, be patient
* Gusmao's $15m rice deal alarms UN - Rice deal corruption in East Timor
* How election violence was financed - the embargoed Kenyan Human Rights Commission report into the Jan 2008 killings of over 1,300 Kenyans
* Financial collapse: Confidential exposure analysis of 205 companies each owing above EUR45M to Icelandic bank Kaupthing, 26 Sep 2008 - Publication of a confidential report that has lead to hundreds of newspaper articles worldwide
* Barclays Bank gags Guardian over leaked memos detailing offshore tax scam, 16 Mar 2009 - Publication of censored documents revealing a number of elaborate international tax avoidance schemes by the SCM (Structured Capital Markets) division of Barclays
* Bank Julius Baer: Grand Larceny via Grand Cayman - How the largest private Swiss bank avoids paying tax to the Swiss government
* Der Fall Moonstone Trust - Cayman Islands Swiss bank trust exposed
* Over 40 billion euro in 28167 claims made against the Kaupthing Bank, 23 Jan 2010 - List of Kaupthing claimants after Icelandic banking crash
* Northern Rock vs. WikiLeaks - Northern Rock Bank UK failed legal injunctions over the ¡Ì24,000,000,000 collapse
* Whistleblower exposes insider trading program at JP Morgan - Legal insider trading in three easy steps, brought to you by JP Morgan and the SEC

Censorship technology and internet filtering

* Eutelsat suppresses independent Chinese-language TV station NTDTV to satisfy Beijing - French sat provider Eutelsat covertly removed an anti-communist TV channel to satisfy Beijing
* Internet Censorship in Thailand - The secret internet censorship lists of Thailand's military junta

Cults and other religious organizations

* Church of Scientology's 'Operating Thetan' documents leaked online - Scientology's secret, and highly litigated bibles
* Censored Legion de Cristo and Regnum Cristi document collection - Censored internal documents from the Catholic sect Legion de Cristo (Legion of Christ)
* US Department of Labor investigation into Landmark Education, 2006 - 2006 investigative report by the U.S. Department of Labor on Landmark Education

Abuse, violence, violation

* Report on Shriners raises question of wrongdoing - corruption exposed at 22 U.S. and Canadian children's hospitals.
* Claims of molestation resurface for US judo official
* Texas Catholic hospitals did not follow Catholic ethics, report claims - Catholic hospitals violated catholic ethics

3. Short essays on how a more inquiring media can make a difference in the world
3.1 The Malaria Case Study: the antidote is good governance born from a strong media

Malaria is a case study in why good governance not just good science is the solution to so much human suffering. This year, the mosquito borne disease will kill over one million people. More than 80% of these will be children. Great Britain used to have malaria. In North America, malaria was epidemic and there are still a handful of infections each year. In Africa malaria kills over 100 people per hour. In Russia, amidst the corruption of the 1990s, malaria re-established itself. What is the difference between these cases?

Why does Malaria kill so many people in one place but barely take hold in another? Why has malaria been allowed to gain a foothold in places like Russia where it was previously eradicated? We know how to prevent malaria epidemics. The science is universal. The difference is good governance.

Put another way, unresponsive or corrupt government, through malaria alone, causes a children's "9/11" every day. [1]

It is only when the people know the true plans and behaviour of their governments that they can meaningfully choose to support or reject them. Historically, the most resilient forms of open government are those where publication and revelation are protected. Where that protection does not exist, it is our mission to provide it through an energetic and watchful media.

In Kenya, malaria was estimated to cause 20% of all deaths in children under five. Before the Dec 2007 national elections, WikiLeaks exposed $3 billion of Kenyan corruption, which swung the vote by 10%. This led to changes in the constitution and the establishment of a more open government. It is too soon to know if it will contribute to a change in the human cost of malaria in Kenya but in the long term we believe it may. It is one of many reforms catalyzed by WikiLeaks unvarnished reporting.
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3.2 The importance of principled leaking to journalism, good government and a healthy society

Principled leaking has changed the course of history for the better. It can alter the course of history in the present, and it can lead us to a better future.

Consider Daniel Ellsberg, working within the US government during the Vietnam War. He comes into contact with the Pentagon Papers, a meticulously kept record of military and strategic planning throughout the war. Those papers reveal the depths to which the US government has sunk in deceiving the American people about the war. Yet the public and the media know nothing of this urgent and shocking information. Indeed, secrecy laws are being used to keep the public ignorant of gross dishonesty practised by their own government. In spite of those secrecy laws and at great personal risk, Ellsberg manages to disseminate the Pentagon papers to journalists and to the world. Despite criminal charges against Ellsberg, eventually dropped, the release of the Pentagon Papers shocks the world, exposes the government lying and helps to shorten the war and save thousands of both American and Vietnamese lives.

The power of principled leaking to call governments, corporations and institutions to account is amply demonstrated through recent history. The public scrutiny of otherwise unaccountable and secretive institutions forces them to consider the ethical implications of their actions. Which official will chance a secret, corrupt transaction when the public is likely to find out? What repressive plan will be carried out when it is revealed to the citizenry, not just of its own country, but the world? When the risks of embarrassment and discovery increase, the tables are turned against conspiracy, corruption, exploitation and oppression. Open government answers injustice rather than causing it. Open government exposes and undoes corruption. Open governance is the most effective method of promoting good governance.

Today, with authoritarian governments in power in much of the world, increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic governments, and increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable corporations, the need for openness and transparency is greater than ever. WikiLeaks interest is the revelation of the truth. Unlike the covert activities of state intelligence agencies, as a media publisher WikiLeaks relies upon the power of overt fact to enable and empower citizens to bring feared and corrupt governments and corporations to justice.

With its anonymous drop box, WikiLeaks provides an avenue for every government official, every bureaucrat, and every corporate worker, who becomes privy to damning information that their institution wants to hide but the public needs to know. What conscience cannot contain, and institutional secrecy unjustly conceals, WikiLeaks can broadcast to the world. It is telling that a number of government agencies in different countries (and indeed some entire countries) have tried to ban access to WikiLeaks. This is of course a silly response, akin to the ostrich burying its head in the sand. A far better response would be to behave in more ethical ways.

Authoritarian governments, oppressive institutions and corrupt corporations should be subject to the pressure, not merely of international diplomacy, freedom of information laws or even periodic elections, but of something far stronger - the consciences of the people within them.
3.3 Should the press really be free?

In its landmark ruling on the Pentagon Papers, the US Supreme Court ruled that "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government." We agree.

The ruling stated that "paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."

It is easy to perceive the connection between publication and the complaints people make about publication. But this generates a perception bias, because it overlooks the vastness of the invisible. It overlooks the unintended consequences of failing to publish and it overlooks all those who are emancipated by a climate of free speech. Such a climate is a motivating force for governments and corporations to act justly. If acting in a just manner is easier than acting in an unjust manner, most actions will be just.

Sufficient principled leaking in tandem with fearless reporting will bring down administrations that rely on concealing reality from their own citizens.

It is increasingly obvious that corporate fraud must be effectively addressed. In the US, employees account for most revelations of fraud, followed by industry regulators, media, auditors and, finally, the SEC. Whistleblowers account for around half of all exposures of fraud.

Corporate corruption comes in many forms. The number of employees and turnover of some corporations exceeds the population and GDP of some nation states. When comparing countries, after observations of population size and GDP, it is usual to compare the system of government, the major power groupings and the civic freedoms available to their populations. Such comparisons can also be illuminating in the case of corporations.

Considering the largest corporations as analogous to a nation state reveals the following properties:

1. The right to vote does not exist except for share holders (analogous to land owners) and even there voting power is in proportion to ownership.
2. All power issues from a central committee.
3. There is no balancing division of power. There is no fourth estate. There are no juries and innocence is not presumed.
4. Failure to submit to any order may result in instant exile.
5. There is no freedom of speech.
6. There is no right of association. Even romance between men and women is often forbidden without approval.
7. The economy is centrally planned.
8. There is pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication.
9. The society is heavily regulated, to the degree many employees are told when, where and how many times a day they can go to the toilet.
10. There is little transparency and something like the Freedom of Information Act is unimaginable.
11. Internal opposition groups, such as unions, are blackbanned, surveilled and/or marginalized whenever and wherever possible.

While having a GDP and population comparable to Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand, many of these multi-national corporations have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms and protections. This is even more striking when the regional civic laws the company operates under are weak (such as in West Papua, many African states or even South Korea); there, the character of these corporate tyrannies is unregulated by their civilizing surroundings.

Through governmental corruption, political influence, or manipulation of the judicial system, abusive corporations are able to gain control over the defining element of government the sole right to deploy coercive force.

Just like a country, a corrupt or unethical corporation is a menace to all inside and outside it. Corporations will behave more ethically if the world is watching closely. WikiLeaks has exposed unethical plans and behaviour in corporations and this as resulted in recompense or other forms of justice forms of justice for victims.
3.4 Could oppressive regimes potentially come to face legal consequences as a result of evidence posted on WikiLeaks?

The laws and immunities that are applied in national and international courts, committees and other legal institutions vary, and we can't comment on them in particular. The probative value of documents posted on WikiLeaks in a court of law is a question for courts to decide.

While a secure chain of custody cannot be established for anonymous leaks, these leaks can lead to successful court cases. In many cases, it is easier for journalists or investigators to confirm the existence of a known document through official channels (such as an FOI law or legal discovery) than it is to find this information when starting from nothing. Having the title, author or relevant page numbers of an important document can accelerate an investigation, even if the content itself has not been confirmed. In this way, even unverified information is an enabling jump-off point for media, civil society or official investigations. Principled leaking has been shown to contribute to bringing justice to victims via the court system.