Wikileaks is a wiki which allows whistleblowers, while remaining anonymous, to release government and corporate documents. It claims that postings are untraceable by anyone. Wikileaks was launched in December 2006 and has more than 1.2 million documents. Its primary interests are oppressive regions in Asia, the former Soviet block, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, but may be used by anyone to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. You may have heard about it leaking documents related to prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
You can usually quickly start a great debate about the value or danger of such a site. Some note the importance of being able to protect secret documents from leaking to the public, to protect national security. Others wonder if the documents are actually legitimate or fake documents posted as a joke. Many note that the documents could be easily misunderstood when read out of context with other documents that are unavailable. However, on Wikileaks, site visitors can discuss their interpretations and context.
Just recently it has become a little more difficult to get to the Wikileaks site. The main WikiLeaks.org DNS entry is currently unavailable, reportedly due to a restraining order related to some articles and documents released by Wikileaks about off-shore trust structures in the Cayman Islands. Therefore, the wiki is no longer available by entering its registered URL. An injunction granted by the California Northern District Court in San Francisco to Bank Julius Baer, a Swiss Bank, caused the domain to be taken offline in the US. Wikileaks had reportedly published documents from a whistleblower of the Swiss Bank purportedly showing offshore tax evasion and money laundering activities, perhaps by wealthy and politically sensitive clients.
You've always heard never put anything on the Internet and think you can just simply delete it later? Information spreads! This site is not an exception to that tail. It has mirror sites which can be used during outages. So, you can actually still view a mirror of the Wikileaks site and you can still reach the original Wikileaks site by using its direct link.
For more information about Wikileaks and its current access challenges:
Wikipedia article on Wikileaks
WikiNews article on Wikileaks
Post a comment telling us what you think about Wikileaks and the information it hosts.
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