Mass-Media: Pros and Cons WikiLeaks and Julian Assange

WikiLeaks is an international new media non-profit organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and leaks. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents. The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. The Guardian newspaper describes Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, as its director. In November 2010, WikiLeaks began releasing U.S. State department diplomatic cables.

Julian Paul Assange (born 3 July 1971) is an Australian journalist, publisher, and Internet activist. He is best known as the spokesperson and editor in chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Before working with the website, he was a computer programmer. He has lived in several countries, and has made occasional public appearances to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism. Assange founded the WikiLeaks website in 2006 and serves on its advisory board. On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing secret U.S. diplomatic cables. The White House calls Assange's actions reckless and dangerous. On 30 November 2010, at the request of the International Public Prosecution Office in Gothenburg, Sweden, Interpol placed Assange on its red notice list of wanted persons; he was wanted for questioning about alleged sexual offenses, and voluntarily submitted to the London Metropolitan Police on 7 December 2010. Assange denies the accusations made against him. (Wikipedia)

U.S. Media

WikiLeaks bunker: Julian Assange's subterranean Bond villain den
Daily Mail
With his eccentric personal life and air of mystery, the flamboyant WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seems to be doing his best to ...

California Town Mulls Resolution to Honor Army Private Accused of Passing ...
Fox News
Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks that Pentagon officials say endangers US operations and ...

Does WikiLeaks need its 'defenders'? Or does it have its own cyber insurance?
InfoWorld
Vengeful denial-of-service attacks on PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa in support WikiLeaks amount to an unprecedented cyber war. ...

Will reading WikiLeaks cost students jobs with the federal government?
CNN International
Some colleges have warned students considering government jobs not to comment on or post links to WikiLeaks on Facebook. ...

Don't use archaic spy law
Boston Globe
WHILE WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange damaged America's relations with other countries by releasing some 250000 diplomatic cables, any attempt to prosecute ...

Facebook love stands behind WikiLeaks
USA Today
Western governments and major corporations may be turning their backs on WikiLeaks, but Facebook is accepting the rogue website with open arms, ...

Guantanamo Bay May Be WikiLeaks' Next Target
CBS News
The rumored next WikiLeaks assault on Washington and United States politics may focus on suspected militants held at Guantanamo Bay, according to a Reuters ...

Wikileaks fallout: Keeping your secrets safe
ZDNet
At minimum, the Wikileaks loss should sound an alarm for access control of privileged users such as web and system administrators, says Xceedium's Ken Ammon ...

Kass: WikiLeaks founder pretends there aren't consequences
Chicago Tribune
WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange is under pressure from the US and other governments he embarrassed with his leaks of American diplomatic cables, ...

Bolivia hosts WikiLeaks 'mirror'
The Associated Press
Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera has posted all US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks that pertain to Bolivia on his ...

International Media

US pushed Germany not to arrest CIA agents: WikiLeaks
Hindustan Times
The information, made public in diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks and first reported by the New York Times, involved Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen ...

Wikileaks: Twitter explains why it's not trending, as hackers play cat and mouse
The Guardian
Twitter has officially posted on its blog about the fact that the #wikileaks hashtag has not been continually trending. The topic has been the source of ...

WikiLeaks aides hack Palin's website
Oneindia
The former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has alleged that the supporters of whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks, have hacked her personal ...

WikiLeaks reveal oil companies reach in Nigeria
ABC Online
But the latest WikiLeaks revelations have now shed light on how the practice actually works. US diplomatic cables reveal the influence that the oil company ...

Get Media Alerts
Huffington Post
Just 24 hours ago, the company began accepting donations on behalf of WikiLeaks. Although the founders, Sibyl Lindsay and Sharif Alexandre, won't disclose ...

Swedish micropayment system continues to channel funds to WikiLeaks
The Hindu
The Internet homepage of Wikileaks is shown in this photo taken in New York. File photo: AP. Swedish-based micropayment system Flattr said on Thursday it ...

WikiLeaks: Saudi FM proposed plan to destroy Hizbullah
Jerusalem Post
The moderate Arab states' fear of Iran and Islamic radicalism continued to pour forth from documents released by WikiLeaks Tuesday night, with the Saudi ...

WikiLeaks: What, really, is the problem?
Tehran Times
Some commentators, bloggers and other writers, were quick to jump to the conclusion that the avalanche of documents being released by WikiLeaks ...

Canadian firm caught up in Wiki wars
Globe and Mail
Mark Jeftovic didn't know his company had somehow managed to kick WikiLeaks off the Internet until he read it on a blog one morning while eating breakfast. ...

Cable insight into China leaders
BBC News 
US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks have revealed more about the attitudes and concerns of the two men expected to lead China from 2012. ...

Blogosphere

Information is the Antidote to Fear: Wikileaks, the Law, and You ...
bankston
When it comes to Wikileaks, there's a lot of fear out there on the Internet right now.Between the federal criminal investigation into Wikileaks, Senator Joe Lieberman's calls for companies to stop providing support for ...

Ellsberg: “EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange ...
Michael Ellsberg
WikiLeaks has teased the genie of transparency out of a very opaque bottle, and powerful forces in America, who thrive on secrecy, are trying desperately to stuff the genie back in. The people listed below this release ...

Wikileaks: Twitter explains why it's not trending, as hackers play ...
Charles Arthur
Microblogging network explains why whisteblowing site isn't in trends as hackers evade bans on Twitter - though not Facebook.

Caving to pressure from supporters, PayPal releases WikiLeaks ...
Jeff Cormier
Caving to pressure from supporters, PayPal releases WikiLeaks' funds

PayPal VP On Blocking WikiLeaks: State Department Said It Was Illegal
Alexia Tsotsis
Milo Yannopoulos' very first question on stage to PayPal's VP of Platform Osama Bedier was why PayPal blocked WikiLeaks payments and froze its account. The last part of the question was met with boos from the mostly ...

WikiLeaks Gets Its Own “Axis of Evil” Defense Network: Tech News «
Mathew Ingram
As the U.S. government and a series of corporations such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal keep up the pressure on WikiLeaks, a rough alliance of hackers and supporters have taken it upon themselves to wage an ongoing ...

Julian Assange Sparks Hacker War Over WikiLeaks - The Daily Beast
Brian Ries
Hackers attacked Sarah Palin, MasterCard, and Visa's websites on Wednesday in revenge for assaults on WikiLeaks. Other hackers are fighting to defend the U.S. government. Brian Ries goes inside the First Amendment ...

WikiLeaks Cyberwarfare? (SWJ Blog)
Dave Dilegge
However, I don't believe that this (i.e., Wikileaks apparatchiks taking revenge) approaches the level of actual "cyberwarfare." Now the Stuxnet worm - that's real cyberwarfare, probably done by the Mossad and done right. ...

The Reaction of Governments to Wikileaks Should Scare the Hell Out ...
Roberto Arguedas
Wikileaks is a flawed endeavor represented publicly by a smug egotist. But it deserves the respect and support of anyone who prioritizes the privacy of individuals over that of governments.

WikiLeaks Cables: Desperate Housewives Vs. Terrorism - Tuned In ...
James Poniewozik
Last week, we learned via WikiLeaks that the U.S. State Deparment had produced a cable analyzing trends of anti-Americanism in Canadian TV. But it now appears that the U.S..