WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes submissions of private, secret and classified media from anonymous news sources. The WikiLeaks website was launched in 2006. An Australian journalist named Julian Assange is the founder, spokesperson and editor in chief of WikiLeaks. Since 2006, the site has published material exposing extrajudicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumping in Côte d’Ivoire, Church of Scientology manuals and Guantanamo Bay procedures. However, WikiLeaks made international headlines in 2010 when they posted classified details surrounding the American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. On November 28, 2010, WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing secret U.S. diplomatic cables.
The WikiLeaks website began to gain mainstream recognition when they released a video showing an American airstrike that occurred on July 12, 2007 in Baghdad, which still remains on the website. The classified U.S. military footage shows a series of attacks by a U.S. helicopter that killed 12 people, including two news staff, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. After gaining military clearance, the helicopter fired a series of 30 mm calibre cannon shells into a group of ten men alleged by the U.S. Army to be Iraqi insurgents. In fact, the American soldiers had mistaken a collection of cameras for guns. The video is extremely graphic, especially the initial shooting when a group of people are instantly killed.
The second airstrike, using 30 mm fire, was directed at a man who pulled up in a van and attempted to help the wounded. In the third airstrike, the “Bush” helicopter team deployed three AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, which destroyed a building. An undisclosed number of civilians were killed in the explosion. It was the first time that the American public had been exposed to such a war video. After WikiLeaks released a series of logs surrounding the Iraqi War, the Pentagon referred to the exposure as “the largest leak of classified documents in its history.” Media coverage of the documents focused on claims that the U.S. government ignored reports of torture by the Iraqi authorities.
In October 2010, Assange told a leading Moscow newspaper that “The Kremlin had better brace itself for a coming wave of WikiLeaks disclosures about Russia.” In 2010, Assange told Forbes magazine that WikiLeaks was planning another “megaleak” for early in 2011, which would be from inside the private sector and involve “a big U.S. bank.” Following the announcement, Bank of America’s stock price fell by 3%. During the interview, Assange commented on the possible impact of the leak. “It could take down a bank or two.” In December 2010, Julian Assange’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, told The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC, that WikiLeaks had information that it considers to be a “thermo-nuclear device” which it would release if the organization needs to defend itself.