.COM CONFIDENTIAL

Bradley Manning had been disillusioned with the Army since an incident early in his military career. As a young intelligence analyst in Iraq, he had been tasked with finding out who the ‘bad guys’ were of a group of fifteen Iraqis accused of printing ‘anti-Iraq’ literature. However, when he translated the literature, he found that it was nothing more than a benign political critique. He told his superior, believing the issue would be dropped. But his protestations were ignored and Manning was told to round up more Iraqis.

An angry and disheartened young man with access to guns is dangerous, but one with access to highly confidential data is even more so. Manning attempted to right the previous wrong by showing the world what was really going on in Iraq. Whilst working, he discovered a video of two apache helicopters circling a group of people in an Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. What he saw next has now been seen by millions across the world.

The footage shows the soldiers on board the apache asking for permission to engage the target after they see one of the group holding an object they assume to be a weapon. They are given the go ahead and proceed to shoot at the group. As the dust cloud settles, one man is left alive, injured, but crawling to safety. A van comes to help the man. However, when they try to carry him into the van, they are shot at again and killed.

Manning analysed the footage and discovered that the object presumed to be a weapon was in fact a camera. And the man holding it was a Reuters photojournalist. In fact two of the victims had been Reuters’ employees. Furthermore, the van held two children who were injured by the gun fire. This, combined with the bizarre light-hearted attitude of the officers in the apache, caused the US Army to cover the video up and keep it a secret.

Unfortunately for the US Army, Manning had discovered it and had the perfect platform to reveal it to the world; Wikileaks.

The website had been in operation since 2007. By guaranteeing anonymity to those leaking information and having a reputation of authenticity, Wikileaks uploaded the video and called it ‘Collateral Murder’. The resulting media frenzy gave the site much needed publicity, and Manning exactly what he wanted.

But the Collateral Murder video is not the first time Wikileaks has upset the status quo. After only three and a half years of existence, Wikileaks has become an impressive force, exposing a number of high profile secrets; the ‘Climategate’ emails, BNP membership lists, Guantanamo Bay procedures among many. Wikileaks is not so much a media organisation, rather a media insurgency. Unsurprisingly, the site has acquired a high number of adversaries. Legal threats have been worldwide – a Kenyan politician, lawyers from Northern Rock, and the dreaded scientologists have all attempted to sue the site.

The founder of the site, Julian Assange, is an elusive Australian constantly relocating to avoid prosecution. But as a former computer hacker, he has created a site that is seemingly impossible to stop. It is so well protected that Assange has boasted “a government or company that wanted to remove content from WikiLeaks would have to practically dismantle the internet itself”. Content is uploaded through servers in Sweden, a country that assures anonymity of sources in digital media. Once it is online, Wikileaks maintains the content on twenty servers across the world and hundreds of domain names. Employing only half a dozen or so full time staff – who refer to each other in code name – Wikileaks depends on donors and supporters who share the belief of free press.

With the stakes so high and the data proving so powerful, why is Wikileaks so important? According to the website, Wikileaks ensures democracy and good governance. They use the example of their expose of Kenyan corruption that was awarded an Amnesty Award. Malaria is almost totally eradicated in the developed world, yet in Africa it still kills over a hundred people an hour. We know how to stop it, yet the problem persists in countries where bad governance persists. This is where Wikileaks believes it can help; by revealing the corruption and holding governments to account. In this case, Wikileaks exposed corruption that amounted to $3,000,000,000 just before the 2007 national elections, which swung the vote by 10%. The new government radically revised the constitution and a more open government was formed. They believe this will lead to better malaria protection and eventual eradication of the disease.

This may sound exaggerated and ideological, but it demonstrates the altruistic nature of the website. Yet Wikileaks is not without its critics.

Authenticity is a crucial problem that is unlikely to be solved. Its first leak was a secret Islamic order written by Sheikh Hassan Aweys, but there was instant speculation that it was a fake and the question of credibility reduced the impact. Since then, it has plagued a number of leaks despite their best attempts to check the data. One member of Wikileaks has stated that he intentionally put through fake documents to test the process. Although the data was flagged as potentially fake, it still got through. Plenty of reputable sources have verified an impressive amount of research into the leaks, but considering the amount that are published and the number who work on the site, it is impossible to prevent frauds filtering through. Wikileaks responds by noting the failings of other prestigious media organisations that are often duped by fakes.

The difficulty in knowing how authenticate information has, according to Assange, created an atmosphere paranoia. So much so, that a founding member, John Young, accused them of being a CIA conduit in 2007. Following his departure, he published 150 pages of confidential emails from Wikileaks. He believed that they should be subject to the same scrutiny that others receive. But Wikileaks were unfazed and published the damaging leak. One wonders whether this was an example of transparency or self-promotion, but either way it has added to the sites credibility.

The accusations of Assange and his team working for the CIA seem ironic now. Whilst Assange has evaded prosecution as of yet, the US are beginning to step up their attempts to locate him. Manning, the man behind Collateral Murder, has only recently been discovered as the leak. He had grown close to another former hacker, Adrian Lamo, online and had revealed that he had leaked the information. Lamo informed the FBI, who are now holding Manning in detention in Kuwait. So far, Manning has revealed to the FBI further leaks that he has already sent to Assange, including incredibly sensitive data of 260000 secret cables between US diplomats and foreign leaders, data that has the potential to be a diplomatic disaster.

It begs the question; is the information that Manning, and Wikileaks, release of actual benefit to the public, or is it putting the public in danger? The Collateral Murder video is surely a benefit, and a soldier who was involved has since been on US TV supporting the leak. However, the problem with the site is that everything is uploaded, the only stipulation being that it is authentic. Wikileaks has a policy of not being the referee, instead letting the world and the media be the judges.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by L. Gordon Crovitz questioned the ease of exposing and the threat to national security. Crovitz uses the example of Philip Agee, a former CIA official who released the names of hundreds of CIA agents in the 1970s and, as a result, several were murdered across the world. Before the age of the internet, to expose a story; one had to interest a journalist, who would then need the editor to decide whether it was in the public interest to publish. Now it is far easier to sidestep these problems and release them to Wikileaks.

It is difficult to determine the real motivations behind Wikileaks. Is it just a bunch of ‘hacktivisits’ causing controversy or is it the future of investigative journalism? Whilst it has the opportunity to create an honest world, it also has the power to cause havoc.