WikiLeaks: A Nightmare for Evildoers in the Administration
By: Sanjeet Marskole
Tags: Julian Assange, Trump Administration, Wikileaks, US Elections, Social Media

WikiLeaks: A Nightmare for Evildoers in the Administration

US Presidential Election 2020 is not like 2016.

As we are getting closer to Nov 3, day by day we started spending our time on the internet to decide whom we should vote for? Even though we already made our mind for our superior parties. History is the witness of what a single vote can do. Voting is a vital thing. That’s why We should take it more as a responsibility than a privilege towards our country.

We know that our decisions can be manipulated by providing the wrong information from different sources.

Where In this time it’s become much harder to find the truth where lies became much convincing.

In an election, each competitor tries to get your vote. They have the same faculties and the same sources. Sometimes these sources become biased over one another which affects the overall result of the election. We use these sources to make decisions and they use it to change our decisions.

A source named Wikileaks is a favorite amongst people when it comes to knowing what is happening behind the scenes. During the time of the 2016 US presidential election, WikiLeaks published many papers and emails which led to creating many controversies. In the end, many cases were filed against, Wikileaks and its co-founder Julian Assange.

If we focus here only on Wikileaks we will find that there are many fascinating things to discover like how they got their hands on such confidential paper and private mails, how they operate it here? Does WikiLeaks do journalism, or is it something else? Or Does WikiLeaks have anything to do with the dark web? What happened, so much so that they are facing problems till today.

Wikileaks

What is it?

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes news leaks, classified documents, and media. Its website was launched in 2006 in Iceland by the organization called Sunshine Press and had realized 10 million documents in its first 10 years.

Who is the founder of WikiLeaks?

Julian Assange was one of the earliest members of WikiLeaks. He represents WikiLeaks and is credited as its founder.

Is it a project of Wikipedia?

It has nothing to do with Wikipedia despite having the same prefix ”wiki”. Wikipedia clearly stated that WikiLeaks is not a Wikimedia project and is thus not affiliated with Wikipedia.

What are their main goals?

According to the WikiLeaks website, its goal is “to bring important news and information to the public … 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.” and to ensure that journalists and whistleblowers are not prosecuted for emailing sensitive or classified documents.

Where the funding came from?

Wikileaks is a non-profit organization that mostly depend on public donations and funded largely by volunteers with some big-name as their partners.

Where are the servers located?

Many of them are spread around the world with the main server located in Sweden and one of them is the Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof in the Pionen facility. They also use “bulletproof hosting” by maintaining their servers at undisclosed locations, keeps no logs and uses military-grade encryption for protection.

Still, working?

Wikileaks.org WikiLeaks website is still accessible and they are still operating it but haven’t posted anything since November 2019

US Presidential Election 2016

WikiLeaks released approximately 20,000 emails and 8,000 files from July 2016 to October 2016 about

On 22 July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) seeming to try to eliminate Clinton’s competitor Bernie Sanders and showing favoritism towards Clinton.

On October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks released the emails of her campaign chairman’s email account, John Podesta, which tells us about how Clinton’s speeches were paid and most of the things were scripted.

As a result of what WikiLeaks published in 2010 April, a classified video of the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike they built their image as a source to provide authentic and classified information as leaks. Because getting hands-on with those diplomatic cables and video clips is not an easy task to do and also these leaks were raising some viable questions. When they release the new leaks about Hillary Clinton and the mail exchanges between Democratic National Committee (DNC), people started to think about these leaks and take them seriously. Which led to the re-opening of an FBI investigation on Hillary Clinton consequently affect the overall image of Hillary Clinton in the election.

How does it work?

Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash

The basic working of WikiLeaks perform in such a way that they are managed to have variable ways to get material depending on what type of material they are getting. If it is not a huge amount of data they will get it through regular postal mail, said Julian Assange. But when it’s a large database they use an online dropbox system designed by Assange where anyone can use and submit their material. Their main servers are located in Sweden which provides full protection for journalism; it has one of the world’s strongest laws to protect such confidential things related to journalism.

The traffic on WikiLeaks can not be tracked this means it is impossible to tell who is browsing the website at any given time

Once the material reaches them they start their research on it to check its authenticity. After deciding which to publish, when the editor completes his work they release it on their website.

They have their official dark web account. This website which is available to us is just a small outlet of a big tank kept in the dark web.

What is happening with Julian Assange?

wikileaks.shop

Brief timeline explaining the fight of Julian Assange against for his Extradition to the U.S. at London Court

After WikiLeaks released cable gates and Baghdad airstrike video in April 2010, the US Justice Department decided to begin a criminal investigation on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange and take them down for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 but it is not quite possible because of First Amendment protections for the press.

In August 2010 Swedish Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant for Assange in the allegations of rape and molestation. Assange denied the allegations and said he was happy to face questions in Britain.

In May 2012 Further in the hearing, UK’s Supreme Court decided to extradite him to Sweden

But In the fear of extradition from Sweden to the United States Assange applied for political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, London. He stayed there from June 2012 to April 2019. When the new Ecuadorian president won the election he changed the decisions regarding Assange stay at the embassy.

In May 2013 Metropolitan Police entered the embassy and detained him. After which he sentenced to 50 weeks of jail for breaching his bail conditions

Sweden reopens the sexual assault investigation and the US files 18 charges against Assange.

In November 2019 Swedish discontinue the investigation into the allegation of rape and molestation but the US supersede 17 new counts under the Espionage Act and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Julian Assange is appearing at the London court to prove innocence. The decision will come on 4 January 2021 whether he is going to extradite to us or not. He could face up to 175 years in prison if he is found guilty in the US.

Do we need such things, is our government is two-sided?

Yes, we need this but not in this way.

What we saw in those video clips was not acceptable in any way. An innocent life is as important as thousands of innocent lives. If there were no such sources like WikiLeaks then we won’t be able to find out what exactly happened that day. We don’t even know how many secrets our government is hiding from us.

The power which Wikileaks had gained in the span of these 9 years, it’s become much harder to trust them after all Wikileaks is run by a few activists; people. And how can some 4 or 5 people decide what is good for the whole natio or what not? Where we don’t have any assurance of their honesty. By blindly following their path. We are allowing them to change our crucial decision; Elections.

An FBI investigation found that the October 7th hacked email leaks have the same pattern of previous Russian hacks, which Vladimir Putin has denied their involvement in it. Whether they did this or they didn’t. But it shows how a source can help a foreign country to influence the democratic decisions of other countries.

WikiLeaks is not destroying corruption in the government; they are destroying our democratic process.

We need an independent organization that functions on its own and doesn’t have any such influence of any entity on their work, it should check all the conditions for an optimistic ideal organization.