On Monday, Julian Assange, founding father of WikiLeaks, was launched from jail after combating a authorized battle spanning greater than 14 years.
In 2006, Assange launched the whistleblower web site WikiLeaks, a platform that enables customers to anonymously submit secret, categorised paperwork and movies. The newest publication by the platform was in 2021.
The New York-based Nation journal reported in January 2024 that Assange mentioned WikiLeaks was not capable of publish paperwork since potential whistleblowers had been thwarted following his imprisonment, United States authorities surveillance and funding cuts.
In the course of the years it functioned, the whistleblower platform printed categorised paperwork that had been by no means seen earlier than – embarrassing governments, inflicting diplomatic standoffs and forcing coverage modifications.
Here’s a take a look at 10 such leaks by the platform:
Report about poisonous waste within the Ivory Coast
In 2009, WikiLeaks launched the Minton Report that uncovered how an inner report commissioned by Singapore-headquartered multinational firm Trafigura concluded that its dumping of 540,000 litres of poisonous waste, together with dangerous chemical compounds, within the Ivory Coast probably led to “burns to the pores and skin, eyes and lungs, vomiting, diarrhoea, lack of consciousness and loss of life”.
The United Nations reported that 108,000 folks had been affected by this dumping of waste.
Cablegate
In 2010, WikiLeaks began constructing out its Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD), which is a rising assortment of three,326,538 US diplomatic cables between American diplomats posted to 274 consulates and embassies from 1966 to 2010, and their colleagues and executives, together with again house on the State Division.
Within the first spherical of those leaks, 250,000 cables had been launched to the general public – arguably the only largest such dump of confidential paperwork ever launched.
The leaks included embarrassing particulars of how US diplomats perceived a few of their overseas counterparts and nuggets of conversations the place overseas officers, together with many in excessive positions at the moment, expressed frustrations with their very own governments.
Afghanistan conflict recordsdata
In October 2010, the whistleblower web site launched 90,000 categorised paperwork on the US conflict in Afghanistan.
The USA launched the Afghanistan conflict in 2001, following the September 11 assaults that 12 months, lastly withdrawing its forces from the nation in 2021.
The paperwork painted an image of the conflict – and the US battle towards the Taliban – that was very totally different from the general public posture of confidence adopted by Washington.
Iraq conflict recordsdata
Additionally in October 2010, WikiLeaks made public nearly 400,000 secret US recordsdata on the Iraq conflict.
In 2003, the US authorities underneath President George W Bush invaded Iraq.
The paperwork, from 2004 to 2009, confirmed that the civilian deaths within the Afghanistan and Iraq wars had been a lot increased than the numbers being reported. The leaks represented the most important safety breaches of their type in US army historical past.
Collateral homicide – Iraq helicopter video
Among the many most distinguished of WikiLeaks revelations, in April 2010, was the discharge of video footage exhibiting a US Apache helicopter assault which killed a dozen unarmed folks, together with two Reuters journalists, Namir Noor Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, within the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
The video, filmed from the chopper’s cockpit reveals a US missile strike and capturing on a sq. in a Baghdad neighbourhood in July 2007, in keeping with WikiLeaks.
The Guantanamo recordsdata
In April 2011, WikiLeaks launched secret paperwork spanning hundreds of pages to pick out US and European media shops.
These paperwork unearthed how the Geneva Conventions had been being violated routinely within the Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba. The paperwork, courting from 2002 to 2008 confirmed the abuse of 800 prisoners, a few of them as younger as 14.
A minimum of 150 of those prisoners had been discovered to be harmless Afghans or Pakistanis who had been rounded up as a part of frantic intelligence gathering after which imprisoned for years, within the aftermath of the September 11 assaults and the so-called “conflict on terror”.
The Syria recordsdata
In July 2012, WikiLeaks started making public two million emails from 680 Syrian political figures and ministries working with the Bashar al-Assad regime between August 2006 to March 2012.
The emails unearthed the involvement of European firms within the surveillance and crackdown on Syrian civilians. One such firm was Italian-government-owned Selex, which continued to develop its contract with the Syrian police, regardless of sanctions.
The emails additionally uncovered how PR firm Brown Lloyd James (BLJ) was paid to engineer a now-deleted Vogue article about al-Assad’s spouse Asma, in keeping with WikiLeaks.
NSA spying
In 2015, the whistleblower web site launched particulars of unlawful intercepts from the US digital spy organisation, Nationwide Safety Company (NSA).
In a sequence of publications launched from 2015 to 2017, WikiLeaks mentioned the US, utilizing the NSA, was additionally routinely spying on overseas officers from Japan, the European Union, Israel, Germany and Brazil.
Moreover, the whistleblower mentioned the NSA intercepted communications between former United Nations Secretary-Common Ban Ki-moon and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
WikiLeaks mentioned that the NSA was not solely spying on worldwide politicians but in addition civilians. In 2017, it tweeted that the NSA may hack Pakistan’s cellular networks.
A whole lot of NSA cyber weapons variants publicly launched together with code exhibiting hacking of Pakistan cellular system https://t.co/bL833ktQpm
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 8, 2017
Sony Footage hack
In 2015, WikiLeaks launched a minimum of 170,000 emails and greater than 20,000 paperwork from a 2014 cyberattack on Sony Footage Leisure.
The leak was across the similar time Sony was set to launch the movie a couple of fictional American plot to kill North Korean chief Kim Jong Un.
The emails additionally revealed that feminine celebrities equivalent to Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence had been paid lower than their male counterparts within the 2013 crime comedy movie American Hustle.
US Democratic Get together emails leaked
In 2016, WikiLeaks uncovered 19,252 emails and eight,034 attachments from the US Democratic Get together nationwide management.
The emails uncovered that despite the fact that the Democratic Nationwide Committee (DNC), the social gathering’s principal committee, pledged impartiality within the 2016 presidential race, it appeared to behave towards Bernie Sanders in favour of Hillary Clinton.
The leaks resulted within the resignations of 5 high DNC officers together with the chair, CFO, CEO, communications director and finance director. Clinton accused WikiLeaks and Assange of colluding with Russia to lift questions concerning the credibility of the US election course of. She misplaced the 2016 presidential race to Donald Trump.
