WikiLeaks is a multi-national anti-censorship organization that attempts to create legitimate transparency of secret or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying, and corruption. These are the six most famous and infamous leaks.
On October 22, 2010, the Internet-based transparency organization WikiLeaks curated the largest ever military leak in history, releasing 391,832 classified U.S. military documents about the war in Iraq onto the worldwide web.
Similar to the July 2010 release of 77,000 secret documents related to the war in Afghanistan, the papers consisted primarily of classified reports from troops in the field covering local intelligence and detailing combat. Major revelations included details of increased civilian casualties, documented instances of the U.S. military deliberately ignoring detainee abuse by Iraqi allies, and a circulating suspicion among military ranks that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency has covertly assisted the Afghan Taliban insurgency.
2. The Detainee Policies: Guantanamo Bay Operating Procedures
An infamous military prison in Cuba, Guantanamo Bay was founded in 2002 to house over 700 people in US military custody. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the prison camp was established to “detain extraordinarily dangerous people, to interrogate detainees in an optimal setting, and to prosecute of detainees for war crimes.”
The legacy of Guantanamo Bay was one clouded in austere mystery, that is, until October of 2012 when WikiLeaks announced the release of 100 classified and restricted documents from the Department of Defense dubbed “The Detainee Policies”. The documents detail the rules and standard operating procedures for detainees in US military custody, interrogation manuals, and behavior management plans.
3. A case of corruption: Scientology Exposed
In 1954, American author L. Ron Hubbard founded the religion of the stars. Scientology is a controversial religious order centered around rigorous research in the pursuit of self-knowledge and spiritual fulfillment through graded courses of study and training practiced, most notably, by Hollywood’s rich and famous.
With big-time believers like Tom Cruise and John Travolta and big-time controversies surrounding its practices, it was only a matter of time before the secrets of Scientology were exposed. In 2008, WikiLeaks published a collection of secret ‘bibles’ of the cult, detailing some of the internal workings and questionable practices of the controversial church. Revealing a hierarchy of “Operating Thetans” and incomprehensible “drill” instructions, the odd inner workings of the church were also further expose in the 2015 documentary HBO film Going Clear , deconstructing many of the churches’ claims while highlighting stories of ex-members including 30 year devout scientology celebrity Leah Remini.
In perhaps one of the most emotional endeavors of transparency, WikiLeaks re-released the transcript of intercepted government pager texts from 9/11 as they were sent. The organization garnered more than 500,000 text pager messages from a US telecommunications organization archive, covering a 24 hour time span surrounding the attacks.
On the 9th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, WikiLeaks broadcasted the messages from FBI officials, Pentagon employees, NYPD officers, and even World Trade Center computers “live”—synchronized to the time of day they were sent—to the global community from 3AM September 11 to 3AM the following day.
5. Hillary Clinton’s email hack
During her tenure as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton operated in a sea of controversy within a Pandora’s box of emails. In March 2015, it became publically known that Clinton had been exclusively using her family’s private email server for official communications during her time in office, rather than the official state department email accounts maintained on federal servers. Experts, officials, and members of congress contended that her actions violated state department protocols and procedures, as well as federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping.
In March 2016, WikiLeaks launched a searchable archive of 30,322 emails and email attachments sent to and from Clinton’s private server spanning from June 2010 to August 2014. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the US State Department after several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
6. The ‘how to stop WikiLeaks’ WikiLeak
In an ironic twist, a British military manual specifically dealing with internet protocol—and how to best avoid leaks—was leaked onto WikiLeaks in October of 2009. The 2,400-page restricted Defense Manual of Security, or Joint Services Protocol 440 (JSP440) published in 2001 was intended to help Ministry of Defense, armed forces, and intelligence personal maintain confidential information in the face of hackers, journalists, and foreign spies, among others.
Particular emphasizing journalists as “threats” comparable to terrorist groups and criminals, the document was also used as justification for the monitoring of certain websites, including WikiLeaks, by the government.
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