DailyPost 337
ARE LEAKS REDEFINING THE WORLD?
WikiLeaks started in 2006 in Iceland by an organisation Sunshine Press with Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist as its founder & editor-in-chief is a document archive & disclosure site. It’s a pioneer in its new founded field and had been rocking the world by large scale leaks since 2010. It runs under the slogan, “we open governments.”
This organisation has redefined journalism without writing a word. The first leak dump itself was more than all journalistic material churned out globally in one single year. The initial famous leaks pertain to Afghanistan war & a report of a corruption investigation in Kenya. In April 2010, WikiLeaks released Collateral Murder footage of 12th July 2007 in which Iraqi journalists were killed. It 2010 is also released Afghan War Diary & the “Iraq War Logs”. US diplomatic cables connected to Iraq war was also made public the same year. In April 2011, 779 secret files Guantanamo Bay detention camp detainees were published. The leaks were in the nature of document dumps.
Leaks thus came on the world center stage. Taking cue from Wikileaks, a whole generation of Hactivists took the world by surprise. They believe in a free information & and are a reaction to government control. Edward Snowden’s leaks of the National Security Agency through journalist Glen Greenwald of the Guardian is the most prominent. They brought forth the horror of surveillance state out in the open. Bardley Manning of the US army is another well known name. Privacy & Confidentiality got the attention it deserved.
The ill famed Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files pertaining to over 2 lakh shell companies from the database of the fourth largest law firm Mossack Fonseca. Of the 143 politicians who names figure in the database, 12 are national leaders. They, their families & close associates from around the world have been using off shore tax havens. A $2 billion trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. Pakistan PM has been one of its fallouts.
TRANSPARENCY PRECEDES LEGALITY IN DATA LEAKS WORLD
Sanjay Sahay