WikiLeaks Makes Its Mark As Murky Whistleblower

Of all the new brands spawned by the internet age, WikiLeaks is one of the most fascinating – and most disturbing. Amazon revolutionized book buying, and eBay created the ultimate marketplace. But WikiLeaks is making a huge impact on affairs of state.

Just yesterday, in fact, the US Defense Department said that it couldn’t locate its copy of a video of a July 2007 air strike that killed two Reuters employees in Iraq, according to the Associated Press. Yet this apparently is the very same video that was obtained surreptitiously by WikiLeaks, converted out of its encrypted form by allies and volunteers, and replayed hundreds of times on news reports around the world, then posted on YouTube, where it has been viewed millions of times.

This is exactly the impact that WikiLeaks’ founders wanted to have, they told The New York Times in an interview. “That’s arguably what spy agencies do – high-tech investigative journalism,” said Julian Assange, one of the site’s founders. “It’s time that the media upgraded its capabilities along those lines."Continue reading...