WikiLeaks Has Been Persecuted Mercilessly for Revealing the Secrets of US Empire
Since 2007, WikiLeaks has challenged entrenched power to reveal evidence of state crimes, political dirty dealings, and other secrets. Its efforts have provoked severe repression by the US government and its allies.
Hundreds of supporters of Julian Assange form a human chain around Parliament extending between Westminster and Lambeth Bridges on both sides of the River Thames to demand the release of the imprisoned whistleblower on October 8, 2022 in London, United Kingdom. (Mark Kerrison / In Pictures via Getty Images)
The year was 2008. Italian investigative reporter Stefania Maurizi had lost contact with one of her sources; the source believed they were being wiretapped illegally. The source was spooked and failed to even show up for one last meeting.
Following Maurizi’s source’s cutting off ties, the journalist began to research the best ways to protect a source. Given her background in mathematics, she became particularly interested in encryption. An expert on the subject told her about an upstart media outlet — WikiLeaks. “You should take a look at those lunatics,” he told her.
Today, many major media outlets use encryption to allow sources to anonymously submit information. But when WikiLeaks launched in 2007, no one else was doing so. WikiLeaks wasn’t just technologically savvy — it was bold. In late 2007, the site published the operating procedures for the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which depicted psychological torture and methods for keeping certain prisoners from communicating with the Red Cross. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had attempted to uncover this same information through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request but was blocked. The Pentagon demanded WikiLeaks take down the documents; WikiLeaks refused.
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