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PhotographyEight days ago, I happened to watch the most influential German TV news: Tagesthemen at 8pm. Sitting in the living room of my grandmother, I hoped that they would show footage of what happened at a press conference that day, and was very surprised as they actually did.
They ran a two minutes story about the video Wikileaks released that day:
WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information please visit the special project website www.collateralmurder.com.
Finally, Wikileaks has reached the German mass media. I consider it one of the most important democratic tools the internet currently offers, and am very happy that it has been mentioned in the Tagesthemen.
What is Wikileaks?
- Scroll down on their website, and “Click here to make a secure submission.” That’s the main thing about Wikileaks.
- Wikileaks gives people the opportunity to publish documents they think are important for the public – anonymously. We have seen courts all over the world forcing newspapers and other media to disclose their sources in the last years, Wikileaks is trying to fill this gap.
- 10 questions on Wikileaks on CPJ blog (Committee to protect journalists)
- ForeignPolicy wrote an article called “Is This the Future of Journalism? Why Wikileaks matters.”
- A post I wrote a couple of months ago about Wikileaks leaking a document written by the British Ministry of Defence giving advice on how to stop documents leaking onto the internet
WikiLeaks is an organization protecting internal dissidents, whistleblowers, journalists and bloggers who face legal or other threats related to publishing. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes [...], we are of assistance to people of all nations who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources. We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies.
If you are going to spend a bit of money on charity projects this year, consider giving $10 to Wikileaks. They accept no other funding than private donations, since they want to stay absolutely incorruptable and transparent.
