Intellectual Property Law

Leaking documents that the world's banks, cults and governments would rather keep secret turns out to be an expensive habit.

In fact, Wikileaks, the net's foremost publisher of secret documents, says its volunteers are going broke, funding the $400,000 a year operation out of their personal accounts.

That's a big number, given Wikileaks' donations so far this year have come to about $10,000 -- prompting the secretive site to ask its supporters for cash. If you don't have cash, the site -- which aims to will also happily take a written recommendation it can use to get funding from organizations.

Wikileaks, known for publishing secret bank account numbers, internal Scientology documents and operating instructions for Gitmo, has been promised a $2 million donation at the end of the year. That money will let the site greatly expand its work -- which includes trying to save journalism from itself.

The group says its funding woes are predictable:

The reason that impartial, revelatory investigative journalism has been traditionally funded by readers is that governments and billionaires alike will not support groups which are tasked to expose and reform them.

Despite being universally recognized as being the most important stimulus of democratic reforms, government funding for such organizations is non-existent.  At the same time organizations which are guaranteed to have no domestic political impact are well funded.

The site has largely given up on its original premise -- relying on netizens around the world to vet and analyze millions of leaked documents -- a volunteer, open source Central Intelligence Agency. Few, however, showed up, and analysis of the documents Wikileaks got was mostly left to the sites' volunteers, a handful of academics and the traditional press.

Wikileaks' original plea, sent to previous donors early this month, ended up boomeranging on the site, when one of the previous donors noticed Wikileaks had exposed email addresses of some other 50 donors. That email was then submitted to Wikileaks as a leaked document, forcing the site into a position where it had to publish the dirt on itself.

Support letters can be sent to wl-supporters@sunshinepress.org, while dollars can be sent through https://secure.wikileaks.org

See Also:

• Immune to Critics, Secret-Spilling Wikileaks Plans to Save ...
• Judge Allows WikiLeaks to Resume U.S. Operations
• Cayman Islands Bank Gets Wikileaks Taken Offline in U.S.
• Sensitive Guantanamo Bay Manual Leaked Through Wiki Site
• Wikileaks Forced to Leak Its Own Secret Info -- Update
• Swiss Bank Drops WikiLeaks Case