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Top WikiLeaks Editor: Democrats Should Be Happy About the Organization's
Commitment to Transparency
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/top_wikileaks_editor_why_the_wor
ld_needs_wikileaks_20161117/
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Posted on Nov 17, 2016
Jer Thorp (https://www.flickr.com/photos/blprnt/) / CC-BY-2.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Writing in The New York Times, Berlin-based journalist and WikiLeaks editor
Sarah Harrison responded to accusations
(http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/opinion/why-the-world-needs-wikileaks.
html?emc=edit_tnt_20161117&nlid=39699735&tntemail0=y&_r=0&referer=) that
the publication "abett[ed] the candidacy of Donald J. Trump by publishing .
information about Hillary Clinton's campaign and its influence over the
Democratic National Committee" in the weeks preceding the 2016 presidential
election.
Proponents of this critique, she said, imply that "a news organization
should have withheld accurate, newsworthy information from the public."
Critics also attacked the organization for publishing the documents in full,
without redacting information pertinent to the privacy of individuals named
in the documents.
"I can understand the frustration, however misplaced, from Clinton
supporters," Harrison wrote. "But the WikiLeaks staff is committed to the
mandate set by [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange, and we are not going to
go away, no matter how much he is abused. That's something that Democrats,
along with everyone who believes in the accountability of governments,
should be happy about."
Despite the mounting legal and political pressure coming from Washington, we
continue to publish valuable material, and submissions keep pouring in.
There is a desperate need for our work: The world is connected by largely
unaccountable networks of power that span industries and countries,
political parties, corporations and institutions; WikiLeaks shines a light
on these by revealing not just individual incidents, but information about
entire structures of power.
While a single document might give a picture of a particular event, the best
way to shed light on a whole system is to fully uncover the mechanisms
around it - the hierarchy, ideology, habits and economic forces that sustain
it. It is the trends and details visible in the large archives we are
committed to publishing that reveal the details that tell us about the
nature of these structures. It is the constellations, not stars alone, that
allow us to read the night sky.
What has WikiLeaks contributed to the global public?
At times we receive individual documents, but we have come to specialize in
large collections. Over the last decade we have vetted, indexed and
published an average of 3,000 documents per day, including over 300,000
reports covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than two million
emails from Syrian political figures and over 120,000 documents from the
Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We also curate the Public Library
of United States Diplomacy, the world's largest collection of diplomatic
cables (nearly three million).
WikiLeaks has transformed more than 10 million documents into a unique
searchable archive, not only making our website the world's largest online
library for suppressed information, but also enabling greater
contextualization through relationships across publications.
As for accusations that WikiLeaks acted as an agent of the Russian
government, which applauded Trump's victory
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-
wins-us-election-russia-putin-result-a7406866.html) , "this misrepresents
our principles and basic operations."
WikiLeaks relies on our editor's invention of a secure anonymous online
submission system to protect sources' identities. This technology has become
a standard for many media outlets around the world. We prefer not to know
who our sources are; we do not want to, and usually do not need to. What
matters to us is the authenticity of the documents.
This has always been our position and approach, whether we were publishing
material about the George W. Bush administration's wars or corruption within
the Democratic Party. The establishment media was happy to work with us on
the former, but turned against us when it came to the latter, calling into
question our intentions and those of Mr. Assange. CNN has even suggested,
wrongly, that readers may have legal troubles if they download documents
from our site.
"We publish without fear or favor, bringing transparency to powerful
factions and secretive institutions, not taking any sides except that of the
truth," Harrison continued. "We believe in the democratization of
information and the power that knowledge gives to people to further peace,
accountability and self-determination.
"WikiLeaks will continue publishing, enforcing transparency where secrecy is
the norm. While threats against our editor are mounting, Mr. Assange is not
alone, and his ideas continue to inspire us and people around the world."
-Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly (http://www.truthdig.com/alexander_kelly)
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