wikileaks awareness and support campaign
DESCRIPTION
Campaign material directed to create awareness about role of Wikileaks and Web-democracy, relevant to the Indian contextTRANSCRIPT
Whistleblowing,Wikileaks
andWeb Democracy
Whistleblowers??!!!....
“A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in
authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities (misconduct) occurring in a government department, a public or
private organization, or a company.”
Wikipedia
Whistleblowers are brave volunteers who come forward to
disseminate suppressed information.
Whistleblowers in the recent past
Whistleblower The Leak
Daniel Ellsberg (1971) The Pentagon Papers: A secret account of the Vietnam War
W. Mark Felt (1972) US President Richard Nixon's involvement in Watergate
Ingvar Bratt (1979) Bofors Scandal in India dring the Rajiv Gandhi regime
Mordechai Vanunu (1986) Israel's clandestine nuclear program
Jeffrey Wigand (1996) Supression of harmful effets of Nicotine by the tobacco industry, dramatised in the Russel Crowe starring The Insider
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers
Indian Whistleblowers
Whistleblower The Leak
N Ram (1980's) Bofors Scandal in India dring the Rajiv Gandhi regime
Satyendra Dubey* (2003) Corruption in highway construction projects (NHAI) in India
S. Manjunath * (2005) Adulteration of petroleum in the India Oil Corporation
R Gokul (~2005) Belekeri port scam in Karnataka, Iron Ore mining scam
RTI activists in India Whistleblowers of various discrepancies in Governance.* Many paying for it with their lives!
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowershttp://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54566
“What are we having this liberty for?
We are having this liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality, discrimination and other
things, which conflict with our fundamental rights.”
B. R. Ambedkar
What is Wikileaks?
http://wikileaks.ch/
Wikileaks, or its founder Julian Assange
are not whistleblowers.
Wikileaks is a non-profit media organization who publish relevant
material, voluntarily given by the brave whistleblowers,
coupled with investigative journalism
“Wikileaks publishes material of ethical, political and historical
significance while keeping the identity of sources(whistleblowers) anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored
injustices.”
http://wikileaks.ch/
What sort of material do they publish?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_de_Burgh
Investigative journalism?
“Investigative journalism is distinct from apparently similar work done
by police, lawyers, auditors and regulatory bodies in that it is
not limited as to target, not legally founded
and closely connected to publicity.”
Hugo de Burgh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TehelkaAnd others
Recent Impact of Investigative journalism In India
✗ Barak Missile Deal Scandal✗ Increasing farmer suicideds` and Govt. apathy in India ✗ Jessica Lall case✗ 2G Spectrum auction scandal ✗ Corruption in CWG✗ Sband spectrum allocation by ISRO ✗ Cash for votes scam✗ And tons of other suppressed information on a daily basis
Not really. No law (already) present in the US or UK can prosecute them.
Wikileaks stands for ➔ Freedom of Press ➔ Right to Information
Fundamental rights of any civilized society in a democracy
Are the activities of wikileaksagainst law?
It would equal violation of Freedom of Press.
And other media houses partnering with Wikileaks for publishing the cables like the
NewYork Times in the US, The Hindu in India, and hundreds of other publishers would be analogically at the same risk
For, Wikileaks is also a publisher.
What if Wikileaks/Julian Assange, who are being accused of espionage are
convicted?
Important leaks published by Wikileaks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Leaks
● Document revealing the inhuman protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (2006)● The collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology (2008)● Collateral Murder:Gunsight footage from the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike in which Iraqi civilians and journalists were killed by an Apache helicopter (2010)● Afghan War Diary:92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan (2010)●Iraq War Diary: 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War (2010)● US Diplomatic Cables: 251,287 confidential—but not top secret—diplomatic cables from 274 US embassies (2010)● Cash for Votes: Cable reiterating the ruckus created in the Indian Parliament house about 2008 no-confidence vote (2011)
“The trend has been that many Big Corporations and Government
secrets are illegitimate and for prolonged periods of time.”
Julian Assange
Why publish sensitive information and Govt. secrets?
“The fact is that when it comes to judgement as to what should be secret and what should not be
secret, Julian Assange's judgment has been pretty good so far.”
Daniel Ellsberg, The Pentagon Papers Whistle Blower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
PM Manmohan Singh about the cash-for-votes cable
"The government cannot confirm the veracity, content or even the existence of such
communication."
Julian Asange's response“A deliberate attempt to mislead the public by
suggesting that governments around the world do not accept the material...
there is no doubt, whatsoever, that the cables are authentic”
http://is.gd/JnfAyxhttp://is.gd/JBxQLr
Soon, more cables with details on Black money holders in Swiss
banks
http://www.thehindu.com/system/topicRoot/WikiLeaks/
Because Wikileaks is head on with Big Corporations and powerful
Governments, lot of smear campaign has been ongoing, off late.
Media houses which initially stood by Wikileaks have retracted succumbing to
the pressure from Govt. Authorities.
Dubiousness of support lent to Wikileaks
Here's a comparison of the stands taken by aninfluential US media house
Neutral interview: http://is.gd/4cmg3OSmear campaign: http://is.gd/G0LPT2
● American-owned EveryDNS dropped WikiLeaks from its entries● Amazon.com severed its ties with WikiLeaks, to which it was providing infrastructure services● PayPal the payment processor cut off the account that had been redirecting donations to WikiLeaks● Swiss bank, PostFinance, announced that it had frozen the assets of Assange● Visa Inc. announced it was suspending payments to WikiLeaks
Attacks on Wikileaks after the US Diplomatic cables leak
“It is important to progress towards the idea of the Internet as
a neutral media that is not controlled by large corporates or
governments."
Sir Tim Berners Lee, on the role played by Internet in
the Egypt Revolution
http://is.gd/DnmPG7
Web Democracy
Why Web Democracy?
Freedom to the users Freedom of expression Right to information No content discrimination Privacy and Anonymity
Web Democracy Freedom of Press
A Quintessential dependency
Freedom in the Web
Better democracy For People
“ We (US citizens) were taken to war in Iraq on a lie.
Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not
have been able to pull it off.”
Michael Moore
Participatory Investigative journalism can compel the Governments to
become transparent.
Support Wikileaks!