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!