2011 Leaks^

The Spy Files^

In a press conference on 1 December, WikiLeaks and its partners announced the beginning of a release of hundreds of documents from as many as 160 private intelligence contracting firms developing technology for the surveillance industry. The initial release consists of 287 documents, with more to be released in the coming days and weeks. These documents, aquired in a collaborative effort by WikiLeaks, Privacy International, OWNI, and TBIJ, consist of brochures, catalogues, contracts, manuals, letters, papers, presentations, a pricelist, and a video, demonstrating the capabilities of cutting-edge technology for mass surveillance. Some of the documents had already been public, but the overwhelming majority is new material. (Read more)

The Guantánamo Files^

On 24 April 2011, WikiLeaks began publication of 779 prisoner dossiers from the United States’ Guantánamo bay prison facility in Cuba, in collaboration with media partners at The Washington Post, The McClatchy Company, El País, The Telegraph, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, La Reppublica, L’Espresso, and Aftonbladet, as well as author and journalist Andy Worthington. The New York Times, together with National Public Radio, and The Guardian are also publishing reportage based on WikiLeaks’ archive of Guantánamo Bay prisoner dossiers. (Read More)

2010 Leaks^

The State Department Cables^

On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks began publishing material from a leaked database of 251,287 State Department cables – messages sent between the State Department and its embassies, consulates, and diplomatic missions around the world, ranging in date from December 1966 to the end of February 2010. Almost half of the cables are unclassified, with classified ranging up to “secret” classification. WikiLeaks collaborated with The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El País for the preparation of initial reportage. The New York Times obtained a copy of the database of State Department cables from The Guardian. All State Department cables published by WikiLeaks were first read and redacted by media partners before appearing on their website. (Read More)

The Iraq War Logs^

On Friday, 22 October 2010, The Guardian, the New York Times, Der Speigel, Al Jazeera, and Le Monde published extensive articles based on an archive of 400,000 U.S. Army significant activities reports from Iraq obtained by WikiLeaks, cataloguing events from 2004 to 2009. WikiLeaks also collaborated with The Independent, BBC Radio, Channel 4, SVT, and the Associated Press in this release.

In addition, WikiLeaks worked with organizations such as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Public Interest Lawyers, and Iraq Body Count. Speaking at the WikiLeaks press conference in London on Saturday morning following the Iraq War Logs release, John Sloboda of Iraq Body Count, Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, and the former Rand Corporation analyst and Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg all spoke about the ethical and legal implications of the release. (Read More)

The Afghan War Logs^

On 25 July 2010, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian simultaneously released editorials on the war in Afghanistan, based on an archive of around 92,000 leaked field reports, dating from January 2004 to December 2009, set up by WikiLeaks. The partnership was created after The Guardian made a request to collaborate with WikiLeaks on the release of this archive, and the other two agencies were included as part of an agreement. These four partners worked for several weeks in a secret office at The Guardian’s headquarters before simultaneously releasing their editorials.

The “War Diary” is a publication of around 75,000 field reports out of a set of about 92,000 leaked field reports. Each report has several data fields for death tolls, location, date and time, type of event, and a text field for commentary ; reports are also “tagged” with labels used for categorizing the reports. About 15,000 documents were tagged by with a special label indicating that they contained data about informants, and were withheld for closer review and redaction by WikiLeaks. (Read More)

Collateral Murder^

The “Collateral Murder” video released by WikiLeaks on 5 April 2010 shows two events captured from the gun-camera of an Apache helicopter over Baghdad in July 2007.   The first recorded event is an attack on a group of about a dozen men, standing around casually, two of which turn out to be a Reuters journalist and his driver.  Later, when a man and his two children stumble upon the scene in their van, they are fired upon by the helicopter while trying to rescue a survivor.  The adults were slain, and the two children received serious stomach wounds requiring surgery.  The second event recorded is a Hellfire missile attack on an apartment building under renovation, in which three families perished and a number of pedestrians and neighbors were killed as well.  Kristinn Hrafnsson went to Baghdad to interview the families of the deceased; the full video from that trip, which was offered to a number of mainstream press outlets, was not widely published. http://collateralmurder.com/

2009 Leaks^

Congressional Research Service reports^

In February of 2009, WikiLeaks released nearly one billion dollars worth of quasi-secret reports commissioned by the United States Congress.

The 6,780 reports in WikiLeaks’ archive comprise over 127,000 pages of material on some of the most contentious issues in the nation, from the U.S. relationship with Israel to abortion legislation. Nearly 2,300 of the reports were updated in the year prior to this release, while the oldest report goes back to 1996. The release represents the total output of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) electronically available to Congressional offices. The CRS is Congress’s analytical agency and has a budget in excess of $100M per year.

Open government lawmakers such as Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) have fought for years make the reports public, with bills being introduced–and rejected–almost every year since 1998. (Read More)

The Galvin report^

The “Galvin Report”, formally known as Internal Audit Report no. 06/02 of the European Parliament Internal Audit Service.

The report, named after Robert Galvin, head auditor, and whose name appears on its front cover, was initially written at the end of 2006 as an audit of the expenses and allowances claimed by a sample of more than 160 MEPs. The existence of the report was kept secret until an updated version in February saw the fact of its existence made public by Chris Davies MEP. Even then, its contents remained secret.

An analysis of the report has been prepared by the UK-based Tax Payers Alliance, who concurrently released the another version of report, before removing it from their website. Their analysis is included in WikiLeaks’ archive. (Read more)

Insurgency and counterinsurgency doctrine^

Wikileaks has released thousands of pages of active insurgency and counterinsurgency doctrine from the US, UK and Indian military.

The policies will be of particular interest to journalists and academics from, or specializing in, South America, Africa, Central Asia, Iraq and Kashmir.

The release includes several counterinsurgency doctrines (more traditionally called “Foreign Internal Defense”) which detail how to overtly or covertly supress insurgencies or popular revolts as well as the reverse, insurgency doctrines–how to infiltrate a country, and stoke an insurgency to overthrow a foreign government, commit sabotage and subversion, economic and financial warfare as well as “nonconsensual abductions” and the wearing of enemy uniforms in violation of the Geneva conventions. (Read more)

2008 Leaks^

150 Censored Tibetan protest videos^

Following the March 2008 protests in Tibet against Chinese rule, WikiLeaks released 150 censored videos as well as photographs from the event.
(Read more)

2007 Leaks^

The looting of Kenya: Daniel Arap Moi^

On September 9th 2007, WikiLeaks released a 106 page secret document written in 2004 which contained the findings of an investigation into the looting of Kenyan funds by former president Daniel arap Moi and his associates. President Mwai Kibaki commissioned the report from Kroll, a private investigation firm based in the UK, in accordance with an anti-corruption agenda which won him the presidency in 2002. The Kroll report alleges that Moi, his friends and family, siphoned off more than £1bn of government money into multiple properties in the UK, the US, Africa, and Australia, as well as a Belgian bank and other assets spread around the world. The Kroll report also illuminates the role played by first-world nations in hiding assets. The report quotes President Moi’s lawyer, who “advised [the Moi family?] to secure their assets in overseas countries. He stated there is no court ruling adjudging their wealth as illegal or corruptly obtained. […] The family was also advised to use proven trusts that are experienced at hiding pursued assets among select jurisdictions with relaxed money laundering policies.” In Kenya, forty-six percent of the population lives on less than one dollar per day. The funds alleged to be stolen by the Moi family represented 10% of the country’s annual GDP. (Read more)