Essay --

WikiLeaks: It’s Effect on the American and World Society By: Sam Karnan WikiLeaks has created an enormous effect on American society and the world in terms of national security and government transparency. WikiLeaks was created as a not-for-profit media organization whose main goal is to bring important news and information to the public. Much of the information that WikiLeaks has published would be considered sensitive material and extremely classified by the US Government and many other governments across the world. Background WikiLeaks.org was officially founded on October 4th, 2006 (Wall Street Journal). It operates from servers based in Sweden where it is illegal to reveal anonymous sources, whether they are one’s own or someone else’s. WikiLeaks was created with a goal of â€Å"promoting truth† (Wikileaks.org) in order to fight against government and corporation corruption. The main face of WikiLeaks is Julian Assange. He is an Australian journalist, editor, publisher and activist. Assange was described by his father (Brett Assange) as â€Å"a sharp kid that always fought for this underdog.† (The secret life of Julian Assange, 2010). Assange had a talent for hacking computers and has faced over 30 charges of hacking in Australia. Another high-profile face of WikiLeaks was Daniel Domscheit-Berg. He is most famous for the falling out he had with Assange and subsequently opening the curtains on the organization that opened the curtains on many other governments and corporations. Domscheit-Berg is a German technology activist that best became known for deleting at least 3000 unreleased documents, including a complete US No-Fly list, from WikiLeaks when he left the organization. After leaving the organization Domscheit-Berg state... ...N, 2013) Most recently, Edward Snowden who is a former CIA employee and NSA contactor released over 200,000 documents to the press. These documents contained information about the mass NSA surveillance program in the US as well as US surveillance on other countries. Snowden is considered a fugitive by the American government and is living in Russia under temporary asylum. (NSA Releases Some Files On Electronic Surveillance, NPR, 2013) WikiLeaks has changed the way governments operate. Due to the release of all these high profile documents, both the American people and people in other countries expect their governments’ to show a higher level of transparency. In this age where anything can be posted online or released to the press, whistleblowing has become much more common. This can be attributed to the effect WikiLeaks had on both the American and world society.