WikiLeaks New Website to OpenLeaks - WikiLeaks to OpenLeaks

As WikiLeaks and its leader Julian Assange face mounting legal issues, key members of the project are reportedly jumping ship.

According to the Swedish news site DN.se, the new project, dubbed Openleaks, is going to launch Monday.

An insider told DN.se, “The two organizations are similar in that aspect that both are focusing on providing means for whistleblowers to anonymously provide the public with information.”

Where the two services will differ, it appears, is both from a management and publishing perspective.

There were reports of internal strife within WikLeaks even before Assange’s arrest earlier this week. In October, The New York Times published a profile on Assange with some accounts from former members of the project.

We don’t know if any of those defectors are members of Openleaks, but the criticism lobbed against the controversial figure is the same.

Perhaps the most striking difference between the two projects, at least as we know them right now, is how information is actually disseminated. Rather than publishing documents directly, Openleaks instead seeks to be an intermediary between whistleblowers and other organizations.

An insider told DN.se:

“All editorial control and responsibility rests with the publishing organization. We will, as far as possible, take the role of the messenger between the whistleblower and the organization the whistleblower is trying to cooperate with.”

The source continued:

“As a result of our intention not to publish any document directly and in our own name, we do not expect to experience the kind of political pressure which WikiLeaks is under at this time. In that aspect, it is quite interesting to see how little of politicians’ anger seems directed at the newspapers using WikiLeaks sources.”

On the one hand, yes, simply acting as a broker of sensitive information may constitute less legal or political pressures for an organization. On the other hand, it raises important questions about what kinds of organizations are allowed to access the system and how that access is determined.

Openleaks can claim to be “without a political agenda,” but that doesn’t negate the fact that acting as a gatekeeper is in and of itself a political statement.