One of the major impediments to government transparency and accountability in the U.S. (and worldwide) is the justifiable fear faced by government employees that leaking information and documents to the press, the Congress or the public will result in retaliation. Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the infamous Pentagon Papers was perhaps the first modern-day whistleblower who faced such retaliation, being arrested and put on trial.
And so, it is fitting that a new website called Wikileaks posts Ellsberg’s quote at the top of its site: “We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.” According to the new site “WikiLeaks is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary targets are highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia, central eurasia, the middle east and sub-saharan Africa, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations.”
-- Beth Daley
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