Book description
Since its launch in 2006, WikiLeaks has rapidly grown into the most
powerful and influential whistleblowing organisation ever. Its status
as a repository and publisher of leaked sensitive and confidential
governmental, corporate, organisational or religious documents while
preserving the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors, and
the statements and behaviour of its leader Julian Assange have made
WikiLeaks both daily front page news and a topic of enormous controversy.
In an eye-opening account, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who joined
WikiLeaks in its early days and became its spokesman, reveals
never-disclosed details about the inner workings of the organisation
that has struck fear into governments and businesses worldwide and
prompted the Pentagon to convene a 120-man investigative task force.
He also provides a remarkably up-close portrait of Julian Assange himself.
Under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt, Domscheit-Berg was the effective
No. 2 at WikiLeaks and its most public face after Assange. In this
book, he tells the backstories of leaks ranging from the Church of
Scientology and the Afghanistan and Iraq War logs to Cablegate, and
reveals the evolution, finances and inner tensions of the
whistleblower organisation, beginning with his first meeting with
Assange in December 2007. He also describes what led to his September
2010 withdrawal from WikiLeaks, including his disenchantment with its
lack of transparency, its abandonment of political neutrality, and
Assange's increasing concentration of power.
What has been made public so far about WikiLeaks is only a small
fraction of the truth. With his insider knowledge, Domscheit-Berg is
uniquely able to tell the full story.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg is a computer scientist who worked in IT
security prior to devoting himself full-time to WikiLeaks. He remains
committed to freedom of information on the Internet. Today he and other
former WikiLeaks people are working on a more transparent secret-sharing
website called OpenLeaks to be launched in early 2011. He lives in
Berlin with his family.
