L33t Leakers: WikiLeaks gets rebooted in Ireland

IrishLeaks.ie, an Irish leaking platform modelled on WikiLeaks will launch on May 1st, with plans to enable whistleblowers to safely expose abuses of power. Dara McHugh spoke with IrishLeaks, to discuss their plans for the website.

IrishLeaks was founded only recently, but the idea has been developing for a long time, and the founders draw inspiration from a wide range of ideas, movements and figures. They draw attention to the powerful effects of information access in the recent uprisings in North Africa or the more local work of Veronica Guerin in exposing crime. In cases such as these knowledge can be transformative, giving rise to political engagement and potentially ending abuses.

The all-too-public trials and tribulations of WikiLeaks have given rise to much discussion about the best practices for leaking organisations. Although much of this discussion, as Harry Browne argues this week, has been fact-free attacks on the website by journalists overly sympathetic to state power, there are legitimate discussions to be had on the hows and whys of activist leaking.

Organisations that embark on this project must maintain secrecy to protect themselves; they justifiably fear reprisal from the powerful forces their work offends. Secrecy breeds hierarchy, and authoritarian behaviour was named as one of the points of schism within WikiLeaks. Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg criticised the management style of Julian Assange and argued that this, combined with a single-minded focus on the United States, meant that many leaks went unpublished. To resolve the centralisation that is arguably at the root of these problems, Domscheit-Berg suggested that 'there needs to be a thousand Wikileaks'.

 IrishLeaks is one more, at least. The founders have accepted Domscheit-Berg's diagnosis with regards to internal organisation, but unlike his OpenLeaks project, they are not willing to merely provide a technical solution for organisations looking to receive leaks. Instead, they will receive, collate and release the information. The latter will be done via the website itself, with the readership expected to take it further and challenge the abuses of power exposed, instead of relying on the stoking of public outrage through big media partnerships. In keeping with this, they will aim to release all data simultaneously, rather than the drip-feeding approach taken by WikiLeaks in their release of diplomatic cables.

Internally, the Irish platform hopes to build on a member's experience with CrowdLeaks.org, the Project Anonymous-initiated website that finds, aggregates and disseminates data from WikiLeaks (and related) releases. With all those involved in the project voting on decisions and internal positions given to those who do the work, rather than those appointed, this is an attempt to trial a more democratic organisation.

 It is a small group of volunteers and so the issue of capability remains. The organisation will simply have to trial its processes and hope that the leaks come at a rate they can handle.

WikiLeaks's notoriety is a major part of its problems. It is attacked by the most powerful state in the world, its major alleged source is tortured and faces trial for treason and its leader must fight extradition for alleged sexual misconduct. It is little wonder then, that IrishLeaks have decided to opt for a more low-profile approach. By avoiding media partnerships and counting on their readers to do the broader dissemination work, they will try to avoid the limelight and focus discussion where it belongs, on the released information.

But disclosures of confidential information will beget a backlash, even if the site does not court fame. An Irish leaking site won't face the same scale of reprisals as those directed against WikiLeaks, but if it is effective it will meet attacks. Whether the democratic processes will be robust in the face of external attacks remains to be seen, but it will certainly be a useful experiment.

The same can be said for the group as a whole. IrishLeaks.ie is another iteration of the WikiLeaks concept, taking on many of the criticisms leveled against that organisation. Activist leaking is an expanding phenomenon, born from the spread of the Internet and freely available cryptographic technology. WikiLeaks was not the first leaking service and it won't be the last. The Irish version are tweaking the concept and giving it another go.

Image top Abode of Chaos on Flickr.