Our original WikiLeaks timeline, including every story we had written about the organization, spanned a period of almost three years, from February 18, 2008 to December 29, 2010. It listed almost 70 posts.
The WikiLeaks story has yet to end, despite the fact that some have theorized it soon will. So here is a second part to the timeline, covering all the stories from December 30 of last year down to the present.
Court Orders Twitter to Turn Over User Info in Wikileaks Investigation January 10, 2011
“Last week a U.S. Justice Department court order was made public that directed Twitter to provide information on several of its users. The subpoena was made in conjunction with an investigation the U.S. Attorney General is making into the actions of the whistle-blower site Wikileaks and its leader, Julian Assange.”
Wikileaks Calls for Sarah Palin’s Arrest January 10, 2011
“The official Twitter account for Wikileaks has posted a press release this evening drawing a comparison between the controversial rhetoric from public figures that some believe contributed to the attempted assassination on Saturday of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the even more explicit calls from public officials for violence against Wikileaks spokesperson Julien Assange and others. The organization called for public figures making such calls to violence to be arrested and charged with crimes.”
Evidence Stuxnet May Be an American-Israeli Collaboration January 18, 2011
“Among additional evidence that this was a U.S.-Israel attack…US succeeded in stopping an April 2009 delivery of Siemens controllers to Iran, according to several Wikileaks-released cables.”
Police Arrest 5 Men Over “Anonymous” DDoS Attacks January 27, 2011
“British police have arrested five people for their alleged participation in some of the highly publicized DDoS attacks last month… The five are being held on suspicion of being involved in Anonymous, the loose affiliation of so-called hacktivists who have targeted a number of websites, including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, with distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks followed WikiLeaks’ release of U.S. diplomatic cables in late November, and were aimed to punish companies who’d shut down WikiLeaks’ access to financial resources.”
Wikileaks Competitor OpenLeaks Opens Doors January 27, 2011
“In September, a number of Wikileaks’ partners quit that organization, complaining that its leader, Julian Assange, was too tyrannical and careless. In November, they announced they were creating a competing leaks service, called OpenLeaks. In December, it was supposed to go live. Now, in January, it has.”
WikiLeaks Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize February 2, 2011
“WikiLeaks has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian politician behind the proposal. The nomination of WikiLeaks was put forward by parliamentarian Snorre Valen, saying that the site was “one of the most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency.'”
Leaked Security Firm Documents Show Plans to Discredit WikiLeaks, Glenn Greenwald February 10, 2011
“(T)he loose collective of online vigilantes – Anonymous – responded to a story in the The Financial Times and the actions of HBGary’s CEO Aaron Barr by hacking into the company’s systems and releasing tens of thousands of its emails and documents. Among those documents, an outline of plans to systematically discredit WikiLeaks, along with Salon journalist (and WikiLeaks supporter) Glenn Greenwald.”
PayPal Freezes Donations to Bradley Manning Defense Fund [Updated] February 24, 2011
“Update: PayPal has just posted a press statement to its blog, stating that ‘we have decided to lift the temporary restriction placed on their account because we have sufficient information to meet our statutory ‘Know Your Customer’ obligations.'”
British Court Orders WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Extradited to Sweden February 24, 2011
“A British court has agreed to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to Sweden to face rape charges. His attorneys have said they will appeal the decision.”
Alleged Wikileaks Leaker Faces Death Penalty March 2, 2011
“Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private who allegedly passed classified documents to the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks, has just been charged with 22 additional counts, according to his attorney, Lieutenant Colonel David Coombs. Among these are ‘aiding the enemy,’ a capital offense.”
First Academic Paper on WikiLeaks March 31, 2011
“Mark Fenster, Research Foundation Professor at the Frederic Levin School of Law at the University of Florida, has become the first academic to publish a paper on the implications of Wikileaks. The paper is titled ‘Disclosure’s Effects: WikiLeaks and Transparency.'”
WikiLeaks Makes Volunteers Sign Non-Disclosure with $20 Million Penalty May 12, 2011
“Calling all of the material leaked to the organization, the ‘property’ of Wikileaks, the agreement repeatedly treats the material as commercial product.”
Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water… Sony Pictures Hacked June 2, 2011
“On the heels of a Memorial Day weekend hack of the PBS website – an act of retribution for an unflattering Frontline report on Wikileaks, the prankster-hackers LulzSec have found their next target. And it’s a target that’s just recovering from another security breach, namely Sony.”
Adrian Lamo Speaks About His Wikileaks Role June 4, 2011
“A central figure in the famous Wikileaks/Manning “cablegate” case from last year is Adrian Lamo, the “homeless hacker” who snitched on Manning to the feds and led to the latter’s imprisonment. I first met Lamo about ten years ago, when he surprisingly took me up on an offer to spend the night in my New York apartment and come in to talk to a high school networking class I was teaching at the time.”
Wikileaks Loses Control Over Diplo Cables, Exposes Sources [UPDATED] August 29, 2011
“Unedited versions of the United States diplomatic cables that Wikileaks has released over the last year have gone public, exposing sources around the world to possible recriminations. According to German news magazine, Der Spiegel, based on an original report in Der Freitag, a convergence of screw-ups involving the group’s former German spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg and an external contact of Wikileaks leader Julian Assange wound up throwing the doors open to the full, unedited materials.”
WikiLeaks May Be Petering Out September 8, 2011
“Peter Dorling, of the Sydney Morning Herald, who has followed the news surrounding Wikileaks and its Australian founder from the beginning, has published a fascinating, fair-minded story that theorizes an end to Wikileaks. After accidentally allowing the publication of their remaining diplomatic cables – which, along with the publication of the password to those cables in a book by two Guardian reporters made them public – Dorling believes there is not much left for WikiLeaks to do. Their leak-submission function has not in fact functioned for a year and there does not seem to be another Bradley Manning hidden in the wings.”
