“Our long term goal is to build a strong, transparent platform to support whistleblowers--both in terms of technology and politics--while at the same time encouraging others to start similar projects,” says a colleague wishing to remain anonymous. 
 
 The new project, “Openleaks,” has been under way for some time and will be launched Monday. DN.se has spoken to individuals behind the new site and the message is clear. 
 
 ”As a short-term goal, this is about completing the technical infrastructure and ensuring that the organization continues to be democratically governed by all its members, rather than limited to one group or individual.” 
 
 The news comes in turbulent times for WikiLeaks. Thousands of documents infuriating global leaders and policy-makers have been unveiled to the public via Cablegate. Meanwhile, Julian Assange has been arrested in Great Britain on suspected rape charges based in Sweden. News about WikiLeaks has been over-shadowed by Assange's personal problems. 
 
 Earlier this year, WikiLeaks experienced accessibility issues. According to information revealed to DN.se, the problem was not linked to outsiders trying to sabotage, but came from the inside as a signal to Julian Assange to step down. The colleagues were dissatisfied with the operation's association with Assange's personal problems and how he used the organization in his explanation of the criminal charges. 
 
 It is the top-down management style which is under critique. 
 
 On the other hand, the DN.se source emphasizes the fact that the new website is supportive of WikiLeaks purpose and goal. 
 
 “The two organizations are similar in that aspect that both are focusing on providing means for whistleblowers to anonymously provide the public with information,” one insider says. 
 
 Unlike WikiLeaks, Openleaks will not receive and publish information directly for the public eye. Instead, other organizations will access the Openleaks system and in turn, present their audience with the material. Documents will be processed and published by various collaborating organizations. 
 
 “We intend to split the work in a way where we handle only the anonymity and receiving end of the information,” says another colleague. 
 
 According to the internal documents shared with DN.se, Openleaks intends to establish itself as a neutral intermediary ”without a political agenda except from the dissemination of information to the media, the public, non-profit organizations, trade- and union organizations and other participating groups.” 
 
 “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,” says one anonymous informant. 
 
 Another intended consequence is to avoid the pressure from world leaders that WikiLeaks has experienced. 
 
 “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.” 
 
 Translation: Majsan Boström. ||||| loose lips Get Ready for a Very Leaky Internet 
 
 Key defectors from the WikiLeaks camp have been working on a rival website called OpenLeaks for some time, and according to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, it's set to launch Monday. Why would Daniel Domschelt-Berg, Julian Assange's former spokesperson and right-hand man, launch his own Leak-o-pedia rather than sticking with WikiLeaks? 
 
 It sounds like Assange's domineering personality had something to do with it. In the course of questioning Assange over how he planned to proceed with releasing earlier Iraq war documents, Domschelt-Berg called Assange "some kind of emperor or slave trader." Domschelt-Berg and other ex-WikiLeakers also felt Assange was hogging the limelight and, more substantively, failed to redact critical names from the trove of 400,000 Iraq War documents. They plan to run OpenLeaks with a lower profile, focusing on disseminating information apolitically (i.e. with less focus on the U.S.). Rather than receiving and publishing leaked info directly, OpenLeaks will let other collaborating organizations access its system and publish the material, a clearinghouse firewall that may help the new group avoid espionage charges. 
 
 
 
 The U.S. continues to pursue Assange, as though shutting him down could close Pandora's Box. But the documents are out there, and more important, so is the idea of WikiLeaks itself. 
 
 Ben Laurie, a data-security expert who advised WikiLeaks before it launched in 2006, told the Sydney Morning Herald, "The concept is not going to die. It's really hard to keep things shut down if they want to stay up. Look at everything else people would like not to happen online — phishing, spam, porn. It's all still there." Same thing goes for the hackers. DDOS attacks? So old-school. (And wait a minute, who are these people who would like porn not to happen online? Because that is "un-American.") 
 
 As evidence of its staying power, WikiLeaks now has the ultimate badge of cultural ubiquity: a Rick Roll adaptation. 
 
 Nevertheless, the U.S. is zeroing in on Assange. It looks like Attorney General Eric Holder has found a way to lower the bar on the First Amendment and make the espionage charge stick. Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange's attorneys, said an indictment is looming: 
 
 
 
 "Our position of course is that we don't believe it applies to Mr. Assange and that in any event he's entitled to First Amendment protection as publisher of Wikileaks and any prosecution under the espionage act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organizations in the U.S." 
 
 While the Justice Department pursues criminal investigations, the U.S. military is trying to plug up potential WikiLeaks on their end, instructing its troops to stop using any form of removable disc — including CDs, DVDs, and thumb drives — at risk of court martial. 
 
 But at least one U.S. notable is coming to Assange and his website's defense: Daniel Ellsberg, the whistle-blower who leaked the Pentagon Papers. He told Democracy Now, "If I released the Pentagon Papers today, I would be called a terrorist. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are no more terrorists than I am, and I am not." Here's Ellsberg on Colbert last night. 
 
 
 
 A new WikiLeaks” revolts against Assange [Dagens Nyheter] 
 
 Anger at 'slave trader' Assange: WikiLeaks loyalists decide to break away [Sydney Morning Herald] 
 
 Assange Lawyers Prepare for U.S. Spying Indictment [ABC] 
 
 Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange is Not a Terrorist [Democracy Now] ||||| Former WikiLeaks Members Form “Openleaks” 
 
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 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 WikiLeaksWikileaks 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.
– Former workers for the beleaguered WikiLeaks have a new whistle-blowing project, and it’s set to launch Monday, Mashable reports. Openleaks, whose founders left WikiLeaks over differences with Julian Assange, hopes to act “as far as possible” as a “messenger” between whistleblowers and publishers of leaked material. That way, “all editorial control and responsibility rests with the publishing organization,” an insider tells the Swedish news site DN.se. “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,” the insider says. “In that aspect, it is quite interesting to see how little of politicians’ anger seems directed at the newspapers using WikiLeaks sources.” The Daily Intel has more on the WikiLeaks rift and its spawn.