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Answers by Omar Todd, Sea Shepherd Global CTO & WikiLeaks Political Party Deputy Chairman/Founder, on Quora.
A: Sadly with this question, being the one with the most followers is the one I can answer the least for obvious reasons.
But in my own opinion I would say that WikiLeaks is a small group of passionate people that believe there must be a balance kept between the state and established interests and the rest of us. We are after all supposedly democratic societies or at least some of us are and I want to know what my elected officials are upto and stand for when I vote. I want to know what deals are done in my name, why wars are declared and I want to be an informed citizen of the world and I believe WikiLeaks stands for these principles to try to make sure I get that even if it deals at times feel like holding a tea spoon under a waterfall.
It is a non country based media organization, library and depository for information, no matter what information that is, to be analysed and distributed.
Currently there are enough "whistleblower" submissions to probably keep a research team 100x the size busy for many years to come. Who knows the mountains of secrets still yet to be revealed that are already submitted? I don't think anyone knows the answer to this, except to say, "probably many".
With the world mostly consuming irrelevant sound bites of information, for WikiLeaks, the devil really is in the detail and why their existence is so important.
It surprises me that an organisations like WikiLeaks are so few in number given my misguided belief that all humans essentially want the truth and want to have confidence in what they read or see. The fact is more likely society (Established Media, etc) misdirects us from uncomfortable truths and we are sadly more interested in reality TV shows featuring celebrities eating insects.
Anyway that aside, Wikileaks has learned to be a nimble, well staffed, discreetly run movement of "truth" that lets off the occasional A Bomb revelation that can impact the world in what I think is a positive manner. What it stands for is important and less important is who runs it, the personalities, where it is and how it is funded.
I imagine funding comes from most smaller sources, some merchandise sales and donations from people like you and me.
But you can find out more from: What is WikiLeaks
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A: This depends on what you consider major?
There have been a number of revelations and I would consider them very relevant.
To name a few:
- Trans Pacific Partnership agreements leaked drafts
- Hillary Clinton Emails
- NSA Government bugging
The list goes on. You can always keep up to date here at WikiLeaks
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A: A wonderful initiative has been set up by Julian and others called the "Courage Foundation" which basically is designed to assist whistleblowers once they come forward to deal with the after effects. What was learned in the Snowden incident that once a whistleblower comes forward the state or governments quickly mobilize and the whistleblower is usually displaced with frozen assets and is being effectively hunted in one form or another with little or no resources to manage such a situation. They need help and fast!
The Courage Foundation can set up a website and appeal having the infrastructure with-in days if not hours and offer logistic and financial support to the whistleblower.
You can read more about the foundation here: https://www.couragefound.org/
More of these types of initiatives, including laws that protect whistleblowers, a supportive non biased media are what comes to mind instantly.