Openleaks To Be Launched By Former WikiLeaks Staff

Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter let the world know that former members of the WikiLeaks staff have quit their former jobs (they got paid? weird!) to start a new site next week called Openleaks. Dagens Nyheter reports that their action is to be in protest of their former leader Julian Assange. Why? Dagens Nyheter reports an anonymous (not THE Anonymous) member of the new group as saying: "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."

The source speaking with DN continued by saying that their goal with Openleaks will be to complete the technical infrastructure and make sure that "the organization continues to be democratically governed by all its members, rather than limited to one group or individual." Oh snap, Assange dissed. A separate source (still speaking with DN) 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 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,"

This was all yesterday, today, all of this seems to be legitimized by DN in an article by writer Hans Rosén, who says Openleaks must surely be seeking protection from the law. He writes [translated]: "Openleaks calls itself the "provider", which indicates that it intends to invoke the so-called "mere conduit" principle, in Swedish called "budbärarimmunitet." This is a cornerstone of the laws of Sweden, the EU and many other countries."

He continues, "In brief, the providers of communications services, such as mail or internet, shall not be held responsible for the content that they convey. A person is not guilty of the drug that's in a package he has transported. ISP is not responsible for the customer uses their connection to illegal file sharing."

Stirring up some rather disturbingly exciting ideas, mister Rosen! Do continue! He completes his article by noting "And if this works, it is no longer a lonely hacker who must be silenced. Enraged people in power will instead face a worldwide collective of editors and editors and the law that protects them. In this vision, the old media publishers also have access to new digital tools they themselves had not been able to build."

Take a look at the whois information on the openleaks.com domain name and you'll see that it's registered through a US group by the name of Oneanddone, (this is the image you see above.)

[Via DN]