How Open is Wikileaks?

A quick glance at wikileaks.org may lead newshounds to the conclusion that the Wikileaks mission statement involves exposure of secret societies, cults, and governments somewhere in the preamble. On the other hand, Wikileaks itself often claims to act more like a receptacle for the varying and unique submissions of people around the globe.

If you're not familiar, here's how it works: When any individual thinks the public at large should be aware of some piece of privatized information, they can submit that information to Wikileaks, in an effort to expose the secret to the world. Wikileaks claims not to solicit such submissions beyond making their inbox and mailboxes available; on the other hand, it does edit and evaluate the information for content that it deems "important." Moreover, it seems to walk a tightrope between allowing and disallowing the input of parties involved (i.e.: refusing to comply with cease-and-desist demands from Swiss banks, vs. inviting the Pentagon to join them in evaluation of the Iraq War Diaries).

Given the fact that Wikileaks evaluates all submissions, just how open of a project would you label it? In any case, I doubt anyone would argue that it is not innovative.

Here are some quotes from Wikileaks spokesperson and developer, Julian Assange, that could provide you with some insight into that question:

"WikiLeaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than WikiLeaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, Russian offshore stem-cell centers, former African kleptocrats, or the Pentagon." Khatchadourian, Raffi, "No Secrets", The New Yorker, June 9, 2010.

"Seeing ongoing political reforms that have a real impact on people all over the world is extremely satisfying. But we want every person who's having a dispute with their kindergarten to feel confident about sending us material." Kushner, David, "Inside WikiLeaks’ Leak Factory", Mother Jones, April 6, 2010.