Another WikiLeakS.org press release raises even more Questions about their lack of financial transparency, something that has worried us from the very start of this project:
The Sunshine Press (Wikileaks) is in a dire financial position.
We need your letter of support.
Although we expect to receive some $2M in funding later this year, there has been no formal funding since last year.
- Who exactly was "formally funding" WikiLeakS.org last year ?
- Who exactly is expected to be "formally funding" WikiLeakS.org to the tune of 2 million dollars later this year ?
- Is that $2million just for one year, or is it to be spread over a longer period ?
- If they have a firm commitment for $2million of funding, from a reputable source, then why is there a problem in getting a bank overdraft or short term loan ?
- How much money, if any, has been raised by selling "privileged media access" to leaks and scoops ?
This organization's positive world impact has never been higher, but it is, as a consequence, also more expensive run and ran out of formal funding four months ago. Since that time our staff and lawyers have funded the entire organization from their modest personal savings and anyone else they can find to assist.
The reason that impartial, revelatory investigative journalism has been traditionally funded by readers is that governments and billionaires alike will not support groups which are tasked to expose and reform them.
Despite being universally recognized as being the most important stimulus of democratic reforms, government funding for such organizations is non-existent. At the same time organizations which are guaranteed to have no domestic political impact are well funded.
On-line donations, an important buttress to our ability to take on all governments and companies with total independence, have amounted to around $10,000 since the beginning of the year. Costs outside of court actions are almost $400,000 per year.
- What exactly are they spending $400,000 a year on ?? .
- How much tax are they paying, or not paying, and to which Government(s) ?
There is nothing wrong in, for example, paying some staff costs or volunteer expenses, as well for the website hosting costs, but there needs to be some sort of financial transparency.
Unless and until they publish some sort of financial accounts, they are not going to get any of our money.
Our $2M funding injection later this year will support a radical expansion of our mission.
That sounds ominous.
How about properly implementing the stuff that was already announced, rather than handwaving about a "radical new expansion" of some sort ?
Until then, your support, and that of your friends and colleagues, will mean the difference between continuing to fight the good fight and shutting down.
If you support our work or have benefited from our cause, please write a strong letter of recommendation we can to present to additional funding bodies. You may examine our front page or google news for ideas.
Also consider an easy on-line donation; every contribution, no matter how small, will directly extend the number of months and days we can continue taking on the world:
What assurance is there that donations via PayPal will not be used to spam us with more begging emails, which expose the identities of individual financial contributors, as has already happened ?
See our previous blog article Follow the money - WikiLeakS.org partial financial donors list email and more analysis at the Entropic Memes blog: Wikileaks Wants Money
Such named financial backers are as much at risk from Government, or Corporate, or Legalistic harassment, as many of the whistleblowers are, and they deserve equal technical and procedural protection.
It would be ironic if WikiLeakS.org finances make use of offshore trusts and accounts in tax havens, in order to protect the details of their financial backers and supporters.
Somehow, we suspect that free advice on this is unlikely to be forthcoming from experts at hiding the sources of financial transactions, like, for example, Bank Julius Baer etc.
https://secure.wikileaks.org/
Send support letters to wl-supporters@sunshinepress.org
Thank you.
We would like to be able to financially support this sort of project, but WikiLeakS.org are making it difficult or impossible to do so.
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