“To me, freedom of speech is something that represents the very dignity of what a human being is… that’s what marks us off from the stones and stars.”
These are words spoken by Mario Savio, the spokesperson for the Free Speech Movement in the 60’s. Decades later, the power of free speech has surged onto the global stage and began reclaiming the dignity of humanity.
We are now entering WikiLeaks 10 year anniversary. The organization registered their domain on October 4, 2006 and blazed into the public limelight in the spring of 2010 with the publication of Collateral Murder. This video footage depicted the cruel scenery of modern war seen from an Apache helicopter gun-sight. It became an international sensation, with the website temporarily crashing with the massive influx of visitors.
This stateless media organization, with no allegiance to any country and no corporate or government money behind it, has published over 10 million documents. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains detained in the Ecuadorian embassy. In an interview with Der Spiegel on 10 years of WikiLeaks, he gave his view that the US diplomatic cables they published were the single most important collection of documents, which are up to 3 million now.
Since its first publication on December 28, 2006, the effect of WikiLeaks has been felt across the world. From the 2007 release of the Kroll report on official corruption in Kenya that affected the outcome of the national election, to the…