WikiLeaks: Its Effects on American and World Society by: Sam Karnan WikiLeaks has created a huge effect on American society and the world in terms of national security and government transparency. WikiLeaks was created as a non-profit media organization whose primary goal is to bring important news and information to the public. Much of the information published by WikiLeaks would be considered sensitive and highly classified material by the United States government and many other governments around the world. BackgroundWikiLeaks.org was officially founded on October 4, 2006 (Wall Street Journal). It runs from a server based in Sweden where it is illegal to reveal anonymous sources, whether yours or someone else's. WikiLeaks was created with the goal of "promoting the truth" (Wikileaks.org) to combat government and corporate corruption. The main face of WikiLeaks is Julian Assange. He is an Australian journalist, editor, publisher and activist. Assange was described by his father (Brett Assange) as “a smart boy who always fought for this underdog”. (The Secret Life of Julian Assange, 2010). Assange had a talent for hacking computers and faced over 30 hacking charges in Australia. Another high-profile face at WikiLeaks was Daniel Domscheit-Berg. He is most famous for the falling out he had with Assange and for subsequently pulling back the curtain on the organization which pulled back the curtain on many other governments and corporations. Domscheit-Berg is a German tech activist who became best known for deleting at least 3,000 unpublished documents, including a complete US No-Fly list, from WikiLeaks when he left the organization. After leaving the organization in the Domscheit-Berg state… half of the document… N, 2013) More recently, Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contactor, released over 200,000 documents to the press. These documents contained information about the NSA's mass surveillance program in the United States and US surveillance of other countries. Snowden is considered a fugitive by the US government and is living in Russia under temporary asylum. (NSA Releases Some Files on Electronic Surveillance, NPR, 2013) WikiLeaks has changed the way governments operate. Because of the release of all these high-profile documents, both the American people and those in other countries expect their governments to show a higher level of transparency. In this age where anything can be published online or released to the press, whistleblowing has become much more common. This can be attributed to the effect WikiLeaks has had on both American and global society.