This article is more than 1 year old

Wikileaks finds cash to continue

Don't (whistle)blow it all at once

Whistle-blowing site Wikileaks has secured enough money in donations to resume operations.

The site stopped publishing leaked documents in December in order to concentrate on a pledge drive, aimed at raising a minimum of $200,000 to keep the lights on, and $600,000 if staff were to be paid. Wikileaks also canvassed for technical support and legal help.

In a update via Twitter late on Wednesday night, Wikileaks announced that it had reached its minimum target.

Achieved min. funraising goal. ($200k/600k); we're back fighting for another year, even if we have to eat rice to do it.

They can buy themselves a spell-checker now. As an incentive to potential donors, Wikileaks promised juicy titbits of leaked information on corrupt banks, the US detainee system, the Iraq war, China and the UN.

The main site is still dedicated to the pledge drive and there is no indication when any of these leaked documents will get published or when normal operations will resume.

Fundraising was temporarily frustrated after PayPal removed its merchant status and froze its account in late January, but service was restored days later.

Wikileaks began life in December 2006 with a promise to publish leaked sensitive government or corporate documents, after verifying their authenticity. It promises to protect the anonymity of its contributors. Wikileaks runs a worldwide network of servers in order to frustrate take-down efforts, which are frequent.

It came to mainstream attention in the UK with the publication of the BNP membership list.

Other documents released by Wikileaks have included Guantánamo Bay procedures, Australian web censorship lists and 9/11 pager messages.

Webmails from Sarah Palin's hacked Yahoo account were published by the site back at the time she was running for Vice President in 2008, much to her subsequent embarrassment. ®

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