WikiLeaks announces its first interactive town hall Tuesday
The WikiLeaks site says it’s looking for organizations “to collaborate with on our upcoming releases.”
January 27th, 2011
11:58 AM ET

WikiLeaks announces its first interactive town hall Tuesday

Two interesting posts popped up on the WikiLeaks site today. The first is the announcement of  "The WikiLeaks Roundtable" on Tuesday, which would be the first of its "regular direct meetings with the public and press." WikiLeaks will take questions via Twitter (prefix "#wlquest" tag) and e-mail (twlrt@mail.be).  The posting didn't explain who would be answering questions, or how much time would be available for the back-and-forth. But if you have a question, e-mails will be received until 6 p.m. GMT (1 p.m. ET) on Saturday. This first digital news conference of sorts will be videotaped, the posting promises, and broadcast at 11:30 a.m. GMT (6:30 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, according to the post.

The other posting on the WikiLeaks site that caught CNN.com's attention: "WikiLeaks is looking for the most reliable and trustworthy organisations to collaborate with on our upcoming releases. If you would like to register your interest please fill out the form below. Should an appropriate collaboration opportunity present itself we will be in touch. http://wikileaks.ch/Medias.html?nocache."

Speaking of media and WikiLeaks, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said the newspaper is considering creating an "EZ Pass lane for leakers." The in-house submission system would enable leakers to upload large files to the newspaper. The idea isn't new. Al Jazeera's Transparency Unit has long done that. The Times was one of three news organizations (the others were Germany's Der Spiegel and Britain's Guardian) that worked with WikiLeaks to publish last summer a trove of classified military intelligence about the Afghanistan war.

The Times' relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has soured since then, as Keller wrote this week in his piece, "Dealing With Assange and the Secrets He Spilled."

In other WikiLeaks news this week, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell took questions about U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning, who is suspected of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. Manning's lawyer filed a complaint about conditions of the 23-year-old's confinement at a Virginia military lockup, and the military defended itself. Here's the transcript from Wednesday's Pentagon briefing.

Assange will be featured on "60 Minutes" on Sunday. Journalist Steve Kroft spent two days with Assange on the grounds of a private residence in England where Assange is under house arrest as he fights attempts to extradite him to Sweden. Swedish prosecutors want to question him about sex crime allegations.

While those angles to the WikiLeaks story play out, the world is still waiting to know what was on those discs former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer handed to Assange recently. Perhaps that will be known by the time ex-WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg's tell-all about WikiLeaks is published February 15.

Need a review of the WikiLeaks saga? CNN's Atika Shubert can explain, or read about the organization's Iraq war document spill here. For all of CNN.com's WikiLeaks coverage, click here.

 Post by:
Filed under: Julian Assange • WikiLeaks
soundoff (98 Responses)
  1. daniela

    The good thing is for my country Panama that now everybody know what I knew since the beginning of this new government, we are in trouble, this guy is totally dicator and nuts. All the medias belongs to the actual presidente( he bought some, some he threat so they responde to him, all, so we do not have free media in our country a little worse than in the times of Noriega, 5 kids died on january 9 burned alive in a jail for minor while the police where making fun of them,laughing at them when they were crying for help, mines everywhere, even violating the rights of our indigenous group, well... a close friend of Berlousconi, italian spanish but born in Panama, looks like his interest are only what can benefit to himself and his belove countries, what else can get, spending spending and for us midles class everyday is a day difficulty. Panama is in a very difficult sitation as I daid there is no media, I plead to international medias to come here so hte world can see how may awful things are happening.

    January 28, 2011 at 7:57 am | Report abuse |
  2. joesmith

    maybe this very investacative group can locate the videos of the Amtrack train, Mr. Jack Wheeler boarded, and ask the obvious; who were the people in line with him, what car did he get on, who sat with him, what did they discuss, was he served food/drink, did he have his briefcase, when he left the train, did he have that briefcase, how many people were on the train car, and were they looked into,AND, a man who served three Presidents, singlehandedly got the Vietnam Memorial built, why hasn't he been duly Honored???

    January 28, 2011 at 8:38 am | Report abuse |
  3. jkf

    Who really killed President Kennedy?

    January 28, 2011 at 8:54 am | Report abuse |
  4. Keeeshawrn

    Sure I have a question, why did you try to ride on the coat tails of Wikipedia's fame and come up with such an unoriginal name?

    January 28, 2011 at 10:05 am | Report abuse |
    • GayFish

      Sorry, but Wikipedia is not the only website on the internet that has "wiki" in the name. Have you ever been on the internet?

      January 28, 2011 at 10:11 am | Report abuse |
  5. publius enigma

    Is the CIA supporting the admitted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in his attacks against Cuba?

    January 28, 2011 at 10:15 am | Report abuse |
  6. Cheryl from Minnesota

    I am eagerly awaiting, the release of all the names of corporations and U.S.A. politicians that have all their money in Swiss Banks, to avoid paying taxes in America. They are the traitors of our country! My family and I hope and pray they will be fined and/or jailed for not paying taxes on that money. Again, the burdens of our country weigh heavily on the backs of ordinary middle class Americans. That is NOT fair and something MUST be done about that!

    January 28, 2011 at 11:28 am | Report abuse |
  7. mike

    If the american people want a health program run by the government got see cuban model piece of crap

    January 29, 2011 at 12:58 pm | Report abuse |
  8. solo

    Why oil prices so high? Leak That!

    January 29, 2011 at 1:26 pm | Report abuse |
1 2 3 4
« Back to main