When Google Met Wikileaks (Excerpt: Google Is Not What It Se

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The Dismantling of Yugoslavia (Glossary)

Badinter (or Arbitration) Commission: Appointed by the European Commission in September 1991 for the purpose of arbitrating legal disputes related to the crisis in the SFRY, with representatives from France (Robert Badinter), Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Spain. But the commission’s ten opinions were deeply biased, as they defined how foreign powers wanted the dismantlement of the SFRY to take place. Rather than observing SFRY law on the rights of self-determination and secession, Badinter advocated for a particular negation of SFRY law. Its opinions were the EC’s legalistic defense of the dismantlement of the unitary state.

Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ): Nationalist Croat party founded in the Republic of Croatia by Franjo Tudjman in 1989. Won a majority of parliamentary seats in the April–May 1990 elections, and remained the ruling party throughout the ensuing wars.

Dayton Peace Accords (General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina): Negotiated at the U.S. Air Force’s Wright-Patterson base in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995, by Richard Holbrooke, Alija Izetbe-govic, Franjo Tudjman, and Slobodan Milosevic, who then represented the Bosnian Serbs because their leaders had been indicted by the ICTY. Dayton partitioned Bosnia-Herzegovina into three separate ethnic mini-states under a federal structure to be militarily enforced by NATO and managed politically by a High Representative appointed by the European Union, with the power to overrule the decisions of the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Dayton thus instituted a neocolonial regime that sits atop an ethnically partitioned suzerainty like that foreseen by the Lisbon accords (February 1992), but without the foreign domination.

European Union (EU) (previously the European Community [EC]): Formally came into existence in November 1993 under the terms of the Treaty of Maastricht (February 1992).

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY, a.k.a., Serbia and Montenegro, “rump Yugoslavia”): The successor state to the SFRY, after four of the original six republics declared their independence from the SFRY in 1991 and 1992. The FRY dissolved in June 2006, when Montenegro declared its independence.

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY): Founded by UN Security Council Res. 827 (May 1993) for the “sole purpose” of “prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law in the territory of the former Yugoslavia….” The ICTY has been a major instrument of foreign intervention in the former Yugoslavia. To the ICTY has fallen both the enforcement and the doctrinal tasks of “shap[ing] how current and future generations view the wars and in particular Serbia’s role in them” (Human Rights Watch).

Alija Izetbegovic (1925–2003): One of the founders of the Bosnian Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in 1989, and the first president of the independent state of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–95).

JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army): The federal army of the SFRY.

“Joint Criminal Enterprise” (JCE): One of the two most basic elements of the indictments of Slobodan Milosevic et al. for the wars in the SFRY; and within the ideological construct the ICTY enforces, it is regarded as a major causal explanation for the wars. The ICTY conceives the breakup of the SFRY and the civil wars that accompanied it as the product of a JCE among the ethnic Serbs around Milosevic in Belgrade as well as in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to create a “Greater Serbia” on territory cleansed of most, if not all, of the ethnic non-Serb peoples living there, and to use any means necessary to do it, including “genocide.”

Radovan Karadzic (1945–): Major Bosnian Serb political figure, and president of the Republic of Serbia (1992–95). Also one of the ICTY’s two most-wanted men.

Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA): From the start of its destabilization tactics in early 1996 through 1999, the primary armed guerrilla force of the separatists within Kosovo Albanian politics. Dubbed “Clinton’s Contras” during NATO’s 1999 war against the FRY; believed to have benefited immensely from covert U.S. government support.

Krajina (“borderland”): The geographic region along the borders of both Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina where the majority ethnic Serb populations were concentrated and from which they were later expelled during Operation Storm.

Radislav Krstic (1948–): General in the Bosnian Serb Army, convicted of “genocide” for his role in the deaths of the Srebrenica “safe area” population following July 11, 1995.

Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI): A U.S.-based, privately owned military contractor that traffics in arms and expertise, and that carries out operations that states themselves might prefer to keep off the books. MPRI was perhaps the major private contractor used by the U.S. government to train the armed forces of the newly independent states of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina prior to their major 1995 offensives against Serb forces in both territories.

Ratko Mladic (1942–): A general and the most important commanding officer in the Bosnian Serb Army; indicted for “genocide” for his role in the deaths of the Srebrenica “safe area” population following July 11, 1995. Also one of the ICTY’s two most-wanted men.

NATO: Founded in 1949 by twelve North American and Western European states to resist armed attack on any member and to enhance their collective capacity for self-defense. Today, NATO is comprised of twenty-six full members, and another twenty-three states with varying degrees of membership. NATO has become the largest, richest, and best equipped aggressive military alliance in history.

Geoffrey Nice: A U.S. citizen who served as the lead prosecutor at the ICTY during the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

Operation Storm: Operation Flash and Operation Storm were the Croatian military’s offensives of May and August 1995, respectively, to drive ethnic Serb populations first out of western Slavonia, and then out of the Krajina. Both operations benefited immensely from U.S. training and support.

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): With fifty-six full member states and eleven partners, the OSCE is the largest organization of states in the Northern Hemisphere.

Naser Oric (1967–): Bosnian Muslim fighter, and leading commander of the Srebrenica enclave from 1992 through the spring of 1995.

Party of Democratic Action (SDA): Nationalist Muslim party founded by Alija Izetbegovic and others in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1990. The most powerful Muslim party, it won a plurality of parliamentary seats in the November 1990 elections. From its base in Sarajevo, it was the ruling party of Bosnia-Herzegovina throughout the ensuing wars, and was recognized by the West as the legitimate government of the entire territory.

Carla Del Ponte (1947–): A Swiss national, the longest-serving chief prosecutor at the ICTY (1999-2007).

“Racak Massacre”: The January 15, 1999, killing in the Kosovo town of Racak of some 40–45 Kosovo Albanian males by the Yugoslav army, either in a fire fight with the KLA (which we believe) or a cold-blooded execution (as the standard narrative has it). (For a brief discussion and references, see n. 58.)

Rambouillet Conference: Held at Chateau Rambouillet near Paris from February 6 to 23, 1999, and later renewed in Paris from March 15 to 19. The participants included the Contact Group, the FRY, and Kosovo Albanians. Because the conference took place under the threat of a NATO bombing war against the FRY, Rambouillet has been dubbed a “unique attempt at enforced negotiations” (Marc Weller). We believe the conference in fact was a set-up to help legitimize the NATO bombing war that followed.

Republika Srpska (or the Republic of the Serbs): On April 7, 1992, the Bosnian Serbs declared an independent state, with its capital in Banja Luka.

“Safe areas”: Created by UN Security Council Res. 819 (April 16, 1993) to cover Srebrenica, then extended by Res. 824 (May 6, 1993) to Sarajevo, Bihac, Goradze, Tuzla, and Zepa, the six “safe areas” were to be Bosnian Muslim population centers free of armed attack. Separate agreements mediated by UNPROFOR between the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Serb military command called for the “safe areas” to be demilitarized, and their inhabitants to turn over their weapons to UNPROFOR.

Sarajevo: The capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Serb Democratic Party (SDS): Nationalist Serb party founded by Radovan Karadzic and others in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1990. Received a plurality in the November 1990 elections, and became the dominant Bosnian Serb political party during the wars and since.

Serbian Radical Party (SRS): Nationalist Serb party formed by Vojislav Seselj and others in the Republic of Serbia in 1991.

Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS): Renamed League of Communists of Serbia in the Republic of Serbia, formed in July 1990 and led by Slobodan Milosevic.

Vojislav Seselj (1954–): Nationalist leader of the Serbian Radical Party in the Republic of Serbia. Currently in prison in The Hague, where he has been awaiting trial ever since surrendering to the

ICTY’s custody in February, 2003.

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY): The former Yugoslavia, which at the time of its dismantlement included the six republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia, and two “autonomous” provinces inside the Republic of Serbia, Kosovo, and Vojvodina.

Srebrenica: The name of both a city and a municipality in far eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the original “safe area.” Following the evacuation and transfer of this “safe area” population in July 1995, several thousand Bosnian Muslim men went unaccounted for because they had been either killed in fighting, escaped to safe refuge, or were executed (i.e., the “Srebrenica Massacre” of the standard narrative). (See sec. 5.)

Franjo Tudjman (1922–99): Nationalist Croat leader of the Croatian Democratic Union, and president of Croatia from 1990 to 1999.

United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK): Created by UN Security Council Res. 1044 in June 1999, UNMIK affected the separation of Kosovo from Serbia, to be militarily enforced by NATO (i.e., KFOR) and managed politically by a Special Representative appointed by the UN Secretary-General with the power to overrule the decisions of the peoples of Kosovo and Serbia. Like the High Representative under Dayton, UNMIK sits atop a neocolonial regime, but within an ethnically cleansed territory that the occupying powers are pushing towards a form of independence from Serbia, if not from the occupying powers.

United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR): Created by UN Security Council Res. 783 in February 1992 to provide peacekeeping observers and troops to separate the ethnic Croat and Serb regions of Croatia. The largest peacekeeping contingent in UN history, UNPROFOR (under various name changes) was later extended to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.

“Washington Consensus”: A set of policies agreed upon by the U.S. Treasury, the IMF, and World Bank that requires necessitous third-world borrowers to open their economies to foreign investment, curb inflation, cut back public expenditures, deregulate, and privatize. Imposed on third-world countries as in their alleged interest, they close out alternative development options like giving first priority to serving human needs at home and, by a remarkable coincidence, seem to lavish benefits on foreign transnational corporations in the United States and elsewhere.

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The Dismantling of Yugoslavia (Timeline)

August 1945–91: Partisan government assumes power in Belgrade, the capital of the prewar Kingdom of Yugoslavia (December 1918–April 1941). What eventually became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is formed.

May 1980: Death of President-for-Life Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980).

1988–89: “Great reversal” in economic conditions, which began in 1979, accelerates. Hyperinflation exceeds 1,000 percent; unemployment reaches 15 percent (though with far more severe impact on the three southern republics and Kosovo); and per-capita income falls by some 25 percent from its late 1970s high. As many as 4 million Yugoslavs (18 percent) are reported to have participated in public protests during 1988 alone.

September 1989: Slovenia adopts new constitution asserting the primacy of its republican laws over federal laws.

November–December 1989: Berlin Wall toppled. Dissolution of the Soviet bloc and Warsaw Pact (formally on July 1, 1991).

January 1990: League of Communists of Yugoslavia cedes postwar role as sole legitimate party; accepts demands for multiparty elections among the six republics; and basically dissolves due to the withdrawal of republican members.

January 1990: IMF “shock therapy” adopted. Convertibility and large devaluations of Yugoslav dinar begin against hard currencies such as the deutschemark. Before the end of 1990, the privatization of social enterprises begins.

July 1990: First Slovenia and then Croatia declare the “sovereignty” of their republican laws over federal laws.

December 21, 1990: Croatia adopts a new constitution granting itself the right to secede from Yugoslavia.

December 23, 1990: Slovene independence referendum shows 95 percent support for independence.

January 1991 onward: Yugoslavia repeatedly instructed by United States and EC that the use of force by the federal army (JNA) internally for any purpose was unacceptable.

May 12, 1991: Krajina Serbs hold referendum on whether to “remain part of Yugoslavia with…others who want to preserve Yugoslavia.” Ninety percent vote to “remain part of Yugoslavia….”

June 25, 1991: The republics of Slovenia and Croatia declare their independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Armed clashes begin in both republics.

June 27, 1991: Krajina Serbs declare the existence of an independent Republic of Serb Krajina.

August 27, 1991: While meeting in Brussels, the EC strongly denounced “Serb militants” and “elements of the federal army” for their alleged attempt “to solve problems by military means,” and placed the blame for the civil wars on Serb shoulders.

September 1991: EC Conference on Yugoslavia names an Arbitration Commission to examine legal claims related to the Yugoslav civil wars. It will be chaired by France’s Robert Badinter.

September 8, 1991: Macedonia holds referendum on independence. 95 percent of the ballots cast said Yes.

September 25, 1991: UN Security Council Res. 713 adopted, imposing an arms embargo on all six of Yugoslavia’s republics.

November 29, 1991 (though not published until December 9): EC Arbitration Commission Opinion No. 1 rules that Yugoslavia is not experiencing the secession of republics from the federation but rather is “in the process of dissolution.”

December 23, 1991: Germany formally recognizes both Slovenia and Croatia.

January 15, 1992: EC formally recognizes Slovenia and Croatia.

February 22–23, 1992: Lisbon Agreement(s) reached between EC mediators and Bosnian Muslim, Croat, and Serb representatives. Their principal features were the division of a newly independent but unified Bosnia-Herzegovina into three ethno-religious territorial units. The agreement quickly came undone when the Bosnian Muslim President withdrew his signature with U.S. encouragement and in anticipation of U.S. military support.

February 28–March 1, 1992: Bosnia-Herzegovina holds a two-day referendum on independence. Although boycotted by ethnic Serbs, 99 percent of the ballots cast said Yes.

March 1992: Peacekeeping troops of UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) begin deployment to Croatia.

March 3, 1992: The Sarajevo Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic declares the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina from the SFRY.

April 6–7, 1992: The EC grants diplomatic recognition to Bosnia-Herzegovina; the United States grants it to Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. These same powers refuse to recognize a successor to the SFRY.

April 7, 1992: The Bosnian Serbs declared the independence of a Republic of Serbia from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

April 21, 1992: The siege of Sarajevo begins with Bosnian Serb artillery shelling of the city.

April 28, 1992: Security Council agrees to extend UNPROFOR from Croatia to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Later, the force is extended to Macedonia as well.

May 30, 1992: UN Security Council Res. 757 adopted, imposing a sweeping embargo against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e., Serbia and Montenegro).

January 2, 1993: Vance-Owen Peace Plan unveiled in Geneva. Retains the major principles of the Lisbon Agreement of February 1992, but more nuanced, outlining ten ethno-religious cantons rather than three large territorial units. Although supported by Milosevic, Vance-Owen fails to win support of the three Bosnian nations.

May 25, 1993: UN Security Council Res. 827 establishes the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

March 31, 1995: After publicizing its intentions, Croatia rejects the renewal of UNPROFOR on its territory. The Security Council creates three new UN peacekeeping forces, one for Croatia (UNCRO), one for Bosnia-Herzegovina (UNPROFOR), and one for Macedonia (UNPREDEP ).

May 25–26, 1995: UN authorizes NATO airstrikes against Bosnia Serb artillery positions and depots near Sarajevo and Pale. Bosnian Serbs capture 200 or more UNPROFOR personnel in response.

July 11, 1995: The Srebrenica “safe area” surrendered to Bosnian Serb forces. In the ensuing flight, evacuation, and forced transfer of Muslim troops and civilians, several thousand Muslim males go missing. (See discussion in sec. 5.)

August 4, 1995: Croatia launches Operation Storm, in which some 250,000 ethnic Serbs are driven from the Krajina region.

August 30, 1995: NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force, a substantial bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb targets.

November 21, 1995: Dayton Peace Accords (General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina) between representatives of Croatia, Sarajevo’s Muslim government, and Serbia are finalized at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Later signed at Versailles on December 14. NATO’s Implementation Force (IFOR) begins deployment. Later renamed the Stabilization Force (SFOR) and eventually joined in late 2004 by forces of the European Union (EUFOR).

January 1996: Office of the High Representative (OHR) for Bosnia-Herzegovina established in Sarajevo. Through the present day, the OHR runs Bosnia-Herzegovina as a suzerainty.

February 1996: A series of bombings occur against Serb refugee camps in as many as six cities in Serbia’s province of Kosovo. For the first time, the attacks are attributed to the Kosovo Liberation Army (Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves), the sudden emergence of which no one then could explain. Armed attacks on Serbian police and military installations follow, as do kidnappings and assassinations of Kosovo Albanians deemed too friendly with Serb authorities.

May 7, 1996: ICTY’s first case, brought against the Bosnian Serb Dusko Tadic, begins at The Hague. Among the critical facts contested during trial was whether the wars that accompanied Yugoslavia’s breakup were civil wars (i.e., internal to the SFRY) or international conflicts (i.e., between the sovereign states of Serbia and Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina).

January 1998 on: Sharp escalation of KLA tactics in Kosovo.

March 10, 1998: Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY announces that her office exercises jurisdiction over “violations of international humanitarian law” committed in Kosovo, and is “currently gathering information and evidence” for possible prosecution.

March 31, 1998: UN Security Council Res. 1160 adopted, urging the ICTY “to begin gathering information related to the violence in Kosovo….”

October 13, 1998: NATO issues “activation orders…for both limited air strikes and a phased air campaign in Yugoslavia….”

October 13, 1998: Holbrooke-Milosevic accord reached in Belgrade. Terms include the deployment of a 2,000 member mission to verify compliance with the accord and monitor a ceasefire.

January 1999: Fighting resumes.

January 15, 1999: A massacre of as many as forty-five ethnic Albanians is reported in the Kosovo village of Racak. Within twenty-four hours, the U.S. chief of the observer mission William Walker visits the site and calls it “a massacre and very much a crime against humanity.’’ “Spring has come early to Kosovo,” U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is alleged to have said, the incident adding to the excuses NATO will use to launch its bombing war. (See n. 58.)

January 30, 1999: NATO issues second “activation order.” NATO “rules out no option” and “is ready to take whatever measures are necessary,” specifically “air strikes against targets on FRY territory.”

February–March 1999: Rambouillet Peace Conference held near Paris between representatives of the Contact Group (United States, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom), the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the Kosovo Albanians. In the context of NATO’s readiness to bomb the FRY, the logic behind the conference was that if the Contact Group’s five NATO members could gain the acceptance of terms by the Kosovo Albanians and their rejection by the FRY, NATO would have the ultimate excuse to launch its bombing war against the FRY.

March 24–June 10, 1999: Operation Allied Force, U.S.-led NATO-bloc war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

April 1999: NATO’s 50th Anniversary, Washington, D.C. Mission redefined to include non-self-defensive, “out of area” operations. Membership enlarged to nineteen states.

May 27, 1999: ICTY publishes first indictment of Slobodan Milosevic and four others “based exclusively on crimes committed since the beginning of 1999 in Kosovo” (Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour). Seven more indictments follow: A total of three for Kosovo, three for Croatia, and two for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

June 10, 1999: UN Security Council Res. 1244 adopted, giving NATO the right to occupy the FRY, creating the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to manage its affairs and the Kosovo Force (KFOR) under NATO’s auspices to enforce its will.

September 24–October 5, 2000: FRY holds presidential elections in which the two largest vote-getters were Vojislav Kostunica and Slobodan Milosevic. After the Federal Election Commission awarded a majority of the votes to Milosevic, Kostunica’s coalition challenged the outcome. The Constitutional Court annulled this round of voting, and called for a new ballot. On October 5, facing mounting protests, Milosevic resigned his office.

June 28, 2001: Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic signed a decree ordering Milosevic’s surrender to NATO forces and his transfer to ICTY custody at The Hague. According to news accounts, $1.28 billion in Western credits had been promised to Belgrade on condition that it surrender Milosevic.

February 12, 2002–March 14, 2006: The trial was held in the case of Prosecutor against Slobodan Milosevic. As Milosevic died in his prison cell of cardiac arrest in the early morning hours of March 11, his death terminated the proceedings without verdict.

March 2004: NATO enlarged to twenty-six member states. Slovenia admitted.

February–March 2007: Citing “extraordinary” circumstances, the UN Special Envoy for Kosovo advocates the independence of the province from Serbia.

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Who Funds the Progressive Media?
Michael Barker
July 24, 2008

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Critiques of liberal philanthropy are nothing new: indeed such criticisms have regularly surfaced ever since liberal foundations were created in the early twentieth century. In the past few years, however, the number of critical scholars and activists writing about practices of liberal foundations has grown rapidly, and there is now a blossoming literature showing the funding strategies of these highly influential philanthropists are antidemocratic and manipulative. The antidemocratic nature of liberal foundations is epitomized by the long history of collaboration (that formerly existed) between the largest major liberal foundations (like the Ford Foundation) and the US Central Intelligence Agency. Moreover, recent research has demonstrated the key leadership role that liberal foundations played in developing the means by which powerful elites could manufacture public (and elite) consent.

By focusing on a variety of progressive media-related groups in North America (including most notably the Benton Foundation and the newly launched The Real News Network), this article will discuss the limits of current funding strategies, and reflect upon alternative, arguably more sustainable (and democratic) methods by which civil society media groups may be created and sustained. It will be argued that the integral hegemonic function of liberal philanthropy has already deradicalised all manner of progressive social movements, and that civil society media groups need to cut their institutional ties with such financing sources. Admittedly solutions cannot be implemented immediately, but considering the increasing ascendancy of neoliberal media regimes worldwide it is vital that progressive concerned citizens call attention to this significant issue.

Liberal philanthropy plays a critical role in promoting and sustaining progressive media outlets within civil society, which are also referred to as 'alternative’ or 'autonomous’ media. Historically, the 'big three’ US-based liberal foundations – the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation – have nurtured progressive causes on both the national and international scale, dealing with issues ranging from health care and civil rights to environmentalism. [1] In recent years increasing attention has been paid to the influence of conservative philanthropy, [2] however, the same has not been true for liberal philanthropy: two notable exceptions to this trend are Professor Joan Roelofs seminal book, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, and INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence’s recent addition, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. This omission is problematic on a number of levels. Despite being ostensibly progressive, the major liberal foundations have at one time or another vigorously promoted all manner of not so progressive issues like eugenics, elite planning, and free trade; while they also worked hand-in-hand with the US Government’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In this context, the big three liberal foundations have also funded the research of many of the 'founding fathers’ of mass communications research, arguably helping them to develop the capabilities for 'manufacturing consent’ for elite interests. [3]

Although the importance of money to progressive social movements and their associated media outlets is obvious to most people, surprisingly few academics have addressed this subject. It is widely acknowledged that conservative funding has, over the past few decades, driven the ideological orientation of mainstream media outlets rightwards. Research also suggests that liberal funders have had a detrimental and antidemocratic influence on processes of social change in general. [4] Such research also questions the role that 'charitable’ donations arguably play in sustaining capitalist hegemony. However, what is the effect specifically on the development of progressive media? To date only Bob Feldman (2007) has provided a critical examination of the nexus between liberal philanthropy and alternative media operations. [5] The lack of critical enquiry into the influence of liberal philanthropy on the media of progressive social movements is problematic, as media are integral to the function of social movements. This article will try to address this blind spot.

Compared to today, in the late 1960s and 1970s critical awareness among media activists was relatively high, thanks in part to a series of articles in the influential Ramparts magazine which asked: [6]

"Can anyone honestly believe that the foundations, which are based on the great American fortunes and administered by the present-day captains of American industry and finance, will systematically underwrite research which tends to undermine the pillars of the status quo, in particular the illusion that the corporate rich who benefit most from the system do not run it – at whatever cost to society – precisely to ensure their continued blessings?"

More recently, building upon this commonsensical interpretation of the role of liberal philanthropy within capitalist societies, Andrea Smith points out that: "From their inception, [liberal] foundations focused on research and dissemination of information designed ostensibly to ameliorate social issues-in a manner, how­ever, that did not challenge capitalism". [7] Using this interpretation of the role of liberal philanthropy as a starting point and drawing upon Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony this article will expand upon Feldman’s ground-breaking study. It will document how liberal foundations have (and continue to) actively shape the evolution of progressive media groups in North America.

Initially, this article will introduce the work of the Benton Foundation, a liberal foundation that has played a pioneering and catalysing role in supporting progressive media ventures. It will then provide a detailed analysis of a globally significant media project, The Real News Network, which has been supported by liberal philanthropy. Drawing upon power structure research it will critically examine some of the key people and funders. [8] Finally, the article will discuss the limits of current funding strategies, and suggest an alternative, arguably more sustainable (and democratic) method by which civil society media groups may be created and sustained in the future.

Putting Progressive Communications on the Philanthropic Agenda

Upon the initiative of the late William Benton (1900-1973), the William Benton Foundation was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) private foundation in 1948, although in 1981 it was renamed the Benton Foundation. This foundation is now recognised as one of the leading sponsors of non-profit progressive media projects in the United States, alongside the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Its founder, William Benton is today credited as having "pushed the envelope… within the foundation world, urging them to take communications seriously and to use it to build democracy". [9] However, like most of the big liberal foundations in the US, the Benton Foundation has elitist roots: William Benton had strong links to the Rockefellers’ and other assorted corporate and political elites. Given this history, we must ask: "What type of democracy was William Benton trying to build?" This question will be addressed in the following.

The Benton Foundation is currently chaired by William Benton’s son, Charles Benton, who like his father maintains close ties to a number of less than progressive individuals, not least through his position on the Board of Trustees of The American Assembly. [10] Furthermore, he is a member of the international founding committee of The Real News (discussed later), and a trustee of the Education Development Center. The latter is a non-profit that describes its work as being "dedicated to enhancing learning, promoting health, and fostering a deeper understanding of the world." It was created in 1958, and from the beginning the Ford Foundation has been involved with its work. From 1958-68 the Ford Foundation helped the Center create a "complete high school physics curriculum" for US schools. [11] Another notable early supporter of the Education Development Center’s activities was the US Agency for International Development (AID), which between 1961 and 1976 funded their African Mathematics Programs. [12] Today the Center has a staff of over 500 people and a budget in excess of $90 million. Its funding comes from USAID and liberal philanthropic organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and George Soros’ Open Society Institute. [13]

Sitting with Charles Benton on the Board of Trustees of the Education Development Center is Larry Irving, the former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Irving is "widely credited with coining the term 'the digital divide’" and with being "a point person" in ensuring the successful passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Jim Kohlenberger, the Benton Foundation’s current senior fellow also "worked to help pass the Telecommunications Act of 1996". [14] This Act was strongly opposed by all progressive media groups.

Nonewithstanding these links to people who worked against progressive media groups in the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the Benton Foundation has, and continues to be, an important supporter of progressive media initiatives within the United States. In a recent interview, Charles Benton explained that the Benton Foundation began funding of communication projects in the early 1980s, a time they were not on the agenda of other foundations. In 1981, the Benton Foundation "decided to work in support of philanthropy, and particularly the Council on Foundations, to try to beat the drum and raise the cry about the importance of communications to both foundations and their grantees". Since these early days the Benton Foundation’s annual budget for media reform has increased considerably and they now give away around $1 million a year to help "educat[e] the media reform community – policymakers, funders, and activists—about the crucial debates that help shape our media future". [15] The following section of this article will discuss the backgrounds of some key Foundation staff and directors.

The Benton Foundation: People and Projects

The president of the Benton Foundation from October 2001 to August 2004, Andrea L. Taylor, is a co-founder of Davis Creek Capital, LLC, a private equity fund created to invest in Internet and new media businesses led by women and people of color. Taylor was also involved in setting up the Media Fund at the Ford Foundation in the late 1980s, where she worked for nearly a decade to distribute some $50 million to independent media projects. Taylor presently serves as a trustee of the Ms. Foundation for Women, is a former director of the Cleveland Foundation, and the Council on Foundations: the latter group is an umbrella association of more than 2,100 grant making foundations and corporations that describes itself as "the voice of philanthropy".

After her work at the Benton Foundation, Taylor became vice president of the aforementioned Education Development Center, where she helped create, and was the founding president of, their Center for Media and Community. The Benton Foundation supported the launch of this center with a three year $668,000 grant, which has been described as the "largest single commitment in the foundation’s history". Other funders of the Center for Media and Community at the Education Development Center include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In June 2006, Taylor became Director for U.S. Community Affairs at Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft chief executive officer (CEO) Bill Gates is also the founder of the largest liberal foundation in the world, the Gates Foundation, a foundation that distributed some $2 billion of grants in 2007 alone. [16] Since 2002, the Gates Foundation has also worked closely with the Benton Foundation, for example on their WebJunction project – a project which aims to facilitate public access to computing facilities in public libraries within the United States.

The current president of the Benton Foundation (since 2006) is Gloria Tristani, the former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member. Trisani presently also serves on the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee alongside Charles Benton, is a member of The Real News international founding committee, and sits on the Board of Directors of Children Now. Other Children Now directors with a media background include Geoffrey Cowan (former head of Voice of America, currently a director of the Public Diplomacy Council), Donald Kennedy (editor-in-chief of Science magazine, a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation), and Lenny Mendonca (a director of the New America Foundation).

The Benton Foundation’s administrative manager, Cecilia Garcia first joined the Foundation in 1997. She has also helped produce the CD-ROM version of "Chicano: History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement," a major PBS documentary that was produced by the National Latino Communication Center with the help of a $0.7 million grant from the Ford Foundation. [17] Recently Garcia took some time out from her duties at the Benton Foundation to serve as the executive director of Connect for Kids – a childrens’ advocacy group that is managed by the Ford Foundation-funded non-profit, Forum for Youth Investment. Two of the five directors of Connect for Kids’ have links to the Benton Foundation: Joseph Getch, former Chief Financial Officer for the Benton Foundation and member of the Council on Foundations' research committee, and Charles Benton’s wife, Marjorie Craig Benton, board chair of the Council on Foundations from 1994 to 1996. Marjorie Craig Benton also serves as a director of the Microsoft-linked non-profit group, Room to Read.

Like their staff, Benton Foundation board members are well linked to political elites and the broader world of liberal philanthropy. Alongside Charles Benton, the other eight directors are: Adrianne Benton Furniss, former president and CEO of the Chicago-based publisher/distributor Home Vision Entertainment (acquired by Image Entertainment in 2005); Michael Smith (Benton Foundation Treasurer), former Australian Chairman of public relations firm Weber Shandwick, and CEO of his own firm, Inside PR; Elizabeth Daley, Founding Executive Director of the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Communication from 1994 to 2005; Terry Goddard, former Mayor of Phoenix, and trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation from 1992 to 2001; [18] Lee Lynch, former CEO of the Carmichael-Lynch Advertising Agency, and spouse of Terry Saario (a former director of the Benton Foundation and former program officer at the Ford Foundation); Henry Rivera, former FCC commissioner, and a partner of the law firm Wiley Rein and Fielding (controversial for defending the use of fake news); Leonard J. Schrager, former president of the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Chicago Bar Association; and Woodward Wickham, former vice president of the MacArthur Foundation, and a director of OneWorld United States.

Wickham’s links to the latter group are worth reviewing as OneWorld United States was created in 2000, as a joint project between the Benton Foundation and OneWorld International. OneWorld International is a Ford Foundation supported group that describes itself as the "world’s favourite and fastest-growing civil society network online, supporting people’s media to help build a more just global society". OneWorld also has links to the Benton Foundation: Larry Kirkman, currently a director of OneWorld United States, and chair of OneWorld International was president of the Benton Foundation from 1989 to 2001.

Charles Benton’s media connections are also of relevance to the topic of this article: In addition to presiding over the day to day activities of the Benton Foundation, Charles Benton is also chairman of Public Media, Inc. (a film and video publisher and distributor) and served as a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters (known as 'the Gore Commission’). Charles Benton is also a member of the international founding committee of the recently launched alternative media network The Real News. The final section of this article will examine the philanthropic background of The Real News in some detail.

The Real News Network

Founded in 2007, The Real News describes itself as a "non-profit news and documentary network focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism". The Real News website proudly claims that they are "member supported and do not accept advertising, government or corporate funding" (emphasis in the original). [19] The site adds, "the Real News will be financed by the economic power of thousands of viewers like you around the world. Just 250,000 people paying $10 a month will make it happen", and claims there is "NO government funding; NO corporate funding; NO advertising; NO STRINGS".

The Real News’ mission statement suggests that Real News promotes independent and investigative journalism and is a grassroots effort. It fails to mention, however, that the project was launched with millions of dollars provided by leading US American liberal foundations. There may well have been no strings attached to the seed money, but there is little doubt that the foundations chose to support their project – as opposed to any alternative ones – because the Real News formula suited the foundations’ own philanthropic interests. How much influence the liberal foundations had in determining the makeup of The Real News advisory boards and founding committees will remain unknown until the issue becomes the focus of an in-depth investigative report. An investigation that is unlikely to be forthcoming from The Real News itself.

That said, this article does not aim to cast doubt on the progressive nature of the journalistic output of The Real News. The quality of the content is indisputably high and offers a real alternative to mainstream media. This article does try to draw attention, however, to the fact that The Real News has relied heavily on liberal philanthropists. It also tries to raise the question as to what this reliance means for the future of genuine grassroots initiatives attempting to promote comparable progressive media projects. In order to open the discussion the following sections of this article will briefly chart the launch of The Real News network, and the backgrounds of the people who are associated with the project.

The Real News can be considered the flagship project of a non-profit group that is known as Independent World Television (IWT). From Toronto (Canada), and formed in 2003, IWT was co-founded by Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries. Paul Jay, who is presently the CEO and chair of The Real News is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who was formerly the creator and executive producer of Canadian Broadcasting Centre Newsworld’s debate program counterSpin. On the other hand, Sharmini Peries, who until recently served as the director of policy and development for IWT, is an executive director of the International Freedom of Expression eXchange and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. These two groups are have close connections to the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy. [20] The National Endowment for Democracy plays a big role in promoting United States’ foreign interests – which most notably saw them support the 2002 coup that temporarily removed President Hugo Chavez from power. [21] Ironically, Peries presently serves as a foreign policy advisor to President Chavez.

In 2005, Independent World Television received a $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to conduct a "feasibility and planning study on an innovative idea to create a news and current affairs TV network funded primarily by viewers". Two other liberal foundations, the MacArthur Foundation and the Haas Foundation also contributed to this planning study. IWT set out to create what would become The Real News using the services of EchoDitto – a consulting group that has done much work on projects connected to the United States’ Democratic Party. A website was launched on June 15, 2005 (http://www.IWTnews.com) to build an online community of supporters and donors. The goal of this first phase of IWT’s project was to raise a $7 million start-up budget from individual donors and foundations. By January 2007 IWT had "raised $5 million from several foundations, charitable trusts, individuals and unions, including the Canadian Auto Workers Union, the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation". [22] Having achieved this level of philanthropic support, IWT was then able to create The Real News website, at first with a limited news service to help get the full journalism project off the ground.

In an interview in early 2007, IWT co-founder Paul Jay said that during their first year of operations The Real News only required a further $4 million in funding from the public, but thereafter, with a full service provided, estimates their annual budget will require around $30 million a year. Obtaining such high levels of funding from the public within such a short space of time will undoubtedly be difficult. Camilo Wilson, one of IWT’s Internet strategy consultants suggested that this goal is too optimistic, noting that IWT will probably have to depend on greater support from liberal foundations in order to reach its long-term goal. [23]

In the following, this article will introduce some of the individuals who have given their support to launching this new media network.

Founded in 2003, the founding committee of the Independent World Television/The Real News consisted of 84 individuals, including Paul Jay as chair. The committee includes well-known progressives such as British member of parliament Tony Benn (UK), host of the popular "Democracy Now!" program Amy Goodman (USA), media scholar Robert McChesney (USA), media critic Danny Schechter (USA), literary author Gore Vidal (USA), historian Howard Zinn (USA) and journalist/author Naomi Klein (Canada).

Incidentally, Klein has provided a rare critical overview of the Ford Foundations history. In her book, The Shock Doctrine, she observes that the Ford Foundation was the "leading source of funding for the dissemination of the Chicago School ideology throughout Latin America". She adds,

"[Ford-funded institutions played a] …central role in the overthrow of Chile’s democracy, and its former students… appl[ied] their US education in a context of shocking brutality. Making matters more complicated for the foundation, this was the second time in just a few years that its protégés had chosen a violent route to power, the first case being the Berkeley Mafia’s meteoric rise to power in Indonesia after Suharto’s bloody [1965-66] coup." [24]

The Benton Foundation is also well represented on the IWT founding committee, with Gloria Tristani, Charles Benton and Mark Lloyd (former general counsel to the Benton Foundation now a senior fellow at the George Soros-linked Center for American Progress).

However, the IWT’s founding committee also includes some people with less progressive backgrounds such as Salih Booker, current executive director of NED-funded group Global Rights, and former head of the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies Program, and former program officer for the Ford Foundation in Eastern and Southern Africa; Kenneth Roth, executive director of the NED-linked Human Rights Watch; Kim Spencer, President of Link TV, and co-founder of the NED-funded Internews; Shauna Sylvester, founder and executive director of the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS); and Jenny Toomey who until recently was the executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, and now serves as the program officer for Media and Cultural Policy at the Ford Foundation.

Indeed, even radical media critics, like Robert McChesney, work closely with these foundations, as his media reform group, Free Press, has also obtained Ford Foundation monies; while as early as March 1996, McChesney was a panel participant at the "Symposium of The Future of Public Service Media" – an event that was sponsored by both the Benton Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Given that Ford and Benton Foundations have extensive funding and personal ties in so many projects of progressive social change it is hardly surprising that most of the representatives of IWT’s founding committee also work for non-profit groups and projects that are funded by the Ford Foundation. However, this almost 'natural’ state of affairs should give us pause.

Conclusions

This article has focused on a small part of the philanthropic work undertaken by two foundations, the Ford Foundation and the Benton Foundation. Many other foundations are now engaged in ostensibly progressive media work: for example, in 2005 the Carnegie Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation launched the Carnegie Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. It is no exaggeration to say such foundations wield enormous influence over which organizations grow and flourish, and which do not.

Those of us who take it as granted that the United States is a plutocracy not a democracy, find in this state of affairs their belief confirmed that the richest have access to society’s financial and political resources, and that they can engage in large-scale social engineering to make sure civil society is shaped in a manner compatible with their own elite interests. However, even activists, researchers and theorists who believe the United States is (or at least should be) a country of pluralism and representative democracy should be concerned about the amount of money flowing from these liberal foundations and begin documenting its effects on the development of the American progressive mediascape.

The first step towards short-circuiting philanthropic colonization of independent media systems, and civil society more generally, is for progressive groups to collectively act to delegitimize 'charitable’ manipulations. Yet if this process only occurs within the most radical parts of civil society – i.e. by groups that are already largely excluded from foundation funding – then overall very little will change. Even if some less radical groups presently supported by liberal foundations cut their ties to liberal foundation funding, the outcomes will be limited. Though this would swell the ranks of those operating outside of the liberal foundation-civil society nexus, other groups and individuals who are unaware (or unconcerned by) the problems associated with liberal philanthropy will quickly move into their place. A critical part of any campaign to encourage disassociation from elite funders needs to see the undertaking a large-scale education campaign directed towards the multitude of employees presently working within the non-profit industrial complex. [25]

Furthermore, a broad coalition of progressive groups need to work to problematize the current structure of civil society, and encourage the creation of civil society groups that embody and promote democratic principles rather than those that adopt corporate organizational structures designed to maximize revenue streams. Contrary to some progressive commentators’ advice it is important to remember that the non-profit sector does not have to be run like the business sector: [26] The public already gives a vast amount of money to charity each year. The problem is how this money is distributed, by whom and to whom. Currently, unaccountable and elite-run foundations distribute the public’s money to a select group of organizations who write proposals to fit the funder’s philosophy and who put their personnel on their boards. Diverting just a small proportion of this substantial and growing flow of financial resources toward truly progressive media projects – that is those that embody democratic structures that are founded without support of liberal philanthropists or foundations – will enable concerned citizens and media activists to move more confidently toward building a society with democratic structures.

Michael Barker is a British citizen based in Australia. Most of his other articles can be found here.

_______________

Notes:

[1] Brown, E. R. (1979), Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press; Gottlieb, R. (1993), Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington, D.C.: Island Press; Jenkins, C. J. & Eckert, C. M. (1986), 'Channeling Black Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement Organizations in the Development of the Black Movement,’ American Sociological Review, 51, pp. 812-829.

[2] Covington, S. (2005), 'Moving Public Policy to the Right: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations,’ in D. Faber & D. McCarthy (Eds.), Foundations for Social Change: Critical Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements (pp. 89-114). Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

[3] Barker, M. J. (2008), 'The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform? Creating Sustainable Funding Opportunities for Radical Media Reform,’ Global Media Journal, 1 (2), June 2, 2008.

[4] Arnove, R. F. (1980), Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall; Barker, M. J. (2008) The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection,’ Capitalism Nature Socialism, 19 (2), pp.15-42.; Lundberg, F. (1975), The Rockefeller Syndrome. Secaucus, N.J.: L. Stuart; Roelofs, J. (2003), Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. Albany: State University of New York Press.

[5] Feldman, B. (2007), 'Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest?’ Critical Sociology, 33:3, pp. 427-446.

[6] Horowitz, D. (1969a), ' The Foundations: Charity Begins at Home,’ Ramparts, 7 (11), pp.38-48.; (1969b), ' Billion Dollar Brains: How Wealth Puts Knowledge in its Pocket ,’ Ramparts, 7 (12), pp.36-44.; (1969c), ' Sinews of Empire,’ Ramparts, 8 (4), pp.32-42.

[7] Smith, A. (2007), 'Introduction: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded,’ in INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. (Eds.), The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (pp. 1-18). Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, p.4.

[8] Domhoff, G. W. (1970), The Higher Circles: The Governing Class in America. New York: Random House; Mills, C. W. (1956), The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.

[9] Benton Foundation (2008), 'Frequently Asked Questions,’ Benton Foundation.

[10] Barker, M. J. (2008), 'Social Engineering, Progressive Media, and the Benton Foundation,’ A refereed paper presented to the Australian & New Zealand Communication Association International Conference, 2008: Power and Place, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, July 9-11, 2008.

[11] EDC (2008), 'Flagship Projects in EDC's History,’ Education Development Center.

[12] For a broad critique of USAID, see Weissman, S. (1974), The Trojan Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid. San Francisco: Ramparts Press.

[13] Kelly, P. J. (2004), 'A Conversation with Charles and Marjorie Benton,’ Foundation News and Commentary, March/April 2004.

[14] Benton Foundation (2008), 'Who We Are,’ Benton Foundation.

[15] Benton Foundation (2005), '2005 Annual Report ,’ Benton Foundation. Available at http://www.benton.org/benton_files/ar05_spreads.pdf Accessed on 28 April 2008.

[16] Barker, M. J. (2008), 'Bill Gates as Social Engineer: Introducing the World’s Largest Liberal Philanthropist,’ A refereed paper presented to the Australasian Political Science Association conference, University of Queensland, July 6-9, 2008.

[17] For a critique see Barker, M. J. (2008) The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform?

[18] The National Trust for Historic Preservation is currently headed by Ford Foundation trustee, Richard Moe.

[19] Citations obtained from The Real News website in May 2008.

[20] Barker, M. J. (2008) '"Independent" Journalism Organizations and a Polyarchal Public Sphere,’ Center for Research on Globalization. ??

[21] Barker, M. J. (2006). 'Taking the Risk out of Civil Society: HarnessingSocial Movements and Regulating Revolutions,’ Refereed paper presented tothe Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, University of Newcastle 25-27 September 2006.

[22] Dindar, S. (2007), 'Heard the Independent News?’ Ryerson Review of Journalism.

[23] Dindar, S. (2007), 'Heard the Independent News?’ Ryerson Review of Journalism.

[24] Klein, N. (2007), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Random House, pp.145-6.

[25] INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. (2007), The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press.

[26] C.f. Shuman, M. H. & Fuller, M. (2005), 'The Revolution Will Not Be Grant Funded,’ Shelterforce, The Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building, Issue 143.

[admin]

Facts and myths in the WikiLeaks/Guardian saga: A series of accidental events led to the publication of 251,000 diplomatic cables in unredacted form
by Glenn Greenwald
September 2, 2011

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange talks to members of the media during a news conference in central London, Thursday, July 14, 2011. DataCell ltd of Iceland, who was processing paymentd for Wikileaks, filed a complaint against international caed companies, Visa Europe and MasterCard Europe for infringement rules of the EU. DataCell claims that the closure by the credit card companies of DataCell's access to the payment card networks remains in order to stop donations to Wikileaks. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)(Credit: Associated Press)

A series of unintentional though negligent acts by multiple parties — WikiLeaks, The Guardian‘s investigative reporter David Leigh, and Open Leaks’ Daniel Domscheit-Berg — has resulted in the publication of all 251,287 diplomatic cables, in unredacted form, leaked last year to WikiLeaks (allegedly by Bradley Manning). Der Spiegel (in English) has the best and most comprehensive step-by-step account of how this occurred.

Leak at WikiLeaks: A Dispatch Disaster in Six Acts
by Christian Stöcker
09/01/2011

Some 250,000 diplomatic dispatches from the US State Department have accidentally been made completely public. The files include the names of informants who now must fear for their lives. It is the result of a series of blunders by WikiLeaks and its supporters.

In the end, all the efforts at confidentiality came to naught. Everyone who knows a bit about computers can now have a look into the 250,000 US diplomatic dispatches that WikiLeaks made available to select news outlets late last year. All of them. What's more, they are the unedited, unredacted versions complete with the names of US diplomats' informants -- sensitive names from Iran, China, Afghanistan, the Arab world and elsewhere.

SPIEGEL reported on the secrecy slip-up last weekend, but declined to go into detail. Now, however, the story has blown up. And is one that comes as a result of a series of mistakes made by several different people. Together, they add up to a catastrophe. And the series of events reads like the script for a B movie.

Act One: The Whistleblower and the Journalist

The story began with a secret deal. When David Leigh of the Guardian finally found himself sitting across from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as the British journalist recounts in his book "Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy", the two agreed that Assange would provide Leigh with a file including all of the diplomatic dispatches received by WikiLeaks.

Assange placed the file on a server and wrote down the password on a slip of paper -- but not the entire password. To make it work, one had to complete the list of characters with a certain word. Can you remember it? Assange asked. Of course, responded Leigh.

It was the first step in a disclosure that became a worldwide sensation. As a result of Leigh's meeting with Assange, not only the Guardian, but also the New York Times, SPIEGEL and other media outlets published carefully chosen -- and redacted -- dispatches. Editors were at pains to black out the names of informants who could be endangered by the publication of the documents.

Act Two: The German Spokesman Takes the Dispatch File when Leaving WikiLeaks

At the time, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who later founded the site OpenLeaks, was the German spokesman for WikiLeaks. When he and others undertook repairs on the WikiLeaks server, he took a dataset off the server which contained all manner of files and information that had been provided to WikiLeaks. What he apparently didn't know at the time, however, was that the dataset included the complete collection of diplomatic dispatches hidden in a difficult-to-find sub-folder.

After making the data in this hidden sub-folder available to Leigh, Assange apparently simply left it there. After all, it seemed unlikely that anyone would ever find it.

But now, the dataset was in the hands of Domscheit-Berg. And the password was easy to find if one knew where to look. In his book Leigh didn't just describe his meeting with Assange, but he also printed the password Assange wrote down on the slip of paper complete with the portion he had to remember.

Act Three: Well-Meaning Helpers Accidentally Put the Cables into Circulation

Immediately after the first diplomatic dispatches were made public, WikiLeaks became the target of several denial-of-service attacks and several US companies, including Mastercard, PayPal and Amazon, withdrew their support. Quickly, several mirror servers were set up to prevent WikiLeaks from disappearing completely from the Internet. Well-meaning WikiLeaks supporters also put online a compressed version of all data that had been published by WikiLeaks until that time via the filesharing protocol BitTorrent.

BitTorrent is decentralized. Data which ends up on several other computers via the site can essentially no longer be recalled. As a result, WikiLeaks supporters had in their possession the entire dataset that Domscheit-Berg took off the WikiLeaks server, including the hidden data file. Presumably thousands of WikiLeaks sympathizers -- and, one supposes, numerous secret service agents -- now had copies of all previous WikiLeaks publications on their hard drives.

And, what they didn't know, a password-protected copy of all the diplomatic dispatches from the US State Department.

Act Four: Mudslinging between Assange and Domscheit-Berg

To make matters worse, Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg then had a falling out. The German spokesman wrote a vengeful book after being thrown out of WikiLeaks in which he portrayed the WikiLeaks founder as an unreliable egomaniac who tended toward latent megalomania.

Predictably, Assange was furious and made several statements that were intended to besmirch Domscheit-Berg. But when he repaired the WikiLeaks server, Domscheit-Berg apparently didn't just take all of the collected WikiLeaks documents, but he also took the secure submission system designed to allow whistleblowers to anonymously submit data. As a result, WikiLeaks was temporarily out of action.

Domscheit-Berg also repeatedly accused Assange of not being sufficiently vigilant about protecting his sources. And he launched a competing platform called OpenLeaks which he is now developing with other former WikiLeaks employees and other supporters.

Act Five : Exposed Disclosures

The conflict between Domscheit-Berg and Assange has become increasingly aggressive. Germany's Chaos Computer Club recently made the surprising decision to revoke Domscheit-Berg's membership because he allegedly misused their name to hype his OpenLeaks project. While that was their official reason, unofficially the tension stems from the data that Domscheit-Berg took with him from Wikileaks.

In an effort to prove that Assange couldn't be trusted, people associated with the OpenLeaks project recently began talking about the hidden diplomatic cables -- and the dataset which has been coursing through the Internet for months, though no one knew about it.

Then someone betrayed the location of the password -- Leigh's book -- to a journalist for German weekly Der Freitag, which is also an OpenLeaks partner. The weekly published a cautiously formulated version of the story, that without naming the exact location of the password, still revealed it was "out in the open and identifiable to those familiar with the material." Speculation on Twitter and elsewhere ran wild, and hobby investigators began to edge closer to which password it could be.

Meanwhile the mudslinging continued unabated between Assange and Domscheit-Berg.

Act Six: Cablegate-Gate

An account of the story of Leigh, the hidden data and the password then cropped up on a platform normally used by open-source developers to exchange programming codes. A link to the entry spread quickly through Twitter. Suddenly, anyone could access the entire "Cablegate" file with a bit of effort.

On Wednesday afternoon the Wikileaks Twitter account announced "important news," and a few hours later character sequences and links were distributed to download an encoded, 550-megabyte file via a BitTorrent client. The password was to be delivered later.

The distribution apparently didn't work at first, and complaints appeared on Twitter. But later the problem was fixed, and the data began to circulate.

It remains unclear whether this was the Cablegate data set. Meanwhile Wikileaks' Twitter account has called on users to vote on whether they agree with the publication of the unredacted cables. They can register their vote with the hashtag "WLVoteYes" or "WLVoteNo" on Twitter.

A Wikileaks statement on Twitter blames the Guardian and Leigh for the fact that the cables are now freely available online. "We have already spoken to the (US) State Department and commenced pre-litigation action," it said, adding that their targets were the Guardian and a person in Germany who gave out the paper's password. Leigh breached a confidentiality agreement between Wikileaks and the Guardian, it added. The US Embassy in London and the US State Department had been notified of the possible publication already on August 25 so that officials could warn informants.

In a statement the Guardian rejected the accusations from Wikileaks, explaining that the paper had been told the password was temporary and would be deleted within hours. "No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to remove the files," the statement said. "That they didn't do so clearly shows the problem was not caused by the Guardian's book."

Finale: In the Open

It is possible that intelligence agencies in a number of countries have already gained access to the data. "Any autocratic security service worth its salt" would have already done so, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley told news agency AP on Wednesday. Intelligence agencies that haven't already gotten their hands on the data "will have it in short order," he added.

By Wednesday evening Crowley's prediction was confirmed. The "Cablegate" cables are now completely public. For many people in totalitarian states this could prove life-threatening. For Wikileaks, OpenLeaks, Julian Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg and many others, it is nothing short of a catastrophe.

A chain of careless mistakes, coincidences, indiscretions and confusion now means that no potential whistleblower would feel comfortable turning to a leaking platform right now. They appear to be out of control.

This incident is unfortunate in the extreme for multiple reasons: it’s possible that diplomatic sources identified in the cables (including whistleblowers and human rights activists) will be harmed; this will be used by enemies of transparency and WikiLeaks to disparage both and even fuel efforts to prosecute the group; it implicates a newspaper, The Guardian, that generally produces very good and responsible journalism; it likely increases political pressure to impose more severe punishment on Bradley Manning if he’s found guilty of having leaked these cables; and it will completely obscure the already-ignored, important revelations of serious wrongdoing from these documents. It’s a disaster from every angle. But as usual with any controversy involving WikiLeaks, there are numerous important points being willfully distorted that need clarification.