Today, June 17, 2022, Julian Assange - founder of Wikileaks, has been approved by the British Home Secretary Priti Patel for extradition to the United States. This means an almost certain life sentence in prison, or even a death sentence for the man in charge of Wikileaks’ publications.
Assange is extradited on the premise of charges:
“Related to Illegally Obtaining, Receiving and Disclosing Classified Information”.
That alone should give you enough information about the importance of Wikileaks and Julian Assange’s work.
From September 9, 2007 to the present, Wikileaks published and continues to publish many confidential documents that show that the US Army, Government, and other prestigious, powerful institutions were and are involved in war crimes, human rights violations, and other sadistic and immoral actions across the world.
The leaks that got the most attention were the United States Army’s war crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan, and how the government intentionally underestimated the amount of journalist & civilian (including many children, women, and the elderly) casualties in the war in the Middle East because of the Army’s reckless behavior.
The Army tried to cover it up, but failed when whistle-blowers leaked the confidential videos, images, and documents showing the crimes and sent them to Wikileaks for publication.
Wikileaks also leaked a video titled “Collateral Murder”. The video shows an American Apache helicopter gunman brutally murdering civilians, and among them children & journalists.
(Full video - Warning: It’s very graphic.)
Like most other independent media organizations at the time, Wikileaks depended on external funding. They had to turn to traditional finance solutions which eventually stopped all business with the Wikileaks org because of the release of the confidential documents.
There were massive efforts from inside the White House to bankrupt Wikileaks so that the spread of the information that embarrassed the United States stops.
After they were almost completely banished from traditional finance, Wikileaks barely had an options left - so they experimented with Bitcoin.
On June 14, 2011 Wikileaks publishes a Bitcoin address on their donations page. On June 15, 2011 they follow up with a tweet:
Bitcoin donations played a critical role in funding the operations of Wikileaks, serving as the prominent donation method for Wikileaks for years to come.
The 1HB5XMLmzFVj8ALj6mfBsbifRoD4miY36v address
received a total of 4,043 BTC - worth over $84,000,000 USD today.
Bitcoin played a major role in supporting both Wikileaks and the legal battle of Julian Assange, its founder.
Bitcoin is an important tool for preserving the freedom of speech around the world, and especially in circumstances like this; where a small independent media organization is battling the biggest institution in the world: The United States Government.