Defend WikiLeaks, Support Bradley Manning. 15 Jan 11, SF photos

Since its release of about 2000 diplomatic cables (as of January 7th, 2011), Wikileaks has been subject to extraordinary pressures, seemingly at the behest of the US government. Amazon and EveryDNS have denied Wikileaks internet service and Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and Bank of America have been prevented supporters from donating money to Wikileaks. This is despite the fact that Wikileaks has not even been charged with a crime.

Unfortunately, the situation has gotten even worse. The press has been spreading lies about Wikileaks. Mainstream media outlets do not appear to be doing even the most rudimentary fact-checking. The most blatant of these lies is the idea that Wikileaks has “indiscriminately dumped 250,000 cables on the internet”. This is flat-out false. A few news organizations, including NPR and InformationWeek, have corrected this mistake, and NPR has even offered an apology. By contrast, most news organizations ranging from the AP to the Wall Street Journal continue to print this falsehood.

We call upon all news organizations to correct previous articles and statements, to issue apologies to their readers, and to take steps to prevent this mistake from occurring in any future articles and shows.

Participants were provided with cable printouts and markers and encouraged to throw down their artistic abilities by adding a graphic representation of their favorite cable to the Cablegate Coloring Book.