Reflection 1 - Cat Humphries

One of the first articles I read regarding WikiLeaks was about the life of Chelsea Manning. It was extremely interesting to learn that a person, who had voiced concern for her mental health, had an identity crisis, and who assaulted an intelligence analyst, was still allowed to obtain access to confidential intelligence information. It seems that someone deemed unstable would have that access removed. Her emotional instability admittedly is what led her to leak thousands upon thousands of documents in an attempt to show the world the truth about war and to persuade conversation and policy change across governments. Her early life and history are so interesting and are important in understanding her motivations in leaking information to WikiLeaks. Since her arrest in 2013, Chelsea, previously Bradley Manning, has started a hormonal gender transformation process.

Interestingly, Julian Assange, the "editor-in-chief" of WikiLeaks had a similar life story. He too had an unstable family, moving almost 30 times within Australia before he reached his mid-teens. His parents divorced and remarried a few times, similar to Manning’s parents, and he was charged with many accounts of hacking into a Canadian corporation at a young age. He developed WikiLeaks in 2006 to publish the truth and expose national governments. Another goal of the project was to protect its anonymous news providers by creating the online “drop box.” WikiLeaks really took off with help from Chelsea Manning, who considered Julian Assange a friend while speaking with Assange anonymously online, though he denies it was him. I find the histories of the people involved in WikiLeaks the most interesting part of the story in general, because I believe their similar backgrounds had a hand in shaping their decisions.