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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

Even though I agree that the figures are strangely high, I wouldn't actually hold it against them if they just said they want to keep some for themselves. If they're really followed by spooks, detained and threatened - I guess they could use some reward for all of that. It's not something you sign up for with the minimal wage. (when they went public about those incidents, I assumed they're at least a bit worried about "disappearing")

But yeah - showing what is the money spent for would be a good idea.

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Perhaps someone will leak their budget document.. if only there was a suitable place to leak it to.

http://www.wikileak.org did publish a Wikileaks partial financial donors list. It also ended up on wikileaks.org. See https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikil...

No, keeping money for themselves is a massive conflict of interest. If they were doing that I don't think I could really trust what they had to say any more.

Journalists are paid too, can't you trust them either?

No. Not blindly anyway.

But they are being openly paid by X media organisation with Y leanings. It's possible to adjust for bias etc.

For a start no one knows who funds Wikileaks.

No, it's very clear who funds Wikileaks. Individual donors do. They make it clear that they do not accept money from governments or corporations. They are, in general, very open about their finances, and the information is not difficult to find.

I apologise because I struggled to find anything but the leak from a little while ago. I couldn't find a comprehensive list of donors.

No Governments and corporates is obviously a good policy. But that does not mean individuals with an agenda are not involved. What if it came to light that, to pick a random ott example, senior Chinese officials were personally donating?

All I'm pointing out is that it is unclear where their complete funding comes from; making it difficult to filter for any bias. If they take no personal payment that becomes a little easier, for me anyway, to sync.

that is just not true

which part? Im happy to be proven wrong but you need to give me a bit more of a clue :)

And why do you think Wikileaks can be trusted?

Well normally I would say that I don't like that line of thinking, how much they deserve to keep, but this is a nonprofit. Isn't it?

I wouldn't be surprised if people don't want to pay them high salaries voluntarily.

Nonprofit it doesn't mean that the people working there cannot get paid (in some cases) a lot of money.

Often it does.

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