Mexicoleaks Calls on Society to Challenge Corrupt Politicians

laht.com

MEXICO CITY – Mexicoleaks, an online platform that encourages citizens to leak documents related to wrongdoing by government officials to the media, says it wants to end Mexicans’ fear of reporting corruption and abuses of power.

“This breaks the sources’ natural wariness, the fear of being identified, the fear of violating secrecy agreements, the fear of political retaliation and concerns for their own safety. If the appropriate steps are taken in leaking something, it is impossible to know where it comes from,” Animal Politico editor Dulce Ramos told Efe.

Animal Politico, an online magazine, is one of the six media outlets and two organizations behind Mexicoleaks, a project launched last week that has already received more than 50 leaks in just a few days.

The original idea for the site came from Free Press Unlimited in The Netherlands and has been implemented in other countries before starting up in Mexico, a country where government corruption is a major concern for citizens.

The first step in using Mexicoleaks is uploading the files to be leaked, and the whistleblower must then decide if the documents will be sent to a member of the alliance, several members or all of them, Ramos said.

If the same leak is received by several media outlets, they will have to discuss how to cooperate on the investigation, something that, according to Ramos, will be very healthy for the Mexican news media.

The other members of the Mexicoleaks alliance are the Emeequis and Proceso magazines; the Periodistas de a Pie and Mas de 31 organizations; and the investigative unit led by reporter Carmen Aristegui.

The participation of Aristegui’s group has already sparked a controversy because MVS, the radio station where she works, has distanced itself from the initiative and fired two members of her team.

After the layoffs on Saturday, MVS’s Web site was hacked and a statement was posted saying: “MVS already belongs to Mexicoleaks since its documents, e-mails and other information will be available on this platform.”

The Proyecto sobre Organizacion, Desarrollo, Educacion e Investigacion, or Poder, and the Red de Defensa de los Derechos Digitales, or R3D, also joined Mexicoleaks.