WikiLeaks Alums Hope to Dodge Legal Trouble with ‘OpenLeaks’

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With all the attention being paid to WikiLeaks lately, organizations supporting similar goals are bound to start showing up in droves over the coming months. One in particular, called OpenLeaks, may start up operations as soon as next week, according to Forbes.

What makes OpenLeaks unique is the fact that it’s being run by several former WikiLeaks staffers. It’ll also be missing a key element that makes WikiLeaks so controversial: OpenLeaks won’t publish any documents itself.

Instead, OpenLeaks will anonymously accept documents just as WikiLeaks does, except whoever submits the documents can then name one or more news outlets or private organizations it’d like to have the documents given to for publishing. OpenLeaks will simply act as a go-between.

That strategy may very well take a lot of pressure off of OpenLeaks and dilute it over several outside organizations. Former WikiLeaks staffer and head of OpenLeaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg told Forbes, “To constrain the power of the site, we’re splitting submission from the publication part. We won’t publish any documents ourselves. The whole field is diversified. No single organization carries all of the responsibility or all of the workload.”

OpenLeaks will initially work with five newspapers around the world, then expand to other pulications, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), labor unions and “anyone who wants to receive information from anonymous sources,” according to Domscheit-Berg.

More on TIME.com:

Photos: WikiLeaks Documents Stored Inside a Mountain Bunker

Operation Payback: Who Are The WikiLeaks “Hactivists”?

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