'Balkanleaks' Analogue to WikiLeaks Launched in Bulgaria

A new whistle-blower internet site has been launched in Bulgaria – Balkanleaks, an analogue, modeled after the notorious WikiLeaks.

The site has now published shorthand notes from meetings of Parliamentary committees, held behind closed doors, energy contracts, reports of the State Agency for National Security (DANS), and of the Unit for Combating Organized Crime (GDBOP).

The home page has a welcome message and directions for internet users how to submit information safely and securely. The site creators assure the information will be published in full confidentiality, and only after being verified.

"
Following the example of the whistleblowers site Wikileaks we opened this site to promote transparency and fight the nexus of organized crime and political corruption in the Balkan states.

We are deeply convinced that we're not alone in this battle. There are plenty of people out there that want to change the Balkans for good and are ready to take on the challenge. We're offering them a hand.

If you have any confidential documents related to political, criminal or financial topics and you want to share them with the press in a secure, anonymous way, you can use our secured and encrypted upload server. We will review the documents and publish them after checking the information,"
the homepage reads.

The people behind the site are Bulgarian journalists, computer and IT experts, and freedom of press activists.

Balkanleaks use the computer system TOR, which is very difficult to follow by the special services, the creators explain, saying if a particular document comes from an institution or even the special services themselves, it would be impossible to identify the sender.

TOR was the same technology used by WikiLeaks until the summer of 2010.

The Balkanleaks founders point out they have decided to launch this site because WikiLeaks have focused on their "
war"
with the US and someone needs to address local level scandals.

Balkanleaks have already published the memorandum for the construction of Bulgaria's second Nuclear Power Plant in the Danube town of Belene, the revelations of the former GDBOP head, Vanyo Tanov, about the meeting of former Interior Minister, Rumen Petkov with alleged crime bosses known as the Galevi brothers, along with the classified DANS report, submitted over a year ago by the notorious murky businessman and former DANS employee, Aleksei Petrov, to Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov.

This one should be interesting ? can you imagine the sort of things we will all be reading? this could be transparacy at its best

From Novinite

A Paris-based Bulgarian, Atanas Chobanov, has set up a website called Balkan Leaks, modelled on controversial site WikiLeaks.

The new site’s slogan is "
The Balkans are not keeping secrets anymore"
.

"
Following the example of the whistleblowers site Wikileaks we opened this site to promote transparency and fight the nexus of organized crime and political corruption in the Balkan states,"
according to the site.

"
We are deeply convinced that we're not alone in this battle. There are plenty of people out there that want to change the Balkans for good and are ready to take on the challenge. We're offering them a hand."


The site invites people who have confidential documents related to political, criminal or financial topics to share them with the press in a secure, anonymous way, using what the site describes as a secured and encrypted upload server.

"
We will review the documents and publish them after checking the information,"
the site says.

Current items on the site include a list of 34 members of the Bulgarian judiciary that it says are freemasons.

Reporting on the list, mass-circulation Bulgarian-language daily Trud said that amendments to the Judiciary Act, the first reading of which has been approved by Parliament, will require judges and members of the Supreme Judicial Council to declare any memberships of secret societies.

Chobanov was quoted by Trud as saying that Balkan Leaks was a group project by people from various backgrounds, including journalists and IT specialists. The site is in English and Bulgarian.

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Bandwagon?