MormonLeaks

Last updated
MormonLeaks
MormonLeaks.jpg
MormonLeaks logo
Named after Mormon and WikiLeaks
Predecessor MormonWikiLeaks
Formation December 19, 2016;20 months ago (2016-12-19)
Founder Ryan McKnight
Type Document archive and disclosure
Purpose Publicize secret LDS Church documents
Region
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Official language
English
Staff
Five volunteers and one attorney
Volunteers
5
Website mormonleaks.io
Formerly called
MormonWikiLeaks

MormonLeaks (formerly Mormon WikiLeaks) is a whistleblowing organization inspired by WikiLeaks, which focuses on exposing documents from the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It began in October 2016 as a leaked series of videos on the YouTube channel Mormon Leaks. In total, 15 videos were initially leaked via the Mormon Leaks channel from meetings of high-ranking LDS leaders including the Quorum of the Twelve. They discussed topics including the "homosexual agenda", the subprime mortgage crisis, and a debate over the sexual orientation of Chelsea Manning. Politicians featured in the videos included former Utah governor Mike Leavitt and former U.S. Senator from Oregon Gordon H. Smith.

WikiLeaks International non-profit organization publishing secret information, news leaks, and classified media

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes news leaks, and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Its website, initiated in 2006 in Iceland by the organisation Sunshine Press, claimed in 2016 to have released online 10 million documents in its first 10 years. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director. Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nontrinitarian Christian restorationist church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian, Christian restorationist church that is considered by its members to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah in the United States, and has established congregations and built temples worldwide. According to the church, it has over 16 million members and 67,000 full-time volunteer missionaries. In 2012, the National Council of Churches ranked the church as the fourth-largest Christian denomination in the United States, with over 6.5 million members reported by the church, as of January 2018. It is the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement founded by Joseph Smith during the period of religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.

YouTube video-sharing service owned by Google

YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.

Contents

Ryan McKnight, founder of MormonLeaks, was interviewed by The New York Times about his YouTube channel Mormon Leaks, and this led to contacts from Reddit who asked him for a secure way to send files. He set up a website to allow whistleblowers to protect their anonymity. The submission process ensures confidentiality, including erasure of IP addresses, asking leakers to use the privacy browser Tor, sending documents via SecureDrop, and additional encryption methods. Initial funding was raised through GoFundMe, and an official Twitter account was set up. The site's intent is to increase transparency of LDS Church leadership, and would not leak names of lower-level employees, instead focusing on the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency.

<i>The New York Times</i> Daily broadsheet newspaper based in New York City

The New York Times is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 127 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The Times is ranked 17th in the world by circulation and 2nd in the U.S.

Reddit online news aggregator

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "subreddits", which cover a variety of topics including news, science, movies, video games, music, books, fitness, food, and image-sharing. Submissions with more up-votes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough votes, ultimately on the site's front page. Despite strict rules prohibiting harassment, Reddit's administrators spend considerable resources on moderating the site.

Anonymity, adjective "anonymous", is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, "anonymous" is used to describe situations where the acting person's name is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea here is that a person be non-identifiable, unreachable, or untrackable. Anonymity is seen as a technique, or a way of realizing, a certain other values, such as privacy, or liberty.

University of Tampa professor Ryan Cragun said scholars were interested in finding out what documents would be revealed, noting there was a dearth of information available about the finances of the LDS Church. He said active Mormons were unlikely to view the leaked materials, but the material would have a more significant impact on those who were questioning or had already resigned their membership status. Mormon scholar and columnist Jana Riess gave a mixed assessment, criticizing their tactics regarding privacy while saying it could help to increase LDS Church leadership transparency. Utah attorney and Mormon blogger Steve Evans said the practice of leaking was criminal publication of stolen property, and said LDS Church employees who leaked material were likely violating a non-disclosure agreement.

University of Tampa university

The University of Tampa (UT) is a private co-educational university in Downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. UT offers more than 200 programs of study, including 14 master's degrees and a broad variety of majors, minors, pre-professional programs, and certificates.

Finances of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Finances of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are similar to other non-profit and religious organizations, in that their funding comes from the donations of its members and the principal expense is in constructing and maintaining facilities.

Jana Kathryn Riess is an American writer and editor.

Organization

Beginnings on YouTube

Videos were posted to the YouTube channel Mormon Leaks on the last day of the October 2016 LDS General Conference. LDS Conference Center-up.jpg
Videos were posted to the YouTube channel Mormon Leaks on the last day of the October 2016 LDS General Conference.

Ryan McKnight, the site's founder, had previously gained attention in October 2016 when he was interviewed by The New York Times about his YouTube channel Mormon Leaks, which released videos of top LDS leadership executive discussions. [3] [4] [5] McKnight is a former Mormon, having resigned from the LDS Church in 2014, [4] [5] [6] residing in Las Vegas, Nevada. [7] [8] The anonymous individual who sent him the videos via email, according to McKnight, had been holding onto them for a period of years but with the intention to do something with them eventually. [9] [10] Within a time span of under a month the YouTube channel had garnered 2,200 followers. [11]

The LDS Church did not publicly question the veracity of the videos, [7] which included top leadership debating the "homosexual agenda". [12] Additional topics discussed by the high-level LDS Church leadership in the videos included marijuana, Islam, the subprime mortgage crisis, and a debate over the sexual orientation of Chelsea Manning. [2] [1] [13] LDS Church spokesman Eric Hawkins provided an official response, which stated: "In these committee meetings, presentations are routinely received from various religious, political and subject matter experts on various topics. The purpose is to understand issues that may face the Church, and is in pursuit of the obligation Church leaders feel to be informed on and have open discussion about current issues. This is an informational forum, not a decision-making body." [2] [14] [15] Hawkins pointed out the videos were from a timeframe of 2007 through 2012. [2] [14] [15]

Homosexual agenda is a term introduced by sectors of the Christian religious right as a disparaging way to describe the advocacy of cultural acceptance and normalization of non-heterosexual orientations and relationships. The term refers to efforts to change government policies and laws on LGBT rights-related issues. Additionally, it has been used by social conservatives and others to describe alleged goals of LGBT rights activists, such as recruiting heterosexuals into what they term a "homosexual lifestyle".

Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that there is only one God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion with over 1.8 billion followers or 24% of the world's population, most commonly known as Muslims. Muslims make up a majority of the population in 50 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and has guided humankind through prophets, revealed scriptures and natural signs. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the verbatim word of God, and the teachings and normative examples of Muhammad.

The United States subprime mortgage crisis was a nationwide financial crisis, occurring between 2007 and 2010, that contributed to the U.S. recession of December 2007 – June 2009. It was triggered by a large decline in home prices after the collapse of a housing bubble, leading to mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures and the devaluation of housing-related securities. Declines in residential investment preceded the recession and were followed by reductions in household spending and then business investment. Spending reductions were more significant in areas with a combination of high household debt and larger housing price declines.

In total the 15 videos were published to YouTube on the last day of the October 2016 LDS General Conference. [1] [2] [14] Most of the videos were from closed session events only attended by high-level LDS Church leadership. [14] The majority of them depicted lectures given to the Quorum of the Twelve, the second-highest ranking leadership group within the LDS Church. [1] Mike Leavitt, former governor of Utah, appeared in a video filmed in 2012 and gave a presentation on State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. [1] Gordon H. Smith, former U.S. senator from Oregon, was shown in another video talking to the LDS Church leadership. [16] [17] Smith lectured the LDS Church leaders about the "inestimable power" yielded from being able to contact U.S. Senators whenever necessary for assistance. [16] The lectures given to LDS Church leadership in this fashion were businesslike, with statistics and Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. [18]

General Conference (LDS Church) biannual conference in Salt Lake City

General Conference is a gathering of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held biannually every April and October at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. During each conference, members of the church gather in a series of two-hour sessions to listen to sermons from church leaders. It consists of four general sessions. Since April 2018 the priesthood session is only held during the April conference, and a General Women's Session held during October's conference.

In the Latter Day Saint movement, the Quorum of the Twelve is one of the governing bodies or (quorums) of the church hierarchy organized by the movement's founder Joseph Smith, and patterned after the twelve apostles of Christ. Members are considered to be apostles, with a special calling to be evangelistic ambassadors to the world.

Mike Leavitt 8th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services

Michael Okerlund Leavitt is an American politician who served as the 14th Governor of Utah from 1993 to 2003 in the Republican Party, as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2003 to 2005 and as Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2005 to 2009.

McKnight suddenly found himself the point-person on the Internet for those wishing to maintain anonymity and yet simultaneously publicize secret documents from the LDS Church. [19] After the videos engendered debate and attention from Mormons and the wider Internet community, McKnight was asked to add more videos from people who messaged him on Reddit. [20] [3] After another anonymous user on Reddit asked him, he publicized documents from the LDS Church detailing a rules modification about homosexual partners. [6] Reddit users asked him for a more secure means of submitting documents about the LDS Church. [21]

Transition to dedicated website

Tor-logo-2011-flat.svg
SecureDrop logo.png
MormonLeaks uses Tor privacy browser and secure communication SecureDrop to protect confidentiality. [11] [9]

McKnight decided to found MormonLeaks so whistleblowers could protect their anonymity. [20] Since his increased attention from the October videos and the November policy change leaks, McKnight has been contacted by 25 sources inside and outside of the LDS Church with potential material to release. [6] McKnight and his team spent six months planning creation of the organization. [6] He estimated approximately a potential for between hundreds to thousands of additional invididuals who may wish to leak information through the site. [9] The organization has no affiliation with Fred Karger or his website MormonTips.com, which also publicizes confidential documents from the LDS Church. [6] MormonLeaks takes steps to protect confidentiality of their sources, including erasing all IP addresses from submissions and removing watermarks from submitted materials. [6] The site asks users who wish to submit secret documents to use the Tor privacy browser to protect themselves. [11] Users then send the documents to MormonLeaks via SecureDrop. [9] Encryption methods are further incorporated to mask the identity of the whistleblowers. [19] The motivation behind the organization is to increase transparency of LDS Church leadership. [22] [23]

MormonLeaks launched on December 19, 2016. [20] [6] [21] The organization was started with a website and accompanying Twitter page. [20] The MormonLeaks team works to verify documents before posting them live. [7] [6] This fact-checking team includes five volunteers and an attorney. [8] MormonLeaks does not take funding through advertising. [7] Funds to start MormonLeaks itself were initially raised through donations from GoFundMe. [6] [8] The hope of its founder was that MormonLeaks would demonstrate the LDS Church's profitable nature as a business as opposed to its assertion of religious status. [7] The founder said it was highly unlikely the LDS Church would voluntarily publicize more of its innermost proceedings, saying it "will never be voluntarily transparent, they have nothing to gain from it". [6] The site's intention was to avoid publishing specific lists of names of membership, and instead focus on economic information and internal organization policies and procedures. [24] [23] The site intended to limit disclosure of actual people's names to high-ranking officials including the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency. [24] [25]

The organization's first leaks appeared on December 19, 2016, in the form of LDS Church documents from 2010. [8] [11] It published four files onto its account on Facebook as of December 20, 2016. [24] The first documents publicized by MormonLeaks included memos about legal procedures, a letter to the temple department's executive director regarding unsanctioned materials on the Internet, and an organizational chart for the intellectual property division of the LDS Church. [25] MormonLeaks asserts to have been offered documents from two separate individuals who were employees of the LDS Church concerning tithing information of famous Mormons, including American football quarterback Steve Young. [25]

After MormonLeaks had posted a handful a number of LDS Church documents for four months, the Church sent a cease-and-desist letter alleging copyright infringement with regard to a leaked Church leadership PowerPoint presentation published by MormonLeaks in February 2017. The PowerPoint discussed societal pressures that the Church felt had led some LDS members to apostasy, which included pornography, the issues agitated for by Ordain Women, and questions regarding Mormon history such as those promoted in books by lawyer/ Fundamentalist Mormon Denver Snuffer or in online postings by psychologist social critic John Dehlin. MormonLeaks pulled the offending document for a short while, until its attorney, Marc Randazza, sent the LDS Church a letter which said, "At this point, my client is willing to let bygones be bygones. If your client is willing to step back from the brink, and to cease efforts to censor this material, my client is willing to refrain from bringing a claim [of abusing copyright law]." [26] [27]

Reception

WikiLeaks was aware of the foundation under the site's original name of MormonWikiLeaks, and sent them a message on Twitter asking them to change their name. [8] The founder stated he would retain the name as MormonWikiLeaks, and said a trademark application was pending. [8]

University of Tampa professor Ryan Cragun said academics were excited to discover more information about the economics behind the LDS Church, as members tithe 10 percent of their earnings and there was not much in the way of transparent documents available to research their holdings and finances. [4] [5] Cragun said it was unlikely active members of the LDS Church would end up viewing the leaked documents because they were "highly insulated". [4] [5] However, he notes documents would have a greater impact on someone who is considering leaving the LDS Church: "For someone in the middle of a faith transition, such information is more fuel for the fire." [4] [5]

Editor-in-chief of The Nonprofit Quarterly, Ruth McCambridge, wrote that the appearance of MormonLeaks was reflective of an increasing trend by individuals to use technology to force nonprofit organizations to be transparent and accountable to the public. [28] MormonLeaks has an attorney on staff, which McCambridge notes may be beneficial given the prior litigation history where the LDS Church made a copyright infringement assertion against WikiLeaks for publishing the church's Handbook of Instructions . [28]

Mormon scholar and columnist Jana Riess was critical of the organization's tactics, stating: "I am very concerned about privacy in our culture more generally. People in the workplace have the right to expect that intraoffice communication and their emails will stay private." [7] She called MormonLeaks "disturbing" and said: "It is not good news for any of us." [7] On a positive note, Riess said it could motivate the upper LDS Church leadership to increase its transparency. [7]

Utah attorney and Mormon blogger Steve Evans called MormonLeaks "a rebranding exercise of McKnight's existing practice of posting various confidential items." [7] Evans said MormonLeaks had "an added layer of cybersecurity, which won't necessarily protect the leakers, depending on their methods of obtaining the various stolen documents, videos, etc." [7] Evans was critical of McKnight's encouragement to those who choose to leak information to MormonLeaks: "the leakers are likely either church employees or consultants working for the church. In either of those situations, it's very likely that the leakers are violating their nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements with the church. McKnight is now publicly encouraging people to violate these agreements." [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

In Internet activism, hacktivism or hactivism is the use of technology to promote a political agenda or a social change. With roots in hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to the free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements.

Affirmation: LGBT Mormons, Families & Friends organization

Affirmation: LGBTQ Mormons, Families, & Friends is an international organization for individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer, intersex, or same-sex attracted, and their family members, friends, and church leaders who are members or former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to its charter, Affirmation "offers its members strength and support in solving personal problems through mutual acceptance and fellowship" and "work[s] for the understanding and acceptance of gays and lesbians as full, equal, and worthy persons within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and society, and to help them realize and affirm self-worth."

Homosexuality and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The law of chastity of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints states that "sexual relations are proper only between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife." In principle, this commandment forbids all same-sex sexual behavior. Homosexuality-related violations of the law of chastity may result in church discipline.

<i>Bank Julius Baer v. WikiLeaks</i>

Bank Julius Baer & Co. v. WikiLeaks, 535 F. Supp. 2d 980, was a lawsuit filed by Bank Julius Baer against the website WikiLeaks.

Julian Assange Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

Julian Paul Assange is an Australian journalist, computer programmer, and the founder and director of WikiLeaks. Assange describes himself as an advocate of information transparency and market libertarianism. Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006, an international publishing organisation known for revealing war crimes, human rights abuses, and corruption. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, and CableGate. After the 2010 leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and asked allied nations for assistance.

The Afghan War documents leak, also called the Afghan War Diary, is the disclosure of a collection of internal U.S. military logs of the War in Afghanistan, which were published by WikiLeaks on 25 July 2010. The logs consist of over 91,000 Afghan War documents, covering the period between January 2004 and December 2009. Most of the documents are classified secret. As of 28 July 2010, only 75,000 of the documents have been released to the public, a move which WikiLeaks says is "part of a harm minimization process demanded by [the] source". Prior to releasing the initial 75,000 documents, WikiLeaks made the logs available to The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel in its German and English online edition, which published reports in line with an agreement made earlier the same day, 25 July 2010.

The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began on Sunday, 28 November 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and diplomatic missions around the world. Dated between December 1966 and February 2010, the cables contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials. According to WikiLeaks, the 251,287 cables consist of 261,276,536 words, making Cablegate "the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain." Today, more recent leaks have surpassed that amount. On July 30, 2013, Chelsea Manning was convicted for theft of the cables and violations of the Espionage Act, in a court martial proceeding, and sentenced to 35 years imprisonment. She was released on May 17, 2017, after 7 years total confinement, after her sentence had been commuted by President Barack Obama earlier that year.

Reactions to the United States diplomatic cables leak, published by wikiLeaks at the end of November, 2014, included stark criticism, anticipation, commendation, strong support for, as well as outright threats against people involved in the leak, satire, and quiescence.

Operation: Leakspin was conceived by Anonymous, with the purpose of sorting through recent WikiLeaks releases to identify and raise awareness of potentially important and previously overlooked cables.

Daniel Domscheit-Berg German activist

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, previously known under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt, is a German technology activist. He is best known as the author of Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website (2011).

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has received praise as well as criticism. The organisation has won a number of awards, including The Economist's New Media Award in 2008 at the Index on Censorship Awards and Amnesty International's UK Media Award in 2009. In 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks first among websites "that could totally change the news", and Julian Assange received the Sam Adams Award and was named the Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year in 2010. The UK Information Commissioner has stated that "WikiLeaks is part of the phenomenon of the online, empowered citizen". In its first days, an Internet petition calling for the cessation of extrajudicial intimidation of WikiLeaks attracted over six hundred thousand signatures. Supporters of WikiLeaks in the media and academia have commended it for exposing state and corporate secrets, increasing transparency, supporting freedom of the press, and enhancing democratic discourse while challenging powerful institutions.

GlobaLeaks Open-source, free software

GlobaLeaks is an open-source, free software intended to enable secure and anonymous whistleblowing initiatives. It was developed by the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, an Italian-based NGO supporting freedom of speech online.

<i>The Fifth Estate</i> (film) 2013 thriller film by Bill Condon

The Fifth Estate is a 2013 biographical thriller film directed by Bill Condon, about the news-leaking website WikiLeaks. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as its editor-in-chief and founder Julian Assange, and Daniel Brühl as its former spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg. Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander, Stanley Tucci, and Laura Linney are featured in supporting roles. The film's screenplay was written by Josh Singer based in-part on Domscheit-Berg's book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website (2011), as well as WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy (2011) by British journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding. The film's name is a reference to people who operate in the manner of journalists outside the normal constraints imposed on the mainstream media.

<i>We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks</i> 2013 film by Alex Gibney

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is a 2013 American independent documentary film about the organization started by Julian Assange, and people involved in the collection and distribution of secret information and media by whistleblowers. Directed by Alex Gibney, it covers a period of several decades, and includes considerable background material. Gibney received his fifth nomination for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America Awards for this film.

In March 2016, the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, was compromised in a data breach, and some of his emails, many of which were work-related, were stolen. Cybersecurity researchers as well as the United States government attributed responsibility for the breach, which was accomplished via a spear-phishing attack, to the hacking group Fancy Bear, allegedly affiliated with Russian intelligence services.

Mormon Tips is a project of the non-profit organization Rights Equal Rights (RER)—formerly called Californians Against Hate. Mormon Tips was started in January 2017 by RER founder Fred Karger as a way to collect evidence of tax fraud by the LDS Church submitted from anonymous sources. The organization will then use the gathered information to file a complaint with the IRS in order to revoke the LDS Church's tax-exempt status.

This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 21st century, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Canham, Matt (October 2, 2016), "Leaked videos show Mormon apostles discussing political influence, gay marriage, marijuana and more", The Salt Lake Tribune , retrieved December 21, 2016
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Fox 13 News (October 13, 2016), "Videos of high-ranking LDS leaders discussing social issues anonymously released on conference weekend", KSTU , retrieved December 21, 2016
  3. 1 2 Goodstein, Laurie (October 2, 2016), "Leaked Videos Pull Back Curtain on Mormon Leadership", The New York Times , retrieved December 20, 2016
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Chandler, Michael Alison (December 20, 2016), "Former church member launches 'Mormon Wikileaks' for anonymous sharing of documents and videos", The Washington Post , retrieved December 20, 2016
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Former church member launches 'Mormon Wikileaks' site: 'Our goal is, pure and simple, transparency'". National Post. Retrieved 2016-12-28.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Neugebauer, Cimaron (December 18, 2016), "Ex-Mormon creates MormonWikiLeaks website, set to launch on Monday", KUTV , retrieved December 20, 2016
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Stack, Peggy Fletcher (December 17, 2016), "New website plans to showcase leaked Mormon documents", The Salt Lake Tribune , retrieved December 20, 2016
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Velez, Mandy (December 20, 2016), "Former church member launches 'Mormon Wikileaks' for anonymous tips and whistleblowers", The Independent , retrieved December 20, 2016
  9. 1 2 3 4 "MormonWikiLeaker seeks LDS Church 'transparency,' not approval", Gephardt Daily, December 20, 2016, retrieved December 21, 2016
  10. Demasters, Tiffany; McAdam, Jeff (October 3, 2016), "Man behind postings of LDS Church leaked videos says clips were anonymously emailed to him", KSTU , retrieved December 21, 2016
  11. 1 2 3 4 Johnson, Alex (December 20, 2016), "A 'Wikileaks' for Secret Church Documents Launches for Concerned Mormons", NBC News , retrieved December 21, 2016
  12. Thompson, Alex (October 3, 2016), "Mormon church leaders discuss 'homosexual agenda' in leaked videos", Vice , retrieved December 20, 2016
  13. Canham, Matt; Noyce, David; Wood, Benjamin; Stack, Peggy Fletcher (October 2, 2016), "A brief look at what's in leaked Mormon videos", The Salt Lake Tribune , retrieved December 21, 2016
  14. 1 2 3 4 "See it now: Mormon Leaks shares video of closed-door briefings of LDS Church leaders", Gephardt Daily, October 2, 2016, retrieved December 21, 2016
  15. 1 2 Vazquez, Aldo (October 2, 2016), "Videos of private meetings between LDS leaders leaked online", KTVX , retrieved December 21, 2016
  16. 1 2 Mapes, Jeff (October 3, 2016), "'Mormon Leaks' Show Former Oregon Senator Who Did Favors For Church", KUOW-FM , retrieved December 21, 2016
  17. Jaquiss, Nigel (October 3, 2016), "Mormon Leaks Video Features Former U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.)", Willamette Week , retrieved December 21, 2016
  18. "Mormon Leaks: Boring Meetings with Interesting Implications", Religion Dispatches , November 1, 2016, retrieved December 21, 2016
  19. 1 2 Haddad, Tareq (December 21, 2016), "Disillusioned ex-church member starts 'Mormon Wikileaks' to shed light on secretive organisation", International Business Times , retrieved December 21, 2016
  20. 1 2 3 4 Van Valkenburg, Nancy (December 15, 2016), "Developing: Mormon WikiLeaks website, Twitter page going online Monday", Gephardt Daily, retrieved December 20, 2016
  21. 1 2 Bixenspan, David (December 20, 2016), "Former LDS Member Starts MormonWikiLeaks for Church Documents", Mediaite , Abrams Media , retrieved December 20, 2016
  22. "Former LDS member starts Mormon Wikileaks to share secret church documents", KIVI-TV , December 20, 2016, retrieved December 21, 2016
  23. 1 2 Kale, Sirin (December 21, 2016), "The Ex-Mormon Exposing the LDS Church With a Whistle-Blowing Website", Vice , retrieved December 21, 2016
  24. 1 2 3 Witham, Joseph (December 20, 2016), "Former Mormon launches MormonWikiLeaks website seeking church transparency", St George News, St. George, Utah , retrieved December 20, 2016
  25. 1 2 3 McDonald, Matt (December 20, 2016), "'MormonWikileaks' website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church", KSTU
  26. Mims, Bob (March 14, 2017), "MormonLeaks reposts LDS Church apostasy presentation, rebuffs faith's copyright violation claim", The Salt Lake Tribune , retrieved June 16, 2017
  27. Chandler, Michael Alison (March 17, 2017), "MormonLeaks website squares off with Mormon Church, posts leaked 'Enemies List'", The Washington Post , retrieved June 16, 2017
  28. 1 2 McCambridge, Ruth (December 21, 2016), "Forcing Nonprofit Transparency: Mormon Church Ends Up with Its Own Wikileaks", The Nonprofit Quarterly, Boston, Massachusetts: Nonprofit Information Networking Association, ISSN   1934-6050, OCLC   46351191, archived from the original on December 22, 2016, retrieved December 22, 2016