Sabrina
12-07-2010, 02:00 PM
This was just forwarded by my friend Mary Moore, an article from the Guardian, London. It does not answer where to send money, but gives wonderful detailed recent interview with him.
To all: As you probably know by now, Assange is in jail (no bail in his
future) in London. Below is a Q & A article from the GUARDIAN in the same
place. MM
Julian Assange answers your questions: The founder of WikiLeaks answers
readers' questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic
cables Dec. 6, 2010 UK Guardian News Read our users' questions
Fwoggie: I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're an Australian
passport holder - would you want return to your own country or is this now
out of the question due to potentially being arrested on arrival for
releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and polices?
Julian Assange: I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great
deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia
Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear
that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working
to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our
people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian
citizen - does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated like
David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian
politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail
parties.
girish89: How do you think you have changed world affairs?
And if you call all the attention you've been given-credit ... shouldn't the
mole or source receive a word of praise from you?
Julian Assange: For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise
the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure
and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing. If indeed it is the
case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier - Bradley Manning -
is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an
unparalleled hero.
Daithi: Have you released, or will you release, cables (either in the last
few days or with the Afghan and Iraq war logs) with the names of Afghan
informants or anything else like so? Are you willing to censor (sorry for
using the term) any names that you feel might land people in danger from
reprisals?? By the way, I think history will absolve you. Well done!!!
Julian Assange: WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that
time there has been no credible allegation, even by organisations like the
Pentagon that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our
activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to
lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in
this regard.
distrot: The State Dept is mulling over the issue of whether you are a
journalist or not. Are you a journalist? As far as delivering information
that someone [anyone] does not want seen is concerned, does it matter if you
are a 'journalist' or not?
Julian Assange: I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25.
I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and
internet since that time. However, it is not necessary to debate whether I
am a journalist, or how our people mysteriously are alleged to cease to be
journalists when they start writing for our organisaiton. Although I still
write, research and investigate my role is primarily that of a publisher and
editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.
achanth: Mr Assange, have there ever been documents forwarded to you which
deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?
Julian Assange: Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that
they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden
party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our
publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the
cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.
gnosticheresy: What happened to all the other documents that were on
Wikileaks prior to these series of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back
online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?
Julian Assange: Many of these are still available at mirror.wikileaks.info
and the rest will be returning as soon as we can find a moment to do address
the engineering complexities. Since April of this year our timetable has not
been our own, rather it has been one that has centred on the moves of
abusive elements of the United States government against us. But rest
assured I am deeply unhappy that the three-and-a-half years of my work and
others is not easily available or searchable by the general public.
CrisShutlar: Have you expected this level of impact all over the world? Do
you fear for your security?
Julian Assange: I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform
a global role and to some degree it was clear that is was doing that as far
back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. I
thought it would take two years instead of four to be recognised by others
as having this important role, so we are still a little behind schedule and
have much more work to do. The threats against our lives are a matter of
public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the
degree that we are able when dealing with a super power.
JAnthony: Julian. I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former
duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in
the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic
cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation.
None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of
diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from
publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic
states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back
to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate
without discretion and the protection of sources. This applies to the UK and
the UN as much as the US. In publishing this massive volume of
correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing
but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US
cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails. My question to you
is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an
international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.
Julian Assange: If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular
question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.
cargun: Mr Assange, Can you explain the censorship of identities as XXXXX's
in the revealed cables? Some critical identities are left as is, whereas
some are XXXXX'd. Some cables are partially revealed. Who can make such
critical decisons, but the US gov't? As far as we know your request for such
help was rejected by the State department. Also is there an order in the
release of cable or are they randomly selected? Thank you.
Julian Assange: The cables we have release correspond to stories released by
our main stream media partners and ourselves. They have been redacted by the
journalists working on the stories, as these people must know the material
well in order to write about it. The redactions are then reviewed by at
least one other journalist or editor, and we review samples supplied by the
other organisations to make sure the process is working.
rszopa: Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if
anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of AWS. Do
you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it?
Thank you for doing what you are doing.
Julian Assange: Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our
servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit
inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.
abbeherrera: You started something that nobody can stop. The Beginning of a
New World. Remember, that community is behind you and support you (from
Slovakia). Do you have leaks on ACTA?
Julian Assange: Yes, we have leaks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement, a trojan horse trade agreement designed from the very beginning
to satisfy big players in the US copyright and patent industries. In fact,
it was WikiLeaks that first drew ACTA to the public's attention - with a
leak.
people1st: Tom Flanagan, a [former] senior adviser to Canadian Prime
Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think
Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does
disappear." How do you feel about this?
Julian Assange: It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously
making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.
Isopod: Julian, why do you think it was necessary to "give Wikileaks a
face"? Don't you think it would be better if the organization was anonymous?
This whole debate has become very personal and reduced on you - "Julian
Assange leaked documents", "Julian Assange is a terrorist", "Julian Assange
alledgedly raped a woman", "Julian Assange should be assassinated", "Live
Q&A qith Julian Assange" etc. Nobody talks about Wikileaks as an
organization anymore. Many people don't even realize that there are other
people behind Wikileaks, too. And this, in my opinion, makes Wikileaks
vulnerable because this enables your opponents to argue ad hominem. If they
convince the public that you're an evil, woman-raping terrorist, then
Wikileaks' credibility will be gone. Also, with due respect for all that
you've done, I think it's unfair to all the other brave, hard working people
behind Wikileaks, that you get so much credit.
Julian Assange: This is an interesting question. I originally tried hard for
the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to play no part in
our activities. This followed the tradition of the French anonymous pure
mathematians, who wrote under the collective allonym, "The Bourbaki".
However this quickly led to tremendous distracting curiosity about who and
random individuals claiming to represent us. In the end, someone must be
responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be
publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the
greater good. In that process, I have become the lightening rod. I get undue
attacks on every aspect of my life, but then I also get undue credit as some
kind of balancing force.
tburgi: Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having
legal guarantees for a free press. Threats of legal sanction against
Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim. (What press needs to be
protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being
state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore
able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same
in authoritarian regimes and the west.) Do you agree that western
governments risk losing moral authority by attacking Wikileaks? Do you
believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks, Tim Burgi Vancouver, Canada
Julian Assange: The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships
through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on.
In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change
in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments.
Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like
badgers and birds, free. In states like China there is pervasive censorship,
because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always
look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of
speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a
great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.
rajiv1857: Hi, Is the game that you are caught up in winnable? Technically,
can you keep playing hide and seek with the powers that be when services and
service providers are directly or indirectly under government control or
vulnerable to pressure - like Amazon? Also, if you get "taken out" and that
could be technical, not necessarily physical - what are the alternatives for
your cache of material? Is there a 'second line' of activists in place that
would continue the campaign? Is your material 'dispersed' so that taking out
one cache would not necessarily mean the end of the game?
Julian Assange: The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with
significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people
in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be
released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archives is in the hands of
multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to
a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you.
That's it every one, thanks for all your questions and comments. Julian
Assange is sorry that he can't answer every question but he has tried to
cover as much territory as possible. Thanks for your patience with our
earlier technical difficulties.
------ End of Forwarded Message
------ End of Forwarded Message
To all: As you probably know by now, Assange is in jail (no bail in his
future) in London. Below is a Q & A article from the GUARDIAN in the same
place. MM
Julian Assange answers your questions: The founder of WikiLeaks answers
readers' questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic
cables Dec. 6, 2010 UK Guardian News Read our users' questions
Fwoggie: I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're an Australian
passport holder - would you want return to your own country or is this now
out of the question due to potentially being arrested on arrival for
releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and polices?
Julian Assange: I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great
deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia
Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear
that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working
to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our
people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian
citizen - does that mean anything at all? Or are we all to be treated like
David Hicks at the first possible opportunity merely so that Australian
politicians and diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail
parties.
girish89: How do you think you have changed world affairs?
And if you call all the attention you've been given-credit ... shouldn't the
mole or source receive a word of praise from you?
Julian Assange: For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise
the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure
and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing. If indeed it is the
case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier - Bradley Manning -
is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an
unparalleled hero.
Daithi: Have you released, or will you release, cables (either in the last
few days or with the Afghan and Iraq war logs) with the names of Afghan
informants or anything else like so? Are you willing to censor (sorry for
using the term) any names that you feel might land people in danger from
reprisals?? By the way, I think history will absolve you. Well done!!!
Julian Assange: WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that
time there has been no credible allegation, even by organisations like the
Pentagon that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our
activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to
lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in
this regard.
distrot: The State Dept is mulling over the issue of whether you are a
journalist or not. Are you a journalist? As far as delivering information
that someone [anyone] does not want seen is concerned, does it matter if you
are a 'journalist' or not?
Julian Assange: I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25.
I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and
internet since that time. However, it is not necessary to debate whether I
am a journalist, or how our people mysteriously are alleged to cease to be
journalists when they start writing for our organisaiton. Although I still
write, research and investigate my role is primarily that of a publisher and
editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.
achanth: Mr Assange, have there ever been documents forwarded to you which
deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?
Julian Assange: Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that
they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden
party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our
publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the
cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs.
gnosticheresy: What happened to all the other documents that were on
Wikileaks prior to these series of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back
online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?
Julian Assange: Many of these are still available at mirror.wikileaks.info
and the rest will be returning as soon as we can find a moment to do address
the engineering complexities. Since April of this year our timetable has not
been our own, rather it has been one that has centred on the moves of
abusive elements of the United States government against us. But rest
assured I am deeply unhappy that the three-and-a-half years of my work and
others is not easily available or searchable by the general public.
CrisShutlar: Have you expected this level of impact all over the world? Do
you fear for your security?
Julian Assange: I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform
a global role and to some degree it was clear that is was doing that as far
back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. I
thought it would take two years instead of four to be recognised by others
as having this important role, so we are still a little behind schedule and
have much more work to do. The threats against our lives are a matter of
public record, however, we are taking the appropriate precautions to the
degree that we are able when dealing with a super power.
JAnthony: Julian. I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my former
duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a brutal regime in
the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state threatening ethnic
cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme for an impoverished nation.
None of this would have been possible without the security and secrecy of
diplomatic correspondence, and the protection of that correspondence from
publication under the laws of the UK and many other liberal and democratic
states. An embassy which cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back
to London is an embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate
without discretion and the protection of sources. This applies to the UK and
the UN as much as the US. In publishing this massive volume of
correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing
but undermining the entire process of diplomacy. If you can publish US
cables then you can publish UK telegrams and UN emails. My question to you
is: why should we not hold you personally responsible when next an
international crisis goes unresolved because diplomats cannot function.
Julian Assange: If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular
question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.
cargun: Mr Assange, Can you explain the censorship of identities as XXXXX's
in the revealed cables? Some critical identities are left as is, whereas
some are XXXXX'd. Some cables are partially revealed. Who can make such
critical decisons, but the US gov't? As far as we know your request for such
help was rejected by the State department. Also is there an order in the
release of cable or are they randomly selected? Thank you.
Julian Assange: The cables we have release correspond to stories released by
our main stream media partners and ourselves. They have been redacted by the
journalists working on the stories, as these people must know the material
well in order to write about it. The redactions are then reviewed by at
least one other journalist or editor, and we review samples supplied by the
other organisations to make sure the process is working.
rszopa: Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if
anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of AWS. Do
you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it?
Thank you for doing what you are doing.
Julian Assange: Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our
servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit
inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.
abbeherrera: You started something that nobody can stop. The Beginning of a
New World. Remember, that community is behind you and support you (from
Slovakia). Do you have leaks on ACTA?
Julian Assange: Yes, we have leaks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement, a trojan horse trade agreement designed from the very beginning
to satisfy big players in the US copyright and patent industries. In fact,
it was WikiLeaks that first drew ACTA to the public's attention - with a
leak.
people1st: Tom Flanagan, a [former] senior adviser to Canadian Prime
Minister recently stated "I think Assange should be assassinated ... I think
Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange does
disappear." How do you feel about this?
Julian Assange: It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously
making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder.
Isopod: Julian, why do you think it was necessary to "give Wikileaks a
face"? Don't you think it would be better if the organization was anonymous?
This whole debate has become very personal and reduced on you - "Julian
Assange leaked documents", "Julian Assange is a terrorist", "Julian Assange
alledgedly raped a woman", "Julian Assange should be assassinated", "Live
Q&A qith Julian Assange" etc. Nobody talks about Wikileaks as an
organization anymore. Many people don't even realize that there are other
people behind Wikileaks, too. And this, in my opinion, makes Wikileaks
vulnerable because this enables your opponents to argue ad hominem. If they
convince the public that you're an evil, woman-raping terrorist, then
Wikileaks' credibility will be gone. Also, with due respect for all that
you've done, I think it's unfair to all the other brave, hard working people
behind Wikileaks, that you get so much credit.
Julian Assange: This is an interesting question. I originally tried hard for
the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to play no part in
our activities. This followed the tradition of the French anonymous pure
mathematians, who wrote under the collective allonym, "The Bourbaki".
However this quickly led to tremendous distracting curiosity about who and
random individuals claiming to represent us. In the end, someone must be
responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be
publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the
greater good. In that process, I have become the lightening rod. I get undue
attacks on every aspect of my life, but then I also get undue credit as some
kind of balancing force.
tburgi: Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from having
legal guarantees for a free press. Threats of legal sanction against
Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim. (What press needs to be
protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If being
state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and therefore
able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears to be the same
in authoritarian regimes and the west.) Do you agree that western
governments risk losing moral authority by attacking Wikileaks? Do you
believe western goverments have any moral authority to begin with?
Thanks, Tim Burgi Vancouver, Canada
Julian Assange: The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships
through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on.
In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change
in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments.
Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like
badgers and birds, free. In states like China there is pervasive censorship,
because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always
look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of
speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a
great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.
rajiv1857: Hi, Is the game that you are caught up in winnable? Technically,
can you keep playing hide and seek with the powers that be when services and
service providers are directly or indirectly under government control or
vulnerable to pressure - like Amazon? Also, if you get "taken out" and that
could be technical, not necessarily physical - what are the alternatives for
your cache of material? Is there a 'second line' of activists in place that
would continue the campaign? Is your material 'dispersed' so that taking out
one cache would not necessarily mean the end of the game?
Julian Assange: The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with
significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people
in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be
released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archives is in the hands of
multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to
a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you.
That's it every one, thanks for all your questions and comments. Julian
Assange is sorry that he can't answer every question but he has tried to
cover as much territory as possible. Thanks for your patience with our
earlier technical difficulties.
------ End of Forwarded Message
------ End of Forwarded Message