Julian Assange

Julian Paul Assange ( born 3 July 1971) is an Australian publisher and journalist. He is known as the editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks, which publishes submissions of secret information, news leaks and classified media from anonymous news sources and whistleblowers.

Julian Assange
Assange in Norway 2010

Assange was a hacker as a teenager, then a computer programmer before becoming known for his work with WikiLeaks, initially started in 2006. WikiLeaks became internationally well known in 2010 when it began to publish U.S. military and diplomatic documents with assistance from its partners in the news media. Chelsea Manning (then Bradley Manning) has since pled guilty to supplying the cables to WikiLeaks. U.S. Air Force documents reportedly state that military personnel who make contact with WikiLeaks or "WikiLeaks supporters" are at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", and the United States Department of Justice reportedly has considered prosecuting Assange for several offenses. During the trial of Manning, military prosecutors presented evidence that they claim reveals that Manning and Assange collaborated to steal and publish U.S. military and diplomatic documents.

Since November 2010, Assange has been subject to a European Arrest Warrant in response to a Swedish police request for questioning in relation to a sexual assault investigation. In June 2012, following final dismissal by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom of his appeal against enforcement of the European Arrest Warrant, Assange has failed to surrender to his bail, and has been treated by the UK authorities as having absconded. Since 19 June 2012, he has been inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has since been granted diplomatic asylum. The British government intends to extradite Assange to Sweden under that arrest warrant once he leaves the embassy, which Assange says may result in his subsequent extradition to the United States to face charges over the diplomatic cables case.

While on bail in England during 2012, Assange hosted a political talk show World Tomorrow which was broadcast on the RT TV channel.

Youth

In 1976, they returned to live on Magnetic Island, where they lived in Horseshoe Bay in an old abandoned pineapple farm. Assange and his mother lived with his grandparents in Lismore from the mid-1970s to the early-1980s. During Assange's upbringing, Brett and Christine ran a touring theatre company. In the mid-1970s, Assange and his parents moved to North Lismore, New South Wales, and Assange attended Goolmangar Primary School in the nearby town of Goolmangar from 1979 to 1983.

In 1979, his mother married "Leif Meynall – or Leif Hamilton". The couple had a son, but broke up in 1982 and engaged in a custody struggle for Assange's half-brother. His divorced mother travelled across Australia, taking both children into hiding for the next five years. Assange moved thirty times before he turned 14, attending many schools, including Townsville State High School, and sometimes being home-schooled. By his late teens, he and his mother were living near Melbourne.

"Mendax" and the Nortel case

In 1987, after turning 16, Assange began hacking under the name "Mendax" (derived from a phrase of Horace: "splendide mendax", or "nobly untruthful"). He and two other hackers joined to form a group they named the International Subversives. Assange wrote down the early rules of the subculture: "Don't damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don't change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information." The Personal Democracy Forum said he was "Australia's most famous ethical computer hacker".

The Australian Federal Police became aware of this group and set up "Operation Weather" to investigate their hacking. In September 1991, Mendax was discovered in the act of hacking into the Melbourne master terminal of Nortel, the Canadian telecommunications company. In response, the Australian Federal Police tapped Assange's phone line and subsequently raided his Melbourne home in 1991. He was also reported to have accessed computers belonging to an Australian university, the USAF 7th Command Group in the Pentagon and other organisations, via a modem.

After three years the case was presented in court, where Assange was charged with 31 counts of hacking and related crimes. Nortel claimed that his incursions resulted in more than A$100,000 worth of damages. Assange's lawyers represented his hacking as a victimless crime. In May 1995, he pleaded guilty to 25 charges of hacking, after six charges were dropped, and was released on bond for good conduct with a fine of A$2,100. The judge said "there is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to — what's the expression — surf through these various computers" and stated that Assange would have gone to jail for up to 10 years if he had not had such a disrupted childhood. After the trial, Assange was an unemployed father in Melbourne, surviving on a single parent pension, as the family courts had granted him sole custody of his son.

Family and child custody issues

Assange left the home he shared with his mother to live with his wife Teresa, with whom he had a son, Daniel Assange (born in 1989). They separated before the period of Assange's arrest and conviction. They subsequently engaged in a lengthy custody struggle and did not agree on a custody arrangement until 1999. Assange has stated that he raised his eldest son as a single father for more than 14 years.

Assange and his mother formed Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, an activist group centred on creating a "central databank" for otherwise inaccessible legal records related to child custody issues in Australia. In an interview with ABC Radio, his mother explained their "most important" issue was demanding "that there be direct access to the children's court by any member of the public for an application for protection for any child that they believe is at serious risk from abuse, where the child protection agency has rejected that notification." According to Assange, both his son and his mother have moved and changed their names.

Assange fathered a second child, a daughter, who was born in 2006.

Career as head of wikileaks

Assange, circa 2006

WikiLeaks was founded in 2006. That year, Assange wrote two essays setting out the philosophy behind WikiLeaks: "To radically shift regime behaviour we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not." In his blog he wrote, "the more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie.... Since unjust systems, by their nature, induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

Assange is the most prominent media spokesman on WikiLeaks' behalf. In June 2010, he was listed alongside several others as a member of the WikiLeaks advisory board. While newspapers have described him as a "director" or "founder" of WikiLeaks, Assange holds that he is instead the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks,  and he has stated that he has the final decision in the process of vetting documents submitted to the site. Assange says that WikiLeaks has released more classified documents than the rest of the world press combined.

WikiLeaks has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the coast of Côte d'Ivoire, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay detention camp procedures, the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike video, and material involving large banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer among other documents.

Financial developments

On 6 December 2010, the Swiss bank PostFinance announced that it had frozen assets of Assange's totalling 31,000 euros, because he had "provided false information regarding his place of residence" when opening the account. MasterCard, Visa Inc., andBank of America also halted dealings with WikiLeaks. Assange described these actions as "business McCarthyism". Assange was quoted as saying that legal costs for the whistleblowing website and his own defence had reached £500,000. Assange said WikiLeaks had been receiving as much as £85,000 a day at its peak, before the financial blockade. WikiLeaks took legal action against VALITOR, the Icelandic partner for Visa, and won their case in an Icelandic court, forcing Visa to begin processing payments again.

Autobiography

In December 2010, Assange sold the publishing rights to his proposed autobiography for over £1 million. He told The Sunday Timesthat he was forced to enter the deal for an autobiography because of the financial difficulties he and the site encountered, stating "I don't want to write this book, but I have to. I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

A draft of this work was published, without Assange's consent, in September 2011. The book was ghostwritten by Andrew O'Hagan and was given the title Julian Assange – The Unauthorised Autobiography (2011). Assange and the publisher, Canongate, gave differing accounts of the circumstances surrounding the publication.

Allegations of possible extradition to the United States

Emails leaked by WikiLeaks from Stratfor, a private intelligence firm, have discussions surrounding a secret grand jury with a secret indictment. Later, the media organisation received declassified diplomatic cables that confirm a secret indictment exists. The documents go on to state that Australia has no objection to a potential extradition to the United States. The Australian government confirmed the possibility of extradition but stated that it wasn't unusual as there was an ongoing investigation about WikiLeaks. They point out that the United States may not be intent on extraditing Assange.

Support and criticism around the world

Comments by the Australian government

The publication of Australian government briefings following a Senate request showed that the government had privately discussed charging Assange with treason, which it had never mentioned publicly. Julia Gillard claimed that Assange's actions were illegal, which was later retracted when an Australian Federal Police commission determined he had not broken any Australian laws.

Since then, government representatives and the major opposition, including Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, Minister for Trade Craig Emerson and former Minister for Communications Helen Coonan have made statements supportive of WikiLeaks and deprecated some threats. Emerson stated on ABC's 'Q&A' program: "We condemn absolutely the threats that have been made by some people in the United States against Julian Assange and he deserves all of the rights of being an Australian citizen".

Senator Ludlam's WikiLeaks support website leads with: "[We] are demanding the Australian Government take action to ensure WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange's legal and consular rights are upheld. We are concerned that our government has done nothing to investigate the secret US Grand Jury investigation into WikiLeaks, which could lead to Assange's extradition to the US."

These supportive statements by the Australian government have complicated Assange's attempts to seek political asylum. Under theConvention Relating to the Status of Refugees, refugees must have a "well-founded fear of being persecuted" in their home country.

On 18 August, a Freedom of Information request made by the Sydney Morning Herald showed that the Australian government had been told repeatedly by the US that Washington was undertaking "unprecedented" efforts to get Assange, but that Canberra had not once objected.

Support from Australians

Demonstration in support of Assange in front of Sydney Town Hall, 10 December 2010.

The then Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, came under widespread condemnation and a backlash within her own party for failing to support Assange after calling the leaks "an illegal act" and suggesting that his Australian passport should be cancelled. Hundreds of lawyers, academics and journalists came forward in his support, with the then Attorney-General,Robert McClelland unable to explain how Assange had broken Australian law. Opposition Legal Affairs spokesman, Senator George Brandis, a Queen's Counsel, accused Gillard of being "clumsy" with her language, stating, "As far as I can see, he (Assange) hasn't broken any Australian law, nor does it appear he has broken any American laws." The former Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, said that "decisions concerning the withdrawal or otherwise of passports rests exclusively with himself as foreign minister based on the advice of the relevant agencies", and that Mrs Gillard's comments about illegality referred to the US, on whom he placed blame for the affair.

Queen's Counsel Peter Faris, who acted for Assange in a hacking case in the late 1990s, said that the motives of Swedish authorities in seeking Assange's extradition for alleged sex offences were suspect: "You have to say: why are they (Sweden) pursuing it? It's pretty obvious that if it was Bill Bloggs, they wouldn't be going to the trouble." Following the Swedish Embassy issuing a "prepared and unconvincing reply" in response to letters of protest, Gillard was called on to send a message to Sweden "querying the way charges were laid, investigated and dropped, only to be picked up again by a different prosecutor."

On 10 December 2010, over 500 people rallied outside Sydney Town Hall and about 350 people gathered in Brisbane, Queensland.

Australian jouranalist and GetUp member Mary Kostakidis published an online petition calling on Bob Carr and the Australian Government to stand up for the rights of all Australian citizens, to prevent Julian Assange's extradition to the United States.Circulated by GetUp!, which has placed full page ads in support of Assange in The New York Times and The Washington Times, it has received more than 50,000 signatures.

On 23 July 2012, ABC's Four Corners investigative journalism series ran a popular 45-minute feature Sex, Lies and Julian Assange by Andrew Fowler and Wayne Harley. The programme examined evidence to-date on the timeline of the sexual assault allegations and claims of interference from the United States, and included interviews and quotes from individuals linked with the case.

Calls for Assange's assassination

On 30 November 2010, Tom Flanagan, a former aide to the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, called for Assange's assassination. Flanagan later retracted his comments, after a Vancouver lawyer filed a complaint with the Calgary Police against Harper, and Canadian nationals filed complaint with the ombudsman of CBC News.

On 1 December 2010, Republican Mike Huckabee called for those behind the leak of the cables to be executed, a view partly supported by Kathleen McFarland, former Pentagon advisor under Nixon, Ford and Reagan, and current Fox News national security expert.

On 6 December 2010, during a segment of the Fox Business show Follow The Money, Fox News political commentator and analyst Bob Beckel stated: "A dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, he's treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States ... And I'm not for the death penalty, so ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch." Other guests on the programme agreed.

Assange responded on the Guardian newspaper website to a reader's question about Flanagan's remarks, by contending that "Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder."

Recognition

Assange received the 2009 Amnesty International UK Media Award (New Media) for exposing extrajudicial assassinations in Kenyaby distributing and publicizing the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)'s investigation Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances. Accepting the award, Assange said, "It is a reflection of the courage and strength of Kenyan civil society that this injustice was documented."

In 2010, Assange was awarded the Sam Adams Award, Readers' Choice in TIME magazine's Person of the Year poll, and runner-up for Person of the Year. In April 2011 he was listed on the Time 100 list of most influential people. An informal poll of editors at Postmedia Network named him the top newsmaker for the year after six out of 10 felt Assange had "affected profoundly how information is seen and delivered".

Le Monde, one of the five publications to cooperate with WikiLeaks' publication of the recent document leaks, named him person of the year with fifty six percent of the votes in their online poll.

In February 2011, it was announced that Assange had been awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation gold medal by the Sydney Peace Foundation of the University of Sydney for his "exceptional courage and initiative in pursuit of human rights." There have been four recipients of the award in the foundation's 14-year history: Nelson Mandela; the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso; Daisaku Ikeda; and Assange.

In June 2011, Assange was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. The prize is awarded on an annual basis to journalists "whose work has penetrated the established version of events and told an unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or 'official drivel'". The judges said, "WikiLeaks has been portrayed as a phenomenon of the hi-tech age, which it is. But it's much more. Its goal of justice through transparency is in the oldest and finest tradition of journalism."

In November 2011, he was awarded the 2011 Walkley Award in the category Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism. The annual Walkley Awards honour excellence in journalism, and the Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism, awarded since 1994, recognises commitment and achievement in the Australian media.

Assange has been a member of the Australian journalists' union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, for several years, and in 2011 was made an honorary member. Alex Massie wrote an article in The Spectator called "Yes, Julian Assange is a journalist", but acknowledged that "newsman" might be a better description. Alan Dershowitz said "Without a doubt. He is a journalist, a new kind of journalist". Assange has said that he has been publishing factual material since age 25, and that it is not necessary to debate whether or not he is a journalist. He has stated that his role is "primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists". He has been described as a journalist by the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

In 2006, CounterPunch called him "Australia's most infamous former computer hacker." The Age newspaper named him "one of the most intriguing people in the world" and the "internet's freedom fighter."

Living conditions

Assange lives in a small office room converted into living quarters. Visitors stated that the room is equipped with a bed, telephone, sun lamp, computer with internet connection, shower, treadmill, and small kitchenette.

In May 2013, the Ecuadorian foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, said the UK's treatment of Assange amounted to a violation of his human rights.

Forfeiture of sureties

On 8 October 2012, at Westminster Magistrates Court, nine individuals who had each stood surety for bail for Assange were ordered by the Chief Magistrate, Howard Riddle, to forfeit sums totalling three-quarters of the total amount pledged.

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