Assange: Statement on the publication of an unauthorized "autobiography" | Hacker News Reader

Assange: Statement on the publication of an unauthorized "autobiography"

wikileaks.org

Yeesh. What does that make it now, an outstanding rape/international extradition case, a massive falling out with Domscheit-Berg, the Guardian unredacted document leak and now this. I'm missing a lot more, I'm sure. Agree with him or not, you gotta feel for Julian Assange.

I met his biological father once at a party about a year ago. We didn't talk in much detail ("hey, so your son's under house arrest" isn't the best conversation starter) but he seemed cautiously upbeat and if nothing else proud of Julian. It was a strange reminder that despite all this he's still just a guy, like any of us, trying change the world for the better. Except we're not under house arrest with an international funds embargo and lawsuits circling like buzzards. He's still just a guy. I wonder how he's doing?

All these troubles can't be unconnected. I wonder if it's a fundamental result of his personality or his methods. That would be a tempting answer, but I'm not sure it's entirely true. Similarly tempting would be to assume that it's all pressure from the remarkable US political machine. But that's not entirely true either. I'd wager there's even some component of "Julian Assange, transnational wounded deer" - no country to back him up, no multi-million dollar board to sit on and nurse his wounds. He is, in that sense, uniquely vulnerable; alone among the infamous.

Julian once said that he volunteered to be the lightning rod of WikiLeaks. Well, here's the lightning. WikiLeaks will go on even as he burns, but what of the man? Is it fair to ask one person to be the punching bag for an idea? Is it fair for him to ask that of himself?

Assange received an advance for this book which he has declined to repay. He could hand the money back and then have a morally defensible position with regard to it's publication. As it is the publishers are entitled to recoup their investment and Assange is a whining hypocrite.

EDIT publisher's side of it here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/22/julian-a...

It's more complicated than that.

  The advance was paid direct into my former solicitors’ (FSI) bank
  account wholly without my consent. The money sits unspent in an FSI
  client account. FSI has refused to release the money to Canongate as a
  result of a legal fees dispute (FSI initially agreed to handle my
  extradition case “pro-bono”, or without fee). The FSI fees have been
  audited by an independent costs draftsman. The audit shows extreme
  over-charging. The outcome of this dispute is pending, but a
  favourable finding would release the entire advance, which has not
  been touched, back to Canongate and Knopf.

The BBC reported earlier in the week that he received £500,000 as an advance, and later wanted to cancel the contract but had, by that point, spent the money (and didn't intend to repay it).

The reference to that amount has been removed since - I don't know why. Either way, if the above is true it's laughable that he should have any complaint. Enjoy your half a million (and royalties - they are honouring the contract you signed).

"You reap what you sow", "Live by the sword, die by the sword", et cetera...

I understand Assange's distinction between goverment/corporate privacy and personal privacy. But did someone who's placed themselves in the position he's in expect anything different? By being the public head of Wikileaks, he put himself out there. He's made himself a target to those he attacked.

Private Eye has a good piece here on the self-aggrandising nature of Assange:

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=stree...

Wikileaks has become his personal toy - he's long given up the original mission of what was a worthy organisation.

Are you sure the original mission was not to have it as a self-promotional toy?

>I am not “the writer” of this book. I own the copyright of the manuscript, which was written by Andrew O’Hagan. By publishing this draft against my wishes Canongate has acted in breach of contract, in breach of confidence, in breach of my creative rights and in breach of personal assurances. The US publisher, Knopf, withdrew from the deal when it learned of Canongate’s intentions to publish without my consent. This book was meant to be about my life’s struggle for justice through access to knowledge. It has turned into something else. The events surrounding its unauthorised publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information — they are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity—screwing people over to make a buck.

Not to repeat "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"...but this complaint:

>This book was meant to be about my life’s struggle for justice through access to knowledge. It has turned into something else.

Stolen creative property aside, this a complaint that can be made by anyone who has ever been the subject of a story. Or who has ever has had their embarrassing secrets leaked.

> "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"

Assange is not, as far as I know, in favour of widespread breaches of privacy. He is in favour of breaching the privacy of governments and non-state organisations, etc for the public benefit.

Assange spent a large amount of his life (before wikileaks) working on technology that enables individuals to maintain their privacy and protect their personal information. It's important to understand that wanting to control his own autobiography is not a contradiction with respect to his work on government and corporate leaking.

I really hate when people attack him with this. Personal privacy and government secrecy are not the same thing at all.

I agree with you. I'm only commenting on his unhappiness that the autobiography ended up not going in the direction that he wanted. We'll have to see how this plays out in terms of what copyright and contractual terms were breached. But if this were a case of a writer working on this memoir with him, and the writer deciding that Assange was whitewashing important events in his career, then this would be the kind of "leak" that would seemingly fall under the kind that Wikileaks feels morally compelled to make.

Assange is not merely a private figure any more. The content that would make up his autobiography is of large political importance, given his significant accomplishments.

That said, if it turns out the writer ran with the memoir to turn it into a seedy tale of Assange's personal characteristics, then I completely empathize with him. I'm guessing the truth is somewhere in between.

Famous people often have to deal with unauthorized biographies.

Unauthorized autobiographies are a little rarer and less excusable.

Could this news be a promotional stunt? Assange has a flair for the dramatic and the ironic parallels between publishing an "unauthorized autobiography" and leaking secret documents are rather convenient.

Information wants to be free

Unless it is about Me

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