Julian Assange: Why I Founded WikiLeaks
newsweek.com
newsweek.com
He doesn't want to be a curator or a decision maker about what information is or is not available. He is interested in solving the architectural problem of removing the ability to having political interests or personal bias influence control what gets published. From his perspective, he is merely a cog in that system he's trying to create - an automaton who doesn't get to make decisions about the content of diplomatic cables, etc.
In this sense it's probably better to think of Assange as an engineer as opposed to a journalist, dissident or politician. It's just that this system he's been trying to create crosses those circles - when the system effects knowledge/power relations and to the degree his system is successful what's left to do is to effect Wikileaks.
Another note: I am in agreement with and happy that Assange recognizes that Wikileaks in a young and incomplete prototype. There are tons of operational questions left: Who gets Wikileaks when Assange passes away? How do you vet a new member? How do you prevent bribery? Isn't it a problem that there is any centralized control of Wikileaks to begin with? Countries have been successful in preventing journalists from partnering with Wikileaks - how does one secure that pipeline?
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
He is no Snowden. Snowden was upfront and honest from the start about what he was trying to achieve.
I used to admire Assange, now Assange is caught up in his own myth and he seems desperate to keep that myth alive.
The world needs a WikiLeaks 3.0, one that looks like the original 1.0 (the actual wiki before the cable leaks). For those of you that forgot what it was originally:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080102184708/http://www.wikile...
He published both.
Full Unedited Footage : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Pk53Xjvtc
Shortened version : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
He is there of his own free will. He can leave at any time. He chooses not to as he is a coward.
It's pretty clear that the UK would arrest him the second he walked out the door and promptly turn him over to the US. The US has made it quite clear, vis-a-vis Manning, Drake, Binning, etc, that he would have a very bad time ahead of him, and possibly see everything he has attempted to accomplish shuttered and turned against him. In any case, his signal would surely be reduced to zero.
Snowden likewise chose asylum. Are they both cowards?
Perhaps an alternative narrative is that these new political asylum seekrs are both using their asylum as so many asylum seekers have: as a chance to amplify their signal.
How is this clear? A warrant for his arrest is for extradition to Sweden. In the case that the US wants to get him, he would then have to get the permission of the UK and of Sweden.
Last I check Assange doesn't have a warrant for an extradition to the US
Also, Snowden is a whistle-blower. Assange is a politician, concerned with his image. Snowden AFAIK is more concerned with the truth and not his ego.
Also, from Wiki: Assange’s lawyers have invited the Swedish prosecutor four times to come and question him at the embassy, but the offer has been refused.
So far the UK Police has spent over 6 Million Pounds keeping a stakeout on Assange.
You really think this is as simple as him refusing to face sexual charges in Sweden?
Are you implying that groping isn't worth a criminal charge? I hope not.
>Also, from Wiki: Assange’s lawyers have invited the Swedish prosecutor four times to come and question him at the embassy, but the offer has been refused.
How kind of him to be so accommodating!
>So far the UK Police has spent over 6 Million Pounds keeping a stakeout on Assange.
As a UK National and UK taxpayer I am frustrated by this waste of money. Remove the coppers from the door, it's not like he can get out the country.
>You really think this is as simple as him refusing to face sexual charges in Sweden?
Yes
GP is implying, as was quite clear in the comment, that it isn't worth an international manhunt.
Leaving aside the point that any case involving extradition is by definition a international manhunt, and that the US is known to have started a grand jury investigation so there are at least three countries involved in the judicial mess, it is impossible to take anyone seriously who believes the UK government (or any government) would burn the amount of money it has and upend diplomatic relations with Ecuador over the extradition of a cooperative witness who has yet to be charged with anything.
As a reader, one can only imagine these posters calling their Member of Parliament to ask why the police have not yet launched an international manhunt into the disappearance of their bicycle from the local chips shop. Have embassies been informed worldwide? Perhaps ISIS is involved!
I would not describe Assange as "cooperative". There is a legally-obtained extradition order in his name and he's legally obliged to comply with it. Instead of doing that, he's evading it by hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy. The UK government can't very well send out the message that they enforce extradition orders only when they feel like it. Why should Assange be the exception?
When you're ready to acknowledge that Assange's treatment is far from ordinary and is completely disproportionate, we can move on to demolish these secondary moral claims for the sophistic distractions they are. In the meantime, forgive me for restricting you to one strawman argument at a time.
I'll be taking your failure to do so as a concession on this point, but it shouldn't be hard to prove yourself right if this is as commonplace as you claim. Good luck!
http://theconversation.com/why-the-uk-must-not-ditch-the-eur...
Now, if you think that what Assange (allegedly) did was not rape, then you are entitled to your opinion. But then your disagreement is with established English (and I think Swedish) law, and the courts naturally have to follow the law and not your opinion.
Also, please don't repeat this misinformation about Assange only being wanted for questioning. It is impossible under Swedish law for Assange to be charged until he has been arrested. The Swedes don't just want to "question" him, they want to arrest him and then charge him. See the following for more explanation:
http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-...
Just practically, the problem with closing the "preliminary investigation" is that it requires the Swedish prosecution to have actual evidence of a crime and file it with the courts. And it starts the clock moving on things like getting the defendant into court once he is in detention, unhappily eliminating the possibility of indefinite detention which is otherwise possible under Swedish law.
But all of this is irrelevant, because YOU HAVE NOT CITED ANY RELEVANT CASE AS REQUESTED. Tossing out aggregate extradition statistics and handwaving about how one category might apply in this case may be evidence of your creativity, but it provides zero evidence that any of these cases are in fact commensurate with the one under discussion. So you fail to support your claim that the handling of this case has been "ordinary". And while you may be used to getting a pass on this sort of thing, I'm going to hold you to your actual argument not only because it is very poor, but because if you actually bother to do the legwork, you will come up with a bunch of extradition cases involving paedophilia and/or armed assault in which the prosecution had ample evidence to convict people of very serious crimes. Despite what you imply, extradition is simply not "ordinarily" used in cases like this. But if I am mistaken, by all means correct me with an actual citation!
On a final note, let us also correct your erroneous statement that the High Court determined that Assange's actions constituted rape under English law. It is highly improbable that Assange would be convicted of anything if he were tried in England. All the High Court ruled is that the warrant Sweden presented was couched in a general enough fashion to pass the dual-crime requirement to constitute a technically valid extradition warrant. There was no finding of facts or even consideration of them.
Perhaps, but that is their prerogative. It's not as if Assange has a right to be charged in absentia. Trying someone in absentia is a rather unusual measure, and I'm surprised that you'd like Sweden to do this, given your concern that the case be handled in the "ordinary" fashion.
>and the prosecutor could question Assange abroad and move the case beyond the "preliminary investigation" stage
Could you give a source to back this up? Even if it is true, the prosecutor is perfectly entitled to decide that they do not want to question Assange in that manner. Suspects do not normally dictate the terms of their questioning.
>Nor does extradition from Sweden to the United States require permission from the Swedish courts as he claims.
I think you're getting a bit confused here. It has been noted by some that the Swedish government has the final authority to reject an extradition request that has been approved by the Swedish courts. There has not, however, been any suggestion that extradition can be approved without a court ruling to that effect.
>On a final note, let us also correct your erroneous statement that the High Court determined that Assange's actions constituted rape under English law.
The magistrates court and the high court both determined precisely what you say they didn't. Magistrates court: "...what is alleged here is that Mr Assange 'deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state'. In this country that would amount to rape." High court (109): "In our view, on this basis, what was described in the EAW was rape". The first quote is from the following blog post and the second comes direct from the High Court judgment (p. 28 of the pdf):
http://jackofkent.com/2012/06/assange-would-the-rape-allegat...
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.pdf
However, as you yourself correctly point out, it makes no difference whether the offense constitutes rape under English law. It need only be a crime of some sort for the EAW to be valid. It would be very difficult to maintain that non-consensual unprotected sex is not a crime under English law.
>So you fail to support your claim that the handling of this case has been "ordinary".
What Assange is alleged to have done amounts to rape. Rape is an extraditable offense. The EAW was obtained legally through the normal channels. I see no reason why Assange should not be expected to go to Sweden to face the charges. Perhaps the EAW would not have been issued if he had a lower profile -- it's impossible to say, as far as I can see -- but once it was issued the legal situation was perfectly clear. That is why all of his appeals failed.
"I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape." (Swedish Chief Public Prosecutor Eva Finné).
> Could you give a source to back this up?
Try the actual court ruling. Section 142 is relevant, as are the closing remarks. (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/2849.html)
> I think you're getting a bit confused here.
The person you are citing as an expert is either confused or malicious. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/24/new-sta...)
> The magistrates court and the high court both determined precisely what you say they didn't...
Once again, you are factually wrong. The British courts never ruled that Assange's behavior constituted rape. They ruled that the WRITTEN DESCRIPTION in the Swedish warrant might constitute an extraditable crime under British law. There was no examination of whether the description seemed reasonable, which was particularly problematic given the dissemblingly vague way the offense was described in the Swedish warrant (i.e. the warrant paints the woman as asleep and helpless and the sex itself as non-consensual when none of this actually fits what is publicly known).
But why are these facts even relevant? If you want to convince me that this is an "ordinary" prosecution all you need to do is find ONE SINGLE OTHER EXTRADITION CASE that is remotely commensurate! Surely there is at least one other non-violent sex offender out there who has been extradited for allegedly not wearing a condom. Or for ANY OTHER SEX CRIME that makes this case seem anything other than a totally disproportionate abuse of power, a conclusion any thinking person must surely reach considering that not even the alleged victim intended to press charges and the Swedish police originally refused to prosecute citing a lack of evidence.
So what do you have? What is the weakest extradition case you've managed to find? How does it stack up against this one?
That quote comes from before the EAW was issued. If it had any legal significance Assange's lawyers would have referred to it. I'm not sure why you are referring to it, since you must know all this.
>Try the actual court ruling. Section 142 is relevant, as are the closing remarks.
Did you mean to refer to a different section? Section 142 mostly just contains the submission from the Swedish prosecutor explaining why Assange can't be charged until he's arrested. It certainly doesn't say anything to indicate that the investigation could move beyond the "preliminary investigation" stage without an arrest. This claim of yours remains unsourced.
>The British courts never ruled that Assange's behavior constituted rape.
I said they ruled that Assange's alleged actions constitute rape, as indeed they did. It is not their business to rule on whether his actual actions constituted rape, as they're determining whether or not he is to be extradited, not putting him on trial for rape. (See 71 of the High Court judgment for a very clear explanation of this.)
> There was no examination of whether the description seemed reasonable
This is simply false and I'm kind of surprised that you'd make this claim. Part 72: "Nonetheless...we will express our view on what difference it would have made if we had taken [the material in the prosecution file] into account in determining whether the description of the conduct was fair and accurate." Section 77: "It must therefore follow in respect of offence 1 that the challenge made fails, even if the extraneous material was taken into account." In other words, the court considered this issue and decided that (a) the description was reasonable and (b) that it didn't matter in any case whether it was or it wasn't. You may not like conclusion (b), but you should not let this obscure the fact that the court also drew conclusion (a).
>The person you are citing as an expert is either confused or malicious.
Again, you're getting mixed up. Greenwald pointed out that the Swedish government can veto extradition requests. He did not say that they can authorize extradition requests without the approval of the Swedish courts. In your previous post you said "...extradition from Sweden to the United States [does not] require permission from the Swedish courts". This claim false, so far as I can see, and unsourced. Neither Greenwald not the experts he cites say anything to support it.
> If you want to convince me that this is an "ordinary" prosecution
I'm not sure why you keep going off on this tangent. I think it's a legally and morally justified prosecution, and so "ordinary" in that sense. I don't know (and cannot know) whether Assange's public profile is part of the reason that the EAW was issued. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't. Either way, the EAW remains legitimate on its own terms.
> extradited for allegedly not wearing a condom
You must know this is a dishonest summary of Assange's alleged conduct, so I suppose there is no point in correcting it (the High Court judgment has the details).
And by the original prosecutor no less!
> Section 142 mostly just contains...
It states extremely clearly that Sweden could accomplish the goals of its warrant by questioning Assange in London, and that the prosecutor is choosing not to do so out of convenience (a preference even the British court conceded was somewhat unreasonable). And since you missed the point, I cited it because it directly contradicts your claims that the extradition is being made in order for Sweden to charge Assange.
Indeed, as you would know had you bothered to look at other extradition cases, the legal reality is that Sweden can charge Assange anytime it wants. As stated above, the problem with doing this is that it would require the prosecution to have actual evidence of wrongdoing and eliminate their ability to hold Assange in indefinite detention.
> This is simply false and I'm kind of surprised that you'd make this claim.
Again, you are factually wrong. What the court "evaluated" was the allegation in the warrant, with the description and context of the charge taken at face value from the request of the Swedish prosecutor. There was no or only an extremely limited ability for Assange to face his accusers, challenge the evidence, or request supporting evidence from the Swedish prosecution. And yet you somehow managed to conclude that (1) there is evidence supporting any of these claims, and (2) Assange would be convicted of rape on the strength of that evidence. Bullocks.
> I'm not sure why you keep going off on this tangent
I'll take this as evidence you can't find a single commensurate case of extradition, although that was already a foregone conclusion. So let me close by saying that you should be ashamed of having defended such an irregular abuse of the legal system, and doubly-so for now arguing with a straight face that anything legal is by definition moral. As Nietzshe would have commented, the problem with this approach is that it makes a mockery of law itself.
So what? An EAW for rape was eventually issued. This is a total red herring.
>It states extremely clearly that ...
It doesn't say any of that. I think you must be citing the wrong section. (Or if not, it would be helpful if you'd quote the part which you think says any of this.) This is all somewhat irrelevant anyway, since even if the Swedes could question Assange while he was in the UK, it does not follow that they are obliged to do so. If they would rather question him in Sweden, and if they can legally obtain an EAW, they are perfectly within their rights to take this course of action. If I were a suspect in a crime, I would not expect to be able to dictate to the police the time, location and circumstances of my questioning.
>Again, you are factually wrong.
You said in your previous post that "there was no examination of whether the description seemed reasonable". This is clearly not the case, as you can see by looking at the material under "Issue 2" in the High Court judgment. Assange's lawyer claimed that certain material in the prosecution file showed that the description in the EAW was not "fair and accurate". The court examined this material and concluded that the additional material did not in fact reveal any lack of fairness or accuracy. (They also pointed out that it would not in any case be proper for them to base their decision on conclusions derived from this material. That is a technical legal issue, so I really don't know if they made the legally correct decision. However, it is largely irrelevant, since they saw nothing in the additional material which would have influenced their judgment.)
> There was no or only an extremely limited ability for Assange to face his accusers, challenge the evidence, or request supporting evidence from the Swedish prosecution.
None of that would make any sense in the context of an extradition hearing. Those are all things that are properly to be done in the Swedish courts. It's not the business of the English courts to second-guess the results of an eventual trial in Sweden or to attempt to decide the facts of the case. The facts of the case are to be decided in Sweden where the charges were made. This is all, needless to say, clearly explained in the High Court decision.
>And yet you somehow managed to conclude that (1) there is evidence supporting any of these claims, and (2) Assange would be convicted of rape on the strength of that evidence.
I didn't say (2) or anything close to it. You are playing very fast and loose with what I write.
>So let me close by saying that you should be ashamed of having defended such an irregular abuse of the legal system, and doubly-so for now arguing with a straight face that anything legal is by definition moral. As Nietzshe would have commented, the problem with this approach is that it makes a mockery of law itself.
You're clearly very angry with me for some reason and I think it's leading to a lack of care in what you're writing here. Of course I have not argued that anything legal is moral. Rather, I've argued that it is morally right that Assange should face the charges against him. The claim that this is an irregular abuse of the legal system is a bit far-fetched when you consider all of the failed appeals. Most of your arguments against extradition were not actually made by Assange's lawyer (most likely because they have no actual legal merit). The arguments that were put forward by Assange's lawyer are quite obviously rather tenuous -- and somewhat tasteless in their trivialization of non-consensual sex -- and it does not take a conspiracy theory to explain why they were rejected by the English courts.
> even if the Swedes could question Assange while he was in the UK....
There is no "even if" about it. The entire core of your current argument is baseless fiction:
"It is submitted on Julian Assange's behalf that it would be possible for me to interview him by way of Mutual Legal Assistance. This is not an appropriate course in Assange's case. The preliminary investigation is at an advanced stage and I consider that is necessary to interrogate Assange, in person, regarding the evidence in respect of the serious allegations made against him."
> The court examined this material...
No. The Swedish government did not provide any supporting materials for the allegations in its warrant, and neither Assange nor the court was given access to relevant evidence despite the defense repeatedly calling for it. If you think the burden of disproving he-said-she-said allegations based on secret evidence is reasonable and defendants have anything but an "extremely limited" ability to challenge accusations on the basis of fact, you may as well just tank the presumption of innocence and start championing military tribunals for the general public.
> You're clearly very angry with me for some reason
No. I pity you. What horrifies me is your inability to think, and your complete abandonment of the do-unto-others Christian and democratic principle that the legal system should be invoked in ways proportional to the accusation and bearing the public interest in mind. I'm appalled you fail to see these events as what they are: a disproportionate and punitive attack on public-interest journalism. And I am shocked at your repeated failure to understand the referenced passage in which the Swedish prosecutor flat-out admits THERE IS NOTHING LEGALLY STOPPING HER from accepting Assange's offers to cooperate in whatever way would not expose him to extradition to the United States.
Sweden could end this impass in a matter of hours. Your failure or refusal to realize this makes you an apologist for the abuse of power. But it doesn't matter, because at this point you have spent the last half-dozen posts arguing around the reasonability of the extradition instead of providing an example of a commensurate offense.
You just quoted the Swedish prosector explaining why Assange can't be questioned in the UK. They expect to charge Assange, and hence need him to be in Sweden so they can put him on trial. The High Court saw this clearly (see the end of this post for more detail). It's bizarre to infer from this statement that the EAW is unnecessary. It's unnecessary if you're already assuming that Assange is innocent and hence should not be put on trial.
>If you think the burden of disproving he-said-she-said allegations based on secret evidence is reasonable and defendants have anything but an "extremely limited" ability to challenge accusations on the basis of fact, you may as well just tank the presumption of innocence and start championing military tribunals for the general public.
Again, you're confusing the extradition hearing with a rape trial. Assange can argue that he's innocent of the charges when (if) he's put on trial for rape in Sweden. The English courts are not making any findings regarding the facts of the case; they are just enforcing the EAW.
>THERE IS NOTHING LEGALLY STOPPING HER from accepting Assange's offers to cooperate in whatever way would not expose him to extradition to the United States.
His cooperation is besides the point at this stage in the investigation. As the court judgments explain, the presumption at this stage in the investigation is that he will be charged and eventually brought to trial. Hence, his presence in Sweden is necessary. From the High Court judgment: "In our view, the terms of the EAW read as a whole made clear that not only was the EAW issued for the purpose of Mr Assange being prosecuted for the offence, but that he was required for the purposes of being tried after being identified as the perpetrator of specific criminal offences. He was therefore accused of the offences specified in the EAW. Nothing in the EAW suggested he was wanted for questioning as a suspect."
Now, could the Swedish prosecutor have choosen to do nothing more than some further questioning on Assange in England? Well, sure, they can handle the case how they like. But they chose not to. I'm not sure how many times I have to point this out before it sinks in, but Assange can't expect to run the investigation himself on his own terms! Once the Swedes have decided to charge him, the English courts can't just piss all over the Swedish legal process. The clue is in the name: European Arrest Warrant. Once Sweden issues it through the proper legal process, the presumption is that England will enforce it. There is no "presumption of innocence" when considering whether or not to enforce a legally obtained arrest warrant, since the facts of the case are not being decided at all.
>principle that the legal system should be invoked in ways proportional to the accusation and bearing the public interest in mind.
The accusation is rape, so there is no disproportionality, and it's in the public interest for rapists to be prosecuted.
>arguing around the reasonability of the extradition instead of providing an example of a commensurate offense.
I've explained already that I don't see why this is relevant. If he was being extradited for a parking ticket, I'd see your point, but the charge strikes me as serious enough to merit extradition, both legally and morally.
They could make an exception. They won't.
> As I understand, Assange wants the Swedish Government to guarantee that it will not grant extradition to the US. The US has not made any request to the Sweden on this matter. In other words, Assange wants the Swedish Government to pledge to use its veto power in relation to a non-existing request and before the Prosecutor-General and the Supreme Court has evaluated this non-existing request. There is nothing in the extradition of criminal offences act that deals with this scenario, but it would depart from established practice.
There are some other interesting points made in the post:
http://klamberg.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/extradition-of-assang...
Also here:
>By asking for this 'guarantee', Assange is asking the impossible, as he probably knows. Under international law, all extradition requests have to be dealt with on their merits and in accordance with the applicable law; and any final word on an extradition would (quite properly) be with an independent Swedish court, and not the government giving the purported 'guarantee'.
http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-...
It's the same scenario as someone under house arrest. When you're under house arrest, typically there is not an armed guard preventing you from leaving (although this is sometimes required by a court). Rather, you have the ability to leave your house, but if you do, then you will be arrested. I can see why he would consider the situation equivalent to house arrest.
[Edit: moving my other comments about the Assange case to a separate reply]
Timeline of the scenario: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11949341
An arrest warrant was issued on August 20, 2010. The next day, Stockholm chief prosecutor Eva Finne reviewed the charges and canceled them. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316
> Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne dismissed the 'rape' investigation altogether: “I have discontinued the preliminary investigation of the charge (sic) originally designated as rape. There is no suspicion of any crime whatsoever.”
https://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavit_of_Julian_Assange.h...
Assange is interviewed by police, released, and allow to leave the country. After he's left the country, on September 1, the decision was overridden by the Swedish Director of Prosecution, who reopens the case against him.
> The woman of whom Mr. Assange is accused of the offence of "lesser rape" (a technical term in Swedish law) sent an SMS to a friend saying that she "did not want to accuse JA [of] anything" and "it was the police who made up the charges". The other woman tweeted in 2013 that she had never been raped. Both women’s testimonies say that they consented to the sex. [S]enior prosecutor [Finne] already dismissed the ’rape’ accusation, saying that there were no grounds for accusing Mr. Assange on this basis. But a third prosecutor, lobbied by a politician who was running for attorney general, took over the investigation and resurrected the accusations against Mr. Assange.
https://justice4assange.com/ [note that this is not a credible news site, but it links to further sources and legal documents such as https://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavit_of_Julian_Assange.h... ]
That politician is Claes Borgström, a also a lawyer. He allegedly applied pressure to reopen the case and become the women's lawyer, and was interested only in media spotlight:
> One of two women who accused Julian Assange of sex crimes moved to fire her controversial lawyer Claes Borgstrom late last month after she lost faith in his ability to represent her. [She] charged that Borgstrom was more interested in being in the media spotlight than providing her legal counsel, and has often referred her inquiries to his secretary or assistant.
http://rt.com/news/assange-prosecutor-judge-speech-992/
There seem to be a number of unusual or suspicious aspects to the overall case, that give me the impression that its motivations include something beyond the pursuit of justice.
"To stop; to check or hinder the motion or action of; as, to arrest the current of a river; to arrest the senses."
In that sense, Assange has very much been "arrested", if not directly taken into custody.
Sounds a lot like cryptome? I recall reading a rather level-headed argument from Young (of cryptome) about not joining (or was it leaving) wikileaks -- over among other things the need (or rather lack there of) for the massive donation drives/big budgets of wikileaks. While Yong might not be entirely neutral wrt wikileaks -- all I've read by him on the matter have been rather straight forward and on point. I can't find the exact kibk, but it may have been the pdf-document on "wikileaks finances" -- or (more kikely) an email thread that was intended to set up an interview with comments from Yong on wikileaks - but somewhat amusingly failed to what I can only describe as culture shock/mismatch between the interviewer and the subject:
He noticed that no matter what bombshells were published in Cryptome and similar sites, media did not write about it, there were no scandals and people in general didn't care. If you could work in tight cooperation with established media, do all the data processing for them (which hackers have a talent for) and serve them stories ready made for journalistic work and subsequent publication, a much bigger impact would be seen.
In retrospect he clearly did get that right.
This is completely false.
He stood as a candidate for the Australian Senate and used the brand 'wikileaks' for his party.
http://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/
They performed very poorly, getting only 0.62% of the vote.
Assange was popular as someone who enabled information to be available. As a politician with his own agenda he is not.
[1] http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...
The fact that those execs were getting cheap gas for their private jets is more than enough for anybody to put 2 and 2 together and get the right result.
This portrays people as something akin to a Markov process: if you know these two properties, you can make meaningful predictions about the future. Are people so memoryless? It strikes me that at a minimum, history, experience, and culture would all influence behavior and aren't so neatly stateful.
At least in the US, clearly history has taught us nothing. Our leaders continually make the same errors in regards to foreign policy, military intervention, and myriad of other things.
Problem is all of this can be reduced to a single dimension - health and energy. No matter what information is going on in your head, your body requires energy to move and to think, thereby limiting the possible future states out of sheer necessity.
Assange or Snowden are not really white knights. While Snowden did an heroic act without being biased towards any specific political ideology, Assange has made a good enough career by playing his cards with good political acumen as people have shown in the comments.
Honestly, I think Assange is just as bad as our politicians but in a way he brings some balance to an otherwise tightly controlled political narrative.
Assange wants it both ways: he wants to be a media-like outlet, but not have the moral responsibilities. It doesn't work that way.
Worse, by all accounts its mostly because he knows it would be a lot of time and effort to safely disclose the types of things he did/advocates should be. There's a very great personal convenience for him to "believe" he's no responsibility to safely redact documents.