Julian Assange - Wikileaks: Warrior For True Part 10

Birgitta tried to convince politicians24 that Iceland must adopt a series of laws inspired by these foreign examples. Moreover, a work group was established "with lawyers, legal advisers, activists in civil liberties and new technology. They had collaborated with representatives of the Ministry of Education, of the Sciences and Culture in order to be able to implement this program."25 "The time was right. Since 2009 the country had been governed by a coalition of Social Democrats and Green Leftists who were open to this kind of adventure. Nineteen deputies, belonging to five parties represented in Parliament, co-signed a resolution aiming to order the government to drawn up the necessary doc.u.ments.

Icelanders hoped that many foreign media, hara.s.sed in their own country, would come over and open branches of electronic publis.h.i.+ng."26 However, there were still sizeable logistics problems, like the absence of a warning and response center to computer attacks, but nothing was insurmountable for the ultra-motivated Icelandic team.

It was as though Julian had given them an incredible boost of energy to act in favor of freedom that Internet users wanted to safeguard. As for Julian, he went over to put together his Icelandic team to which he had given what they needed and which would do the same for him when the time came. Actually, they had all been there when Julian, David, Rop and the others came to edit the Collateral Murder film.

It must be said that Julian's choices weren't always accepted. Kristinn remained active in WikiLeaks, while Smari went over to the anarchist movement Fab lab, which promoted sciences to children by designing animated programs adapted for young children. In fact, they closely follow the IMMI. As for Birgitta, she ended up feeling that there wasn't enough transparency in the organization, particularly the decision-making, and not enough communication either. To optimize the flow of communication, one needed to have a good structure. According to her, after the spring of 2010, the structure wasn't very clear anymore. Birgitta wanted to define the roles attributed to each person, and tried to start a discussion many times, to no avail. So she took a step back from the movement.27 However, one of the most virulent critical comments on WikiLeaks, a website that fights for transparency, is its own lack of financial transparency. Although Birgitta didn't think that there was any reason to suspect any wrongdoing, she believed that it should simply be more transparent.28 Despite everything, even outside the WikiLeaks organization, she had always supported Julian. Just that fact was enough for the US government to want to access her Twitter messages in January 2011. In fact, she'd been told that Twitter received a request from the US government to examine Julian's messages as well as those of his close friends and collaborators. As a parliamentarian, Birgitta had means to defend herself in the name of individual freedom, her country and its adherence. She was legally protected by her parliamentary immunity, and sounded the alarm as to the terms used by people like Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, and all those who had called for Julian's a.s.sa.s.sination. Birgitta would like people to understand the reach and strength of the words, and that "if they use these words to call for the a.s.sa.s.sination of Julian a.s.sange, of her or of any WikiLeaks a.s.sociate, they have to live with the consequences of the possible death of one of these people."

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." These words, which refer to Voltaire, the famous French writer and journalist, are reflected in the First Amendment of the US const.i.tution. They show utmost respect for human expression that some people try to preserve today in virtual media.

17.

A FELLOW TRAVELER.

"WikiLeaks will never have an actual office or headquarters. Its existence is virtual and it's going to stay that way."

On the plane flying him to Stockholm, Julian let his thoughts roam. He was a man of flesh and blood; a man who could dissolve himself into computers.

His life had been floating around the Internet for more than twenty years: Mendax, Harry Harrison, John s.h.i.+pton so many different personalities. And he remembered every one of them.

Julian knew them all very well. He liked to take on a different personality when he felt like it. He always felt real, but moved forward with a mask. His life was the Internet, the conferences, the interviews, the planes, the evenings with sympathizers, volunteers, friends to some, at least for a time, governments, 'leakers'... His life was one big Venetian ball where the game consisted of unmasking the others before being recognized, and he was really good at it.

Who really knew Julian a.s.sange, the man made of flesh and human needs?

Everyone who knew him always pointed out his ability to focus on ideas so intensely that he forgot to eat, drink and even sleep. Very few people could actually do the same. Now he had established a personal guard and Rop Gonggrijp was part of it.

Rop considered himself a friend of Julian's. He had just spent an extraordinary 2010 with him.

Although he had known Julian for over ten years, he traveled with him more from October 2009 to November 2010 than he had in the entire time knowing each other.

The real adventure started in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Julian and Rop were invited to speak at a conference organized by Hack In The Box (HITB), a hacker movement that advocated keeping knowledge free and sharing it. It organized conferences several times a year around the world. Hackers, members of organizations and Internet workers of every country would meet up in the comfort of major hotels.

Everybody talked about his own activities. In front of the audience, Rop demonstrated the non-reliability of electronic voting systems and how they could be made more reliable. Some countries had managed to build trustworthy systems like in Brazil, while others had created the possibility of manipulating the direct and democratic expression of citizens, like in India.

Julian came to present WikiLeaks. He had top billing at this event: he was the last speaker at the conference and the most awaited one. The room was filled to the brim to hear his presentation ent.i.tled 'Publis.h.i.+ng the unpublishable.' He developed his project to allow newspapers, human rights organizations, investigators and others to download information from the WikiLeaks site. He also explained that he offers potential whistleblowers the opportunity to broadcast sensitive doc.u.ments using their secure connection. The new arrivals on the site are subjected to an embargo period during which the material was a.n.a.lyzed then released to the public.

The conference was a huge success. In Kuala Lumpur, in this world of hackers, Rop and Julian were stars. Rop was presented like a world-renowned hacker and known activist. Julian came across as a squadron leader ready to risk a lot to defend his cause.

After this four-day event, they traveled together for a month through Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia. They really bonded as friends during this trip, sharing the same views. Rop was sold on Julian's ideas; the man had so much energy and pa.s.sion for his project. To him, everything was possible. He saw the pitfalls, the road was long, but he was entirely capable of overcoming it, improving his system again and again, shaking up public opinion. Freeing people through access to knowledge: Julian said he'd do it, and he had been working on it day after day without fail. This determination deeply touched Rop, who followed him all the way to Iceland in December 2009 for the Reykjavik Digital Freedoms Conference. Daniel Domscheit-Berg spoke under the name Daniel Schmitt. At that time, WikiLeaks was nothing more than some obscure tech-oriented organization with an ambitious journalistic project. Daniel and Julian were given standing ovations when they walked on stage. The consecration of Julian's project was done on this small island of 300,000 inhabitants. WikiLeaks helped out Icelanders with the Kaupthing Bank affair and since then, WikiLeaks and its founder Julian a.s.sange have been hailed as heroes.

Julian and Daniel responded to success quite differently. Daniel stayed focused on the message, his lips tight and his eyes riveted on the slides that appeared on his computer and the big screen deployed on stage. He listened to the round of applause go by with a serious look on his face. Julian was relaxed and smiling, cracking jokes along the way.

When they explained that WikiLeaks could provide new opportunities to protect the freedom of the press in Iceland, the room gave up some thundering applause. Rop was taken aback by this, as were Julian and all the others. However, Julian would only stay a little while on this euphoric mood. He was already starting to think about the means Iceland had to become a haven for reality informants. He had already built the premises of the future law called IMMI, the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. Rop wanted to partic.i.p.ate in the adventure and would come back to Reykjavik a few weeks after the conference to help draw up this government bill.

After a few other trips and conferences on electronic voting systems, Rop wanted to spend a few weeks home in Amsterdam, but his friend Julian needed his help. It wasn't intended for Rop to go back to Iceland to work on this project, which suddenly became the team's number one preoccupation. By reading WikiLeaks' Twitter messages, Rop figured that his friend needed help. A few hours later, he showed up on Grettisgata to organize the planning and administration of the Project B team with a 10,000-euro loan for WikiLeaks to start the works. That week in Iceland was intense and restless. Rop played the role of guardian angel to Julian, a driven man who forgets to sleep and eat.

As the co-producer of the film, Rop accompanied Julian to the press conference they held in Was.h.i.+ngton. The video needed as much visibility as possible, which was why Julian decided to hit hard: release the video of the two America helicopters opening fire on civilians and journalists in Baghdad and at the same time, hold a press conference in Was.h.i.+ngton so that the media could broadcast the information.

WikiLeaks had been in existence since the end of 2006, and in 2010 the organization had not yet fulfilled its mission: to change the world, shake up public opinion and force governments to face their actions. Over the years, Julian learnt that he couldn't do it without using the relays of the press. Now he had to expose himself and Rop supported him in this move.

They often talked about the fact that WikiLeaks wasn't making the difference it wanted to make. Leaks were published on the site, but didn't have the impact they wanted. Like a hacker, he considered the organization a system to be improved and the option he chose was to give WikiLeaks a human face.

The responses to the organization were very favorable at the time. They received a warm, even triumphant welcome at conferences. In 2008, The Economist awarded WikiLeaks an 'Index on Censors.h.i.+p Award,' and in 2009 it received the Amnesty International 'Media Award.' All this attention helped Julian fine-tune his approach. He was on the right track. His pride and pleasure were real, but as always, his mind was inclined to take over his emotions and whisper to him, 'Do more, go further, do better.'

And finally, for the first time, beyond the IT world, a short film would affect public opinion.

Rop remembers that morning. "Hey Julian, we're off to the lion's den," he said, while the taxi driving them to the National Press Club was going down Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue. The taxi drove along rows of office buildings. "No feline stares then," Julian answered, smiling. The rest of the trip was quiet. A few minutes later, Julian, who was only announced as one of the spokespersons of an 'information leaks' movement, stood up in front of the room of the National Press Club. He was ready to present Collateral Murder to some forty-odd journalists. Stylish as usual, he was wearing a brown blazer with a black s.h.i.+rt and a red tie.29 He showed the film, stopping here and there to give some details. In doing so he exposed his implication, his knowledge of the subject, and prepared and guided the emotions of the journalistic audience. Once the projection was over, he showed the film of the h.e.l.lfire attack that was not included in Collateral Murder. A woman in the audience screamed when the first missile blew up a building. Julian read the e-mail Kristinn had sent from Iraq. You could feel the emotion in the auditorium.

Julian let a few seconds of silence go by. He cleared his throat and spoke solemnly. In fact, he wished he'd disappeared and let the message speak for itself: "This leak sends a message that the armed forces doesn't like."30 He reiterated that a site was created especially for this film, and that it could also be viewed on YouTube and many other sites.

A few minutes after the press conference was over, Julian was invited to Al Jazeera's 'headquarters' in Was.h.i.+ngton where he spent half the day giving interviews. This Qatar-based television station, nicknamed the 'Arabic CNN,' became a popular world media in a very short time. In the evening, the MSNBC news channel did a long feature on the film. The press relayed the information throughout the world, and on YouTube more than 7,000,000 people viewed the Collateral Murder film.31 His message, the work already accomplished by the organization, and his particular style made Julian one of the major media personalities of 2010. Forbes called him one of the most powerful people on the planet, while Time magazine elected him Person of the Year. The US government, very irritated by the film and everything that ensued, made him Public Enemy No. 1: A cyber terrorist!

For Rop, all the days spent around Collateral Murder are like a storm that transformed into a cyclone. First the raw material, the images, editing, and managing the team in a small Icelandic house. It then took courage to finish the job, face powerful authorities, which all attracted lightning. Even as a close observer, these were trying times for Rop. He had seen the crossing of the threshold into the other world, but didn't want to press on, and went back to the reality of voting system. He remained available for WikiLeaks if they needed him, but n.o.body called. In fact, he was afraid of the future he saw before him. Courage wasn't always contagious! He didn't want to permanently live out of a backpack, traveling the world. Anyways, Julian's style and soft voice had more of a media impact. They were both in the same fight, but Julian was more magnetic. He was made to be seen and be part of the world's great men. Julian had what it took to face the G.o.ds of the world he had angered.

Prophet of journalism and truth, Julian was unmasked. Everything had been there since the beginning in his blog, IQ Isaac Quest, the one who was ready to be sacrificed for a greater cause. At the end of 2010, that was actually the case.

For a long time now, the freedom of the Internet has worried him. Governments have waited for a man to sacrifice in order to regulate this Internet force that expresses individuality. Julian came, and the fight began. The underworld has broken loose. The Anonymous group, black belts of the IT world, carry out actions in favor of WikiLeaks to safeguard the sharing of knowledge.

18.

A FRIEND WHO WISHES YOU WELL.

In August 2010, the U.S. and Australian governments put pressure on Moneybookers, an online fund transfer service similar to PayPal, to block WikiLeaks as a client. Both governments announced that they had placed the online service on a Watch List to force it to comply, taking measures against the 'leaking' site.

In the past, WikiLeaks had often been faced with considerable financial difficulties. In December 2009, victim of its own success, the site saw its expenses go through the roof, while its income was stagnating. The management decided to close the site down temporarily, obliging militants to put more effort into collecting donations. At the end of May 2010, WikiLeaks collected more than EUR 570,000 (about USD 777,000) and the site opened again.

The site operated entirely on funds from private donors and quite often by acc.u.mulating small amounts from ordinary people. Donations were made through secure sites like Moneybookers, PayPal, Visa and MasterCard.

The barrage of blocked money transfers to WikiLeaks immediately threatened the site's survival. When Julian went to Switzerland for the conference presentation at the UN in November 2010, he opened a Swiss PostFinance bank account. Back then he was thinking of asking for political asylum in said country.

Mid-November 2010, Julian left Switzerland for Great Britain to prepare the launch of the diplomatic cables and stayed there for several months.

At the beginning of December, WikiLeaks explained that Julian's defense fund, created to pay for the lawyers handling the Swedish charges against him as well as his personal a.s.sets, were frozen by the Swiss PostFinance. PostFinance took said measure when the bank discovered that Julian had given the address of his lawyers living in Geneva because he didn't have his own address in Switzerland.

The online payment sites claimed that WikiLeaks violated their terms and conditions by broadcasting stolen doc.u.ments, which could potentially put other people's lives in danger. Because of these measures, the existence of the site was very quickly called into question.

As of December 7 2010, the Anonymous movement reacted by launching a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the PayPal and MasterCard websites. The sites were unavailable for a few hours, although the underlying infrastructure for online payments wasn't affected.

Aside from physical demonstrations, Anonymous' main weapon was the DDoS: a coordinated attack aimed at cras.h.i.+ng or rendering a computer unavailable by bombarding it with useless traffic. It was quite easy to download open-source software like LOIC, which helped target a server and flood it. The sites coordinated were pa.s.sed on through Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Anyone could join an IRC-based chat room, friend or foe.

The strength of the DDoS attack was in the amount of computers sending disruptive connection demands to the target site. If numerous computers at once were causing this 'distributed' attack on a server, a subnet or other, it would crash. On the other hand, this attack was hard to counter or avoid, given the number of computers used, and so it would inevitably spread throughout the world.

Since October 2010, and more specifically after Julian's arrest in December, Anonymous publicly declared its solidarity with the WikiLeaks network to defend the freedom of information and the spreading of leaks, as well as the existence and right of the organization to finance itself. Anonymous then declared 'Operation Payback' open: several DDoS attacks were coordinated on the different sites that had originally impeded WikiLeaks and Julian.

Although Anonymous didn't have any specific links to the organization, their fight had a few similar points: Anonymous was fighting for freedom of the Internet and the free information found on it.

Anonymous was playing with fire, as their actions were considered illegal in some countries. Governments could quite easily prove that they were heading toward becoming a danger to national security.

That was why WikiLeaks had distanced itself from the Anonymous movement, without actually approving or condemning their actions. However, Anonymous had clearly declared itself in favor of the WikiLeaks organization and of its leader, Julian a.s.sange.

19.

A HOLOGRAPHIC COMMITTEE.

Julian spent a lot of time searching for advisory board members. For WikiLeaks to be recognized as a respectable and structured global organization, they needed a board to advise the management. It was even more of an issue when an organization was unknown, its management anonymous and its mission potentially subject to criticism and attacks. Julian was looking for people to provide support and possibly advise, all the while remaining within the strict perimeter of an advisory board without being an authority on any action or content.

An ideal advisory board should combine expertise, notoriety, experience, multiculturalism and respectability. Julian sent out a lot of invitations and received some answers, although not all positive ones. He had to have a list of names to launch the site.

Here are the names that were featured: Julian a.s.sange: Most information on the WikiLeaks site is difficult to verify or sometimes exaggerated like "he's the most famous 'ethical' Australian hacker," a quote from Underground, a book he co-auth.o.r.ed.

Tas.h.i.+ Namgyal Khamsitsang: Tibetan dissident, originally exiled with the Dalai Lama in 1960, has spent thirty-five years working for the Tibetan government in exile.

Having fled Tibet at age five, he only went back forty-five years later in 2005 to visit his family and other dissidents. He's the president of the Tibetan a.s.sociation of Was.h.i.+ngton. Tas.h.i.+ barely remembers receiving an e-mail from WikiLeaks. He was never contacted for any advice whatsoever.

w.a.n.g Youcai: Born June 29, 1966, he's an active dissident of the Chinese democracy movement and was one of the student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He was a graduate student of physics from Peking University when he was arrested in 1989 and sentenced in 1991 for "conspiring to overthrow the Chinese government."

In 1998, he helped found the Chinese Democracy Party, which was banned by the Chinese government who sentenced him at the end of the same year to eleven years in prison for subversion. He was exiled in 2004 under international pressure, especially from the United States where he now lives.

Xiao Qiang: He's the founder and Editor-in-Chief of China Digital Times, a bilingual news website on China. He's a professor at the School of Journalism and School of Information, University of California at Berkeley where he teaches digital activism and blogging.

He also became a human rights activist following the ma.s.sacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The China Digital Times is supported by NED (National Endowment for Democracy), which is funded by the US State Department.

He's a commentator on Radio Free Asia, supported by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which describes itself as an organization that monitors American media abroad to ensure the credibility of the United States. Eight of the nine members of this board are appointed by the President and confirmed by the US Senate. The ninth member is the Secretary of State.

w.a.n.g Dan: He's one of the leaders of the Chinese democracy movement after having been one of the most visible students in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. w.a.n.g holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.

From August 2009 to February 2010 w.a.n.g taught history at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He also actively promotes democracy and freedom for China. He travels the world to get support from overseas Chinese communities as well as from the public at large.

He's also part of the editorial board of Beijing Spring, a magazine founded by the NED.

CJ Hinke: In the 1970s, he helped organize the pacifist movement opposed to the Vietnam War in the United States. He was arrested more than thirty-five times during civil disobedience demonstrations. He deserted and left for Canada in 1976.

Today, he's a translator, editor and bibliographer of children's books in Latin and Thai, and has been living in Thailand since 1989. In 2006, he founded the Freedom Against Censors.h.i.+p Thailand (FACT) movement to campaign against pervasive censors.h.i.+p in Thai society. FACT is supported by American organizations and is part of Privacy International, supported by the Fund for Const.i.tutional Government of Was.h.i.+ngton, whose member includes Steven Aftergood, also invited to join WikiLeaks' advisory board.

Chico Whitaker: Born in Brazil in 1931, he's an architect and social activist in the Workers' Party in Brazil. He's one of the organizers of World Social Forum in Porto Alegre and executive secretary of the Brazilian Committee of Justice and Peace, a body linked to the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil. He has also been awarded the Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the Alternative n.o.bel Prize.

He's also a member of the World Future Council and member of the sponsoring committee of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, founded in March 2009 to mobilize public opinion so that Member States of the United Nations may take necessary measures to arrive at a just and long-lasting settlement for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ben Laurie: He's the Security Director at The Bunker Secure Hosting and often a member or founder of different organizations promoting open source.

Laurie laughs when telling Mother Jones magazine that, "WikiLeaks allegedly has an advisory board, and allegedly I'm a member of it."

He admitted having seen Julian a few times when he was looking for advice on securing the sending of confidential doc.u.ments. "He's a weird guy," Laurie said. "He seems to be quite nomadic, and I don't know how he lives like that, to be honest. He turns up with a rucksack, and I suspect that's all he's got."

Phillip Adams: Australian writer, film producer, television host and radio host of Late Night Live on ABC for 20 years. He's written more than thirty books and films for which he has won many awards. He was named Australian Humanist of the Year in 1987. He's a member of many advisory boards, including Centre of the Mind at the University of Sydney and the Australia National University, created by Allan Snyder, a professor of neurobiology. His goal is to scientifically study the creativity and making of champions. He's also part of Australia's Commission for the Future, which makes social and political predictions.

He's a politically and socially committed artist, and a communications expert. He's also held key posts in the Australian governmental media administration. He's written for newspapers such as The Times, Financial Times and The New York Times. He's the representative of the International Committee of Index on Censors.h.i.+p, from which WikiLeaks received in 2008 the Economist Index on Censors.h.i.+p Freedom of Expression ward.

The most surprising is that according to an article in The Australian, Adams never met Julian and has never been to a meeting of the WikiLeaks advisory board.

The list on the site was the only one that boasts names of real people. It's obvious that when WikiLeaks started making headlines, some journalists were curious or simply being professional and so contacted these people. The responses from the Mother Jones journalist were quite surprising. Since January 2011, the list disappeared and there has been no more talk of an advisory board. Are we to a.s.sume that these people are no longer (if they ever were) tied to WikiLeaks? Why announce a list of people, if they're not clearly committed and dedicated to their role? Launching an endeavor like WikiLeaks has never been done before. It was in fact experimental, and Julian a.s.sange and his young team had been gaining their experience on a daily basis.

In any case, WikiLeaks had to find covers other than these figureheads. If they needed to close ranks in times of crisis, Julian wouldn't be able to do everything on his own. He could count on his Icelandic 'friends' and a few others with whom he shared the same view of the world and its realities that seem perfectly utopian to novices. Jacob Appelbaum, who n.o.body knew until now, appeared on center stage when the US government wanted to examine his Twitter account as well as the accounts of Birgitta Jonsdottir and Rop Gonggrijp in January 2011. Appelbaum was then said to be close to Julian a.s.sange.

Icelandic Parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, an advocate for the freedom of information, gives an interview close to the Icelandic Parliament in Reykjavik on August 3, 2010.

Christine a.s.sange, mother of the WikiLeaks' founder, arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. December 16, 2010.

Julian a.s.sange exits the High Court of London on December 16, 2010. The High Court of London later releases him on bail.

Daniel Ellsberg, ex-military a.n.a.lyst famous for the Pentagon Papers, photographed during an anti-war demonstration in front of the White House. December 16, 2010.

Christine a.s.sange during the Bikini March demonstration in Melbourne, Australia organized in response to a s.e.xist discourse by an Islamic leader. 2006.

Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline Club, leaving the Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London, shows his support for Julian a.s.sange. January 11, 2010.

Julian a.s.sange arrives at the Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London, accompanied by his lawyer Jennifer Robinson and his spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson. February 11, 2011.

Julian a.s.sange leaves the London court with one of his lawyers, Geoffrey Robertson. February 11, 2011.

Mark Stephens, one of Julian a.s.sange's lawyers, talks to journalists in front of the Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London. February 24, 2011.

Julian a.s.sange and his lawyer Jennifer Robinson arrive at the Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London. February 24, 2011.

Police break up pro-a.s.sange demonstrators in front of the Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in London. February 24, 2011.

Footage from the controversial WikiLeaks' video, Collateral Murder.

Light 'em all up.