Julian Assange profiled in New Yorker

Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks.org, a Web site that “collect[s] documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish[es] them.” He is profiled by Raffi Khatchadourian in the June 7, 2010 issue of The New Yorker.

Assange is an international trafficker, of sorts. He and his colleagues collect documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish them on a Web site called WikiLeaks.org. Since it went online, three and a half years ago, the site has published an extensive catalogue of secret material, ranging from the Standard Operating Procedures at Camp Delta, in Guantánamo Bay, and the “Climategate” e-mails from the University of East Anglia, in England, to the contents of Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo account. The catalogue is especially remarkable because WikiLeaks is not quite an organization; it is better described as a media insurgency. It has no paid staff, no copiers, no desks, no office. Assange does not even have a home. He travels from country to country, staying with supporters, or friends of friends–as he once put it to me, “I’m living in airports these days.” He is the operation’s prime mover, and it is fair to say that WikiLeaks exists wherever he does. At the same time, hundreds of volunteers from around the world help maintain the Web site’s complicated infrastructure; many participate in small ways, and between three and five people dedicate themselves to it full time. Key members are known only by initials–M, for instance–even deep within WikiLeaks, where communications are conducted by encrypted online chat services. The secretiveness stems from the belief that a populist intelligence operation with virtually no resources, designed to publicize information that powerful institutions do not want public, will have serious adversaries.

Photo by New Media Days / Peter Erichsen licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 License.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Flying_Monkey

He’s doing a fine job, but isn’t some of the praise rather over-the-top? He’s only doing what Jon Young and Cryptome have been doing for years, but with better technological smarts.
Xenu

Blowing the lid of government secrets is always a good thing. If the government had nothing to hide, it wouldn’t have secrets. And a government by and for the people should NEVER have something to hide.
Mark Frauenfelder

Thanks, I posted it!
redesigned

I don’t know the man, but i know his work.
The work he has done has been invaluable.

Julian, if you read this then I have one thing to say: THANK YOU!
macrumpton

This guy is the sort that makes me wish I were rich enough to support his work.
Anonymous

Response to the Afghanistan war leaks:

In regards to his opinions on the special ops unit (Task force 373) and the Apache helicopter video:

Assange thinks that he’s doing social justice by bringing to light the existence of mistakes that have resulted in civilian casualties.

This guy is naive if he thinks that there can ever be a war where innocent people do not die.

The U.S., Britian, Canada and all of the Allies do everything they can in order to minimize civilian deaths.

Compared to WWII, the number of civilian deaths in war is far far lower in this day and age than ever before. Of course it is tragic when innocents die. In any war that is exactly what will happen.

On a final note, although I’m a peace activist that has made his own modest contribution to protesting the Iraq war, if it were not for the U.S. military the Australian Julian Assange would be speaking Japanese.

Don’t believe me? Then read some recent history. Did innocent Japanese die? Yes, unfortunately. Did innocent Australians die? Yes, unfortunately. Did innocent Americans die in 9/11? Yes, unfortunately. Are innocent Afghans dying? Yes, unfortunately.

Does that mean we participate in his words, “Collateral Murder”? Only if you are naive.

This guy has done some good work in the past, but he is blinded by a self-righteous ego.
bolamig

The article goes into his white-hat hacking history, as well as how his hair turned grey. Right now he’s my hero.
Anonymous

He’s repeatedly admitted to giving an editorial tint to releases, so when he’s praised for revealing this information it’s important to remember it isn’t being done in the most journalistic fashion and that much of what wikileaks has put out there has a bit of wordplay associated with it.

That is to say, it’s good that they put the stuff out there that they do, it isn’t good when they play advocate journalist with it.
SB-129

Totally OT but is this the same Julian Assange that wrote strobe the UNIX port scanning tool?

Either way: top bloke. The world needs more like him.

I’ve heard a lot of “selling-out” talk about him recently. I wouldn’t be surprised that his “coming out of the closet” (so to speak) is part of an anti-assassination strategy – the more people know of him, the more will notice if he ever goes “missing”…
hassan-i-sabbah

ht t sy t bt jst by lkng t hs pht…..

chrst wht n sshl.
(nt t st wklks dn’t d gd wrks…bt..)
chrst….
- Trotsky
  
  Given a choice between being an asshole or looking like an asshole, I’d choose the latter. I guess you have some sort of aversion to long, blond hair, or perhaps red ties. What is it you find most nauseating about that photo? To me it looks completely benign. A guy in a rather conservative suit. That’s something you need to examine about yourself. He has nothing to do with your special dysfunction.
  
  Julian Assange is strictly as good as it gets. And it’s offensive that his dedication and skill makes him a pariah and a pauper. There are so many nations on this planet that proclaim their eternal devotion to freedom of speech, but when confronted with true freedom of speech, they hound this one man to the point of desperation. That’s shameful and puts the lie to many of our delusional myths about democracy.
- Camden Benares
  
  He should be considered a brave-heart by showing up in person like he does. Most assholes don’t, especially while dealing with transparancy and anti-corruption work. I even look a bigger asshole than Julian Assange, but I like cases and activism before visualism. His choice, to give his work a face should be hailed, not turned against him. Karl Koch, the All-Saint of Chaos Computer Club, revealed his face, still that was before Internet in 1985, revealing NATOs secret “Stay-behind” groups and “Operation Gladio” and how they was linked together. He was burnt, “suicided”, 23rd of May 1989. Julian got Guardian-Angels” watching over him, know his movement all the time, if his face was unknown, he probably been suicided too, by the famous band of Criminal Inqusition Assassins.
- Mark Frauenfelder
  
  Judging a person based on their looks is kind of being an asshole.
- Anonymous
  
  “Christ, what an asshole” is a reference to how that line is the answer to every New Yorker comic, like so http://modernarthur.com/blog/christwhatanasshole.html
  
  I’m almost certain that’s what he’s referencing, so people can calm down. :)
- Ichabod
  
  Yeah, so what? This man with his staff makes it possible for the world to learn that which many Governments and Corporations do not want you to know. I don’t care what he looks like, at least he doesn’t sound like a complete asshole.
GoDownMoses

“From the makers of Stummies, I bring you…GleemonX”
DaveP

might want to actually link to the article
Anonymous

Thanks, DaveP!
proletariat

In case anyone missed it, Stephen Colbert interviewed Julian Assange on his show on April 12, 2010. Colbert was somewhat uncharacteristically tough in questioning the decision to expose the Apache helicopter attack on WikiLeaks. Assange was, as always, eloquent and reasonable in his response.

Steven Colbert Interviews Julian Assange (Unedited)
- jamesneysmith
  
  I think Colbert, the man, is a big supporter of military and believed that Assange’s decision to leak the video might not be in the best interest of the soldiers on the ground. But I thought it was brilliant that Colbert got Assange to admit that he was not trying to be impartial and his video was also a form of propaganda. Although I think Assange mission statement is positive, he shouldn’t be above criticism either. Unfortunately it takes a satirical character on the Comedy Network to actually ask the tough questions.