Julian Assange interviewed in Forbes: an American bank is next leak target

Forbes, of all places, has an interview up with Julian Assange. WikiLeaks' next target will be a major US bank. "It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume—For this, there's only one similar example. It's like the Enron emails."

• [Jonathan]

  Looks like tension between Assange and NYT. On page 6 of the Forbes article:

  There’s a deliberate attempt to redefine what we’re doing not as publishing, which is protected in many countries, or the journalist activities, which is protected in other ways, as something which doesn’t have a protection, like computer hacking, and to therefore split us off from the rest of the press and from these legal protections. It’s done quite deliberately by some of our opponents. It’s also done because of fear, from publishers like The New York Times that they’ll be regulated and investigated if they include our activities in publishing and journalism.

  And, in NYT: Answers to Readers’ Questions about State’s Secrets:

  WikiLeaks is not a “media partner” of The Times. We signed no agreement of any kind, with WikiLeaks or anyone else. In fact, in this case — our third round of articles based on documents obtained by WikiLeaks — we did not receive the documents from WikiLeaks. Julian Assange, the founder of the group, decided to withhold the material from us, apparently because he was offended by our reporting on his legal and organizational problems. The London newspaper, The Guardian, gave us a copy of the archive, because they considered it a continuation of our collaboration on earlier WikiLeaks disclosures. (The Guardian initially asked us not to reveal that they were our source, but the paper’s editor said on Sunday night that he was no longer concerned about anonymity.)

  • [EH]

    Ha ha, for all the flaws people see in WL and/or Assange, it must have KILLED the NYT to have to go begging! Punked both in public and among their peers, The Guardian should be proud to have had the Grey Lady come to them for help protecting their reputation as a journalistic concern. I wonder if anybody turned them down first.

• [Anonymous]

  I don’t know about banks, but the fortune 500 company I once worked for specifically avoided discussing anything sensitive in a recordable fashion (in-person only, no email!) so as to avoid a paper trail. If the banks are at all the same, it’ll take some careful insight to ferret out the exact details.

  More likely it’ll look more like the hacked CRU emails (the stupidly named “climategate”) where the leakers were counting on people’s knee-jerk reaction to quotes taken out of context, rather than the truth.

  Be careful what you wish for, that’s all I’m saying.

• [Hagrid]

  Assange says of the next leak about major U.S. banks, “…it could take down a bank or two.”

  I’m betting it’s Bank of America.

  Probably a good time to move your money to a credit union…

• [Cowicide]

  As someone who’s worked at a bank headquarters in the past, I can attest that this leak is likely to be very interesting even if it only exposes a mere fraction of the shady shit that goes down… and that’s all I’ll say about that.

  stimulate investigations and reforms,

  I think it’s more likely to simulate actual investigations and reforms, but I guess we gotta start somewhere.

• [ColHapablap]

  Yeah, I’m sure that if the last decade of banks inflating and wrecking the economy *out in the open* didn’t lead to significant investigations and reforms, some leaked emails from those banks oughta do it.

• [Anonymous]

  Go Wikileaks go. Next on my wishlist: disclose every bit of information from tax haven banks. That would be truly illuminating.

• [Anonymous]

  Advice to investors: Sell BofA short!

• [Anonymous]

  Who knew Forbes would go chintzy on bandwidth? Site down.

• [Anonymous]

  When Germany invaded Norway, a resistance wsa quickly formed by the Norwegians. In his weekly radio broadcasts to the German people, Nazi propaganda minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels referred to the resistance as terrorists. Were they terrorists or freedom fighters? It all depends on whose ox is gored, as the saying goes. Mr. Assange is called a coward & traitor by many. I believe he is an heroic figure. If our government and business leaders did not engage in despicable acts, WikiLeaks would not be needed. It’s time to clean out the stables, folks, and truth will be the broom tht does it.

• [Beryllium]

  Maybe they’d be less frowned upon if they released some major leak info from America’s perceived enemies? :)

  Like … unprecedented behind-the-DMZ photos, video, emails, etc from North Korea, for example.

  • [neumann103]

    “Maybe they’d be less frowned upon if they released some major leak info from America’s perceived enemies?”

    Like maybe the fraudster banks that caused the biggest economic collapse in 80 years?

    Know who your real enemies are.

  • [RSDeuce]

    Within the article he addresses exactly that…

    “We’re totally source dependent. We get what we get. As our profile rises in a certain area, we get more in a particular area. People say, why don’t you release more leaks form the Taliban. So I say hey, help us, tell more Taliban dissidents about us.”

• [Ito Kagehisa]

  Messing with governments is one thing, messing with the banks takes serious cujones. Props to wikileaks!

• [Stefan Jones]

  Yeah, poking a stick at the U.S. military or the State Department is one thing . . . fool with Goldman Sachs and you’re in real trouble.

  Hmmm. I’m not sure if the above is a joke or not. That in itself is pretty sobering.

• [Anonymous]

  Ah. Banks. Now it gets interesting

• [franko]

  ten to one it’s Bank of America. i’m half curious, half terrified to find out how they work behind the scenes.