Julian Paul Assange (born Julian Paul Hawkins; 3 July
1971) is an Australian computer programmer, journalist and the founder and
director of WikiLeaks. He is currently in police custody in London , England Ecuador
as an asylum seeker, and had been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London
Julian Assange in 2014
Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006, and came to international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning (then known as Bradley Manning). These leaks included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010), theAfghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq United States
In November 2010,Sweden Sweden to the United States UK Ecuador
in August 2012 and remained in the Embassy of Ecuador in London
During the 2016 United States Democratic Party presidential primaries, WikiLeaks hosted emails sent or received by candidate Hillary Clinton from her private email server when she was Secretary of State. The Democratic Party, along with cybersecurity experts, claimed that Russian intelligence had hacked the emails and leaked them to WikiLeaks; Assange consistently denied any connection to or cooperation withRussia in relation to the leaks, and stated the Clinton
In 2017, the London Metropolitan Police indicated that an arrest warrant was in force for Assange's failure to surrender himself to his bail. Ecuadorian president Lenín Moreno said on 27 July 2018 that he had begun talks with British authorities to withdraw the asylum for Assange. On 11 April 2019, the asylum was withdrawn and he was arrested.
After his period of study at theUniversity of Melbourne North America .
WikiLeaks published secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources. By 2015, WikiLeaks had published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses, and was described by Assange as "a giant library of the world's most persecuted documents". The published material between 2006 and 2009 attracted various degrees of publicity, but it was only after it began publishing documents supplied by Chelsea Manning, that WikiLeaks became a household name. The Manning material included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010) which showed United States soldiers fatally shooting 18 people from a helicopter in Iraq, including journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. This material also included theAfghanistan
war logs (July 2010), the Iraq
Opinions of Assange at this time were divided. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard described his activities as "illegal," but the police said that he had broken no Australian law. United States Vice President Joe Biden and others called him a "terrorist". Some called for his assassination or execution. Support came from people including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (then a backbench MP), Spain's Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Argentina's ambassador to the UK Alicia Castro, and activists and celebrities including Tariq Ali, John Perry Barlow, Daniel Ellsberg, Mary Kostakidis, John Pilger, Ai Weiwei, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Vaughan Smith, and Oliver Stone.
The year 2010 culminated with the Sam Adams Award, which Assange accepted in October, and a string of distinctions in December—the Le Monde readers' choice award for person of the year, the Time readers' choice award for person of the year (he was also a runner-up in Time's overall person of the year award), a deal for his autobiography worth at least US$1.3 million, and selection by the Italian edition of Rolling Stone as "rockstar of the year".
Assange announced that he would run for the Australian Senate in March 2012 under the new WikiLeaks Party, and Cypherpunks was published in November. In 2012, Assange hosted a television show on RT (formerly known as Russia Today), a network funded by the Russian government. In the same year, he analysed the Kissinger cables held at the US National Archives and released them in searchable form. On 15 September 2014, he appeared via remote video link on Kim Dotcom's Moment of Truth town hall meeting held inAuckland
The following February, he won the Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal for Peace with Justice, previously awarded to only three people—Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and Buddhist spiritual leader Daisaku Ikeda. Two weeks later, he filed for the trademark "Julian Assange" in Europe, which was to be used for "Public speaking services; news reporter services; journalism; publication of texts other than publicity texts; education services; entertainment services." For several years a member of the Australian journalists' union and still an honorary member, he was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in June, having earlier won the Amnesty International UK Media Award (New Media) in 2009.
On 11 April 2019, the Metropolitan Police—who Ecuadorian authorities had invited into the embassy—arrested Assange in connection with his failure to surrender to the court in June 2012 for extradition toSweden Ecuador
That same day, an indictment against Assange from the grand jury for the Eastern District of Virginia was unsealed. Judge Michael Snow said Assange was "a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest" and he had “not come close to establishing reasonable excuse”. He was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion (ie. hacking into a government computer), a relatively minor crime that carries a maximum 5-year sentence if found guilty. The charges stem from the allegation that Assange attempted and failed to crack a password hash so that Chelsea Manning could use a different username to download classified documents, in order to avoid detection. This information has been known since 2011, and was a component of Manning's trial; the indictment did not reveal any new information about Assange.
United Nations special rapporteur Agnes Callamard, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa condemned Assange's arrest. Snowden tweeted that "Assange’s critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom." Bolivian President Evo Morales and Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also condemned it. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt thanked the Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno for cooperation and British Prime Minister Theresa May said that "no one is above the law." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that Assange is "not going to be given special treatment ... It has got nothing to do with"Australia , "it is a matter for the US Iraq
and Afghanistan " and
his extradition to the United
States
Ben Wizner from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) speculated that if authorities were to prosecute Assange "for violatingU.S.
secrecy laws [it] would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. US
Mark Warner, Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, welcomed the arrest of Assange, saying that Julian Assange is "a dedicated accomplice in efforts to undermine American security." The President of the Center for American Progress and former Obama aide Neera Tanden also welcomed the arrest and condemned Assange's leftist supporters, tweeting that "the Assange cultists are the worst. Assange was the agent of a proto fascist state,Russia
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See also this analysis of the legal situation created by Assange's arrest as analyzed by Matt Taibbi in the current issue of Rolling Stone at:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/assange-arrest-charges-taibbi-821107/
Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006, and came to international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning (then known as Bradley Manning). These leaks included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the
In November 2010,
During the 2016 United States Democratic Party presidential primaries, WikiLeaks hosted emails sent or received by candidate Hillary Clinton from her private email server when she was Secretary of State. The Democratic Party, along with cybersecurity experts, claimed that Russian intelligence had hacked the emails and leaked them to WikiLeaks; Assange consistently denied any connection to or cooperation with
In 2017, the London Metropolitan Police indicated that an arrest warrant was in force for Assange's failure to surrender himself to his bail. Ecuadorian president Lenín Moreno said on 27 July 2018 that he had begun talks with British authorities to withdraw the asylum for Assange. On 11 April 2019, the asylum was withdrawn and he was arrested.
WikiLeaks
After his period of study at the
WikiLeaks published secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources. By 2015, WikiLeaks had published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses, and was described by Assange as "a giant library of the world's most persecuted documents". The published material between 2006 and 2009 attracted various degrees of publicity, but it was only after it began publishing documents supplied by Chelsea Manning, that WikiLeaks became a household name. The Manning material included the Collateral Murder video (April 2010) which showed United States soldiers fatally shooting 18 people from a helicopter in Iraq, including journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. This material also included the
Opinions of Assange at this time were divided. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard described his activities as "illegal," but the police said that he had broken no Australian law. United States Vice President Joe Biden and others called him a "terrorist". Some called for his assassination or execution. Support came from people including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (then a backbench MP), Spain's Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Argentina's ambassador to the UK Alicia Castro, and activists and celebrities including Tariq Ali, John Perry Barlow, Daniel Ellsberg, Mary Kostakidis, John Pilger, Ai Weiwei, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Vaughan Smith, and Oliver Stone.
The year 2010 culminated with the Sam Adams Award, which Assange accepted in October, and a string of distinctions in December—the Le Monde readers' choice award for person of the year, the Time readers' choice award for person of the year (he was also a runner-up in Time's overall person of the year award), a deal for his autobiography worth at least US$1.3 million, and selection by the Italian edition of Rolling Stone as "rockstar of the year".
Assange announced that he would run for the Australian Senate in March 2012 under the new WikiLeaks Party, and Cypherpunks was published in November. In 2012, Assange hosted a television show on RT (formerly known as Russia Today), a network funded by the Russian government. In the same year, he analysed the Kissinger cables held at the US National Archives and released them in searchable form. On 15 September 2014, he appeared via remote video link on Kim Dotcom's Moment of Truth town hall meeting held in
The following February, he won the Sydney Peace Foundation Gold Medal for Peace with Justice, previously awarded to only three people—Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and Buddhist spiritual leader Daisaku Ikeda. Two weeks later, he filed for the trademark "Julian Assange" in Europe, which was to be used for "Public speaking services; news reporter services; journalism; publication of texts other than publicity texts; education services; entertainment services." For several years a member of the Australian journalists' union and still an honorary member, he was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in June, having earlier won the Amnesty International UK Media Award (New Media) in 2009.
2019 Arrest
On 11 April 2019, the Metropolitan Police—who Ecuadorian authorities had invited into the embassy—arrested Assange in connection with his failure to surrender to the court in June 2012 for extradition to
That same day, an indictment against Assange from the grand jury for the Eastern District of Virginia was unsealed. Judge Michael Snow said Assange was "a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest" and he had “not come close to establishing reasonable excuse”. He was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion (ie. hacking into a government computer), a relatively minor crime that carries a maximum 5-year sentence if found guilty. The charges stem from the allegation that Assange attempted and failed to crack a password hash so that Chelsea Manning could use a different username to download classified documents, in order to avoid detection. This information has been known since 2011, and was a component of Manning's trial; the indictment did not reveal any new information about Assange.
United Nations special rapporteur Agnes Callamard, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa condemned Assange's arrest. Snowden tweeted that "Assange’s critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom." Bolivian President Evo Morales and Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also condemned it. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt thanked the Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno for cooperation and British Prime Minister Theresa May said that "no one is above the law." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that Assange is "not going to be given special treatment ... It has got nothing to do with"
Ben Wizner from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) speculated that if authorities were to prosecute Assange "for violating
Mark Warner, Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, welcomed the arrest of Assange, saying that Julian Assange is "a dedicated accomplice in efforts to undermine American security." The President of the Center for American Progress and former Obama aide Neera Tanden also welcomed the arrest and condemned Assange's leftist supporters, tweeting that "the Assange cultists are the worst. Assange was the agent of a proto fascist state,
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