JULIAN ASSANGE
- WIKILEAKS -
G'day folks,
I'm sure all of you have heard of this man. Julian Paul Assange is an Australian computer programmer and the founder of WikiLeaks, an organisation which he founded in 2006.
Assange came to international attention as the founder of the whistle-blowing
website WikiLeaks.
“If
journalism is good, it is controversial, by its nature.”
—Julian Assange
Synopsis
Born on
July 3, 1971, in Townsville, Australia, Julian Assange used his genius IQ to
hack into the databases of many high profile organizations. In 2006, Assange
began work on WikiLeaks, a website intended to collect and share confidential
information on an international scale. For his efforts, the internet activist
earned the Time magazine "Person of the Year" title in 2010.
Seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, Assange
has remained at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012. In 2016, his work
again drew international attention when WikiLeaks published thousands of emails
from U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, an effort
believed to have impacted that year's presidential election.
Early Life
Journalist,
computer programmer and activist Julian Assange was born on July 3, 1971, in
Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Assange had an unusual childhood, as he
spent some of his early years traveling around with his mother, Christine, and
his stepfather, Brett Assange. The couple worked together to put on theatrical
productions. Brett Assange later described Julian as a "sharp kid who
always fought for the underdog."
The
relationship between Brett and Christine later soured, but Assange and his
mother continued to live a transient lifestyle. With all of the moving around,
Assange ended up attending roughly 37 different schools growing up, and was
frequently homeschooled.
Founding of WikiLeaks
Assange
discovered his passion for computers as a teenager. At the age of 16, he got
his first computer as a gift from his mother. Before long, he developed a
talent for hacking into computer systems. His 1991 break-in to the master
terminal for Nortel, a telecommunications company, got him in trouble. Assange
was charged with more than 30 counts of hacking in Australia, but he got off
the hook with only a fine for damages.
Assange
continued to pursue a career as a computer programmer and software developer.
An intelligent mind, he studied mathematics at the University of Melbourne. He
dropped out without finishing his degree, later claiming that he left the
university for moral reasons; Assange objected to other students working on
computer projects for the military.
In 2006,
Assange began work on WikiLeaks, a website intended to collect and share
confidential information on an international scale. The site officially
launched in 2007 and it was run out of Sweden at the time because of the
country's strong laws protecting a person's anonymity. Later that year,
WikiLeaks released a U.S. military manual that provided detailed information on
the Guantanamo detention center. WikiLeaks also shared emails from then-vice
presidential candidate Sarah Palin that it
received from an anonymous source in September 2008.
Sexual Assault Controversy
In early
December 2010, Assange discovered that he had other legal problems to worry
about. Since early August, he had been under investigation by the Swedish
police for allegations that included two counts of sexual molestation, one
count of illegal coercion, and one count of rape. After a European Arrest
Warrant was issued by Swedish authorities on December 6, Assange turned himself
in to the London police.
Following
a series of extradition hearings in early 2011 to appeal the warrant, Assange
learned on November 2, 2011, that the High Court dismissed his appeal. Still on
conditional bail, Assange made plans to appeal to the U.K. Supreme Court.
According
to a New York Times article, Assange came to the Ecuadorean Embassy in
London in June 2012, seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden. Nearly two months
later, in August 2012, Assange was granted political asylum by the Ecuadorean
government, which, according to the Times, "protects Mr. Assange
from British arrest, but only on Ecuadorean territory, leaving him vulnerable
if he tries to leave the embassy to head to an airport or train station."
The article went on to say that the decision "cited the possibility that Mr.
Assange could face 'political persecution' or be sent to the United States to
face the death penalty," putting further strain on the relationship
between Ecuador and Britain, and instigating a rebuttal from the Swedish
government.
In August
2015 the lesser sexual assault allegations from 2010 — with the
exception of rape — were dropped due to statute of limitation violations
by Swedish prosecutors. The statute of limitations on the rape allegations will
expire in 2020.
In
February 2016, a United Nations panel determined that Assange had been
arbitrarily detained, and recommended his release and compensation for
deprivation of liberty. However, both the Swedish and British governments
rejected those findings as non-binding, and reiterated that Assange would be
arrested if he left the Ecuadorian embassy.
On May
19, 2017, Sweden said it would drop its rape investigation of Julian Assange.
“While today was an important victory and important vindication, the road is
far from over,” he told reporters from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. “The
war, the proper war, is just commencing.”
Assange
still faces a warrant in Britain for failing to appear in court, and the U.S.
Justice Department said it was reconsidering whether to charge him for
revealing classified information.
Influencing the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race
Assange
and WikiLeaks returned to the headlines during the summer of 2016 as the U.S.
presidential race was narrowing to two main candidates, Democrat Hillary
Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. In early July, WikiLeaks released more than 1,200
emails from Clinton's private server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Later in the month, WikiLeaks released an additional round of emails from the
Democratic National Committee that indicated an effort to undermine Clinton's
primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, leading to the resignation of DNC
chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
In
October, WikiLeaks unveiled more than 2,000 emails from Clinton campaign chair
John Podesta, which included excerpts from speeches to Wall Street banks. By
this point, U.S. government officials had gone public with the belief that
Russian agents had hacked into DNC servers and supplied the emails to
WikiLeaks, though Assange repeatedly insisted that was not the case.
On the
eve of the election, Assange released a statement in which he declared no
"personal desire to influence the outcome," noting that he never
received documents from the Trump campaign to publish. "Irrespective of
the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election," he wrote, "the
real victor is the U.S. public which is better informed as a result of our
work." Shortly afterward, Trump was declared the winner of the election.
Personal
Rumors of
a relationship between Assange and actress Pamela Anderson surfaced after the former Baywatch star was
spotted visiting the Ecuadorian embassy in late 2016. "Julian is trying to
free the world by educating it," she later told People. "It is
a romantic struggle — I love him for this."
In April
2017, Showtime announced that it would air the Assange documentary Risk, which had premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film
Festival but updated with events related to the U.S. presidential
election.
Clancy's comment: What are your views on whistle blowers? I often wonder how much is kept from us, supposedly in the 'National Interest'. Mm ... Right. The current government in Australia is probably the most secretive of all time. Example: by not allowing journalists, UN officials, and even doctors to visit OUR asylum seekers held in prisons offshore - on two neighbouring countries. And, the cost of housing these people is extraordinary.
I'm ...
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