WikiLeaks Staff: Defend Julian Assange

Hi. I'm sorry this is sent to you on a forgetful Friday. WikiLeaks has
rocked the world not with overblown nonsense, lies or terrorism, but
with truth-telling - just the facts, if you please. The liars,
imperialists,
war-mongers and profiteers affected cannot dispute the output so
discredit the source. Like they say on tv about trial lawyers.

Neither you nor I know for sure much about the charges, but the above
stands as a truism. Please take 5 minutes to read this.

And thanks ro RSN for putting it out. They also deserve our support.
-Ed

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/3985-wikileaks-staff-editorial-defend-julian-assange

Defend Julian Assange
By WikiLeaks Staff Editorial

18 November 2010

Why Our Editor-in-Chief Is Busy and Needs to Be Defended

In October 2010 Julian Assange won the Sam Adams Award for Integrity. He has
also been awarded the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award and the
Economist Index on Censorship Award in 2008. It is important to remember
that accolades such as these do not come without tremendous hard work.

The expose of the Afghan War Diaries was a moment of media history,
orchestrated by Julian Assange. He brought together The New York Times, The
Guardian and Der Spiegel, three of the world's most reputable newspapers to
collaborate with WikiLeaks on exposing more than 90 000 secret significant
action reports by the United States relating to the war in Afghanistan. This
involved a huge amount of administration in order to co-ordinate all four
media partners' publishing schedules and a lot of time to carefully
construct the levels of trust needed to bring together three major
newspapers who were also competitors.

Since 2007 Julian, WikiLeaks and the Sunshine Press have been behind
international front page stories that have changed the world. However, every
story exposing abuses by powerful organizations, whether they be from New
York or Nairobi results in a counter attack. Such the importance and
veracity of revelations must be defended. Immediately after the Afghan War
Diaries he conducted seventy-six interviews in three days maximizing the
impact of the disclosures. It is very important for WikiLeaks to create a
global platform with which to reach all corners of the earth. This
demonstrates to those who wish to expose wrongdoing and misconduct that
there is a way to do so without putting themselves at risk. He remains a
messenger who big governments and their agencies can, and constantly do,
attack while all the time keeping the source of the information published
safe.

Because of the nature of the work performed by WikiLeaks both the
organization and Julian Assange are constantly under attack. Their servers
are under attack. Their security is under attack and their work resources
and finances are under attack. This results is a lot of time-consuming
administration and means working through a lot of bureaucratic steps to
re-establish the efficient running of an organisation. When finances are
frozen, as was the case with Money Brokers Limited in August this year (the
WikiLeaks account was closed because of "watchlisting" by the US after
publication of the Afghanistan documents) it resulted in many letters back
and forth, instructing a legal team to administer the situation and still to
date there has been no resolution. In just the last 14 days he has met with
more than 9 lawyers (excluding Swedish lawyers) in in defense of WikiLeaks'
publishing activities, agreements and sources. Similarly, Julian Assange is
subject to these sorts of attacks on a personal level.

He and WikiLeaks both have been attacked in the media by Leon Panetta,
Director of the CIA, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and highest ranking officer in the US and Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates not to mention the well recognized media personalities such as Marc A.
Thiessen, a former Bush administration chief speech writer and currently a
Washington Post columnist who wrote "Assange is a non-U.S. citizen operating
outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a
wide range of options for dealing with him." Christian Whiton, a Fox News
contributor, said "WikiLeaks should be declared 'enemy combatants',"
indicating they should be dealt with outside the law and Jonah Goldberg, a
conservative syndicated columnist asked "why wasn't Julian Assange garroted
in his hotel room years ago?"

Attacks such as these create an extreme need for security and he must always
be conscious and personally vigilant - a task that is both time consuming
and mentally exhausting. The major government players such as the CIA and
the Pentagon do not stop at just Julian but also target many WikiLeaks
volunteers or associates. Two volunteers and an American WikiLeaks
spokesperson have been detained and questioned in the United States along
with other individuals alleged to be participant to his publishing
activities such as Bradley Manning, an alleged source who is being held as a
political prisoner in the United States. Mr Manning's mother's house in
Wales was raided by the FBI together with local police earlier this year.

The result is a constant need for legal and political support and managing
this from afar and throughout many continents is no small task. Furthermore
Julian Assange does not take these matters lightly having been privy to bad
experiences in the past - while working on the extra judicial assassinations
taking place in Kenya, two WikiLeaks' affiliates being assassinated.

Since the false allegations made about him in Sweden this August Julian has
also needed to work extremely hard at ensuring the smear campaign launched
against him has not affected the WikiLeaks brand. Making many public
appearances and conducting interviews is absolutely necessary not to mention
maintaining relationships with media partners who are so easily affected by
such events.

In spite of the attacks against him, Wikileaks successfully released the
Iraq War Logs in late October - a cache of over 400 000 US military
intelligence reports relating to the war in Iraq. Due to the false
allegations mentioned above the management of this leak was extremely
difficult. However, he successfully made new lasting relationships and
expanded the media partners to include Al Jazeera, Le Monde, the Bureau of
Investigative Journalism, SVT and also brought in Public Interest Lawyers
and NGOs such as Iraq Body Count. The documents' release was increased to
television as well as print media with two full-length documentaries being
commissioned.

Julian Assange also readily offers to speak at many public events;
especially those he feels will have a resonating effect on people's rights
and liberties, ideals he holds close to his heart. Recently he presented at
the United Nations Universal Periodic Review against the United States in
Geneva where he offered up evidence from the Iraq War logs of the human
right abuses such as the 109 000 deaths, 185 000 casualties, 66 000 civilian
deaths and countless cases of torture conducted by America. The speech he
gave lasted over two hours alone and the preparation for such an event is
mammoth. During his stay in Geneva the Swiss government was so fearful for
his personal security that they offered two International Police and two
Swiss Police as his bodyguards for the duration, yet another indication of
the severity of the danger he encounters on a daily basis. In late September
he spoke in London for Index on Censorship regarding Security and censorship
in the age of WikiLeaks.

In the coming months Julian Assange aims to carry on the invaluable work and
service that WikiLeaks offers the public. In due course he intends on
providing information, as yet publically unknown. He has stifled many
illegal attacks and remains victorious on all legal attacks against
WikiLeaks.