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    Default WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    LONDON — Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian restaurant in London’s rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears.

    He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own as other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends.

    “By being determined to be on this path, and not to compromise, I’ve wound up in an extraordinary situation,” Mr. Assange said over lunch last Sunday, when he arrived sporting a woolen beanie and a wispy stubble and trailing a youthful entourage that included a filmmaker assigned to document any unpleasant surprises.

    In his remarkable journey to notoriety, Mr. Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowers’ Web site, sees the next few weeks as his most hazardous. Now he is making his most brazen disclosure yet: 391,832 secret documents on the Iraq war. He held a news conference in London on Saturday, saying that the release “constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any war ever to have entered the public record.”

    Twelve weeks earlier, he posted on his organization’s Web site some 77,000 classified Pentagon documents on the Afghan conflict.

    Much has changed since 2006, when Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, used years of computer hacking and what friends call a near genius I.Q. to establish WikiLeaks, redefining whistle-blowing by gathering secrets in bulk, storing them beyond the reach of governments and others determined to retrieve them, then releasing them instantly, and globally.

    Now it is not just governments that denounce him: some of his own comrades are abandoning him for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and a nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood.

    Several WikiLeaks colleagues say he alone decided to release the Afghan documents without removing the names of Afghan intelligence sources for NATO troops. “We were very, very upset with that, and with the way he spoke about it afterwards,” said Birgitta Jonsdottir, a core WikiLeaks volunteer and a member of Iceland’s Parliament. “If he could just focus on the important things he does, it would be better.”

    He is also being investigated in connection with accusations of rape and molestation involving two Swedish women. Mr. Assange denied the allegations, saying the relations were consensual. But prosecutors in Sweden have yet to formally approve charges or dismiss the case eight weeks after the complaints against Mr. Assange were filed, damaging his quest for a secure base for himself and WikiLeaks. Though he characterizes the claims as “a smear campaign,” the scandal has compounded the pressures of his cloaked life.

    “When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book, the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more stressful than you would like,” he said over the London lunch.

    Exposing Secrets

    Mr. Assange has come a long way from an unsettled childhood in Australia as a self-acknowledged social misfit who narrowly avoided prison after being convicted on 25 charges of computer hacking in 1995. History is punctuated by spies, defectors and others who revealed the most inflammatory secrets of their age. Mr. Assange has become that figure for the Internet era, with as yet unreckoned consequences for himself and for the keepers of the world’s secrets.

    “I’ve been waiting 40 years for someone to disclose information on a scale that might really make a difference,” said Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed a 1,000-page secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

    Mr. Ellsberg said he saw kindred spirits in Mr. Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old former Army intelligence operative under detention in Quantico, Va., suspected of leaking the Iraq and Afghan documents.

    “They were willing to go to prison for life, or be executed, to put out this information,” Mr. Ellsberg said.

    Underlying Mr. Assange’s anxieties is deep uncertainty about what the United States and its allies may do next. Pentagon and Justice department officials have said they are weighing his actions under the 1917 Espionage Act. They have demanded that Mr. Assange “return” all government documents in his possession, undertake not to publish any new ones and not “solicit” further American materials.

    Mr. Assange has responded by going on the run, but has found no refuge. Amid the Afghan documents controversy, he flew to Sweden, seeking a residence permit and protection under that country’s broad press freedoms. His initial welcome was euphoric.

    “They called me the James Bond of journalism,” he recalled wryly. “It got me a lot of fans, and some of them ended up causing me a bit of trouble.”

    In late September, he left Stockholm for Berlin. A bag he checked on the almost empty flight disappeared, with three encrypted laptops. It has not resurfaced; Mr. Assange suspects it was intercepted. From Germany, he traveled to London, wary at being detained on arrival. Iceland, a country with generous press freedoms, has also lost its appeal, with Mr. Assange concluding that its government is too easily influenced by Washington.

    He faces attack from within, too.

    After the Sweden scandal, strains within WikiLeaks reached a breaking point, with some of Mr. Assange’s closest collaborators publicly defecting. The New York Times spoke with dozens of people who have worked with and supported him in Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the United States. What emerged was a picture of the founder of WikiLeaks as its prime innovator and charismatic force but as someone whose growing celebrity has been matched by an increasingly dictatorial, eccentric and capricious style.

    Internal Turmoil

    Effectively, as Mr. Assange pursues his fugitive’s life, his leadership is enforced over the Internet. Even remotely, his style is imperious. When Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old political activist in Iceland, questioned Mr. Assange’s judgment over a number of issues in an online exchange last month, Mr. Assange was uncompromising. “I don’t like your tone,” he said, according to a transcript. “If it continues, you’re out.”

    Mr. Assange cast himself as indispensable. “I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest,” he said. “If you have a problem with me,” he told Mr. Snorrason, using an expletive, he should quit.

    In an interview about the exchange, Mr. Snorrason’s conclusion was stark. “He is not in his right mind,” he said. In London, Mr. Assange was dismissive of all those who have criticized him. “These are not consequential people,” he said.

    “About a dozen” disillusioned volunteers have left recently, said Smari McCarthy, an Icelandic volunteer who has distanced himself in the recent turmoil. In late summer, Mr. Assange suspended Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a German who had been the WikiLeaks spokesman under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt, accusing him of unspecified “bad behavior.” Many more activists, Mr. McCarthy said, are likely to follow.

    Mr. Assange denied that any important volunteers had quit, apart from Mr. Domscheit-Berg. But further defections could paralyze an organization that Mr. Assange says has 40 core volunteers and about 800 mostly unpaid followers to maintain a diffuse web of computer servers and to secure the system against attack — to guard against the kind of infiltration that WikiLeaks itself has used to generate its revelations.

    Mr. Assange’s detractors also accuse him of pursuing a vendetta against the United States. In London, Mr. Assange said America was an increasingly militarized society and a threat to democracy. Moreover, he said, “we have been attacked by the United States, so we are forced into a position where we must defend ourselves.”

    Even among those challenging Mr. Assange’s leadership style, there is recognition that the intricate computer and financial architecture WikiLeaks uses to shield it against its enemies has depended on its founder. “He’s very unique and extremely capable,” said Ms. Jonsdottir, the Icelandic lawmaker.

    A Rash of Scoops

    Before posting the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq, WikiLeaks enjoyed a string of coups.

    Supporters were thrilled when the organization posted documents on the Guantánamo Bay detention operation, Sarah Palin’s e-mail, reports of extrajudicial killings in Kenya and East Timor, the membership rolls of the neo-Nazi British National Party and a combat video showing American Apache helicopters in Baghdad in 2007 gunning down at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists.

    But now, WikiLeaks has been met with new doubts. Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have joined the Pentagon in criticizing the organization for risking people’s lives by publishing war logs identifying Afghans working for the Americans or acting as informers.

    A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan using the pseudonym Zabiullah Mujahid said in a telephone interview that the Taliban had formed a nine-member “commission” after the Afghan documents were posted “to find about people who are spying.” He said the Taliban had a “wanted” list of 1,800 Afghans and was comparing that with names WikiLeaks provided.

    “After the process is completed, our Taliban court will decide about such people,” he said.

    Mr. Assange defended posting unredacted documents, saying he balanced his decision “with the knowledge of the tremendous good and prevention of harm that is caused” by putting the information into the public domain. “There are no easy choices on the table for this organization,” he said.

    But if Mr. Assange is sustained by his sense of mission, faith is fading among his fellow conspirators. His mood was caught vividly in an exchange on Sept. 20 with another senior WikiLeaks figure. In an encrypted online chat, a transcript of which was passed to The Times, Mr. Assange was dismissive of his colleagues. He described them as “a confederacy of fools,” and asked his interlocutor, “Am I dealing with a complete retard?”

    In London, Mr. Assange was angered when asked about the rifts. He responded testily to questions about WikiLeaks’s opaque finances, Private Manning’s fate and WikiLeaks’s apparent lack of accountability to anybody but himself, calling the questions “cretinous,” “facile” and reminiscent of “kindergarten.”

    Mr. Assange has been equivocal about Private Manning, talking in late summer as though the soldier was unavoidable collateral damage, much like the Afghans named as informers in the secret Pentagon documents.

    But in London, he took a more sympathetic view, describing Private Manning as a “political prisoner” facing a jail term of up to 52 years, without confirming that he was the source of the disclosed war logs. “We have a duty to assist Mr. Manning and other people who are facing legal and other consequences,” Mr. Assange said.

    Mr. Assange’s own fate seems as imperiled as Private Manning’s. His British visa will expire early next year. When he left the London restaurant at twilight, heading into the shadows, he declined to say where he was going. The man who has put some of the world’s most powerful institutions on his watch list was on the move again.

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Celine, I have a spooky feeling about what Wikileaks is currently doing. I don't really know anything factual but I don't like the way it's putting "the menace of the internet" into the minds of millions of 'patriotic' but not well informed people.

    It all fits perfectly into the timing of the obvious campaign that's up and running to get the internet nobbled "in the interest of security".
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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Agreed...s
    Legislating the web..is definetly a goal of the PTB's

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    YAWN YAWN!

    Could somebody please get a good grip of reality Here

    There is just NO WAY that anyone gets to gallivant around the Globe these days without being "OK" with TPTB.

    Maybe Jullian is being groomed for a jolly good slotting with a 7.62mm in some future time but for now the "Highly Encrypted Cell phone swapping PANTOMIME" can go on entirely unabbatted.

    Lets try and be a little bit jaded with the awesome predicament of those heroes that are forcefed to us by our feeders please.

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Quote It all fits perfectly into the timing of the obvious campaign that's up and running to get the internet nobbled "in the interest of security".
    Curiously, not one single public servant working for the US Govt, top to bottom takes an oath to keep anyone 'secure'.

    The whole notion is a load of crap, foisted upon those who want to be led.

    UKIPster;
    Should then Bill Ryan cease his "global gallivanting ways, as well?
    Fred

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Why not now?

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    I expect more a Regionalisation of the Web.
    The economy is to serve the people, not the people to serve the economy -- Manfred Max-Neef

    An Old Spanish proverb that says “civilization and anarchy are only seven meals apart''.

    Un Vieux proverbe Espagnol qui dit ''la civilisation et l'anarchie ne sont qu'à 7 repas d'écart''.

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Could this not be the latest distraction technique to have us looking in the wrong direction, yet again...
    Love. peace and Blessings to you all.

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Interesting point Ammit.

    You mean the story of the "legislating" of the web? or the wiki "God" on the run

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Bill does a very good job with the resources available to him.

    Those who can gallivant should do so.

    If the hat fits wear it.

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    well now they've taken the released documents as a confirmation Iran has been attacking Americans in Iraq...

    This was just a quiet way of letting us all know they already have justification to attack Iran...

    thanks Wiki...

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    I meant the wiki leak, seems too I dont know, deliberate with the vast amount of details that were released....
    Love. peace and Blessings to you all.

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    In many countries, when Assange said that there was no conspiracy on 911 and that the official report is good, he has lost a lot of traction in the word and mostly hi credibility.
    The economy is to serve the people, not the people to serve the economy -- Manfred Max-Neef

    An Old Spanish proverb that says “civilization and anarchy are only seven meals apart''.

    Un Vieux proverbe Espagnol qui dit ''la civilisation et l'anarchie ne sont qu'à 7 repas d'écart''.

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Quote Posted by Snowy Owl (here)
    In many countries, when Assange said that there was no conspiracy on 911 and that the official report is good, he has lost a lot of traction in the word and mostly hi credibility.

    There might be more to the 911 conspiracy denial than meets the eye here.If Wiki/Assange endorses the 911 conspiracy then the mainstream will denounce him as a conspiracy nut with no credibility.Stay tuned...

    They have already taken out an insurance policy.Why ? There are probably more important leaks to be released.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08...aks_insurance/

    http://minivannews.com/news-in-brief...ance-file-9956

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Quote Posted by ponda (here)

    .....Stay tuned...

    They have already taken out an insurance policy.Why ? There are probably more important leaks to be released.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08...aks_insurance/

    http://minivannews.com/news-in-brief...ance-file-9956

    OK, I'm tuned.

    Still very sceptical though. I can't help thinking that the one thing the establishment needed BAAAD!.... was a WALMART of leaks and info.


    EDIT: They've got a LOT of product to shift, and they intend to USE it!, to their advantage.
    Last edited by norman; 26th October 2010 at 23:49. Reason: a thought
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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    That article is 2 months old is there something else coming?

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    Default Re: WikiLeaks Founder on the Run

    Quote Posted by norman (here)
    OK, I'm tuned.

    Still very sceptical though. I can't help thinking that the one thing the establishment needed BAAAD!.... was a WALMART of leaks and info.


    EDIT: They've got a LOT of product to shift, and they intend to USE it!, to their advantage.
    Wellllll maybe

    Time will tell.Things might be a little bit clearer with the benefit of hindsight.I feel that there is a lot more important info to come out in the not too distant future and yes i suspect the establishment will be heavily involved but possibly not in the way that you insinuate.

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