Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Thinks Everyone’s Out To Get Him: Don’t Buy It
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange claims that Australian officials confiscated his passport. He added, ominously, that Australian police questioned him about his past. Was it payback for the time Wikileaks published a secret government? We call bullshit.
Since releasing a video of journalists being killed by US helicopters in Iraq, the tiny website has been lionised for embarrassing the world’s biggest military power. Now, Assange says that Wikileaks’ publishing of classified Australian documents has led to government intimidation. Assange told The Age that he was entering Australia at Melbourne Airport last week when officials confiscated his passport because “it was looking worn”. After 15 minutes, custom officials returned his passport and told him it was going to be cancelled. Thirty minutes later, police approached him and “searched one of his bags and asked him about his criminal record relating to computer hacking offences in 1991″.
Assange is clearly suggesting that Australian officials harassed him because of his work with Wikileaks, without ever saying it explicitly. (Last year, Wikileaks leaked a list of websites that might be blocked by a proposed national Internet filter.) And Wikileaks biggest cheerleader, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, sees this episode as “a reminder that one can’t run around exposing the secrets of the most powerful governments, militaries and corporations in the world without consequences.”
We’re highly sceptical. Assange has a long history of making vague conspiratorial claims of harassment that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Here are just three we know of:
Icelandic spying
Earlier this year, a few weeks before publishing their Iraq helicopter video, Wikileaks tweeted that they were “under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance operation”, including “following/photographing/filming/detaining”. The most impressive claim was that a Wikileaks volunteer had been detained by Icelandic police for 20 hours and questioned about Wikileaks activity. But Assange later backed off this claim: It turned out that the Icelandic police were actually questioning the guy because they thought he stole a laptop from Wikileaks. If anyone was out to get the organisation, it was this sticky-fingered volunteer. The other evidence Wikileaks claimed to have was pretty weak: airline records that showed two State Department employees were on the same flight as Assange to a conference in Norway. (“We have airline records of the State Dep/CIA tails. Don’t think you can get away with it. You cannot. This is Wikileaks.”) Couldn’t they have just been going to Norway?
Facebook group deletion
Last month, Wikileaks claimed that Facebook deleted their fan page. They tweeted: “WikiLeaks facebook page dleted together with 30,000 fans… boiler plate response includes “…promotes illegal acts..” Here again, Assange (or whoever runs Wikileaks’ Twitter) makes the claim vague enough that it’s not exactly claiming Facebook deleted their group because of its “illegal acts” – but he makes it very, very easy to come to the conclusion it did. But there was not Facebook conspiracy: A spokesman told us they had shut down the page because it wasn’t run by an official Wikileaks representative; a couple days later Facebook set up a new page for Wikileaks and migrated all of their fans.
Kenyan “assassination attempt”
Assange has repeatedly claimed that a group of six gunman invaded his home in Kenya and tried to kill him as payback for Wikileaks’ role in exposing government-sponsored killings there. However, Assange only paints the incident with the barest of details, and those he provides suggests that it might very well have been a robbery as any shadowy attempt on his life: For example, the gunmen were scared away by a single guard. Some assassins.
These past incidents – and the fact that Wikileaks gains great publicity every time it claims to be the victim of conspiracy – suggest we should take Assange’s passport confiscation claim with an enormous grain of salt. The Age reports that “passports are routinely taken from travellers for short periods by immigration officials if they are damaged”. So, if Assange’s passport is actually damaged (which would be unsurprising, given his globe-trotting) a 15-minute confiscation would be nothing unusual. The police questioning also is no surprise: What’s more surprising would be if they didn’t apply extra scrutiny to someone with a criminal record. But throw in a mention of Wikileaks’ antagonism of the Australian government, and you’ve got the image of some Stasi henchmen trying to silence a radical dissident. The Australian case seems to fit the model Assange favours: Take an innocuous event, pair it with the ominous spectre of governmental payback, and let people come to the conclusion you want them to.
Wikileaks’ helicopter video was criticised for leaving out the larger context surrounding the killings it showed. Like that video, the sleight-of-hand Assange uses to cook up conspiracies shows that sometimes what matters more than the bare facts is how they’re presented.
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Comments
Jealous?
You make some valid points in this short piece. If the Wikileaks mob are a little paranoid, I believe they have good reason. Do you really believe western governments to be as benign as your article suggests? If not then surely you can imagine that operating Wikileaks could be a risky pursuit.
The tone feels a little spiteful. Are you perhaps jealous of the work being done by Julian and the other people behind Wikileaks?
They do make ‘Defamer’ seem trivial.
I’m only a broken-down retired cab driver; so I certainly don’t gravitate in the sureal atmosphere our converstation concerns. But over the years I’ve had quite a lot to do with the ‘officials’ that infest the halls of power. And they’re Australian. Self-righteous, arrogant and bloody-minded.
When people secure some measure of power they want to taste, touch and feel just how aphrodisiac-like this power is.
Being 60; I can only say nuthin’s changed since I started reading books like, Plausible Denial and All the President’s Men. The Watergate fiasco.
And I remember when the National Times was published in Australia. They actually employed journalists that possessed courage instead of a universiy degree. The pathetic, “I don’t want to offend anyone with the truth; I might lose my access. These days journalism is about the writer/presenter and their ego.
It was Henry Kissinger that apparently said that, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And there will always be plenty of players looking for a Viagra substitute…and power is the go apparently. Kissinger would know!
By the way. What’s Mendax’s address, I want send the young bloke some chicken and champagne.
…Apparently the ‘Wikileaks’ Helicopter video’ to which you refer has been criticized for leaving out the “larger context” concerning the actual event. This is of course distinct from any criticism which you direct toward the footage yourself. I must admit when I was watching the video I was left unawares as to the ‘larger context’, I took the unusual step of looking under my bed unfortunately it wasn’t there. Having watched the video I am aware that at the time the Apache helicopter is circling the men there is ‘no unit’ available east of the Apache’s location, I suspect this may have been some of the criticisms of the video concerning larger context…although I notice this is featured in the actual footage. What I did see was a helicopter circling several men, some have rifles in clear view….so perhaps this was the larger context for which we are left longing for. I also hear the correspondence between either 2 Apache helicopters or 1 Apache helicopter and command. Further into the footage I see this same circle of men being ripped apart from gunfire from the Apache. I also see several of these men running for their lives too. Fortunately the video does provide some context though, but this is still to come. Next a black van arrives, perhaps it has arrived to drop off our much needed context. Sadly this is not the case as the van has come to collect the body of a man now riddled with bullets and left on the street. The next bit of footage is choc full of context as the pilot of the helicopter is given permission to engage, he engages the guys from the van who we thought were there to provide context. The van is blown to smithereens.
Question? Exactly what context are we missing here? Definitely not featured in Wiki’s footage is the explanation provided by an American serviceman who attended the aftermath of the event and explains there was a firefight some distance from the area where the Apache was patrolling. Ah ha, perhaps we have now found our missing ‘larger context’!! Do we now have enough context? Is this context ‘large’ enough to fully grasp all that we can see? Here’s what I see. I see a group of men being cut to shreads by a flying death machine. Shortly thereafter I see a van and some more men being torn to shreads from the same Apache gunfire. I don’t know if there is enough ‘context’ or context of a size ‘large’ enough to justify these actions. So I’ll be buggered if I know what larger context I’m missing with this one.
Now, here’s the point guys. Irrespective of whether the criticisms of the Wiki video are yours, you have chosen to make the link between this video and an opinion which you hold that Assange/Wikileaks has more a preoccupation with presentation than it does accuracy or ‘bare facts’…. Like that video, the sleight-of-hand Assange uses to cook up conspiracies shows that sometimes what matters more than the bare facts is how they’re presented. You explicitly refer to this video, albeit in criticisms from an unknown source and proceed to call into question the accuracy/honesty of the footage we see in this video. Perhaps this was unintended but regardless this is the message being conveyed in your choice to link these 2 ideas together within the one piece of *writing*. So from the presentation of this video what exactly isn’t accurate…in your opinion? More specifically is the footage something you’ve actually seen?
So here’s my thoughts. Firstly your article is a pretty shitty piece of writing. Second, in this instantaneous age where the expectation that all things be responded to in the shortest time frame possible it’s very very easy for some douche with a passing interest in journalism or *writing* to punch out poorly conceived and thoughtless pieces of crap like this. Unfortunately the advent of the internet and *blogging* has now made it possible for many in their 2nd year of journalism to whip shit like this from the comforts of their bedroom prior to pulling up the Dora the Explorer bedsheets for the night and going nigh nigh. So in short, I don’t rate this *article*. I don’t rate your website. Your website and your poorly conceived articles utter shite.
Yours sincerely
Scot.
Amazing comment, Scot. Here here!
Though I’m a fan of the other sites in the Allure Media family, Defamer is something I’ll never return to.
why is this web sight ,attacking a proponent of free speech who helped uncover a mass murder ,
when sbs exposed a similar insolent , there was no out cry but a investigation by the US military ,and the Austra;ian sereats was the black list of web pages ,thanks to the nazi’s stylings of a loonatc ,elected goverment offical
I agree with Scott. Adrian Chen the author of this rather moronic piece of writing needs to sit down, ask his mum for some hot cocoa and then get put back to bed. When he gets older, say by about 18 years, then maybe he can finally write an article that is balanced and fair.
Fair suck of the sauce bottle mate.
David
Assange may well be over-sensitive about who is out to get him, and there may be some “false positives” in his assessment. On the other hand compare that to how many false positives our governments make in there rampaging around the world and destroying millions of innocent lives, and be thankful Assange and Wikileaks are doing their part to expose this, in the face of naked and almost unrestrained power. You can show some guts. Try doing the same, and see if you don’t look back over your shoulder, and notice a few more suspicious characters and events than does the average citizen. Yes, we all can see that Assange might be reacting too strongly in some instances. Wanna bet they get him in the end! That is what is certain, and that is what you entirely neglect to consider.
A lot of love for wikileaks here, did any of you donate? I hear Julian is getting closer to his $5 million goal.
That article looks pretty silly now eh.
It is a matter of satisfaction that Mr. Jullian Assange and his visionar and daring team well done to expose the rulers of almost all countries especially the USA . Abraham Lincoln`s USA against slavery is now acting as the dictatorial power of the universe . The day before yesterday a descendant lady of the last Mughal emperor Badshah Bahadur Shah Zafar visited the Golden Temple , Amritsar , Punjab , India ( http://www.sikhsangat.org/2010/12/mughal-emperor-zafars-descendant-to-visit-pak-sikh-shrines-to-seek-forgiveness/ ) to pay obeisance and for ” to atone for the sins of her ancestors .”
I appreciate Mr. Assange and his team who exposed the USA after those press reporters who unearthened the Water Gate Scandal . We severly condemn the USA and its stooge countries who want to crush the voice against the injustice but at last our voice Mr. Assange and his team will won . Wish them good luck for ever in the common cause . Long live Mr. Assange and his team !