Julian Assange - WikiLeaks (16 page)

As a result, the site published a list of webpages blocked by the Australian government in March and the Italian government in June. These ‘black lists' were supposed to act against pornography,
pedophilia and extreme violence. Placing this information online however, revealed that a number of these links didn't match the criteria and even included leaks from WikiLeaks. Once again a wave of protests hid the activist message of the organization: the action of exposing these forbidden links was labeled scandalous by Australian child protection agencies.

In November 2009, the site weathered Thai censorship by putting a video of the decadent birthday party in the honor of the crown prince's dog online. It showed the prince at a table with a naked woman, surrounded by the luxurious decor of the villa and his swimming pool. It did nothing to improve the image of this future head of State. The video was published to fight a regime that eliminated any criticism of the royal family using laws of lèse-majesté.

Also in November 2009, the publication of some 561,300 text messages sent on September 11, 2001 was again misinterpreted. WikiLeaks published this information as a witness to history. It didn't reveal anything new, nor did it have any journalistic objectives, and so was seen as voyeurism. However, Julian pointed out that not a single family complained about it.

In 2010, WikiLeaks became notorious for the release of a series of documents related to the world's biggest superpower.

In March of 2010, the leak of a CIA report showed how the American government could better manipulate public opinion in Germany and France so that these countries would continue to fight in Afghanistan. The idea was to use empathy, particularly in France, on the condition of Afghan women as a motivation to go to war. The report stated that President Obama had to make use of his aura in these countries to sell the war. At the time, Glenn Greenwald of salon.com talked to Julian who declared:
“If you want to improve civilization, you have to remove some of the basic constraints, which is the quality of information that civilization has at its disposal to make decisions. Of course, there's a personal psychology to it, that I enjoy crushing bastards, I like a good challenge, so do a lot of the other people involved in WikiLeaks. We like the challenge.”

The challenge is the new policy of the organization. They had to hit hard, come out of anonymity and get people to talk about them or else the WikiLeaks team risked being stopped in their tracks without any one paying attention. In fact, WikiLeaks had real reasons to be worried.

In March 2010, the site released a report on the US Department of Counterintelligence Analysis, dating back to 2008, concerning WikiLeaks. It stated fears, risks, a detailed analysis of leaks and declarations. In a chapter entitled ‘Is this freedom of expression or illegal expression?' the report mentioned that in some countries, illegality didn't only result in the delivery of the information to the site, but also in consulting it. It also stated that the governments of China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam and Zimbabwe had already sought to block or at least hinder access to the site. It lists revelations credited to WikiLeaks. Apparently, according to Glenn Greenwald, WikiLeaks had other similar reports yet unpublished: information of the US Navy or an analysis of US forces based in Germany.

The monitoring of WikiLeaks' activities started the day it went live. The clashes between WikiLeaks and the American government were many and they would continue to have consequences. It was at that moment that the debate arose: go back or go even further than before to search for and expose the truth. All of this had fed Julian's determination to continue his quest. He then decided
to branch out his battlefield: crushing conspiracies, stimulating freedom of information, shaking up citizens and fighting against injustice.

To properly carry out these challenges, he had to improve WikiLeaks' visibility all the while protecting it by declaring himself a journalist. To do so, he had to stand out more often in the mainstream press and collaborate with high-caliber journalists.

When he received unbelievably damning images in the spring of 2010, he saw an opportunity for WikiLeaks to achieve its world mission. He decided to edit the images as a film and broadcast them on an Internet site created for the occasion. He put everything in place for major media coverage. He launched the film during a press conference in Washington. He let
New Yorker
journalist Raffi Khatchadourian follow the team when they were editing the video. The article, telling a brief history of Julian and WikiLeaks, became a reference to many people. Khatchadourian reports in many details, with dialogues, the editing of what was later known as
Project B
.

Two cars drove slowly through the colorful city of Reykjavik. They turned onto Grettisgata and parked in a lovely street that sloped down to the sea. Even though it was springtime, it was still snowing near the North Atlantic. A couple of men stepped out of their cars to take a moment to admire the view over the cliff. On that day, March 30 2010, the whistleblowers were walking silently in the northern wind. They calmly approached a small white century-old house.

Julian separated from the group and rang the doorbell to announce himself to the owner of the place. It was time to put on a show.

“Hello, we're journalists and we've come to write about the Eyjafjallajökull volcano that has just recently started erupting.”

Once the rental transactions were dealt with, the owner quickly went away, seeing that these people weren't very talkative. As soon as the man left, Julian quickly closed the drapes. The house, now locked day and night, had become the war room. A dozen computers were quickly installed in the starkly decorated living room.

Shortly after, Icelandic activists showed up. They started working right away, more or less led by Julian. They almost all
knew what they had to do. A war against time had started, and it was called
Project B
.

Project B
was the code name Julian had given the thirty-eight-minute video shot in 2007 from an Apache helicopter cockpit in Iraq.

The news of this video was as if a bomb had been dropped within the ranks of WikiLeaks. Aside from human error, the images of the American soldier opening fire on eighteen people in the streets of Baghdad were a highly guarded military secret at the highest level of government. They flagrantly represented today's wars, which were as ambiguous and cruel as ever. Thanks to these images, Julian and his team hoped to rekindle the global debate on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Two Reuters' journalists died along with Iraqi citizens during this terrible blunder. Reuters had been trying for three years to get a hold of the video from the army through the Freedom of Information Act of 1966, which obliged federal agencies to hand over their documents to anyone asking for it, regardless of their nationality. To this day, the news agency has not been able to obtain the compromising images from the American army. And today, the virtual denouncers of wrongdoing have the means to lift the veil on this secret dictatorship, with the natural support of journalists.

It was up to Julian to make his move at the right moment. Mastermind of the WikiLeaks movement, he planned to unveil the images before a group of reporters did at the National Press Club on April 5, 2010 in Washington.

To achieve the desired effect, Julian and the WikiLeaks volunteers had to analyze the raw footage, make a quick edit, create a website to broadcast it, prepare documentation and launch a media campaign about the film, all in less than a week.
The atmosphere was almost religious, as everyone understood the impact this film would have. They wouldn't get much sleep.

Julian was sitting at a small table, dressed in a snowsuit. Even though he had been working for hours in a heated house, he was still wearing it. Rop Gonggrijp, sitting in front of him, glanced over at him kindly. Julian could stay focused for hours without being bothered to sleep, barely eating or drinking. Ever since Julian noticed he was being followed, Rop had become his unofficial manager. If Julian's fear of surveillance increased, it would contaminate the others. WikiLeaks was a hive full of individuals and everyone had their limits. Even Julian.

This was why Rop's role was crucial: he had known Julian for many years, and was immediately alerted when they received the images. Julian didn't reveal the source of the document classified as a ‘defense secret,' simply saying that the video came from someone who was not pleased with this attack. The images were encrypted and it took Julian three months to crack a code he believes was moderately difficult. His cryptography skills are exceptional: every code was a challenge for him, like a battle with its maker. He could spend hours and even days on it. He lived in the IT world.

Rop quickly noticed that Julian was spreading himself thin and decided to do something sensible for him. He fronted 10,000 euro to WikiLeaks in order to finance operations. He became the treasurer of
Project B
; he took care of everybody's schedule and made sure the kitchen was well stocked.

Around 3 p.m., Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir showed up. A woman in her forties, she had long brown hair and bangs, and she was dressed in black. She pulled out a WikiLeaks T-shirt from her handbag and threw it to Julian.

“Here, it's for you, you could use a change of clothes!”

Julian caught the T-shirt, put it on the back of the chair and continued working. He was typing on one of the only computers not connected to the Internet; it actually contained a lot of information they needed to keep for themselves until they went live on the site. Birgitta took out her computer and asked Julian how he intended to delegate the work on
Project B
.

“Someone should contact Google to make sure that YouTube is OK with hosting the film.”

“Isn't making sure caving under pressure?” she asked smiling.

“They have rules when it comes to gratuitous violence,” Julian answered. “In this case, the violence is not gratuitous, but nevertheless, they could consider it that way. It's too important to have to deal with this kind of problem when we go live.”

Birgitta was unemployed before becoming a parliamentarian. She considered herself an artist, poet and activist. Her political opinions were mostly anarchistic ones. As a blogger and Internet pioneer, she proposed a bill this year to turn Iceland into a freedom of the press haven, with the goal of achieving total transparency and allowing journalists to reveal to the world the state of society. She joined the WikiLeaks movement in a heartbeat.

“What can I ask N to do?”

Totally engrossed in what he was doing, Julian didn't answer.

His phone rang, he answered with his deep voice and spoke slowly. The Icelandic police were on the other end. Julian tried to find out more about what happened a few days earlier.

A young volunteer of WikiLeaks Iceland was caught entering into the system of a plant where his father worked. He was stopped by the police and taken into custody. The police then interrogated him at length about
Project B
. The young man was seen on a picture in front of a restaurant in the company of
Julian and other supporters. That day, Julian and his team were actually preparing the operation of
Project B
in the restaurant that had placed a private room at WikiLeaks' disposal for the meeting. The reasons why the young man tried to break into the factory's system were not very clear. Julian liked to understand things, and he had a bad feeling about this. On March 26, 2010, he wrote a heated e-mail, telling the story of the young man held for more than twenty hours by the police. The subject line read: “Something is rotten in the state of Iceland.”

Julian hung up.

“Our young friend talked to the cops. I was about to get some details, but my battery died!”

He smiled and went to plug his phone in.

“We're all paranoid schizophrenics,” said Birgitta watching Julian walk away. “Look how he's dressed.”

Julian had not yet taken off his snowsuit. Rop abruptly got up and headed toward the window. He slowly pulled back the drapes and took a good long look outside.

“Someone there?” Birgitta asked.

“Just the reporters' truck,” he said. “Ready to corrupt minds,” he added sarcastically.

He shrugged his shoulders and let go of the drapes. The others hadn't budged. It was their daily fate to be followed by the media and suspected by the police. Some people had already had to abandon the movement or get involved differently for fear of reprisals. The choice had to be made every day. Spend a quiet life hidden away or work to show the world as it really was. And for what?

Everyone had his or her own answer and there was nothing to discuss. If you were there, you work for the cause, that was it.
Julian was so sure of himself that he incited others to concentrate on the action.

Before viewing the video of the Apache helicopter for the first time, he prepared everyone for a shock. He knew that this film was crucial to WikiLeaks members and that it was impossible not to be one hundred per cent committed after having seen it.

Everyone gathered in front of the computer to view the film.

Julian fired up the video, but quickly paused it to explain something.

“In this video, you'll see a certain number of people getting killed. The film has three parts. In the first part, you'll see an attack based on a terribly misguided error. In the second part, the error clearly turns into murder if looked at through the eyes of an average person. And in the third part, you can see the killing of many innocent civilians who became legitimate targets in the soldiers' operation.”

To the extent that WikiLeaks published all its material sources, Julian felt that they were free to make their own analysis.

“This video shows what modern wars have become, and I think that after having seen this, people will better understand what it means when they hear about other cases of closed air support battles.”