Julian Assange is the Editor-in-Chief of the whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks. Yesterday, news have it that the 39-year-old Australian journalist was arrested by the UK police after voluntarily submitting himself. He is held in custody on remand without bail in Wandsworth prison in London.
The man believes The News editor Rupert Murdoch when he wrote in 1958: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
WikiLeaks was born in Australia in 2006. Assange wants to use the Internet to reveal the truth.
The whistle-blowing site invented the words "scientific journalism" that allows people to read news, click online to verify the contents from where it came from. In that way, one can judge if the story were true and accurate.
According to Assange, "Democratic societies need strong media and Wikileaks is part of that media."
The man arrested for questionable rape adds, "The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption."
Assange says that he is not anti-war as others say he is. He believes that there are times nations need to go to war--the just wars.
He stresses, "There is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies."
Assange adds, "If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it."
People should know that WikiLeaks is not the sole publisher of the US embassy cables. Four other big media outlets have published the same cables such as the UK's The Guardian, The New York Times, Spain's El Pais, and Germany's Der Spiegel.
But it is WikiLeaks that the US government is chasing after. With its four-year history of publication, it is the youngest among the five media outlets that can easily be pinned down.
Assange further laments on the following issues:
1. He is being accused of treason by the US government. Again, Assange is Australian citizen. He is not American.
2. The American government wants him extradited to the US.
3. Sarah Palin wants the Australian journalist to be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden".
4. The US Senate wants to declare Assange as a "transnational threat" and be disposed of.
5. A Canadian Prime Minister former aide has called on national TV for his assassination. (The former Canadian PM adviser has apologized for this already.-Mine)
6. An American blogger has called for Assange's 20-year-old son in Australia to be kidnapped and harmed in order to get him.
The WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief also regrets that the Australian government is not supportive of him and WikiLeaks, and instead, follows the US instructions of cancelling his passport or harass WikiLeaks supporters. (Yesterday, news say that the Australian government gave their support to Assange and accused the US of being responsible of their own cable.-Mine)
At this time, WikiLeaks has leaked the following startling facts.
1. "The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, Internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too."
2. "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran."
3. "Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available."
4. "Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect 'US interests'."
5. "Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament."
6. "The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees."
According to news, WikiLeaks says that it will still continue leaking information without its front man, Assange. It's next target was reported to be the US banks.
To this date, its major financial sources--Paypal, Amazon, credit cards--have been cut.
Servers are continually cutting it but WikiLeaks still manage to stay online through over a thousand mirror sites.
Julian Assange is on top of TIME Magazine's poll for Person of the Year.
There you have it folks. The man of the hour, Julian Assange.
Click here to read his entire article.
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