WIKILEAKS, ASSANGE AND JUSTICE

Julian Assange (the hunched-over man with white beard) forcibly arrested after being evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in April, 2019. Assange jumped bail and sought asylum after he was ordered extradited to Sweden on sex charges. (Courtesy CNN.)

WikiLeaks is a secretive organization, best described as a journalistic whistle- blowing resource. Wikileaks collected secret, confidential and classified documents surreptitiously obtained from governments throughout the world, and released them directly, or through the media. Wikileaks’ goals were to make the people aware of what world leaders think and say when the rest of the world can’t hear. WikiLeaks maintained a website, and securely stored documents they received. Wikileaks issued periodic pronouncements about the documents. Wikileaks saw themselves primarily as a service providing information to the media, as in their most well-known action, the November, 2010 release of U.S. diplomatic cables.

Julian Assange is the public face of WikiLeaks. He found financial backers, internet servers, technicians and political support, and most important, sources who provided the documents. The stated goals of Wikileaks and Assange have been presented as altruistic and non-political; they believe the world has the absolute right to know everything any government knows. They view secrecy as a threat to freedom and democracy, while full disclosure affords the world’s citizenry the opportunity to right wrongs or prevent them from ever occurring.

First, it’s necessary to understand how Assange wound up fighting extradition to both…