Julian Assange, a Man Without a Country | Août 2017
...for the ’crime’ of journalism
▻http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/julian-assange-a-man-without-a-country
[...]
II
For some time, Assange has adopted the media habits of the powerful, restricting his appearances to brief, high-profile television interviews, conversations with friendly interlocutors, managed press events, and Twitter. On November 5th, days before the election, in a TV interview with one of his fiercest defenders, he declared, “We can say that the Russian government is not the source” of the election e-mails—a denial that did nothing to quell a growing suspicion, even among close supporters, that he was not being honest. “He says they’re not Russians,” one of them told me. “Well, he can’t know that. It could be his source was a front for the Russians. I think the truth is important, however it’s acquired, but if he knew it was the Russians, and didn’t declare it, that would be a problem for me.”
The problem was obvious. WikiLeaks, like many journalistic organizations, has long insisted on keeping its sources secret. However, Assange was not merely maintaining silence; he was actively pushing a narrative about his sourcing, in which Russia was not involved. He once told me, “WikiLeaks is providing a reference set to undeniably true information about the world.” But what if, in the interest of source protection, he was advancing a falsehood that was more significant than the reference set itself? Arguably, his election publications only underscored what was known about the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton. His denials, meanwhile, potentially obfuscated an act of information warfare between two nuclear-armed powers.
That the stakes were so high was a potent indication of the immense power that WikiLeaks has acquired since it was founded, in 2006. Assange projects an image of his organization as small and embattled—as if it had not changed much since the days when he and a few friends were the only people involved. But today, he told me, the WikiLeaks annual budget runs in the millions of dollars, supplied partly by donations that are funnelled through N.G.O.s. In 2016 alone, WikiLeaks raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors in the United States. “He has money in tax havens,” one colleague told me. “They have so much money in bitcoin it’s ridiculous—meanwhile, there are all these poor people who are chipping in money who feel like he is not getting enough support to eat.” In Assange’s view, the donations provide a level of editorial independence that few mainstream competitors have.
Assange has increasingly used the money to offer rewards for information: fifty thousand dollars for footage of a hospital bombed in Afghanistan; a hundred and twenty thousand for documents about international trade negotiations. When Trump implied that he had taped his White House meetings with James Comey, Assange tweeted, “WikiLeaks offers US $100K for the Trump-Comey tapes.” At one stroke, he appeared to endorse Trump’s bogus claim about the tapes and also implied that WikiLeaks was politically agnostic by seeking them. More significantly, he used the occasion to encourage supporters to donate, so that he could purchase the tapes—which, unsurprisingly, proved not to exist.
The idea that WikiLeaks has problems with accountability sends Assange into angry fits. “Look at all the accountability that is thrown at us!” he told me in the Embassy one evening, nodding at the walls to indicate hidden surveillance devices. “Every second of every day!” He cited the government scrutiny, and relentless journalists, always ready to pounce when he makes a misstep. Raising his voice, he said, “WikiLeaks is probably the most held-to-account organization on earth!”
[...]
via ▻https://diasp.eu/posts/5915092
#Assange #journalisme #Wikileaks #London #surveillance #bitcoin #Russie #Équateur #Suède
