Story by Scott

You know, it astounds me that it was more than six months ago that I sent a piece about young Julian Assange and Wikileaks into the Pigs Arms. It literally seems like yesterday that he and they came to prominence – probably the fact that there is a story about them in some press, somewhere, nearly everyday keeps it seeming that way.

Since then I’ve learnt some things about Julian A and Wikileaks; some of them are probably true but it’s difficult to know which ones. He has been to Sweden; I’m sure that much is true. He is staying in England at the moment; again this seems certain. Really just about everything else is debatable.

Wikileaks now has competition – Openleaks. And in our profit-driven, competition-crazed society surely this is a good thing. If WL won’t publish your leak, shop it to OL. I just hope that it won’t lead to less caution in publishing some material, because up to now Wiki and the papers selected to publish material at the same time seem to have done a good job of redacting potentially dangerous information and protecting individuals from danger, except of course the danger of embarrassment.

More recently Julian Assange is under pressure to return to Sweden, not because he is facing charges but because some Swedes want to ask him questions. Questions have also been raised about the background connections of two women who have made allegations about him. Of course, the US wants Assange in some sort of gaol in a country they control, whether that be in Australia or the US, Egypt currently being offline for rendition purposes due to – of all things – an outbreak of democratic feeling. This seems particularly poignant in Australia, as it has emerged during the detention of Mr Habib in Egpyt, he was visited by Australian officials, who were later tragically afflicted by a virulent strain of memory loss. Now Egpyt is at least temporarily out of reach.

But back to Julian A and the main story.  Since being denounced as a criminal by some in Australia, denounced as not-a-journalist by some in the US, denounced as a ‘bit of a weirdo who likes having sex’ by an ex-colleague, and denounced as a cad by some women in Sweden Julian’s fortunes have soared and sympathy with his cause is at levels he would not have dreamed about since being a pimply hacker trying to evade the Feds back here in Australia.

I almost feel sorry for the US – how many times do they have to see their best efforts to vilify a person or declare ‘war’ on a cause result in the exact opposite happening before they see the pattern?