<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">Was glad to get this.<div> --Jenifer<br><br>--- On <b>Sat, 12/4/10, fransears@netscape.net </b>wrote:<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><div class="plainMail">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br><br>Common Dreams<br><br>Published on Friday, December 3, 2010 by The Guardian/UK</div><div class="plainMail"><br></div><div class="plainMail">URL to article: <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/03-1">http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/03-1</a><br><br>Julian Assange Answers Questions in Online Q&A<br><br>The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is answering readers'<br>questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables.<br>We will post his responses as we receive them<br><br>Fwoggie: I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're
an<br>Australian passport holder - would you want return to your own country<br>or is this now out of the question due to potentially being arrested<br>on arrival for releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and<br>polices?<br><br>Julian Assange: I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a<br>great deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime<br>minister, Julia Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland,<br>have made it clear that not only is my return is impossible but that<br>they are actively working to assist the United States government in<br>its attacks on myself and our people. This brings into question what<br>does it mean to be an Australian citizen - does that mean anything at<br>all? Or are we all to be treated like David Hicks at the first<br>possible opportunity merely so that Australian politicians and<br>diplomats can be invited to the best US embassy cocktail parties.<br><br>girish89: How do you
think you have changed world affairs? And if you<br>call all the attention you've been given-credit ... shouldn't the mole<br>or source receive a word of praise from you?<br><br>Julian Assange: For the past four years one of our goals has been to<br>lionise the source who take the real risks in nearly every<br>journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts, journalists would<br>be nothing. If indeed it is the case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that<br>the young soldier - Bradley Manning - is behind some of our recent<br>disclosures, then he is without doubt an unparalleled hero.<br><br>Daithi: Have you released, or will you release, cables (either in the<br>last few days or with the Afghan and Iraq war logs) with the names of<br>Afghan informants or anything else like so? Are you willing to censor<br>(sorry for using the term) any names that you feel might land people<br>in danger from reprisals?? By the way, I think history will absolve<br>you. Well
done!!!<br><br>Julian Assange: WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During<br>that time there has been no credible allegation, even by organisations<br>like the Pentagon that even a single person has come to harm as a<br>result of our activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation<br>and spin trying to lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do<br>not expect any change in this regard.<br><br>distrot: The State Dept is mulling over the issue of whether you are a<br>journalist or not. Are you a journalist? As far as delivering<br>information that someone [anyone] does not want seen is concerned,<br>does it matter if you are a 'journalist' or not?<br><br>Julian Assange: I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was<br>25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV<br>and internet since that time. However, it is not necessary to debate<br>whether I am a journalist, or how our people mysteriously are
alleged<br>to cease to be journalists when they start writing for our<br>organisaiton. Although I still write, research and investigate my role<br>is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and<br>directs other journalists.<br><br>achanth: Mr Assange, have there ever been documents forwarded to you<br>which deal with the topic of UFOs or extraterrestrials?<br><br>Julian Assange: Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they<br>discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their<br>ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have<br>not satisfied two of our publishing rules. 1) that the documents not<br>be self-authored; 2) that they be original. However, it is worth<br>noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive<br>there are indeed references to UFOs.<br><br>gnosticheresy: What happened to all the other documents that were on<br>Wikileaks prior to these series
of "megaleaks"? Will you put them back<br>online at some stage ("technical difficulties" permitting)?<br><br>Julian Assange: Many of these are still available at<br>mirror.wikileaks.info and the rest will be returning as soon as we can<br>find a moment to do address the engineering complexities. Since April<br>of this year our timetable has not been our own, rather it has been<br>one that has centred on the moves of abusive elements of the United<br>States government against us. But rest assured I am deeply unhappy<br>that the three-and-a-half years of my work and others is not easily<br>available or searchable by the general public.<br><br>CrisShutlar: Have you expected this level of impact all over the world?<br>Do you fear for your security?<br><br>Julian Assange: I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would<br>perform a global role and to some degree it was clear that is was<br>doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of
the<br>Kenyan general election. I thought it would take two years instead of<br>four to be recognised by others as having this important role, so we<br>are still a little behind schedule and have much more work to do. The<br>threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we<br>are taking the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able<br>when dealing with a super power.<br><br>JAnthony: Julian. I am a former British diplomat. In the course of my<br>former duties I helped to coordinate multilateral action against a<br>brutal regime in the Balkans, impose sanctions on a renegade state<br>threatening ethnic cleansing, and negotiate a debt relief programme<br>for an impoverished nation. None of this would have been possible<br>without the security and secrecy of diplomatic correspondence, and the<br>protection of that correspondence from publication under the laws of<br>the UK and many other liberal and democratic states. An
embassy which<br>cannot securely offer advice or pass messages back to London is an<br>embassy which cannot operate. Diplomacy cannot operate without<br>discretion and the protection of sources. This applies to the UK and<br>the UN as much as the US.<br><br>[Julian Assange:] In publishing this massive volume of correspondence, Wikileaks is not highlighting specific cases of wrongdoing but undermining the entire<br>process of diplomacy. If you can publish US cables then you can<br>publish UK telegrams and UN emails.<br><br>My question to you is: why should we not hold you personally<br>responsible when next an international crisis goes unresolved because<br>diplomats cannot function.<br><br>Julian Assange: If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular<br>question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.<br><br>cargun: Mr Assange, Can you explain the censorship of identities as<br>XXXXX's in the revealed cables? Some
critical identities are left as<br>is, whereas some are XXXXX'd. Some cables are partially revealed. Who<br>can make such critical decisons, but the US gov't? As far as we know<br>your request for such help was rejected by the State department. Also<br>is there an order in the release of cable or are they randomly<br>selected? Thank you.<br><br>Julian Assange: The cables we have release correspond to stories<br>released by our main stream media partners and ourselves. They have<br>been redacted by the journalists working on the stories, as these<br>people must know the material well in order to write about it. The<br>redactions are then reviewed by at least one other journalist or<br>editor, and we review samples supplied by the other organisations to<br>make sure the process is working.<br><br>rszopa: Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if<br>anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of<br>AWS. Do
you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it? Thank<br>you for doing what you are doing.<br><br>Julian Assange: Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of<br>our servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech<br>deficit inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of<br>these cases.<br><br>abbeherrera: You started something that nobody can stop. The Beginning<br>of a New World. Remember, that community is behind you and support you<br>(from Slovakia). Do you have leaks on ACTA?<br><br>Julian Assange: Yes, we have leaks on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade<br>Agreement, a trojan horse trade agreement designed from the very<br>beginning to satisfy big players in the US copyright and patent<br>industries. In fact, it was WikiLeaks that first drew ACTA to the<br>public's attention - with a leak.<br><br>people1st: Tom Flanagan, a senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister<br>recently stated "I think
Assange should be assassinated ... I think<br>Obama should put out a contract ... I wouldn't feel unhappy if Assange<br>does disappear." How do you feel about this?<br><br>Julian Assange: It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others<br>seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to<br>commit murder.<br><br>CommonDreams Posted: 12/3/10 9:47 EST - check back for updates<br><br>Isopod: Julian, why do you think it was necessary to "give Wikileaks a<br>face"? Don't you think it would be better if the organization was<br>anonymous? This whole debate has become very personal and reduced on<br>you - "Julian Assange leaked documents", "Julian Assange is a<br>terrorist", "Julian Assange alledgedly raped a woman", "Julian Assange<br>should be assassinated", "Live Q&A qith Julian Assange" etc. Nobody<br>talks about Wikileaks as an organization anymore. Many people don't<br>even realize that there are other people behind
Wikileaks, too. And<br>this, in my opinion, makes Wikileaks vulnerable because this enables<br>your opponents to argue ad hominem. If they convince the public that<br>you're an evil, woman-raping terrorist, then Wikileaks' credibility<br>will be gone. Also, with due respect for all that you've done, I think<br>it's unfair to all the other brave, hard working people behind<br>Wikileaks, that you get so much credit.<br><br>Julian Assange: This is an interesting question. I originally tried<br>hard for the organisation to have no face, because I wanted egos to<br>play no part in our activities. This followed the tradition of the<br>French anonymous pure mathematians, who wrote under the collective<br>allonym, "The Bourbaki". However this quickly led to tremendous<br>distracting curiosity about who and random individuals claiming to<br>represent us. In the end, someone must be responsible to the public<br>and only a leadership that is willing to be publicly
courageous can<br>genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the greater good. In<br>that process, I have become the lightening rod. I get undue attacks on<br>every aspect of my life, but then I also get undue credit as some kind<br>of balancing force.<br><br>tburgi: Western governments lay claim to moral authority in part from<br>having legal guarantees for a free press. Threats of legal sanction<br>against Wikileaks and yourself seem to weaken this claim. (What press<br>needs to be protected except that which is unpopular to the State? If<br>being state-sanctioned is the test for being a media organization, and<br>therefore able to claim rights to press freedom, the situation appears<br>to be the same in authoritarian regimes and the west.) Do you agree<br>that western governments risk losing moral authority by attacking<br>Wikileaks? Do you believe western goverments have any moral authority<br>to begin with? Thanks, Tim Burgi Vancouver,
Canada<br><br>Julian Assange: The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships<br>through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so<br>on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because<br>a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic<br>instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect<br>on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China,<br>there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and<br>power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an<br>economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that<br>jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope,<br>speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.<br><br>rajiv1857: Hi, Is the game that you are caught up in winnable?<br>Technically, can you keep playing hide and seek with the powers that<br>be when services and service providers are
directly or indirectly<br>under government control or vulnerable to pressure - like Amazon?<br>Also, if you get "taken out" - and that could be technical, not<br>necessarily physical - what are the alternatives for your cache of<br>material? Is there a 'second line' of activists in place that would<br>continue the campaign? Is your material 'dispersed' so that taking out<br>one cache would not necessarily mean the end of the game?<br><br>Julian Assange: The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with<br>significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000<br>people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts<br>will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archives is in<br>the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world<br>will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on<br>you.<br><br></div><div class="plainMail"><br>That's it every one, thanks for all your
questions and comments.<br>Julian Assange is sorry that he can't answer every question but he has<br>tried to cover as much territory as possible. Thanks for your patience<br>with our earlier technical difficulties.<br><br>© 2010 Guardian News and Media Limited<br>Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org<br><br><br><br><br><br> </div></blockquote></div></td></tr></table><br>