Julian Assange and the War on Transparency
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in 2009. Credit: Ars Electronica, Flickr
Whistleblowers are typically not regarded highly by the government, corporation or other organization they “blow the whistle” on. The modern concept of the whistleblower began in 1971 when Daniel Ellsberg began leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. The document was a study detailing the United States’ failures in Vietnam, which Ellsberg had access to while employed by the RAND Corporation. The research center held copies and Ellsberg provided one to newspapers, who published it after the Supreme Court ruled it to be legal. Although Ellsberg had to survive a trial against him, he eventually walked free and is seen as an American hero for exposing the atrocities committed by the American government and its military.
In 2010, WikiLeaks released a video titled “Collateral Murder.” The video, shot from an “Apache helicopter gun-sight,” depicts a pilot and his colleagues firing on a group of people in Iraq, one allegedly carrying a rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG. A number of people were wounded, and some killed, including several children and two Reuters journalists. The alleged RPG turned out to be a camera held by one of the journalists, making the encounter essentially unprovoked. The military later claimed that the soldiers followed rules of engagement.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, disagreed, stating his disapproval with the military.
“I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong,” Assange stated.
WikiLeaks, founded in 2006, has been at the forefront of many other information leaks that helped expose various governments and corporations for morally despicable and frequently illegal actions, including Scientology’s cultist rituals and Russia’s intelligence overreach.
Government transparency and accountability for its actions are absolutely essential in the maintenance of a free and functional society. However, the United States government has repeatedly demonstrated that it will do anything to prosecute whistleblowers and protect itself from the ramifications of its own crimes, regardless of what its officials might claim. The U.S. government is actively engaged in a war against transparency, as widespread public knowledge of its actions would undermine its ability to operate without consequences.
While the Obama administration filed the charges against Assange and other whistleblowers and journalists, the Trump administration conceived plans to kidnap and assassinate Assange while he was taking political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. After WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 leaks on the CIA’s extremely intrusive mass surveillance tools, powerful officials in the government requested “sketches” of how to kidnap and kill Assange. Led by Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director and Secretary of State, Yahoo News detailed how the government planned to shoot out his tires in the middle of London’s streets. This bizarre, authoritarian plot to assassinate a publisher of information the government does not want released may sound out of character for the United States until one recalls the fact that the CIA has a history of being involved with the assassinations of adversaries, as discovered by the Church Committee of 1975. The Committee found that the agency was involved in some shape or form in various killings of foreign leaders, as well as uncovering extremely inhumane operations, such as the infamous mind control experiments of Operation MKULTRA.
The Biden administration has continued this hypocritical pursuit of power. Avril Haines, the incumbent Director of National Intelligence, claimed that she was going to protect whistleblowers, despite the fact that the Biden administration recently won an appeal to extradite Assange to the United States in order to prosecute him for publishing information about the government’s various atrocities. This follows his seven-year stint in the embassy and a two-year stay in a British prison, where Nihls Melzer, a United Nations torture expert, determined he suffered “deliberate and concerted abuse.” Melzer also warned against Assange’s extradition to the United States as it could violate his human rights. Regardless, it has become clear that the government prioritizes military and political influence over protecting human rights and lives.
A British court granted the United States’ appeal to allow Julian Assange’s extradition in December 2021, citing “assurances” that he would not be tortured, contradicting Nihs Melzer’s determination. However, the High Court did allow Assange to appeal this decision the next month. While it is certainly not enough and the charges against him should be dismissed entirely, this is one small step in the right direction. Assange and the organization he founded conduct journalistic work that is essential to ensuring that the public has access to information that can allow them to make more meaningful decisions about the people they elect to power. Prosecuting an individual for publishing dissenting information threatens all journalists’ freedom to dissent, which is extremely dangerous in a world where governments are using global crises to further authoritarian control.
The only significant difference between WikiLeaks and Daniel Ellsberg’s work is that the former bypasses the media partners that seem to uncritically parrot government narratives, sometimes knowingly, as they did with “weapons of mass destruction” in the Iraq War. Government officials participate in grandiose theatrics for their uncritical supporters, making it clear they intend to continue violating the human rights of journalists and publishers far into the future. Julian Assange’s extradition is only the beginning.