The Long, Hard Fall Of Julian Assange

The Long, Hard Fall of Julian Assange

by T.K. McNeil

 

It Is All In The Perspective

The difference between a “terrorist” and a “freedom-fighter” is essentially one of goals. One area where terms make a difference is the world of hacking. Used freely, and inclusively by the mainstream news media, “hacker” is little more than a general descriptor. All it really means, is someone who uses non-standard means to enhance their experience with technology.

They Wear Hats

If you have ever used a video-game cheat code or made non-factory improvements to your computer, congratulations, you are a hacker. The hacker world is diverse. The simplest distinction is between so-called “Black Hat” and “White Hat” hackers. Also known as “the criminal minority and the rest of us.” Though just as very few in the hacker community are nefarious, shadowy criminal types, equally few are virtuous, “White Hat” “Hacktivists.”

I Said It Was All Relative

As with the rest of humanity most are somewhere in-between. For most, hacking is surfing. Experimenting and testing to see what can be done with no particular goal in mind. Julian Assange is a “White Hat”. At least until recently. “Recently” being 2016 but like I said, everything is relative. Rather than being “done” as many have suggested Julian Assange and his notorious info-dumps are back in the news and not in a way many could have imagined.

Gray Hat

Assange is a lightning rod for controversy. Can you truly be controversial and popular?  Assange has never achieved popularity, but he has reached world-wide fame. I’d wager that even the most news ignorant of the populace have at least heard his name. His closest associates have said he is barely tolerable, and they continue to engage with him only because they believe in the importance of the work. Bringing truth to the world and bringing light to the dark places. Apparently forgetting that Lucifer was the bearer of light before the Fall.

Before The Fall

Personal failings aside, Julian Assange was, and likely still is, a brilliant hacker. One of the best. This is after-all, the guy who figured out how to use and decode government data wires while still in his teens. He was however, “ratted out” and was charged with espionage (originally treason) and was tried in 1996 in a Melbourne, Australia.

Intellectual Inquisitiveness

He was convicted of 24 counts of “hacking” for crimes dating back nearly a decade. He received  leniency. The judge speaking to the matter said Assange’s “intellectual inquisitiveness” was extremely dangerous, however he “did not seek personal gain” and that was given weight. Assange was unique. He was a kid who had attended 37 different schools, lived in a cult with his restless mother and faced daily unpredictable circumstances growing up. But by the age of 15 he was sophisticated and expert enough to attack military computers, at a time before most Americans didn’t even have a personal computer.

Motive

Another thing that was never at question was Julian Assange’s motives. The biography website Biography.com lists him as a “Computer Programmer, Hacker and Activist”. This was not to last long however, his uncompromising drive and near-pathological hatred of government (nearly being charged with treason will do that), shaded that white hat a distinctive shade of gray. Alina Polyakova, Director of the Eurasia Center volunteered this, “In his attempt to bring ‘transparency’, he ends up siding with the very regimes that deny transparency and human rights. That’s the irony of my enemy’s enemy is my friend.”

Defining Moment

The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Iraq was a defining moment for many of us. Everything changed, including the way the government did business, for good or ill. For all the material more or less gifted to comedians living in the relative safety of the Western world, things did not go so well for those in other parts of the planet. The war that started with a lie produced multiple incidents of war crimes. Documents, videos with audio depicting images of Iraqi civilians being gunned down by American forces were not uncommon.

Whistle-blower

War is never nice. Arguably necessary but never good. It gets a lot darker however when one side, usually the more powerful one engages in war crimes. In February 2010 Chelsea (Bradley) Manning a U.S. Army intelligence analyst serving in Iraq horrified by information she was seeing delivered hundreds of thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks. That information was publicized with no redactions by Assange and WikiLeaks. Manning’s actions led to her court martial and conviction for espionage and theft in July 2013. She was sentenced to 35 years. Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017.

Modus Operandi Unchanged

That singular action of publishing with no redactions is characteristic Julian Assange. He has been involved in similar work with informants from some the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, not all of whom survived their association with him. Such recklessness has made him both famous and infamous. Heralded by many, particularly in the Libertarian set, as a champion of truth and free-speech against government oppressors, Assange could do no wrong. An extreme case of the ends justifying the means.

 Reasonable Edits

This is not to say the information should not have been released. It is important that it comes out and the citizens have a right to know, in a general way, what their government is doing but some reasonable edits could still have been made. Wanting the truth to come out is one thing. Refusing to make reasonable edits that leaves in the most important information, while removing the names and locations of troops, ambassadors and intelligence agents, is quite another. As such, the site has “lost its halo” in the view of many of its former core constituents. A former colleague said recently, “All the lefties were Wikileaks softies. Now they are getting a different perspective. It’s obvious Julian Assange has lost his ability to be neutral.”

Multiple Accusations

There are also the other accusations. The ones that have faded into the background in the current Russia-centric news cycle. Assange is most likely a rapist. There were, and still are, those who question the  accusation that originally forced his change of address to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. I am ashamed to say I was one of them. At least initially.  To me, it seemed suspicious that this guy, who had been a royal pain in the ass for many governments, should suddenly have a reputation-destroying, career ending accusation made against him. Then I saw an interview with his most recent [alleged] victim and there was no doubt in my mind that the “alleged” is just a matter of journalistic and legal protocol.

The Other Shoe Drops

Just when he thought he was at rock bottom, by all means let’s all shed a tear, the epic quagmire that will go down in the darkest annals of American history, the 2016  Presidential Election happened. The focus has been on Russia and their hacker army, while little attention has been paid to Assange and the instrumental role WikiLeaks played in discrediting and criminalizing Hillary Clinton. Not with stories about pedophile rings at pizza restaurants – how ironic that “fake news” became Trump’s catchphrase – but an “info-dump” from an established, if controversial, “truth seeker”.

Coincidentally

Neil Sroka, a spokesman for Democracy for America said, “Wikileaks is like the internet. It can be a force for good or a force for bad.” The political strategist and well-known Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone who “predicted” the leaks on the same day he says he, coincidentally, met with Assange.  This recent disclosure has led to the filing of charges against Aassange by the U.S. Department of Justice. Charges alleging that Assange, via WikiLeaks, published emails stolen by covert Russian operatives in order to help Trump against Clinton. Assange in an interview was asked if he preferred Trump to Clinton. His quick response was, ” You’re asking me, do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea?” Despite such banter it is obvious that Wikileaks worked to undermine Hillary Clinton. The once non-partisan platform for whistleblowers had morphed into an arm of the Kremlin.

Like Harvey Dent

If true a clear case of election tampering is emerging. No one who knew Assange back in the day, or even five years ago, would be able to believe the turn he has taken. From uncompromising if controversial crusader for truth to bad actor seemingly in the blink of an eye. There is little doubt now in the minds of most that the Russian government is using Wikileaks to change opinions and votes. Like Harvey Dent said in The Dark Knight: “you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Sources:

Biography.com (Chelsea Manning 4/02/2014)

*Inside WikiLeaks (2011; Domscheit-Berg, Daniel)

*WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy (2011; Leigh, David & Harding, Luke)

*Underground: The Julian Assange Story (2012; Dir. Connolly, Robert)

The WikiLeaks Files (2016; Assange, Julian)

The Guardian: Wikileaks from liberal beacon to a prop for trump what has happened? 10/14/2018

“Court filing indicates undisclosed criminal co charges against Julian Assange” (nbcnews.com, Nov. 15, 2018; Dilanian, Ken and Romero, Dennis)