WIKILEAKS Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy

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WIKILEAKS Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy

Author: David Leigh and Luke Harding Publisher: PublicAffairs Date of Publication: February 2011 ISBN: 9781610390613 No. of Pages: 352

(This summary was published: March 10, 2011)

About the Author: DAVID LEIGH is investigations editor at The Guardian. LUKE HARDING is The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent.

General Overview: Within the space of a few short years, WikiLeaks has been transformed from an obscure Web site which contained the musings of a lone Australian computer hacker with conspiracy theory tendencies into one of the most well known media brands in the world. At the same time, the company’s founder Julian Assange has been on a rocket propelled ride which has seen him at various times described as everything right across the spectrum from America’s public enemy number one to a sexual predator to a champion of free speech and transparency who will stop at nothing to make sure the truth gets out. Whatever the viewpoint, it is clear WikiLeaks is a story which is far from over. Digital disclosure of confidential information, even that normally concentrated at senior government level, is now a reality of the world in which we live. Whether that will cause the world as a whole to move to broader sunlit uplands powered by democracies or to descend into a web of increasingly strident dictatorships remains to be seen but there is no question the genie is now out of the bottle. In many ways, WikiLeaks is an opportunity for free nations to show whether or not they walk the talk when it comes to freedom of the press and the benefits of transparency. Interesting times still lie ahead as the WikiLeaks phenomena plays out.

* Please Note: This political book summary does not offer judgment or opinion on the book’s contents. The ideas, viewpoints and arguments are presented just as the book’s author had intended.

WikiLeaks – Page 1 Who is Julian Assange? Julian Assange is the founder and editor of WikiLeaks.org, a whistle blower Web site which was set up in 2006. WikiLeaks started life as something of an obscure and radical Web site but it morphed into a news platform when it published leaked footage showing US helicopter pilots killing two Reuters employees in Baghdad as casually as if they were playing a video-game. WikiLeaks gained further fame and notoriety when it published thousands of classified US military field reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them describing what was happening in less than glowing terms. Julian Assange was born in Townsville, Queensland, Australia on July 3, 1971. Assange took his name from his stepfather Brett Assange who was an actor and theater director in Australia. As a youngster, Julian traveled a lot as his family went from city to city with touring productions which his stepfather staged and directed. Julian’s mother was a passionate and active member of Australia’s nascent eco-movement. Assange’s mother and stepfather divorced when Julian was seven or eight years old and his mother became involved in a short-lived but violent relationship with another man. For the next five or six years, Julian, his mother and his half-brother lived almost as vagabonds and fugitives as they traveled from state to state in Australia trying to avoid any further contact with this violent newcomer. While his home life may have been stressed and unsettled, Assange took to computers with a passion. He became a well known player in Australia’s hacker underground which flourished in Melbourne in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, Julian Assange was arguably Australia’s most accomplished hacker, breaking into several Australian government owned computers as well as numerous mainframe systems of large corporations. In 1996, Assange pleaded guilty to 24 counts of hacking in the Victoria County Court. He was fined $2,100 with the judge noting Assange’s actions had been motivated more by intellectual inquisitiveness rather than an attempt to seek personal gain. While all of this was happening, Assange was also working as an unpaid computer programmer. Julian was an active and passionate member of the open source movement. He set up a Web site giving free advice on computer security. By 1996, he had 5,000 subscribers who received free information and free software. This early site, called Best of Security, would eventually evolve into WikiLeaks. Assange developed the Usenet caching software NNTPCache and Surfraw, a command-line interface for search engines. He also collaborated with some other hackers to develop the Rubberhose deniable encryption system – something human rights activists who faced torture could use to protect information. With this software, a password unlocks one layer of information without revealing there is another layer beneath that. Assange wrote: “We hope that Rubberhose will protect your data and offer a broader kind of protection for people who take risks for just causes. Our motto is: ‘Let’s make a little trouble.’” Between 2003 and 2006, Julian Assange attended Melbourne University where he studied physics and maths although he did not graduate. While there, he announced on his blog IQ.org: “The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. Only revealed injustice can be answered; for man to do anything intelligent he has to know what is actually going on.” In line with that sentiment, Assange announced he was launching WikiLeaks.org dedicated to disseminating leaked information as the most cost-effective form of political intervention. “WikiLeaks will be an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations.” The launch of WikiLeaks.org drew very little if any attention from the mainstream media but that was about to change dramatically. Most early supporters of WikiLeaks.org considered it to be a naive venture which would go nowhere.

WikiLeaks – Page 2 The Rise of WikiLeaks WikiLeaks began as a true “wiki” – a user editable site, but Assange quickly realized this model was impractical for dangerous or incriminating information. Assange attended a European hacker’s conference run by the Chaos Group, one of the biggest and oldest hacker groups in the world. There he linked up with Daniel Domscheit-Berg who agreed to help Assange find safe havens where WikiLeaks’ servers could be located without fear of being taken down. Others joined in to provide ideas on how information could be submitted in an untraceable form so it could then be circulated in uncensored form without recrimination to the source. Eventually, WikiLeaks developed an anonymity protection device known as Tor which does not provide any information as to where records are uploaded from whatsoever. It features above military grade anonymity and runs on a network of about 2,000 servers worldwide. Any submission sent by Tor is completely anonymous and 100% untraceable. WikiLeaks published its first online secret document in December, 2006. It was a “secret decision” signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a Somali rebel leader for the Islamic Courts Union. Assange traveled to the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007 to publicize WikiLeaks and ended up staying there for two years with activists. While there, he managed to get a copy of a report which detailed the alleged corruption of former president Daniel Arap Moi. When his successor, President Mwai Kibaki, failed to release the report for political reasons, WikiLeaks published it on August 31, 2007. The result was sensational and a huge uproar ensued. WikiLeaks would later publish a follow-up report on Kenyan death squads for which it would receive an award from the human rights organization Amnesty. For all that early success, however, WikiLeaks was still struggling to gain traction. It needed a business model which would bring in working revenue and at the same time gain political attention. After a while, it became clear the best way to achieve both these aims was for WikiLeaks to become more like a “publisher of last resort” than to remain a pure anonymous document dump. As 2009 ended, WikiLeaks was struggling to make a name for itself when Assange got hold of military footage from an AH-64 Apache helicopter which was involved in an incident in Baghdad which eventually resulted in the death of twelve people including two innocent employees of the Reuters news agency. Assange premiered this video at the National Press Club in Washington on April 5, 2010 under the title “Collateral Murder.” The video caused a stir but not the universal outrage and pressure for reform Assange had hoped for. While the reaction to the botched helicopter attack in Baghdad may not have been all that was hoped for, Assange’s contact in the U.S. military intelligence network was busy feeding him some other interesting data. US army information analyst Bradley Manning was based at Camp Hammer in the middle of the Mada’in Qada desert in Iraq where he pored over top-secret information fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. He had access to two military laptops which gave access to US state secrets through the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network used by the Department of Defense and the State Department, and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System which is used for top-secret dispatches. Manning became shocked by the duplicity and corruption of his own country he discovered as he read from a vast database of top-secret documents and videos he found on those networks. Overwhelmed by the scale of the scandal and intrigue he uncovered, Manning made contact with Assange with the idea of getting this information into the public domain. In Manning’s words: “Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain. If it’s out in the open, it should be a public good. I want people to see the truth, regardless of who they are, because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” Manning eventually supplied Assange with a treasure trove of classified information on American military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and an even bigger treasure trove of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables which had been sent from U.S. embassies around the world from 2006 onwards. This was exactly what Assange was looking for.

WikiLeaks – Page 3 The Deal of the Century Having learned from the release of the Apache helicopter video that just putting the material out there on the WikiLeaks Web site wouldn’t necessarily make a huge impact, Assange decided a better way to release the classified information would be to work in with a major newspaper in a collaborative effort. Accordingly, when The Guardian got wind of what WikiLeaks was sitting on, it wasted no time in arranging a meeting with Assange in Iceland where he was then based. Assange ultimately agreed to work with The Guardian on the release of the information. It was also decided The Guardian would approach The New York Times and Der Spiegel in Berlin to join the collaboration as well. The information which WikiLeaks had available was staggering: n Military logs detailing every single US military incident in the Afghanistan war. n Similar war logs from Iraq starting in March 2003. n Secret US State Department cables from American diplomatic missions from around the world. n Files from enemy combatant review tribunals held in Guantanamo Bay. In all, WikiLeaks had more than a million documents. Just deciphering the 92,201 military field reports which described the Afghanistan war was a daunting analytical task in and of itself before the other information was analyzed. Eventually, a clear picture emerged of the failure of the US military to contain the insurgents in Afghanistan. The reports detailed how thousands of “improvised explosive devices” were planted around the country’s road system and that the majority of these roadside bombs ended up slaughtering ordinary civilians rather than military opponents. One of the key issues to be worked through while this data was being prepared for publication was that of redactions – the avoidance of publishing the names of informants who might easily have been killed by the Taliban or other militant groups if named. Assange’s initial reaction had been: “Well, they’re informants, so if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.” The more experienced reporters who were involved in the project suggested that was either arrogance or naivety on Assange’s part and insisted that identifying details had to be removed. Eventually, Assange agreed and some 15,000 intelligence files which contained identifying details were culled from the database. Ultimately, The Guardian published a 14-page analysis of the Afghan war logs on July 25, 2010. At the same time, The New York Times and Der Spiegel also released their own analysis of the materials. The official reaction was predictable. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said: “The truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.” U.S. politicians were equally vociferous in stating the release of the material would have serious repercussions for the ongoing military effort. The public reaction to the publication of this material, by contrast, was far more welcoming as the veil over a secretive war was lifted. Both The Guardian and Der Spiegel focused on the sufferings of civilians which the material described in extraordinary detail. There was great controversy over the reports of trigger-happy soldiers whose “shoot first and ask questions later” approach to deterring suicide bombers had resulted in the unnecessary death of many Afghan civilians. The Guardian outright stated: “The war logs confirm the impression that this is a military campaign without a clear strategic direction, under generals struggling to cope with the political, economic and social realities of Afghanistan.” Observers also pointed out the U.S. military was not under proper political supervision or control and was in effect being run by career commanders who were working to their own agendas.

WikiLeaks – Page 4 By contrast, The New York Times took a more strategic approach to the Afghan war. It studied the large quantity of evidence which suggested the US war effort to suppress the Taliban was being hampered by Pakistan. The New York Times highlighted all of the incidents in which Pakistan’s Intelligence Service was covertly backing the Taliban for reasons of its own. Similarly, the Obama administration used the publication of the Afghan war logs to project its concerns about the safe havens Pakistan was providing for violent extremist groups and the threat this represented to the United States, to Afghanistan and to the Pakistani people. The Guardian editorial explaining its decision to publish was illuminating: “The fog of war is unusually dense in Afghanistan. When it lifts, as it does today, a very different landscape is revealed from the one with which we have become familiar. We today learn of nearly 150 incidents in which coalition forces, including British troops, have killed or injured civilians, most of which have never been reported; of hundreds of border clashes between Afghan and Pakistani troops, two armies which are supposed to be allies; of the existence of a special forces unit whose tasks include killing Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders; of the slaughter of civilians caught by the Taliban’s improvised explosive devices; and of a catalogue of incidents where coalition troops have fired on and killed each other or Afghans under arms.” As stunning as the release of the Afghanistan war documents was, an even bigger treasure trove of information on the Iraq war was forthcoming just a short time later in October 2010. The Iraqi war logs showed definitively at least 66,081 civilians had been killed in Iraq from the beginning of 2004 to the end of 2009. That sobering number didn’t even take into account civilian deaths during the invasion proper in 2003. This number came as a shock in light of repeated assurances “We don’t do body counts” from General Tommy Franks, President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When the information from the Iraq war logs were cross referenced with the investigative work of other organizations, it became clear that in excess of 100,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since 2003 – an appalling amount of bloodshed by anyone’s standard. And it was equally clear the only reason these numbers ever came to light was because of the dedication of independent researchers and the hard work of journalists from three news organizations combined with the whistle blowing of Manning and the doggedness of Assange. In fact it was Bradley Manning’s personal revulsion at the behavior of the Iraqi police and the U.S. military collusion with it which led him to consider becoming a whistle blower in the first place. The United States and its allies had always stated the whole aim of the Iraq war was to rescue Iraqis from the brutalities of a police state run by Saddam Hussein. Yet after his downfall, western troops were aligning with the Iraqi army and police force to continue to run Iraq as a defacto torture chamber for its own citizens. Manning even made a personal effort to exculpate a group of Iraqis who had been improperly detained but was rebuffed by his superiors. He later explained: “Everything started slipping. I saw things differently. I was actively involved in something that I was completely against.” With the release of the Iraq war logs, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks became household names the world over. The launch of the Iraq logs was made in the grandiose ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel where more than 300 journalists jostled with TV crews for access to Assange. The WikiLeaks juggernaut was gaining momentum. Assange even postponed the release of the print materials so a couple of TV documentaries could be filmed detailing what was going on. Billed as the “biggest leak of military intelligence that has ever occurred”, the Iraq war logs were sensational. Assange’s media profile soared while Corporal Bradley Manning was arrested and flown out of Iraq to a military jail at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. He was later flown back to the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia where he was charged with “communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source and disclosing classified information concerning the national defense with reason to believe that the information could cause injury to the United States.”

WikiLeaks – Page 5 The Diplomatic Cables While the world at large was digesting the new information disclosed in the Iraq war logs once they were published, the investigative reporters and data analysts in the back offices at The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel were hard at work trying to make sense of the next batch of top secret information WikiLeaks had provided them – the 250,000 diplomatic cables. When moved into a searchable database, the diplomatic cables provided a rich and vivid picture of how modern diplomacy works for a superpower like the United States – a fascinating mix of cajoling, fixing, eavesdropping, catering to the frequently irrational and quirky demands of foreign leaders, maneuvering and sometimes bullying. These materials were incredibly newsworthy and revelatory because they presented a picture of the world which could be viewed through a much less scrambled prism than usual. At the same time, it was clear these documents had to be treated carefully. Certainly some of the informants would need to have their identities protected but equally it became clear many of these dispatches reflected the personal views of diplomats and others with their own agendas rather than the official views of the nation. In the middle of all this intensive activity, Swedish authorities announced they were pursuing the extradition of Julian Assange – now arguably someone who could be considered to be the world’s most famous man – from Britain to face questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct. Assange was not accused of rape but of having unprotected sex with two women in Sweden. Nevertheless, the world’s media trumpeted that Assange was an accused “rapist.” Assange’s initial reaction was: “We were warned to expect ‘dirty tricks.’ Now we have the first one.” That was followed by: “Reminder: US intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks as far back as 2008.” Eventually, Assange would come out and openly state he did not think the charges were the result of a Soviet style but Pentagon run “honeytrap” but he still maintained powerful interests had come in and helped fabricate the charges to throw a spanner in the works. To date, no concrete evidence has ever surfaced the U.S. government brought any covert pressure to bear on Swedish authorities in relation to these charges. The United States has repeatedly stated it will seek to bring its own indictment against Assange for information crimes but the linkage between that stated intention and the sexual misconduct charges Assange currently faces are pure speculation which will keep conspiracy theorists engaged for many years. There is however no doubt the Swedish charges have muddied the waters with regards to WikiLeaks and cast a pall over the release of the secret diplomatic cables. It has also caused some news organizations to become more hesitant about collaborating with WikiLeaks in the future. Thanks to the well-publicized charges facing Julian Assange in Sweden, the analysis and subsequent publication of the diplomatic cables material was particularly high pressure. Once again, WikiLeaks planned on collaborating with The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel but this time two other well respected newspapers (El Pais and Le Monde) would be part of the inner circle. The publishing partners drew up an agreement with regards to exclusivity periods, dates of publication and the safety mechanisms Assange insisted on building in. The scope of the project was certainly audacious. In essence, five of the world’s most reputable newspapers were joining with the world’s most controversial Internet entity to select, redact and publish on an unprecedented scale the secret leaked dispatches of the world’s greatest superpower. It was a publishing project of impressive boldness which stood a chance of redefining what journalism is all about in the digital era. The collaboration was really the natural result of growing media trends but that didn’t stop Assange from taking all the credit:“What is new is us enforcing co-operation between competitive organizations that would otherwise be rivals – to do the best by the story as opposed to simply doing the best by their own organizations.”

WikiLeaks – Page 6 The material coming from the 250,000 diplomatic cables really was extraordinarily newsworthy. It soon became clear the United States state department had ordered its diplomats to spy on senior UN officials and collected detailed biometric information. The Spanish were stunned to learn the US embassy in Madrid was actively trying to influence judges, the government and prosecutors in cases involving US citizens. There were equally stunning revelations about other matters mixed in with candid observations about national leaders which were never meant to be disclosed publicly at any time. There were also detailed reports about the activities of various governments which smacked of hypocrisy or at the very least double standards. There was no genuine “top-secret” information in the material but the cables with lower security designations were certainly newsworthy in and of themselves. The best thing about involving the newspapers in the publication of the diplomatic cables was they provided context rather than just dumping everything out there. The journalists also had specialist knowledge and experience which could be brought to bear. To illustrate, the focus of the Afghanistan war logs had been civilian casualties. With Iraq, the focus shifted in the headline articles to torture. It was decided for the diplomatic cables, the top stories would be on corruption, crime and disclosing the apparent improper behavior of the US government. In this way, the publishers added more value to the disclosure of the cables rather than allowing them to become mere Internet froth or background noise. The diplomatic cables were published on November 28, 2010 – instantly becoming the biggest leak of diplomatic materials history has ever seen. The reaction was immediate. Web site traffic to WikiLeaks and the newspaper’s own sites went ballistic. The White House issued a statement strongly condemning the release of the material as a “reckless and dangerous action which puts lives at risk”. The fact the material had been edited for the removal of identifying information by editorial teams at five major newspapers from around the world was ignored. Various U.S. politicians called for Julian Assange to be arrested. The attorney general of the United States, Eric Holder, called a press conference to announce there was now an “active, ongoing, criminal investigation” into the leaking of classified information and that those who broke U.S. law would be held accountable: “To the extent that there are gaps in our laws, we will move to close those gaps, which is not to say that anybody at this point, because of their citizenship or residence, is not a target or a subject of an investigation that is ongoing.” The response of various private companies to the publication was also illuminating. EveryDNS terminated the WikiLeaks.org domain name and e-mail addresses. Amazon withdrew its cloud hosting services. PostFinance closed Assange’s bank account and PayPal, Visa and MasterCard announced they would suspend WikiLeaks’ ability to process credit card payments. That, in turn triggered a backlash against the backlash as fury raged online about the suppression of free speech and linkages between political pressure and U.S. corporate self-interest. American politicians almost fell over themselves in their righteous indignation and seeking the moral high ground. Congressmen, senators and political commentators started openly discussing designating WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization and seeking the death penalty for Assange. WikiLeaks also came under massive hacker attack using DDOS or “distributed denial of service” attacks which were around eight times larger than any the site had previously encountered. In all, the knee-jerk reaction to the publication of the diplomatic cables was widespread and extraordinary. The fact prosecuting Assange who was an Australian citizen now living in the UK for espionage or conspiracy was going to be an uphill battle was lost in all the rhetoric which flowed. Instead, the White House wanted to be seen to be vigorously pursuing this option. Also lost in this vast swell of knee-jerk reaction was the fact the United States was complaining about the very thing it frequently urged other governments to do – to allow the expression of free speech and crystal clear transparency in all dealings. Some accused the Americans of having a double standard.

WikiLeaks – Page 7 The Future of WikiLeaks By early January 2011, senior officials at the State Department were privately stating the WikiLeaks controversy had caused little if any damage to ongoing American diplomacy. In fact, in a private briefing to Congress many top diplomats have admitted the fallout was not especially bad. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that Assange did not in fact have “blood on his hands” as a result of the Iraq war logs or the Afghan war logs. There was general acceptance the Obama administration had in fact been compelled to state publicly the revelations had seriously damaged U.S. interests in order to discourage copycat efforts more than anything else. If that was the administration’s real intent, they were spectacularly unsuccessful. A number of WikiLeaks imitators have emerged or are in the process of emerging. Former WikiLeaks No 2 Daniel Domsceit-Berg has parted ways with Assange and launched OpenLeaks.org as a rival platform which would be more “transparent and democratic.” At the same time, Assange has been moving to put WikiLeaks onto a more sustainable footing. Its funding through donations has become better structured and made more sustainable. The legal bills which have been incurred in fighting the sexual misconduct charges in Sweden are certainly high and growing but there have been some offsetting deals as well. Julian Assange has obtained a $1.6 million deal to write his memoirs which has tentatively been titled WikiLeaks Versus the World: My Story. There is also talk of a movie based on the book. As a result of all the publicity and controversy, WikiLeaks has succeeded in becoming an impressive and valued global brand. In short, it has emerged from obscurity to become something of a “media poster child.” There is probably not an editor of a major publication anywhere in the world who would not at least be interested in taking a call from Julian Assange or WikiLeaks. Whether and how WikiLeaks will apply this extensive network of name recognition and contacts in the media to good effect in the future remains to be seen. It’s easy to envisage that WikiLeaks may evolve into a journalistic clearing house where WikiLeak’s staffers act as idea salesmen. Ian Katz, the Guardian’s deputy editor, put it this way: “I think Julian has used his profile very cleverly and what he is doing is trying to make himself the brand, if you like, that is synonymous with whistle blowing. He wants you to think if you are a pissed off analyst in the military or wherever and you have got something you want to share with the world, ‘I will send it to that Assange fellow, not to The Guardian.’ Which poses a really interesting question for traditional media partners like us – have we helped to create, as it were, a brand which people will go to in place of traditional media?” Paradoxically, for all the short-term discomfort and embarrassment WikiLeaks may have caused the United States and its allies, WikiLeaks has strengthened the U.S. positioning as a defender of liberty. In many obscure countries where there is no freedom of the press, WikiLeaks reveals what the general population is whispering. WikiLeaks has even managed to restore America’s influence in various small nations where it lost credibility as a result of the Iraq war. Julian Assange has acquired a vast fan base outside the United States and much of the world has admiration for his self appointed war on secrecy. It may yet turn out that WikiLeaks will end up advancing the cause of liberty far and wide rather than diluting America’s ability and capacity to do this on its own. If that ends up being the net result of the WikiLeaks phenomena, it would be the ultimate validation of the benefits of freedom of the press, liberty and democracy in action.