The Case Against Julian Assange

By James Donahue

As the WikiLeaks website and all of its mirror sites continue to publish daily bundles of once "secret" government documents that expose misbehavior by world power brokers, it is not surprising that Julian Assange, the creator and editor of this new style of electronic journalism is under assault.

The man is living a contemporary version of the Old Testament story of David versus Goliath. His idea of creating a carefully designed and protected Internet outlet for publishing information sent by whistleblowers from subordinate staffers composing the quintessence of high level corruption has opened the floodgates. Now as information from angry workers, compelled to expose the injustice occurring before their eyes, pours in, the big financial bosses and government power figures find themselves under the microscope. And they are using a variety of methods of striking back.

The problem is that they are attacking the messenger because they haven't found the whistleblowers. The way Assange set up his site, the source of the published data appears well protected.  Army Private Bradley Manning, who had access to secret military files while stationed in Iraq, got caught in the web because of his own misdoing. He reportedly left a trail of implicating statements posted on various websites. From the volumes of information being revealed by WikiLeaks, it is obvious that even if Manning is found guilty of releasing classified documents, he is only one of many sources.

Assange, who now stands accused of an alleged sex crime by Swedish authorities, is currently fighting extradition to Sweden following his arrest by British police. He denies any wrongdoing and says the allegation is a political attempt to put him and the WikiLeaks site out of business.

The United States government has been trying to build a case of espionage against Assange, but to date, no formal charges have been filed. Since Assange is not a U. S. citizen, he has been selective in the material he has chosen to publish, and he is only the publisher, spokesperson and member of the board for an Internet publishing business, it may be impossible to build a valid charge of any wrongdoing against him. In fact, Assange has maintained that the material published to date has not compromised the military in the midst of two wars, or put a single life at risk.

An experienced computer programmer and hacker, it is possible that Assange has been the source of some of the information published on WikiLeaks. At best he is capable of using his skills to double check the “leaked” information sent to WikiLeaks via undisclosed sources, as a real journalist would do. Assange considers himself an investigative journalist who has invented a new form of exposing political, financial and other forms of corruption in high places.

Since founding the WikiLeaks site in 2006, Assange has received numerous awards and nominations for awards for excellence in journalism. In 2009 he won the Amnesty International Media Award after publishing material about extrajudicial killings in Kenya. He also was awarded the Readers Choice award for Time magazine’s 2010 Person of the Year.

Before the current barrage of controversial cables, WikiLeaks published information about toxic waste dumping in Africa, the Kaupthing and Julius Baer banks, and Church of Scientology manuals. He began getting in trouble after the cables started exposing the extreme waste of money, lives and resources in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Assange also says he is in possession of documents that will shed sunlight on big banking operations.

He says he has “enough incriminating evidence” to force the resignation of top bank executives. So does he have information on all of the “too big to fail” banks as well as the Federal Reserve, or is he about to expose corruption in one bank? The Bank of America has been named as a possible target.

What is interesting is that since issuing these warnings, and after exposing a lot of very embarrassing and controversial information about government misdeeds on just about every continent, Assange has made some high officials in the United States nervous. Notice, for example, that the states of Arizona and Nevada are suing Bank of America , seeking fines for misleading consumers about home loan modifications, and asking for compensation.

Stories are now creeping out of Washington that there has been a sudden movement by Wall Street and bank regulators to ferret out evidence of collusion between government offices, the major banks and other financial services firms.

It seems that just threatening to pull the lid off the misdeeds of the gangsters that have been actively dipping all of the cash from the national cookie jar has caused a flurry of activity. Not only are high government officials trying to cover their tracks and act as if they are doing something about the corruption, they are trying in every way they can to stop Assange and WikiLeaks from going any farther.

Notice also that the FCC has just established controls on broadband use of certain Internet sites and put big communications companies like AT&T and Verizon in the driver’s seat. You can bet that the setup is designed to try to put controls on WikiLeaks and any other site that tries to mimic what Assange has accomplished.

The crooks and thieves always operate like cockroaches and bed bugs under cover of darkness. If the American media had been doing its job, as it did during the days of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, the world would be a much different place today. We have been desperately needing the investigative journalism that Assange is providing. He is doing a great service to the world, although we fear he may pay a terrible price.

Assange is now confined to quarters in England after friends helped him post an ridiculous $347,500 bail. This is all about the alleged sex crime charges by two women in Sweden, who claim that he forced them to have unprotected sex while they shared his bed. The sex crime trick has long been a favorite method used for disabling the voices of people that disrupt the normal operations of big power brokers. Fighting these kinds of allegations, even when they are totally fabricated, is almost impossible and they leave a social scarring that never goes away.

Assange also has expressed concern that he may be targeted and murdered “Jack Ruby style” by the CIA or other government operatives because of what he knows.

Various banking institutions, PayPal, and even Amazon have shut off services to WikiLeaks. Several national figures have declared Assange a terrorist and called for his arrest and execution.

Fortunately Assange has gained financial support from various other big players who are helping him fight his court battles and keeping the WikiLeaks site operating. He also has gained so much world attention that Assange now is a high profile figure. His assassination now would only help prove his case and perhaps speed the exposure of the vast range of corruption that has overtaken world governments.

The bottom line is that Assange may well be innocent of any wrongdoing. Swedish authorities say they only want to question him about the charges by the two women who say he had unprotected sex while they shared his bed. If he is found guilty would this be any worse than a misdemeanor punishable by a modest fine and court costs?

Why all the frenzy over such a strange accusation? Why set bond at well over $300,000? The British courts have either overstepped their bounds or there is much more going on here than we are led to believe.