Freedom Line Blog

It may seem perverse in the current economic atmosphere to take so much pleasure from a business model that fails to work out, but it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. From Politico:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Monday that the controversial website that’s been a thorn in the side of the U.S. government may close down by the end of the year because of financial problems.

The group has openly lamented the consequences of what it calls a “financial blockade” on WikiLeaks by various financial institutions.

“If WikiLeaks does not find a way to remove this blockade we will simply not be able to continue by the turn of the new year,” Assange said, according to the Associated Press. “If we don’t knock down the blockade we simply will not be able to continue.”

Good riddance. Rather than playing the victim before the London press corps (the context for these remarks), Assange should be thanking his lucky stars that he lives in an age that allows someone of his disrepute such a comfortable denouement. In days past, this story would have come to an end in the hangman’s noose.

Thank goodness WikiLeaks founder and diplomatic saboteur Julian Assange is getting a taste of his own medicine.  In his first interview since being “confined” to a nine-bedroom English mansion while he awaits an extradition hearing to Sweden on sex assault charges, the man who wants more transparency from governments and businesses is less inclined to turn the spotlight on himself.

Speaking from the English mansion where he is confined on bail, the 39-year-old Australian said that the decision to publish incriminating police files about him was “disgusting”. The Guardian had previously used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.

Mr Assange is understood to be particularly angry with a senior reporter at the paper and former friend for “selectively publishing” incriminating sections of the police report, although The Guardian made clear that the WikiLeaks founder was given several days to respond.

Mr Assange claimed the newspaper received leaked documents from Swedish authorities or “other intelligence agencies” intent on jeopardising his defence.

“The leak was clearly designed to undermine my bail application,” he said. “Someone in authority clearly intended to keep Julian in prison.”

How amusing it is to see Assange angered by others’ “selectively publishing” a “leak…clearly designed to undermine (his) bail application…”  I’ll bet there are hundreds of career diplomats similarly peeved at the well-connected Casanova’s preoccupation with his comparatively minor legal problems while they labor to repair his inestimable damage to world order.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the huge breach in national security presented by WikiLeaks and the need to aggressively prosecute the website’s founder, Julian Assange.

Julian Assange, editor of the WikiLeaks site that disclosed classified military documents and the names of Afghans who assisted American forces, arrogantly says he enjoys “crushing bastards.”

The 92,000 documents released by Assange and WikiLeaks included such things as military communication protocols, tactics and juicy tips for intelligence operatives in such places as China, Iran and Russia.  More horrifically, however, the disclosures identify the names, families, locations and forms of assistance provided by Afghans still vulnerable to vicious Taliban retribution.  Anyone who read or saw The Kite Runner knows exactly the sort of brutality imposed by that murderous band.

Here’s an idea.  Perhaps some enterprising citizen, or perhaps the family of someone Assange has jeopardized through his own little “bastard” jihad, would like to publicize his home address, phone number or other confidential information.  After all, complete and open disclosure is a good thing, right Mr. Assange?