
What I Learned About Julian Assange While Working Alongside Him - danso
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/heres-what-i-learned-about-julian-assange
======
pmyjavec
"All of this is the cocktail of ingredients that produces 2016’s incarnation
of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange mistrusts the US government, dislikes Hillary
Clinton, and has spent years trapped in a small embassy flat in west London,
in declining physical and psychological health, monitored minute-by-minute in
reports filed by his wary Ecuadorian hosts."

I'm not sure about Americans but I would say the majority of the the world
mistrusts the US Government. While I'm not saying Assange doesn't have flaws,
this isn't exactly a point in time I would believe anything I read about him,
Wikileaks or his character, this _is_ the time for character assassinations.

We also need to keep in-mind (as the article states) the guy is practically in
jail, him and other whistle blowers are being seriously screwed over by the US
Government, so IMO most of these profile pieces are going to paint a picture
of someone who isn't in a great place right now. I often here people complain
about the state of Wikileaks, but what do people expect?

On character assassinations, another example I could give right now is Trump,
maybe it's just because he is low hanging fruit, but boy is the media giving
it to that guy like I've never seen, it's to the point where I've pretty much
stopped reading the news in Australia right now because there are just
constant trump bashing articles, it feels like the work of "The Ministry of
Truth" in 1984. Yeah he is controversial, but is he worthy of so much
attention ? From what i understand Hillary is far from flawless also.

To conclude my rant, I'm taking this with a grain of salt :)

~~~
CalChris
You said _US Government_. Both America and the US Government are actually held
in some regard around the world.

[http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/23/1-americas-global-
image/](http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/23/1-americas-global-image/)

~~~
pmyjavec
I'm travelling in Asia and have just been in Europe and something very
different is happening lately. When I meet Americans, young and old, the
majority of them tell me they're ashamed or embarrassed of being American,
some of them tell me they usually tell people they are from Canada!

I don't hear people from anywhere else doing that to be honest.

~~~
mc32
It's really weird because even people with dictators will say they are proud
of their country even if they hate the dictator or the poor conditions of
their country.

You don't get many Haitians saying "I'm ashamed of my country" or Russians
saying "I'm ashamed to be Russian" It's predominantly a section of Americans
who feel that way. I've met Mexicans who have become citizens of the US who
still consider themselves "Mexican" in every way --except that they live
outside Mexico, while they decry the corruption and lack of opportunity back
home --but never ashamed.

~~~
mcv
Maybe it's because the US used to have such a stellar reputation. It used to
be the leader of the free world, was founded on important liberal principles
that have inspired the world. Around international conflicts, the US used to
insist on lofty principles that they now trample at every opportunity. The
world got used to holding the US to a higher standard than Russia or some
petty dictatorship.

The US itself definitely helped to paint this image of being better and more
noble than other countries, even other freedom-loving western countries. And
now they're falling so far short of that ideal, that it is really embarrassing
to everybody who can see what's been happening.

I'm not even American, and I'm ashamed of the US.

~~~
mc32
I guess... but there also aren't many Spaniards, or French, or Belgians
(citizens of countries presently with democracies but with colorful pasts) who
are ashamed embarrassed of their countries. They might be opposed to some
policies and disagree with some of their past history but seldom are ashamed.
Imagine a Chinese person or Japanese person saying they are "shamed". It's a
very hard thing to come by.

~~~
mcv
Some people are ashamed of some things their countries have done. But none of
them were ever the champion of freedom the way the US used to be, and few slid
down as hard as the US did while still claiming moral superiority.

Though I can imagine Belgians having been pretty ashamed in 1908.

------
Mizza
> "Assange’s approach has taken WikiLeaks from the most powerful and connected
> force of a new journalistic era to a back-bedroom operation"

This assumes a false dichotomy. Wikileaks was never not a bedroom operation -
that's the very core component of the "information revolution" the author is
pining for. A young queer kid in Boston stole some very shocking videos from
his IT job and gave them to a man in a chat room, who published them online.
That's all it takes to change the world now.

If anything, all of WikiLeaks' problems come from trying to stray from this
model.

~~~
resfirestar
Wikileaks had a chance to be more than a bedroom operation, and it would have
made them far more powerful than they are now. Building a network of aligned
journalists and political allies would have increased visibility, attracted
more leaks with localized impact, and made it much harder to shut down
discussion of contents with "this was stolen", as the Democrats are now doing
with complicity of much of the US media. But as we saw with the author's NDA
story, Assange is the #1 enemy of that ever happening. He reflexively accuses
anyone with their own publicity approach of being a careerist or worse, then
logs into twitter to align not just himself, but Wikileaks the organization,
with the most extreme possible opponents of his enemies. The impact that the
leaker wants to make, the stories good journalists could write, even most
third party mining of leaks is ignored in favor of Julian Assange's personal
agenda. I think the world would be better off with a bigger, broader Wikileaks
that promotes journalism instead of mistrusting it.

~~~
Mizza
I think you've proved my point by missing it.

> "Building a network of aligned journalists and political allies would have
> increased visibility, attracted more leaks with localized impact, and made
> it much harder to shut down discussion of contents with "this was stolen",
> as the Democrats are now doing with complicity of much of the US media."

What you're describing is called "starting a newspaper." This happens all the
time. The Intercept is a good example of what you're talking about, there are
hundreds of others. BuzzFeed, HuffPo, Drudge, take your pick. It's not the
same thing. I can explain the difference if you'd like me to.

~~~
branchless
Exactly. What do we want? Tips on stories inside banks from the likes of
journo Chris Giles at the FT who is utterly wedded to the status quo, along
with tens of other "journalists"?

Our media is like a sieve, only instead of finding the unusual and challenging
thinkers it weeds them out and retains the unthinking dross whose only
ambition is to join the establishment and kick back.

~~~
resfirestar
Just because you can think of one journalist you wouldn't want handling
financial leaks doesn't mean they're all rotten. Were the Panama Papers (ICIJ)
not well handled? Even the Los Angeles Times apparently had the guts to
publish a story that took the side of low level bank employees, eventually
bringing down the chairman of Wells Fargo.

And what's the implied better alternative, anyway? When Wikileaks does a data
dump, most people aren't poring over it all night, it's usually people in the
same media you decry who bring important revelations to mass attention. Giving
them a head start to potentially write a great story doesn't seem like
something that should be wildly controversial.

~~~
branchless
As the parent post suggested I don't want wikileaks merging/'empowered' with
our largely supine press.

------
meredydd
If you found this interesting, you might like the (much longer) account
written by the ghostwriter of an autobiography Assange backed out of:

[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-
ohagan/ghosting](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting)

------
shruubi
What I see when I look at the whole Wikileaks/Assange situation is a guy who
started off well-meaning and really did want to make a difference who through
a stroke of right-place-right-time happened to receive at the time the largest
leak of classified documents in history.

I honestly feel that being suddenly thrust into the spotlight as the most
notorious person in the world at the time put Assange in a position he was not
physically nor mentally equipped to deal with, and everything that has
happened since then is a combination of not being able to deal with the fame
and notoriety he gathered and an ego that prevents him from asking for help.
He had isolated himself in a self-created cocoon of paranoia and ego long
before he did so literally in the Ecuadorian embassy.

In some ways, I feel bad for the guy, his intentions were well-meaning, and I
respect the hell out of a guy who would stand up to the most powerful nation
on earth and call them out for what they were doing, but Assange is his own
worst enemy, and his current situation is of his own making.

------
rahrahrah
I just want to remind everyone that the Clinton campaign has been proved at
least twice (according to the Podesta e-mails) to plant stories in the press.
Keep that in mind while reading this: you don't know how much of it was
written by the person whose name it comes under.

~~~
meowface
Could you link those Podesta emails?

And anyway, this article isn't really anti-Assange or pro-Clinton, as far as I
can tell. It does seem to be anti-Russia, but not pro-US.

~~~
Cyph0n
It seems implicitly anti-Assange to me.

~~~
idlewords
It eloquently conveys the fact that Assange is an asshole.

~~~
sn41
That may be so. But should we not refrain from shooting the messenger? The
message he brings is important.

About Assange's anti-Hillary bias: it may be a personal affair, but there is
something also of objective interest. Of course, Trump is a monster/clown. And
probably Russia does not want Clinton. However, I am sure Saudi Arabia prefers
Clinton. How many wars are going to worsen? That's not very comforting to me.

------
avmich
> he doesn’t see the world in the way many Americans do, and has no intrinsic
> aversion to Putin or other strongmen with questionable democratic
> credentials on the world stage.

These two statements can be unrelated. You can see the world differently from
"average American" point of view, yet have intrinsic aversion to questionable
rulers.

Sorry for nitpicking.

~~~
wslh
This is double standards 101. I would have hoped a stronger leadership by
Assange to set higher political standards. Now I feel this is just leak
pornography.

~~~
DominikR
You are on the verge of voting a women into office that is likely the most
corrupt politician in US history that has ever run for this office. How on
earth is exposing this bad for your country, you want to be ruled by people
who steal and lie to you about what they are going to do? How did she earn
$250 million dollars while in public office?

Oh and Assange is not a US citizen, why would anyone expect him to think like
one, let alone make it a requirement.

~~~
empath75
I'm not against publishing this stuff in general. And in a normal election, it
would be totally disqualifying.

There are mitigating circumstances, however.

1) Her opponent is totally unqualified for the presidency, and is basically a
fascist, and a bigot, and obsessed with revenge.

2) The information was obtained via espionage by a foreign power, attempting
to interfere in the US election. I can only imagine what kind of stuff we'd
find in RNC emails.

As far as I'm concerned the correct course of action here is to elect Hillary,
and then have congressional hearings into both the contents of those emails,
and the methods by which they were obtained.

Hillary is a crooked in the usual way that politicians are. We can survive
another crooked politician in the White House for four years. Trump would be
the end of the republic.

~~~
BoorishBears
> Trump would be the end of the republic.

That's not exaggeration? To me, it's insulting the people who founded this
country to imply that all it takes to defeat an intricate system of governance
they founded to ensure the preservation of their country is an uncouth man
becoming president.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Michael Dell wrote, that every time Dell doubled in size they had to reinvent
their processes.

The good ol' USA has grown by orders of magnitude. And we're still trying to
use the same rules that worked for horses and written letters and muskets.
We've rarely even revisited the rules, much less rewrite them.

Yes I think its a fragile thing, that depends upon the good will of the people
executing the processes. When they brag about how they're going to twist the
rules for personal vendettas, then we should all worry.

~~~
BoorishBears
There are parts of the constitution that show their age (The second amendment
being written in a time before modern weapons, nuclear arms, and drones where
the people really could keep a government in check), but I don't buy the
concept of a president without absolute power has eroded so far that one "bad
president" could bring about the end of the US.

Are you seriously considering what that'd even mean? What would "the end of
the republic as the GP mentioned even mean?

The president has more power than ever, but Trump will not be the end of the
United States because the system of governance we have limits the harm he
could do.

I honestly think Trump would be less likely to bring about WW3 (the only
barely realistic way I could see the fall of the US happening) than any other
candidate if only for his lack of sophistication.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
They've steadily eroded checks and balances until they have essentially no
checks now.

Presidents now wage war without Congress' help. Fire nuclear missiles. Enrage
world opinion through careless remarks and insults, through instantaneous
media (radio, tv, internet). Call out the National Guard. Declare martial law.
Enforce or fail to enforce laws selectively. Appoint Federal judges
exclusively by emergency appointment between sessions (started with Bush).

That's a lot of scary stuff.

~~~
krapp
>Fire nuclear missiles.

Sorry... what?

Was there a unilaterally declared American nuclear strike I'm not aware of?

------
fatdog
More of the same political tactics. Feel dirty having read buzzfeed.

There should be an Onion article titled, "Challenger to status quo is racist,
anti-Semitic, transphobic, misogynist, possibly gay, rapist, pedophile,
terrorist, bogeyman."

Yawn.

Writers like that are why people are backing the republican nominee.

------
jsf666
Buzzfeed? Like seriously? Next should be CNN with their 'technical problems'.
Does someone there really think this kind of propaganda piece will make
anything in the Podesta e-mails less real? Can you get anymore obvious? This
is some Soviet-level shit

~~~
akhilcacharya
> Podesta e-mails less real

As we can see from the polls, if there was something damaging here people
don't really care.

~~~
crdoconnor
People were distracted by the pussy thing - which was not coincidentally
released on the same day.

Most people have no idea what was even in those emails and most of the media I
read made a point to say that there was nothing damaging in there (cherry
picking the most mundane things they could).

There wasn't anything too surprising to people who hate Hillary Clinton (yes,
she's in the pocket of wall street) and supporters and most of the mainstream
media (MSNBC, CNN, NYTimes, etc.) didn't pay any attention.

~~~
xenadu02
I read a bunch of the emails and there wasn't anything significant in there
unless you count cherry-picking quotes and willful misunderstanding. At best
there are some ambiguous things that could be interpreted certain ways.

tl;dr: There is no smoking gun. People say things in private emails they
wouldn't discuss in public, NEWS AT 11!!!!!

P.S. It wasn't "that pussy thing". It was Trump bragging that he pushes women
into sexual encounters he knows they don't want and gets away with it because
he's famous and rich. I like how the right pretended everyone was upset about
some foul language though or that it was just "locker room" talk. If Trump had
said "oh she's so hot, I'd love to fuck her" no one would have cared because
that _is_ locker room talk. What Trump said was in a different league.

~~~
crdoconnor
Smoking guns:

* She admitted to having a "private" (real) policy position and a "public" one (lies).

* Bits of her speeches to Goldman came out and she basically said "we were way too hard on you guys" and "we need to listen more to you guys to help prevent another crisis".

* She mentioned that she basically wanted a hemispheric free trade & freedom of movement zone.

Of course, apparently it's not the done thing these days to talk about policy
scandals that actually affect us during a Presidential election.

~~~
yongjik
* She mentioned that she basically wanted a hemispheric free trade & freedom of movement zone.

...That sounds wonderful, if a bit too good to be true. Is it supposed to be
bad?

~~~
crdoconnor
That depends. Are you a fan of NAFTA, CAFTA, the TPP and TTIP?

~~~
mcv
I think she's more alluding to something like the EU common market. NAFTA,
CAFTA, TPP and TTIP don't do anything about freedom of movement, and do a lot
about a ton of other things that have nothing to do with that.

------
coldtea
> _he doesn’t see the world in the way many Americans do, and has no intrinsic
> aversion to Putin or other strongmen with questionable democratic
> credentials on the world stage._

Why should he? America has much more "questionable democratic credentials"
than Russia. At least the latter is constrained in its immediate back yard, it
doesn't invade countries to "bring democracy", getting oil and leaving behind
chaos, mayhem and civil war, nor does it bully or stronghold most of the
world's governments.

~~~
rahrahrah
Number of US overseas military bases: 600+

Number of Russian overseas military bases: 2

I wonder why people paint Russia as if it was some aggressive power like the
US.

~~~
coldtea
Because Americans are so used to being told they are the good guys, "the
shit", and the world's only saints. Their media (even "serious" media, like
the NYT) is the most patriotic in the whole western world. Of course it helps
that there's a trillion dollar defense industry to benefit from all of that
too.

So, when they meddle 10.000 miles from their borders it's their right and they
do it "for democracy".

But when another country (let's call it R) tries to meddle in a place where
actual pro-fascists toppled a voted-for government in a country in its
borders, where tons of people with R ethnic origins live -- then they don't
have the right.

People speak about communist countries propaganda art portraying their leaders
as "heroes" \-- and it's indeed idiotic. But then again, the US is the only
other place where they can produce and watch movies and shows where the
President is a hero fighting bad guys with his bare hands (from Air Force One
to numerous tv/cable series).

And people watch that with a straight face -- in any other western country
this would be considered only acceptable for comedy.

~~~
XorNot
Free speech means you can make a movie where the president is the hero as much
as you can make a TV series where he is the murdering villain (House of
Cards).

Neither is state produced and neither got the creators thrown in jail.

That's the difference.

~~~
danharaj
The CIA has clandestinely produced cultural propaganda throughout its
existence.

------
archagon
Sadly, this is very much in line with what I've been seeing from WikiLeaks in
this past year. Assange is growing increasingly vindictive and conspiratorial,
and any future WikiLeaks data dumps need to be viewed in this light. (Which is
to say: even if the documents are genuine, their curation and any theatrics
surrounding them should be heavily scrutinized. WikiLeaks seems to no longer
be an equal-opportunity leaker, but instead focuses its attention on Assange's
political enemies.)

------
orthoganol
FYI, no proof has been given that Julian is still at the Embassy since the
episodes last Sunday (no sightings at the window or balcony, no picture or
clips). The WL subreddit in general believes there's been fishy activity on
their twitter since then.... they just now tweeted the long awaited "prove
Julian is OK" tweet, but unfortunately it is just some sentences of text. I
think at the minimum there is cause to raise an eyebrow.

~~~
idlewords
This just seems like an attempt to generate drama.

~~~
orthoganol
I'll remove it if it's too sensational, but there has been a steady stream of
panic threads on certain subreddits over the last week, and I was trying to
give an objective, short rehash. Anyways I'm not advocating a jump to
conclusions, just to keep an eye on it.

~~~
FireBeyond
Helpfully fueled by some of the Wikileaks crowd, who are active tin-foilers.

For example, Gavin MacFadyan, a WikiLeaks staffer, was diagnosed with an
illness a while back.

A few weeks ago, WikiLeaks said as much, and sent him best wishes in a Tweet.

He died the other day.

WikiLeaks response was to go back and delete the tweet, and now the flames of
his "mysterious and sudden death" are being fanned in those subreddits - "how
long before JA dies from a sudden and mysterious illness?"

Not to mention the other wing nuts:

"There is a wireless telephone bug .This has been caught by my bug detector.
Active on the frequency 400 kilo Hertz. Other people also have verified this.
This needs stopped immediately check out my timeline. This signal is all
across the U.S.A."

This is just after the claims of the military raid on the embassy in broad
daylight that no-one could get photos of because (they couldn't decide): a)
the military were telling people they'd be prosecuted if they did, or b) the
military were using technology to "obfuscate" any photos people did take.

~~~
orthoganol
You're probably right to an extent about the tin-foil, but I would say WL
fueled the Gavin thing themselves by tweeting "It's been a bloody 6 months for
WL [list of 3 who died, incl. Gavin]". Either way for them I think it's mainly
the uncharacteristic if not bizarre language, as well as particularly partisan
tweets of late. That and JA being MIA.

------
triplesec
A well-drawn profile.

Edit: see below for reasons. I accidentally posted this sentence early before
finishing more of a post. Now I've instead made a response to the question
below

~~~
Jerry2
How so? It's nothing more than character assassination.

~~~
triplesec
I think this is a fair article, and no hatchet job. The writer has decided not
to like Assange from working with him and experience.

Some pull-outs that show thought over partisanship :

'Assange is routinely either so lionised by supporters or demonised by
detractors that his real character is lost entirely. 'Far from the laptop-
obsessed autist he’s often seen as, he’s a charismatic speaker with an easy
ability to dominate a room or a conversation.'

'Assange often trusts strangers more than those he knows well: He dislikes
taking advice, he dislikes anyone else having a power base, and he dislikes
being challenged – especially by women. He runs his own show his own way, and
won’t delegate. He’s happy to play on the conspiratorial urges of others, with
little sign as to whether or not he believes them himself.'

'once you have fallen foul of Assange — challenged him too openly, criticised
him in public, not toed the line loyally enough — you are done. There is no
such thing as honest disagreement, no such thing as a loyal opposition
differing on a policy or political stance.'

' Assange would not, in my view, ever knowingly be a willing tool of the
Russian state: If Putin came and gave him a set of orders, they’d be ignored.
But if an anonymous or pseudonymous group came offering anti-Clinton leaks,
they’d have found a host happy not to ask too many awkward questions: He’s set
up almost perfectly to post them and push for them to have the biggest impact
they can.'

~~~
rahrahrah
> But if an anonymous or pseudonymous group came offering anti-Clinton leaks,
> they’d have found a host happy not to ask too many awkward questions

Why would he? That's the whole point of WikiLeaks, to publish information
about those who have the power in so called democratic systems.

~~~
Frondo
Well, if those awkward questions concern the authenticity of the documents,
_and_ WikiLeaks wants to provide a journalistic-like service to the world,
then WikiLeaks _should_ ask those awkward questions.

If WikilLeaks doesn't care about the authenticity of what it publishes, then
what is its goal?

~~~
saalweachter
To impose a secrecy tax on conspiratorial organizations. [1]

Even if the documents are misinformation, publishing them damages the ability
of the organization to carry on its conspiratorial activities, eg, make and
carry out secret plans. Internal, private communications (eg, emails), a
powerful tool, also have a PR liability. Secrecy tax.

[1] [http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-
conspiracies.pdf](http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf)

------
necessity
>The WikiLeaks founder is out to settle a score with Hillary Clinton

...

------
AlexB138
This is so transparently a hit piece that it's sad. A weak attempt to divert
criticisms from leaked emails with "They're just trying to settle a personal
score against Hillary!".

------
meowface
Would it be fair to say that Assange is currently on a mission to expose the
American government's dirty laundry at all costs, even if it means cooperating
with other bad governments?

Could we expect him to focus more heavily on the Russian and Chinese
governments in the future?

~~~
DominikR
It doesn't work that way, he doesn't hack the US, Russian or Chinese
government and he doesn't direct other hackers, he only gets to leak data that
was given to him by whistleblowers.

So your calls for Assange to specifically expose Russia and China to somehow
"be fair" is quite senseless. I have to wonder how you think this actually
works?

~~~
meowface
I understand how Wikileaks works, but keep in mind he holds onto things for a
while and waits for an opportune moment to release them. You can't doubt that
the leaks of the past few months have been very politically motivated to
inflict as much damage as possible (which is not necessarily a bad thing), and
not just a mere passing-on of what others gave him.

Are we to assume he's never been contacted by any Russian or Chinese
dissidents? Maybe not, but if he has, I'd definitely like to see a proper
release.

~~~
Natsu
Their twitter is complaining that if they had the Podesta emails earlier, this
might've been Sanders vs. Trump.

------
crdoconnor
>>Then it was a darling of many of the liberal left, working with some of the
world’s most respected newspapers exposing the truth behind drone killing,
civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, and surveillance of the top UN
officials.

>>Now it is the darling of the alt-right, revealing hacked emails seemingly to
influence a presidential contest, claiming the US election is “rigged”, and
descending into conspiracy. Just this week on Twitter, it has described the
deaths by natural causes of two of its supporters as a “bloody year for
WikiLeaks”, and warned of media outlets “controlled by” members of the
Rothschild family – a common anti-Semitic trope.

This critique curiously echoes the two main propaganda attacks on Jeremy
Corbyn:

1) Insinuations and manufactured accusations of anti-semitism:

* [http://news.sky.com/story/damning-report-condemns-jeremy-cor...](http://news.sky.com/story/damning-report-condemns-jeremy-corbyn-over-leadership-on-anti-semitism-10619435)

* [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37656197](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37656197)

2) "We used to support him but it's become clear that we can't any more":

* [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zoe-williams-brands-je...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zoe-williams-brands-jeremy-corbyn-incompetent-claims-he-cant-unite-more-than-12-people_uk_57a21946e4b0ce499248f526)

* [http://labourlist.org/2016/08/i-used-to-support-corbyn-but-o...](http://labourlist.org/2016/08/i-used-to-support-corbyn-but-owen-smith-has-the-vision-young-muslim-women-like-me-need/)

* [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/billy-bragg-jeremy-cor...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/billy-bragg-jeremy-corbyn_uk_57b2d4dce4b02fb3274b7a2b)

I don't doubt the next anti-establishment figure will be met with the same
response "yes, we used to think they were great until it became clear that
they're an awful Jew hater".

