'Risk' Is A Messy, Ambitious Portrait Of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange; NPR, May 5, 2017

John Powers, NPR; 

'Risk' Is A Messy, Ambitious Portrait Of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange

"Assange clearly believes that the world's power elite maintains control by doing things the public never gets to see. By leaking documents, he thinks, WikiLeaks is revealing how the world actually works — for instance, how Democratic National Committee big shots actually were conspiring to help Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders.

Yet here's the problem. Just as most of us don't want our government secretly hoarding people's private information, we also don't want the release of sensitive documents to be controlled by a handful of leakers who answer to no one.

In last year's election, WikiLeaks didn't just leak things to damage Clinton — whom Assange considered a personal threat. The leaks failed to redact personal info about Clinton donors, like credit-card numbers, a violation of privacy called out by Snowden himself, though ignored by Poitras.

I don't trust Assange or any other unvetted source — and there will be more — to decide which documents from Russian hackers or NSA leakers get put on the web."

A Break in the Assange Saga; New York Times, 8/17/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; A Break in the Assange Saga:

"Whether or not Sweden decides to formally charge Mr. Assange after questioning him, he may still be reluctant to abandon the Ecuadorean Embassy. But at least the focus of this curious saga will move closer to the serious legal, ethical and security issues at its core."

Assange, Avowed Foe of Clinton, Timed Email Release for Democratic Convention; New York Times, 7/26/16

Charlie Savage, New York Times; Assange, Avowed Foe of Clinton, Timed Email Release for Democratic Convention:

"Six weeks before the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks published an archive of hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of the Democratic convention, the organization’s founder, Julian Assange, foreshadowed the release — and made it clear that he hoped to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency...

At one point, Mr. Peston said: “Plainly, what you are saying, what you are publishing, hurts Hillary Clinton. Would you prefer Trump to be president?”

Mr. Assange replied that what Mr. Trump would do as president was “completely unpredictable.” By contrast, he thought it was predictable that Mrs. Clinton would wield power in two ways he found problematic.

First, citing his “personal perspective,” Mr. Assange accused Mrs. Clinton of having been among those pushing to indict him after WikiLeaks disseminated a quarter of a million diplomatic cables during her tenure as secretary of state.

“We do see her as a bit of a problem for freedom of the press more generally,” Mr. Assange said."

U.S. Subpoenas Twitter Over WikiLeaks Supporters; New York Times, 1/9/11

Scott Shane and John F. Burns, New York Times; U.S. Subpoenas Twitter Over WikiLeaks Supporters:

"Prosecutors investigating the disclosure of thousands of classified government documents by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks have gone to court to demand the Twitter account activity of several people linked to the organization, including its founder, Julian Assange, according to the group and a copy of a subpoena made public late Friday."