Category Archives: Julian Assange

Julian Assange: We’re Heading Towards A Dystopian Surveillance Society – Video

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Julian Assange: We #39;re Heading Towards A Dystopian Surveillance Society
Air Date: March 7th, 2014 This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a #39;fai...

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Julian Assange: We're Heading Towards A Dystopian Surveillance Society - Video

Julian Assange’s Virtual Address at South By Southwest

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In a wide-ranging talk Saturday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said that despite the efforts of his organization and the revelations of Edward Snowden, "We are all actually living in a world we don't understand." Assange, who is still confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London because he faces arrest on espionage charges in the United States and Great Britain, addressed a crowd of about a thousand at the South By Southwest Interactive conference via a live-video Skype connection.

His and Snowden's revelations showed that "the true nature of human institutions" such as the national-security, defense, and diplomatic agencies of major governments and their contractors, "are all obscured by fog. Every now and then, there is a clearing of the fog, when there is one of these disclosures," he added. He identified his bete noir as a "fluid, postmodern amalgam of agencies and contractors," including the National Security Agency in the United States, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and Britain's GHCQ.

After asserting that the Western bloc led by the United States was responsible for 75 to 80 percent of the world's aggregate expenditures, Assange assailed what he said was a new kind of totalitarianism. "We're moving into a new totalitarian world," he said. "Not in the sense of Stalin or Pol Pot...but in the sense that anyone can be surveilled.

"The ability to surveil everyone on the planet is almost there," he claimed, "and arguably will be there in a few years. And to store all the information."

Because of the efforts of Wikileaks and a few individuals, he continued, public perception has grown that the Internet, "the greatest tool of human emancipation, had been coopted" by agencies using it to gather information surreptitiously to further their agendas. He referred to the use of the Internet by powerful government agencies as "a militarization of our civilian space. A military intrusion into our civilian space."

But he also saw a brighter side to the Internet's recent evolution. The Internet had been transformed over the last four years, he said, because of revelations such as his and Snowden's and also by events such as the "Arab Spring." The Internet "four years ago was a politically apathetic space," he said. But the conflicts involving him and Snowden against the United States and other powers have played out in public, "and everyone could see what was going on," he declared. "The Internet became a political space, and that is an important development."

He further noted that the conflict has made de facto refugees not only of himhe has been confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for 650 daysand Snowden, who is in Russia, but also of several others. He cited three journalists, including Glenn Greenwald, who brought the Snowden revelations to light for the British newspaper The Guardian, and is now living in Brazil. The others were American Laura Poitras, who reported on Snowden's revelations for the Washington Post and Der Spegel, and British citizen Sarah Harrison, who helped Snowden get from Hong Kong to Russia. Assange also mentioned the American Jacob Applebaum, who has been identified as a hacker and Wikileaks supporter. Poitras, Applebaum, and Harrison are all now living in Berlin.

"National security reporters are a new kind of refugee," Assange asserted. But at least they are "not in a situation where they have to be terrified all the time," he went on. "I see this as quite a positive phenomenon: Where, once, people would have been completely crushed, they can use these basic tenets and rights to confine nations, and in restraint of the powerful countries.

"We are all part of what we would traditionally call the State," Assange said. "So we have no choice but to attempt to manage the behavior of the State."

At one point, in defending Wikileaks, Assange seemed to compare himself to Robin Hood. Major government security agencies are "stealing information from all of us," he began. "Knowledge is power. Wikileaks specializes in going in the opposite direction. Reversing the process--taking knowledge about how this process works and putting it back in the public record. And that empowers us."

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Julian Assange's Virtual Address at South By Southwest

Julian Assange: We’re all being watched

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From his sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with roughly a dozen police officers outside, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Saturday that everyone in the world will be just as effectively monitored soon -- at least digitally.

"The ability to surveil everyone on the planet is almost there and, arguably, will be there in the next couple of years," said Assange, speaking via Skype to a large audience at the South by Southwest Interactive festival here.

Assange rocketed to international fame, and infamy, in 2010 after Wikileaks began helping publish secret government documents online.

Ecuador granted Assange asylum in June 2012 and he fled to the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he raped one woman and sexually molested another.

He calls those charges false and politically motivated, but has said he fears Sweden will transfer him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty for the work of WikiLeaks if he were charged and convicted of a crime.

On Saturday, he called life in the embassy "like a prison," adding that actual inmates "arguably" have it worse.

Saturday's talk was billed as a question-and-answer session, but because of technological glitches it ended up being mostly an hourlong speech by Assange, punctuated occasionally with questions from Twitter.

The one-sided conversation seemed to turn off some members of the 2,000 people in the audience, many of whom streamed out before Assange was finished speaking.

With little to guide him other than his own thoughts (moderator Benjamin Palmer's audio connection appeared to go down after about 15 minutes), Assange was largely left to expound upon his views that world powers like the United States and England have overstepped their bounds in terms of online surveillance.

He said the U.S. National Security Agency has become a "rogue agency" with too much power, even suggesting that President Barack Obama would be toppled politically if he attempted to disband the agency.

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Julian Assange: We're all being watched

Assange to SXSW: We’re all being watched

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Exiled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks to a festival audience in Austin, Texas, via livestream from London.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Austin, Texas (CNN) -- From his sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with roughly a dozen police officers outside, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Saturday that everyone in the world will be just as effectively monitored soon -- at least digitally.

"The ability to surveil everyone on the planet is almost there and, arguably, will be there in the next couple of years," said Assange, speaking via Skype to a large audience at the South by Southwest Interactive festival here.

Assange rocketed to international fame, and infamy, in 2010 after Wikileaks began helping publish secret government documents online.

Ecuador granted Assange asylum in June 2012 and he fled to the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he raped one woman and sexually molested another.

He calls those charges false and politically motivated, but has said he fears Sweden will transfer him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty for the work of WikiLeaks if he were charged and convicted of a crime.

On Saturday, he called life in the embassy "like a prison," adding that actual inmates "arguably" have it worse.

Saturday's talk was billed as a question-and-answer session, but because of technological glitches it ended up being mostly an hourlong speech by Assange, punctuated occasionally with questions from Twitter.

The one-sided conversation seemed to turn off some members of the 2,000 people in the audience, many of whom streamed out before Assange was finished speaking.

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Assange to SXSW: We're all being watched

Julian Assange draws a big SXSW crowd

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FORTUNE -- The South by Southwest festival is known for long lines to get into parties, panels, taxis and restaurants. But rarely is there a long line to leave a room.

That's what happened this afternoon, during a keynote interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

For the past two years, the SXSW Interactive festival has been evolving its reputation as more than a place for big social media apps to "break out." Last year, the festival focused on nerdier tech and science themes like 3D printing and space exploration. This year, there is an emphasis on politics and privacy, with keynotes from Assange and Edward Snowden.

MORE:Will Ben Horowitz be launching his rap career at SXSW?

The controversial and outspoken anti-censorship advocate drew a crowd of approximately 5,000, packing almost every seat in auditorium. The problem? He wasn't actually there in person. (He has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012; the British government has been seeking to extradite him for a year.) Assange connected to Austin via Skype, and there were technical glitches. On first ring he didn't answer.

After a rocky logistical start, the interview began slowly, with softball questions like, "How did you start Wikileaks?" Despite that, Assange managed to offer a few choice Tweet-able sound bytes, such as:

"There has been a militarization of our civil space, an occupation of our civilian space."

"The best way to achieve justice is to expose injustice."

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Julian Assange draws a big SXSW crowd