Julian Assange drifts away from cause

The noble and necessary motives that led to WikiLeaks’s creation in 2006 have been undermined by its own creator, Julian Assange, who has devoured his creature and turned it into a hybrid weapon at the service of the enemies of Western democracies, particularly Vladimir Putin’s Russia. There is no other explanation for Assange’s actions in the 2016 US presidential elections, when Donald Trump’s campaign received opportune assistance from the leak of Hillary Clinton emails.

Assange accuses nearly all of his critics of conspiring against him; his delirium is by now shared only by a handful of activists who favor causes that are increasingly deprived of common sense, such Catalan and Scottish secession, Europhobia and the anti-globalization movement.

What this activist apparently fails to realize is what a bad position he is left in by the sequence of events during the US elections: in September 2015, the FBI warned the Democratic Party that Russian hackers had stolen information from its servers; in the following months, the Clinton campaign came under online attack from several fronts; in July 2016, WikiLeaks began publishing compromising information that hurt the Democratic candidate, triggering an FBI investigation.

The FBI traced the leak to Russia-based hackers. It bears noting how differently WikiLeaks treats Putin and his government. When leaks have directly affected the Russian leader, they have always taken place through other channels, such as the Panama Papers.

In 2010, EL PAÍS was one of several news organizations to participate in the publication of US classified cables stolen by Chelsea Manning and received by WikiLeaks. Back then, Assange was leading a campaign in favor of transparency and democratic values. Today, all the newspapers that participated in that investigation have distanced themselves from Assange, alarmed at his provocative and increasingly irresponsible actions. He should be held accountable for them.

But he has refused to be held accountable since 2012, when he fled the Swedish justice system in connection with a sexual assault investigation. The fact that Sweden has dropped the case has not pushed Assange out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he requested asylum. In the meantime, he continues to challenge and irritate his hosts with all kinds of interference that has created a logical tension between Quito and its international allies.

All of Assange’s problems could fall within the realm of freedom of expression, were it not for the fact that there is now clear evidence to suggest that his relationship with Russia has turned WikiLeaks into a tool during election campaigns that the judiciary will have to reach a decision on. Experts in technology and freedom of expression in the parliaments of Spain, Britain, the European Union and the United States have already raised the alarm about its suspicious activities.

These are more than enough reasons for WikiLeaks to save its reputation by getting rid of Assange and demanding that he provide explanations before the law, just like any other citizen.

Original Article
Source: elpais.com
Author: El País