by Jack Mirkinson

January 12, 2011
from TheHuffingtonPost Website
 

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange revealed that he has damaging "insurance files" on Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp media empire that he will release if something happens to him or to WikiLeaks.

 


Assange made the revelation in a conversation with journalist John Pilger that appeared on the website of the New Statesman magazine on Wednesday.

"If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, 'insurance' files will be released," Assange told Pilger.

He said that the contents of the files,

"speak more of the same truth to power... there are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting organization and there are cables on Murdoch and News Corp."

Assange also said that any attempts by the U.S. government to prosecute him should worry the American press.

"I think what's emerging in the mainstream media is the awareness that if I can be indicted, other journalists can, too," he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-   Exclusive interview   -

The WikiLeaks Founder Talks to John Pilger

Julian Assange on Murdoch, Manning and The Threat From China
by New Statesman

12 January 2011

from NewStatesman Website

 

WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange

Photo: Getty Images.
 

In this week's New Statesman, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange talks to John Pilger about Bradley Manning, his "insurance" files on Rupert Murdoch and News Corp - and which country is the real enemy of WikiLeaks.

The "technological enemy" of WikiLeaks is not the United States, but China, according to Assange.

"China is the worst offender" when it comes to censorship, says the controversial whistleblower.

 

"China has aggressive and sophisticated interception technology that places itself between every reader inside China and every information source outside China. We've been fighting a running battle to make sure we can get information through, and there are now all sorts of ways Chinese readers can get on to our site."

On Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, Assange says:

"I'd never heard his name before it was published in the press."

He argues that the US is trying to use Manning - currently stuck in solitary confinement in the US - to build a case against the WikiLeaks founder:

"Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step," says the Australian hacker. "The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United States."

Such conspiracy would be impossible, he says.

"WikiLeaks technology was designed from the very beginning to make sure that we never knew the identities or names of people submitting material. We are as untraceable as we are uncensorable. That's the only way to assure sources they are protected."

Yesterday, Assange's lawyers warned that if he is extradited to America he could face the death penalty - for embarrassing the leaders of the US government.

"They don't want the public to know these things and scapegoats must be found," Assange says.

And despite the pressure the website has been under, reports of trouble at WikiLeaks are greatly exaggerated, he claims.

"There is no 'fall'. We have never published as much as we are now. WikiLeaks is now mirrored on more than 2,000 websites. I can't keep track of the spin-off sites - those who are doing their own WikiLeaks... If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, 'insurance' files will be released."

The contents of these files are unknown, but, according to Assange,

"They speak more of the same truth to power."

It is not just government that should be worried about the content of these files, however.

"There are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting organization and there are cables on Murdoch and News Corp," he says.

The attempts by Washington to indict him should worry the mainstream press, he adds.

"I think what's emerging in the mainstream media is the awareness that if I can be indicted, other journalists can, too," Assange says.

 

"Even the New York Times is worried. This used not to be the case. If a whistleblower was prosecuted, publishers and reporters were protected by the First Amendment, which journalists took for granted. That's being lost."

 

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