Julian Assange Quotes (34 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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When Google Met Wikileaks

Julian Assange

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Famous Julian Assange Quotes

“Large newspapers are routinely censored by legal costs. It is time this stopped. It is time a country said, enough is enough, justice must be seen, history must be preserved, and we will give shelter from the storm.”

Julian Assange

[Mark, Tran, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/iceland-haven-freedom-speech-wikileaks?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=600&width=990, Iceland plans future as global haven for freedom of speech, The Guardian, February 12, 2010, 2010-06-17]

“I would be happy to accept asylum, political asylum, in India — a nation I love. In return, I will bring Mayawati a range of the finest British footwear.”

Julian Assange

Mayawati controversy: Text of Julian Assange's statement, The Hindu, September 6, 2011, September 9, 2011 http://www.thehindu.com/news/article2430172.ece,

“It is the media that controls the boundaries of what is politically permissible, so better to change the media. Profit motives work against it, but if we can have the audience understand that most other forms of journalism are not credible, then it may be a forced move.”

Julian Assange

Source: [Peter, Farquhar, http://www.news.com.au/technology/ipad/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-adamant-his-site-broke-collateral-murder-encryption/story-fn5knrwy-1225868870785, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange adamant his site broke Collateral Murder encryption, News.com.au, May 19, 2010, 2010-06-17]

“Capable, generous men do not create victims, they nurture them.”

Julian Assange

[Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks, TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, www.ted.com, July 2010, 2010-07-22, http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html]

“The goal is justice, the method is transparency. It's important not to confuse the goal and the method.”

Julian Assange

[Julian Assange Interviewed by John Pilger, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGUq0kYV-8Q]

“You can’t publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism.”

Julian Assange

[‘A real free press for the first time in history’: Wikileaks editor speaks out in London, Journalism.co.uk, 2007-08-12, 2010-08-01, http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2010/07/12/a-real-free-press-for-the-first-time-in-history-wikileaks-editor-speaks-out-in-london/]

Julian Assange Quotes about people

“Most power structures are deeply incompetent, staffed by people who don't really believe in their institutions and that most power is the projection of the perception of power. And the more secretively it works, the more incompetent it is, because secrecy breeds incompetence, while openness breeds competence, because one can see and can compare actions and see which one is more competent. To keep up these appearances, institutional heads or political heads such as presidents spend most of the time trying to walk in front of the train and pretending that it is following them, but the direction is set by the tracks and by the engine of the train. Understanding that means that small and committed organisations can outmanoeuvre these institutional dinosaurs, like the State Department, the NSA or the CIA.”

Julian Assange

Source: Repubblica.it interview, 23 Dec 2016<sup> link http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/12/23/news/assange_wikileaks-154754000/</sup>

“This is not justice; never could this be justice, the verdict was ordained long ago. Its function is not to determine questions such as guilt or innocence, or truth or falsehood. It is a public relations exercise, designed to provide the government with an alibi for posterity. It is a show of wasteful vengeance; a theatrical warning to people of conscience.”

Julian Assange

Prosecutor: Manning let secrets into enemy hands= The Oaklahoman, 2013-06-03, 2013-06-04 http://newsok.com/prosecutor-manning-let-secrets-into-enemy-hands/article/feed/549470/?page=2,Regarding the [Bradley Manning] trial.

“There is a view that one should never be permitted to be criticized for being even possibly in the future engaged in a contributory act that might be immoral, and that that type of arse-covering is more important than actually saving people's lives. That it is better to let a thousand people die than risk going to save them and possibly running over someone on the way. And that is something that I find to be philosophically repugnant.”

Julian Assange

[Wikileaks:Secrets and Lies, http://www.channel4.com/programmes/wikileaks-secrets-and-lies/4od, 2012-06-30]

“Seeing ongoing political reforms that have a real impact on people all over the world is extremely satisfying. But we want every person who's having a dispute with their kindergarten to feel confident about sending us material.”

Julian Assange

[David, Kushner, w:David Kushner, http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/wikileaks-julian-assange-iraq-video?page=1, Inside WikiLeaks’ Leak Factory, Mother Jones, April 6, 2010, 2010-06-17]

“We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying. That is my temperament. I enjoy creating systems on a grand scale, and I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards.”

Julian Assange

[‘WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange on the 'War Logs', Spiegel.de, 2010-07-26, 2010-08-03, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,708518,00.html]

“I often say that censorship is always a cause for celebration. It is always an opportunity because it reveals fear of reform. It means that the power position is so weak that you have got to care what people think.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), p. 121

Julian Assange Quotes about the world

“Our No. 1 enemy is ignorance. And I believe that is the No. 1 enemy for everyone — it's not understanding what actually is going on in the world.”

Julian Assange

[Newton, Lee, Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), Springer Science+Business Media, 2014]

“It was clear to me that all over the world publishing is a problem. Whether than it through self-censorship or overt censorship.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), p. 69

“Let me first frame this. I looked at something that I had seen going on in the world, which is that I thought there were too many unjust acts. And I wanted there to be more just acts, and fewer unjust acts.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), pp. 66-67

“Whether it is being just a company or "more than just a company," Google's geopolitical aspirations are firmly enmeshed within the foreign-policy agenda of the world's largest superpower.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), p. 46

Julian Assange Quotes

“The sense of perspective that interaction with multiple cultures gives you I find to be extremely valuable, because it allows you to see the structure of a country with greater clarity, and gives you a sense of mental independence. You're not swept up in the trivialities of a nation. You can concentrate on the serious matters.”

Julian Assange

The secret life of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 22, 2010, 2010-06-17 http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-secret-life-of-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-20100521-w1um.html,

“WikiLeaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than WikiLeaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, Russian offshore stem-cell centers, former African kleptocrats, or the Pentagon.”

Julian Assange

[Raffi, Khatchadourian, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian, No Secrets, The New Yorker, June 9, 2010, 2010-06-17]

“You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.”

Julian Assange

[Julian Assange, monk of the online age who thrives on intellectual battle, The Guardian, 2010-08-01, 2010-08-01, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan]

“That’s arguably what spy agencies do — high-tech investigative journalism. It’s time that the media upgraded its capabilities along those lines.”

Julian Assange

[Noam, Cohen, Noam Cohen, Brian Stelter, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/07wikileaks.html?src=mv, Iraq Video Brings Notice to a Web Site, The New York Times, The New York Times Company, April 6, 2010, 2010-06-17]

“I may be a chauvinist pig of some sort, but I'm no rapist.”

Julian Assange

Of allegations of sexual assault
The Economist, 1st October 2011, p. 89

“Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism.”

Julian Assange

Accuser snapped me in the nude, The Sunday Times, December 26, 2010, 2010-12-28 http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/People/article490823.ece,

“The final nail in the coffin was that I went to the hundredth anniversary of physics at the ANU. There were some 1500 visitors there - four Nobel prize winners - and every goddamn one of them was carting around, on their backs, a backpack given to them by the Defence Science Technology Organisation. At least it was an Australian defence science organisation. And there was just something about their attire, and the way they moved their bodies, and of course the bags on their backs didn't help much either. I couldn't respect them as men.”

Julian Assange

Keeper of secrets, The Melbourne Age, May 22, 2010, 2012-09-11 http://www.theage.com.au/national/keeper-of-secrets-20100521-w230.html,

“The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free.”

Julian Assange

Julian Assange answers your questions, The Guardian, December 3, 2010, 2010-12-14 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks,

“I never had a mentor. I was forced to make myself up as I went along.”

Julian Assange

The Economist, 1st October 2011, p. 89

“It is impossible to correct abuses unless we know that they’re going on.”

Julian Assange

Julian Assange at the Oslo Freedom Forum http://www.oslofreedomforum.com/speakers/julian-assange.html, April 26-29, 2010. URL accessed on 2010-07-08. (YouTube video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S6002S8PTU.

“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find. If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whos hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes. The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them.”

Julian Assange

[Witnessing, 2007-01-03, 2012-08-16, http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/http://iq.org/#Witnessing]

“Power is mostly the illusion of power. The Pentagon demanded we destroy our publications. We kept publishing. Clinton denounced us and said we were an attack on the entire "international community". We kept publishing. I was put in prison and under house arrest. We kept publishing. We went head to head with the NSA getting Edward Snowden out of Hong Kong, we won and got him asylum. Clinton tried to destroy us and was herself destroyed. Elephants, it seems, can be brought down with string. Perhaps there are no elephants.”

Julian Assange

Repubblica.it interview, 23 Dec 2016<sup> link http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/12/23/news/assange_wikileaks-154754000/</sup>

“Vanity in a newspaper man is like perfume on a whore; they use it to fend off a dark whiff of themselves.”

Julian Assange

Source: The Economist, 1st October 2011, p. 89

“Censorship represents Fear by Big Information. 'Stopping leaks' is a new form of censorship.”

Julian Assange

Quotes.

“All memoir is prostitution.”

Julian Assange

After reading the first draft of a biography about himself, March 2011, as quoted in [Matt, Taibbi, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/taibbi-julian-assange-case-wikileaks-758883/, Why You Should Care About the Julian Assange Case, Rolling Stone, November 23, 2018]

“. . . I think that the instincts human beings have are actually much better than the societies that we have.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), p. 118

“The much bigger thing is that we as human beings shepherd and create our intellectual history as a civilization. And it is that intellectual history on the shelf that we can pull off the shelf to do stuff, and to avoid doing the dumb things again, because somebody already did the dumb thing and wrote about their experience and we don't need to do it again. There are several processes that are creating that record, and other processes where people are trying to destroy bits of that record, and others that are trying to prevent people from putting things into that record in the first place. We all live off that intellectual record. So what we want to do is get as much into the record, prevent as much as possible being deleted from the record, and then make the record as searchable as possible.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), p.124

“If wars can be started with lies, they can be stopped by truth.”

Julian Assange

Source: Quoted in Fate Of Anti-War Journalism Lies in Upcoming Assange Hearings, Sam Carliner, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/22/fate-anti-war-journalism-lies-upcoming-assange-hearings October 22, 2021