WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24assange.html

Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian restaurant in London’s rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears.

He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own as other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends.

“By being determined to be on this path, and not to compromise, I’ve wound up in an extraordinary situation,” Mr. Assange said over lunch last Sunday, when he arrived sporting a woolen beanie and a wispy stubble and trailing a youthful entourage that included a filmmaker assigned to document any unpleasant surprises.

In his remarkable journey to notoriety, Mr. Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowers’ Web site, sees the next few weeks as his most hazardous. Now he is making his most brazen disclosure yet: 391,832 secret documents on the Iraq war. He held a news conference in London on Saturday, saying that the release “constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any war ever to have entered the public record.”

living in a republican paradise.

Further in text: But now, WikiLeaks has been met with new doubts. Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have joined the Pentagon in criticizing the organization for risking people’s lives by publishing war logs identifying Afghans working for the Americans or acting as informers.

or a libertarian. There are anti-war conservatives and libertarians.

I don't understand your point

life being taken away by a fraudulant war.... And since the United Nations is requesting an investigation into the unveiling of the informations the leaks are providing I think the transparency in this matter via an investigation can be the first right step into ending this maddness......

I actually never thought about it. I just admire what he is doing. Exposing the lies that have killed and tortured and maimed untold numbers of human beings SHOULD have been done by our own media but as has always been predicted, if we don't restore the rule of law and start prosecuting our own war criminals, someone else will do it eventually. This is a start.

As for anyone worrying about HIM exposing people to danger, that is astounding. Has Amnesty Int. denounced the slaughter of the Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani civilians and the continuing, daily threat to their lives from drones and bombs and gunfire aimed at them and their children by the people who actually HAVE endangered millions of lives? Have they said anything about the millions who have been displaced half of whom are living in refugee camps outside their own country, many more displaced within their countries?

Their concern for the safety of people is a bit misplaced. Maybe they don't know that Wikileaks offered the Pentagon an opportunity to remove the names of anyone they thought might be endangered by the release of the documents. The Pentagon apparently didn't care enough about those lives either, assuming anyone was endangered, and refused the offer.

Amnesty Int and RWB should maybe deliver that message to those who are totally responsible for every life lost in those illegal invasions.

Hopefully the release of these documents and the damning evidence of war crimes and lies contained in them, will move this government to start finally doing some investigations and will lead to ending these criminal wars.

It's amazing. The Bush Gang of Criminals start two wars, and those in a position to condemn them, remained silent. Now they are pointing fingers at someone who actually tried to do something to expose the crimes and the criminals who are responsible.

The entire world and every human rights organization in the world should have been loudly condemning these wars before the started and until they end, then they should be demanding that the U.S. deal with the criminals so that this never happens again.

If there had been no crime, there would be no evidence to release. It is the equivalent of a fire started by an arsonist, who is allowed to go free, then someone admonishing the Fire Dept. for endangering lives when they show up to try to extinguish it.

by Mayhem (he is too busy making commercials)

I hope we can hang on to this, or we will find ourselves in RW hell.

i'm already there.

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