Assange Statement on the US-Election

In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That pressure has come from the campaign’s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President.

On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have.

The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks – an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public’s right to be informed.

This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work.

The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks’ election related publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents. Millions of Americans have pored over the leaks and passed on their citations to each other and to us. It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First Amendment.

We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.

At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us.

We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it.

That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.

This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration’s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning’s treatment either.

Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know.

This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so.

The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone’s ability to speak and publish freely. The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached its full potential.

Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton’s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications—because none exists.

In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them – a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.

WikiLeaks’ decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but this day is one of them.

We have endured intense criticism, primarily from Clinton supporters, for our publications. Many long-term supporters have been frustrated because we have not addressed this criticism in a systematic way or responded to a number of false narratives about Wikileaks’ motivation or sources. Ultimately, however, if WL reacted to every false claim, we would have to divert resources from our primary work.

WikiLeaks, like all publishers, is ultimately accountable to its funders. Those funders are you. Our resources are entirely made up of contributions from the public and our book sales. This allows us to be principled, independent and free in a way no other influential media organization is. But it also means that we do not have the resources of CNN, MSNBC or the Clinton campaign to constantly rebuff criticism.

Yet if the press obeys considerations above informing the public, we are no longer talking about a free press, and we are no longer talking about an informed public.

Wikileaks remains committed to publishing information that informs the public, even if many, especially those in power, would prefer not to see it. WikiLeaks must publish. It must publish and be damned.

brador2• 10 years ago

I was a fan until they started timing releases to achieve political and vindictive goals.

"Information should be free, (and not a weapon)." Was the motto of the cyphers before this s-show went down. Without that moral high ground, what's left?

MK9995• 10 years ago

Your argument is information shouldn't be used to affect political change? If so, that is not a sound argument.

gingerrr2• 10 years ago

That's a pretty reductionist characterization of GP's point. IMO, they're not saying information shouldn't be used to effect political change in the abstract - but that it should be available when available, not when politically expedient.

The issue most critics seem to have in this thread and elsewhere with Wikileaks' actions aren't the leaks, but the timing just weeks before the election. I can't honestly say if that's agenda or just the timing in which they received the information, but if they sat on the info before releasing it, that definitely belies some specific political agenda rather than the broader and widely-supported goal of "information should be free".

strict9• 10 years ago

What a sham. The twitter feed reveals things far beyond using "material given to us."

It's a shame the platform brought sunlight on a deep dark secret has become a platform for someone to desperately try and influence an election out of complete self-interest.

For me, anything in the future revealed by wikileaks will be under an aura of suspicion and disbelief.

berberous• 10 years ago

"For me, anything in the future revealed by wikileaks will be under an aura of suspicion and disbelief."

You can question Wikileaks motives or political beliefs, the relevance of the emails, the timing of the publications, or the twisted reporting third parties have done of the underlying documents, but Wikileaks itself has proven itself to publish accurate records thus far.

dhagz• 10 years ago

Everyone has an agenda. It's as simple as that. More so, for many people with some form of power, that agenda is not always in line with what they tell you.

That said, despite their agenda, they publish valid documents and aren't pushing anything outright untruthful. I don't even think they try to spin what they publish.

joesmo2• 10 years ago

Assange can publish whatever the fuck he wants, but this claim is truly beyond arrogant: "This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work."

What an arrogant asshole! I supported his work in the past and his stay at the embassy to avoid what are most likely trumped up charges, but to claim that you have the right to mess with another country's election and that, regardless of the outcome, this messing with the election is for the good of that country's people is absolutely fucking insane. How is this any different from what the government already does, manipulating foreign elections and leader? Is Wikileaks a press organization or a covert, non-state actor? I just lost all respect for the man and his organization. His 'principles' may be real or they may be made up to hide his true motives. I don't care. Such arrogance is disgusting.

null4bl32• 10 years ago

Thousands and thousands of Americans have been reading through the emails of one of their presidential candidates casting a big shining light on the secret deals, trades and political issues as products for big corporations and interest groups. The emails themselves was most likely leaked by a American citizen. So yeah. The US public is better informed on a lot things. How is that wrong?

joesmo2• 10 years ago

Manipulating a foreign election, especially to the detriment of that country, is morally wrong. We have a lot of laws in place to prevent this being done. The leaks are irrelevant. The arrogance is disgusting.

billy89882• 10 years ago

It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.

But, we will withhold it until weeks before the elections.

null4bl32• 10 years ago

Not at all. The email data was received in chunks not many weeks before the election campaign began.

dogma1138• 10 years ago

Assange has been taunting about those mails for a while, they could've released all of them at once not drop by drop with the last one being on the weekend before the elections.

This was played for maximum effect, they had them likely for months, if not longer, this is a score settling not an exercise in democracy.

synicalx• 10 years ago

To be fair though, if they released them all two years ago no one would remember it at election time. The great unwashed masses tend to have an attention span and memory that can be measured in seconds.

billy89882• 10 years ago

So it is not about transparency but to influence the elections. Thank you.

Assange Statement on the US-Election

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