Julian Assange

*Last night I watched an interview on 60's minutes about wikileaks founder Julian Assange. I think it was one of the most interesting interviews I've ever seen, and so, I felt the need to share it. Click the link to watch the interview. I also added some transcript of the interview, below.

 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7300034n

Kroft: The State Department would make the same argument. They have…doing very sensitive work that they're trying to make peace and negotiate situations around the world. Very delicately. It's very important that they do this in secrecy. What's the difference?

Assange: We don't say that the State Department should have no secrets. That's not what we're saying. Rather, we say that if there are people in the State Department who say that there is some abuse going on, and there's not a proper mechanism for internal accountability and external accountability, they must have a conduit to get that out to the public. And we are the conduit.
 
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Kroft: There is an element of the press, most of the mainstream press, nobody wants to see you prosecuted, because it could affect the way that they do their business. But there's also a feeling within the community that you're not one of them, that you play a different game.

Assange: We do play a different game. And I hope we're a new way.
 
Kroft: The point that they're making I think is that you're not -- you're -- you're a publisher, but you're also an activist.

Assange: Wait, whoa. We're a particular type of activist. In the U.S. context, there seems to be communist activists or something, so it's a…

Kroft: Right. Agitator.

Assange: It's a dirty word in the U.S.

Kroft: It's a dirty word. And people think that what you're trying to do is to sabotage the workings of government.

Assange: No. We're not that type of activists. We are free press activists. It's not about saving the whales. It's about giving people the information they need to support whaling or not support whaling. Why? That is the raw ingredients that is needed to make a just and civil society. And without that you're just sailing in the dark.