Assange to reap what he has sown

Interviewed on 60 Minutes, Julian Assange refuses to confirm that Wikileaks holds the hard drive of a Bank of America executive.

Yet here's Assange way back in October 2009:

"At the moment, for example, we are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America, one of the executive's hard drives," he said. "Now how do we present that? It's a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it."

60 Minutes interviewer Steve Kroft doesn't note Assange's prior Bank of America revelation thus allowing Assange to childishly gloat "it's great" that not only Bank of America but all major American banks are "squirming" at the prospect Wikileaks holds information that might prove damaging – Assange has claimed Wikileaks holds data that ”could take down a bank or two.”

But according to Reuters the bank data is "dated" and Assange is "unable to make much sense of it", the article pointing to the obvious:

The contrast between the schadenfreude with which he has talked about the bank documentation in public and the caution with which he has described the material in private may provide fresh ammunition to opponents of Assange, who have accused him of hyping revelations and promoting conspiracy theories for personal and political gain.

Assange isn't at all interested in transparency or informing the public, rather he aims to play a major role in the attempted destruction of the United States. Former colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg confirms the appeal of this anti-American bent:

A lot of people probably think it's fashionable to run around sporting "Support Julian Assange" buttons and stickers. These are the same sorts of people who reflexively applaud every time the US suffers any sort of setback.

But feeling the pressure of extradition proceedings and having alienated essentially everyone he's had close contact with Assange now wants to return to Australia:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he feels betrayed by his former confidants and is considering a return to his birthplace in Australia.

Assange, who is in London facing a two-week wait to find out whether he will be extradited to Sweden to face sex crime allegations, spoke to Dateline's Mark Davis in an interview to air on SBS tonight.

He reveals in the interview that he could publish more material which might compromise the Australian government.

Thus Assange wants the Australian government to pull his bacon out of the fire he himself created or suffer the consequences of possibly damaging leaks.

Assange's mummy even demands that the Australian government intervene to force Sweden "to drop the extradition case against Julian".

But as Daniel Domscheit-Berg notes, alleged sexual impropriety is a personal matter that Assange must himself confront:

The rape accusations from Sweden against him have nothing to do with WikiLeaks. They're about Julian as a private person and two women, and he should face those accusations. Sweden is not known for its hanging judges, its susceptibility to American influence, or a judicial system that lacks transparency. If Julian is innocent, and I presume he is unless and until the opposite is proved, he has nothing to fear.

In reality Assange has much to fear: he's a megalomaniac who insists on playing by his own rules. Unfortunately, pissing off everyone you come into contact with results in people queuing up for revenge.


Editing note: The title of the post has been changed from "sewn" to "sown".