Table Of Content

About the Book It was the biggest leak in history. WikiLeaks infuriated the world’s greatest superpower, embarrassed the British royal family and helped cause a revolution in Africa. The man behind it was Julian Assange, one of the strangest figures ever to become a worldwide celebrity. Was he an internet messiah or a cyber-terrorist? Information freedom fighter or sex criminal? The debate would echo around the globe as US politicians called for his assassination. Award-winning Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding have been at the centre of a unique publishing drama that involved the release of some 250,000 secret diplomatic cables and classified files from the Afghan and Iraq wars. At one point the platinum-haired hacker was hiding from the CIA in David Leigh’s London house. Now, together with the paper’s investigative reporting team, Leigh and Harding reveal the startling inside story of the man and the leak. Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy David Leigh and Luke Harding with Ed Pilkington, Robert Booth and Charles Arthur This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9780852652404 www.randomhouse.co.uk Published by Guardian Books 2011 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Copyright © The Guardian David Leigh and Luke Harding have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Guardian Books Kings Place 90 York Way London N1 9GU www.guardianbooks.co.uk A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-85265-239-8 CONTENTS Cast of characters Introduction Chapter 1: The Hunt Chapter 2: Bradley Manning Chapter 3: Julian Assange Chapter 4: The rise of WikiLeaks Chapter 5: The Apache video Chapter 6: The Lamo dialogues Chapter 7: The deal Chapter 8: In the bunker Chapter 9: The Afghanistan war logs Chapter 10: The Iraq war logs Chapter 11: The cables Chapter 12: The world’s most famous man Chapter 13: Uneasy partners Chapter 14: Before the deluge Chapter 15: Publication day Chapter 16: The biggest leak in history Chapter 17: The ballad of Wandsworth jail Chapter 18: The future of WikiLeaks Appendix: US Embassy Cables Acknowledgements CAST OF CHARACTERS WikiLeaks MELBOURNE, NAIROBI, REYKJAVIK, BERLIN, LONDON, NORFOLK, STOCKHOLM Julian Assange – WikiLeaks founder/editor Sarah Harrison – aide to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Kristinn Hrafnsson – Icelandic journalist and WikiLeaks supporter James Ball – WikiLeaks data expert Vaughan Smith – former Grenadier Guards captain, founder of the Frontline Club and Assange’s host at Ellingham Hall Jacob Appelbaum – WikiLeaks’ representative in the US Daniel Ellsberg – Vietnam war whistleblower, WikiLeaks supporter Daniel Domscheit-Berg – German programmer and WikiLeaks technical architect (aka Daniel Schmitt) Mikael Viborg – owner of WikiLeaks’ Swedish internet service provider PRQ Ben Laurie – British encryption expert, adviser to Assange on encryption Mwalimu Mati – head of anti-corruption group Mars Group Kenya, source of first major WikiLeaks report Rudolf Elmer – former head of the Cayman Islands branch of the Julius Baer bank, source of second major WikiLeaks report Smári McCarthy – Iceland-based WikiLeaks enthusiast, programmer, Modern Media Initiative (MMI) campaigner Birgitta Jónsdóttir – Icelandic MP and WikiLeaks supporter Rop Gonggrijp – Dutch hacker-businessman, friend of Assange and MMI campaigner Herbert Snorrason – Icelandic MMI campaigner Israel Shamir – WikiLeaks associate Donald Böstrom – Swedish journalist and WikiLeaks’ Stockholm connection The Guardian LONDON Alan Rusbridger – editor-in-chief Nick Davies – investigative reporter David Leigh – investigations editor Ian Katz – deputy editor (news) Ian Traynor – Europe correspondent Harold Frayman – systems editor Declan Walsh – Pakistan/Afghanistan correspondent Alastair Dant – data visualiser Simon Rogers – data editor Jonathan Steele – former Iraq correspondent James Meek – former Iraq correspondent Rob Evans – investigative journalist Luke Harding – Moscow correspondent Robert Booth – reporter Stuart Millar – news editor, guardian.co.uk Janine Gibson – editor, guardian.co.uk Jonathan Casson – head of production Gill Phillips – in-house head of legal Jan Thompson – managing editor New York Times NEW YORK, LONDON Max Frankel – former executive editor Bill Keller – editor Eric Schmitt – war correspondent John F Burns – London correspondent Ian Fisher – deputy foreign editor Der Spiegel HAMBURG, LONDON Georg Mascolo – editor-in-chief Holger Stark – head of German desk Marcel Rosenbach – journalist John Goetz – journalist El País MADRID, LONDON Javier Moreno – editor-in-chief Vicente Jiménez – deputy editor Other Media Raffi Khatchadourian – New Yorker staffer and author of a major profile of Assange Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen – Reuters news agency employees accidentally killed by US army pilots in 2007 David Schlesinger – Reuters’ editor-in-chief Kevin Poulsen – former hacker, senior editor at Wired