WikiLeaks: Julian Assange Arrested

WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, an accused sex criminal, has turned himself in to British authorities and been denied bail because the judge believes he’s likely to run if given the chance. He now awaits his fate. Because both the UK and Sweden are European Union countries, extradition from one to the other tends to move quickly and is tough to fight. All three — the UK, Sweden and the EU — also have extradition agreements with the United States, increasing the odds of him facing justice here.

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Until he surrendered to police, Assange had been using his illegally obtained U.S. government file trove to threaten the United States and the entire world along with us. This threat came in the form of his so-called “poison pill.”

Julian Assange will release a “poison pill” that contains a “deluge” of secret information if he is killed, arrested or his website is permanently shut down, Daily Mail reports.

“Due to recent attacks on our infrastructure, we’ve decided to make sure everyone can reach our content. As part of this process we’re releasing archived copy of all files we ever released,” WikiLeaks said in a message on its site.

We should be crystal clear about what this was. Assange faces ordinary criminal charges in Sweden, and could have been arrested on those charges at any time, whether he’d ever dumped docs or not. Interpol has put out a “red notice” seeking his arrest on that charge. He was hiding out somewhere in the United Kingdom, which has signed on to Interpol and has extradition arrangements with Sweden.  The “poison pill” threat was, in addition to being a direct threat to the sovereignty and security of the United States, an act of international blackmail. It also assured that he would be arrested.

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The uniqueness of this threat puts him into a new category of criminal. Julian Assange became the first cyber supervillain, joining the ranks of the likes of Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong-Il as menaces to world peace and the lives of innocent people across the globe. He even handed bin Laden a global terror target list. There was no “whistle-blowing” reason to release such a list. Doing so only helps the enemies of civilization and endangers innocent lives.

Julian Assange’s “poison pill” threat was his attempt to put himself outside ordinary legal proceedings and above the lives of others. Assange has shown in the past that he has no problem carrying the blood of innocents on his hands:

Recall that in August, Assange admitted that his leak during the 2007 Kenyan election led to 1,300 deaths (“That was the result of our leak”). Assange’s justification: “On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya.”

So a few more Kenyan deaths don’t matter. Interestingly, around 140,000 Australians die every year. Would one more make a difference? Apparently so, if it’s Julian.


Previously released WikiLeaks documents redacted names of sources in order to protect their identities. These sources include everything from native translators in the war zones, to agents inside enemy networks, to cooperative local nationals, to princes and kings and presidents. The “poison pill” documents are said to be unredacted, meaning names of sources from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond are all included for the world to see. Exposing these sources will expose them to enemy action. It would do even more damage to the ongoing U.S. war efforts than previous releases have already done. It would get people killed, if it works as advertised.

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Unfortunately for him, his “poison pill” threat virtually assured that he would be arrested and sent to Sweden to face his criminal charges. Politics more or less favored his ongoing elusiveness; the UK hadn’t moved against him and the Obama administration has reacted to his campaign against America with remarkable tepidness. For the UK to allow him to run free after the blackmail threat would amount to giving in to the threats of an amoral criminal. That could not stand, lest every other extradition agreement to which the UK is party come into grave question as to whether politics and fear will trump the law and their word.

Many on the left will continue to celebrate WikiLeaks’ disclosures as “brave” and even “patriotic,” lauding the advertised purpose of the leaks and Assange’s personal defiance, but they would be wise to pause for a moment and ponder just what sort of man they are celebrating and supporting. Assange’s “poison pill” blackmail threat is the action of a sociopath, a man who cares not one whit for the “transparency” he claims to cling to or the many lives his moves may end. Julian Assange is a man who evidently thrives on chaos, whose actions are those of an enemy of the United States and of the peace of the world, and whose tactics are those of an international criminal who believes that he is above the law.

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And to think, we arrived at this point because blackmailer Julian Assange released a trove of “tawdry tittle-tattle” that we mostly already knew.

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