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US govt demands WikiLeaks destroy all files about them – Assange
Published: 28 November, 2011, 16:06
Edited: 21 February, 2012, 20:08
Julian Assange addresses News 2011 Summit via Skype (28 November, Hong Kong)
TAGS: UK, Politics, Law, Mass media, USA, WikiLeaks, Assange
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has told a media summit that the US government has ordered him to destroy all the material WikiLeaks holds on them – published and unpublished - and to stop using government insiders to gather fresh material.
“[When we released our documents] the Pentagon said we must destroy everything we published and were going to publish,” Assange said. ”And if we didn’t, we would be ‘compelled to do so,’” the summit’s website says.
Assange made the allegation as he addressed the News 2011 Summit in Hong Kong via Skype. News executives and media owners from over 80 countries have gathered there to discuss editorial principles and tools as well as business models for the news media. Reports say Assange has been under police pressure to stop talking – exactly the kind of oppressive official action he has been working to highlight.
He was met with a storm of applause from journalists as he appeared on the screen.
Speaking about modern journalism, Assange claimed it was facing crisis of a legitimacy today and accused the mainstream press of corruption and bias.
Answering a question from the moderator on whether he considers himself a journalist, Assange said, "Of course I'm a goddamned journalist," and emphasized the role WikiLeaks played in some significant events, such as the revolution in Tunisia.
The WikiLeaks founder has dubbed the Internet the biggest surveillance machine ever built: “Any information stored in Gmail or Yahoo is accessible by any government agency."
Julian Assange is facing extradition from the UK to Sweden to be questioned over sexual assault offences. His defense believes the move could lead to their client facing prosecution in America for his involvement in WikiLeaks.
The NEWS 2011 summit, which started on Sunday, will last for four days. Follow the latest updates from the summit on Twitter with RT’s Ksenya Fyodorova.
28.11.2011, 15:19
95 comments
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Apparently Pakistan has a copy of Obamas Pakistani Passport, and possibly a forged birth certificate.
Catch 22.
oh , it looks like RT's experiment with post edited comments is over?
pity, it would have been good to see post edit in the forum.
i want to see the really stupid and crazy comments (even mine) , it's good to see the attempts at propaganda as well, i think with RT's volume one could never achieve manipulation at this point.
so in that regard post edit has negligible "risk".
love the "+ -" Ratings! and the "quote" !
Cheers
I can say anything I want as long as I do no harm oethrs. This stuff wikileaks is doing is not supported by the freedom of speech. It violating this freedom. Freedom of speech doesn't give the right to me to yell FIRE' in a crowded theater when there isn't one. It will cause harm to the people in that theater. By disclosing private documents of individuals and governments just for the sake of releasing them, you are endangering that person and that nation that are involved in such documents. When the government is breaking laws itself it is the duty of a person to get that information out to teach the people of what there government is doing wrong. However, what Wikileaks is doing is not for the freedom of information any and all governments needs to keep somethings secret as in when designing new weapons, to protect it and its citizens from a foreign power or terrorist groups. Wikileaks doesn't seem to care about that, as all they seem to care about right is to my country of the United States. I wonder what Australia will do, if and when this Assange guy starts attacking them. About Iran, why isn't he going after them for all the dirt they have? Because he is chicken and he knows it will mean signing his own death warrant. What Assangeand wikileaks is doing is not only reprehensible, unethical, immoral, and just plain wrong; I also feel it is illegal. It is hate speech pure and simple, that is obvious. What also is just as bad are the people who are leaking such info and the stupid idiots willing to publish it. Why is Assange now in hiding and why is there no way to find to contact wikileaks and tell him and the oethrs what a bunch of big jerks they are?Reply