by Joseph W

There are lots of people calling Julian Assange a hero, and many people who consider themselves left-wing, politically liberal, feminist and anti-racist have been very vocal in their defence of him.

But how much do we actually know about Julian Assange and the network of internet leakers who are currently basking in their fifteen minutes of fame?

I present some concerns that have struck me regarding the Wikileaks project and some of the personalities involved.

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1. Israel Shamir

Israel Shamir is a strange Swedish anti-Semite and conspiracy nut, who praises Holocaust deniers Ernst Zundel, David Irving and Gilad Atzmon.

Here he is with Julian Assange:

To be fair to Assange, Shamir is just standing there, and I seriously wonder whether Assange would notice anyone in the room once he’s online.

But it does make you wonder about what why Assange is with Shamir here in the first place.

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2. The Great Australian Bikini March

There is the odd story of the Great Australian Bikini March which Assange helped to organise and promoted on his blog. The march was put together by Assange’s mum Christine to protest against a radical sheikh Taj El-Din Hilaly, who outrageously had suggested that women caused rape by wearing skimpy clothes.

The Bikini March organisers planned to march towards the mufti’s mosque in their beachwear, on December 11th 2006 – the one-year anniversary of the Cronulla Race Riots. This prompted the Brunswick Mosque to hire security guards.

Here is Assange’s mum protesting:

From an interview Christine gave to ABC News:

SABRA LANE: You’re not worried that your event is going to be infiltrated by white supremacists? They’ve already sabotaged part of your website. CHRISTINE HAWKINS: I realise that, yes, I realise that. Of course, we want that to happen, but we’re hoping that by asking everybody else to come, okay? By saying, “listen, don’t let the white supremacists be the only ones that turn up, everybody come.” And that way they will be very much a minority, and we’re going to be working very closely with the police. And let me tell you that we will be working so closely with the police, if there’s any trouble from anyone, we’ll be handing them over.

Strangely, no request for white supremacists not to show up, just a promise to shop them to the police if they caused trouble.

In any case, when the event was finally cancelled, the organisers – including Julien Assange himself (!) – did not blame the white supremacists for stealing the show, but – ironically – blamed “irresponsible journalism”:

Organisers of The Great Australian Bikini March have been forced to cancel the event due to irresponsible journalism. During the month of the campaign, most media were respectful, reported the facts, focused on the issue[,] and agreed that publishing personal details about organisers was unnecessary. However, during the last few days there [has] been a… smear campaign in an attempt to sensationalise or discredit us. Despite… all [our] efforts to refer misinformed journalists and ‘independent’ media to the facts via our website they continued to knowingly misrepresent the intention and details of the March. Some stated they wanted us to stop the March. Apparently some in the media are intent that [‘The Great Australian Bikini March’] should not be allowed to proceed. Some people are very powerful. It would appear that free speech in a ‘tolerant’ society is not tolerated.

Those pesky irresponsible journalists, eh.

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3. Birgitta Jonsdottir

There is Birgitta Jonsdottir, the Icelandic MP who promotes strange theories about secret stargates in Yemen, David Icke videos, pharmaceutical conspiracies, 9-11 troof, info on the New World Order and international bankers, and gives interviews to neo-Nazis and conspiracy kooks.

According to the Telegraph yesterday, Assange was invited in 2009 as a special guest by Jonsdottir at a cocktail party hosted by the US Embassy in Iceland.

The Times reported earlier this year that Jonsdottir was one of Assange’s “lieutenants”, even cutting his hair on one occasion – quite sweet really.

Jonsdottir was quoted in the Times as saying:

“We’re all paranoid schizophrenics”

Well, quite.

Here she is with Assange in happier days, on a panel at UC Berkeley School of Journalism:

The Telegraph also reports major differences between Assange and Jonsdottir, particularly over the direction of Wikileaks and the way Wikileaks dealt with Private Bradley Manning, the suspected source of many of the secret documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ice News reported on creative tensions between Assange and Jonsdottir back in September, with Assange stressing that Jonsdottir was not a Wikileaks employee but simply a supporter.

However, Jonsdottir and Assange worked on a huge Wikileaks project together in Iceland back in February 2010, which the BBC reported on.

Sadly, none of these news agencies have mentioned that Jonsdottir is a fruitcake.

Jonsdottir and Assange have parted ways due to a personality clash, but one wonders quite why Assange was working so closely with her in the first place.

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4. The ‘original Wikileaker’ John Young

This past week the New York Observer has credited John Young as the ‘original Wikileaker’, noting that Young was an early associate of Assange and the Wikileaks project.

Also this week, Young has told conspiracy nut Alex Jones that he was the first Wikileaks spokesperson, but left because he eventually came to believe that Julian Assange was working for the CIA. This naturally leads us to wonder about a paranoid culture within Wikileaks.

Young set up another leak site Cryptome, to which Wikileaks Insiders write and post their thoughts on Assange, Jonsdottir and other members of the Wikileaks team.

For example, we learn from Young’s site how some within Wikileaks think of Assange:

The “insiders” here at Wikileaks firmly believe that Julian Assange is no rapist. However, we do believe that Assange is a crook who misappropriates donor funding to support an Austin Powers international lifestyle. Assange’s character flaws will eventually bring him down; unfortunately he will drag down Wikileaks with him.

And they say of Jonsdottir:

Many WIKILEAKS activists consider Birgitta Jonsdottir a liability to WIKILEAKS; responsible for introducing excessive political bias into our output. This was evident with her naming, editing, and commentary of the gunship video. […] Birgitta Jonsdittir uses the occasion to continue her anti American agenda, and compromise WIKILEAKS credibility.

How interesting.

Yet one wonders what anyone from Wikileaks are doing sending material to John Young.

John Young’s Cryptome site mirrors the now-defunct website of white supremacist Holocaust denier James Von Brunn:

James Von Brunn’s site was presumably pulled following his murder of a security guard at Washington’s Holocaust museum on 10 June 2009 – the same day Young retreived his site from the archives.

Well done, John Young, for retaining such valuable information on the net!

You can see here for further examples of Von Brunn’s writing as hosted by Young – not that you’d want to.

We also have this page:

Young’s Cryptome site also hosts an interview with the Far Right conspiracist Gregory Douglas from the fascist magazine Spotlight, in which Douglas claims:

The Gestapo has been falsely attacked […] It was not a murderous organization. […] The Gestapo was not a Nazi organization. It was made up of professionals. For instance, when a complaint about a Jew was lodged, Gestapo internal memos indicate “an investigation is called for.” If the Gestapo was what propaganda says it was, then there would have been no investigation. If a Jew was found guilty, of course, it was off to the camps. But if the accusation was found to be false, the accuser was arrested. All this is documented.

So Young is uncritically re-posting interviews with Nazis and resurrecting defunct Nazi website, and “Wikileaks Insider” and others continue to send him dirt on their leaders within Wikileaks.

Worryingly, Young is being reported this week as a legitimate ‘leaker’ in the Economist (who describe him as “libertarian” and his site as an alternative to Wikileaks), Wired, and even the New Scientist.

Italian publications La Repubblica and Il Fatto Quotidiano have published full articles on John Young this week, without noting that he is a dingbat.

CNN describes John Young as a co-founder of Wikileaks:

Watch CNN’s interview with John Young here – Young claims his dispute with Wikileaks was at heart financial.

In 2007, the BBC noted:

The Wikileaks team approached John Young, a New York based architect who has run his own public disclosure site at Cryptome for many years, and he agreed to help out. Unfortunately he began to be suspicious of the motives and capabilities of the organisers, and after they failed to reassure them he pulled out – pausing only to publish all of the contents of the supposedly secret wikileaks mailing list on his own site. So far he has not published names and email addresses, but it is only a matter of time. This is not just a dispute between groups of plotters and conspiracy theorists. John Young has, over the years, proved his credibility and his commitment to freedom of speech, and if he is worried about the Wikileaks project then we should all be.

Uh huh.

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5. To sum up

One of my major concerns is this:

With all the hysteria surrounding Assange and Wikileaks, increasingly people are believing that these leakers are somehow inherently virtuous and noble.

In reality, these groups seem to have a remarkably high tolerance of conspiracy cranks, 911 troofers, and historical revisionists.

At best their activists are quixotic and at worst downright paranoid and ego-centric.

But I wonder if Cablegate will be a watershed moment for the nutty conspiracy-crank blogosphere.

Perhaps following Cablegate, the nuttersphere can now present themselves as ‘alternative media’, ‘leakers against Assange’, or eke out some other new position from where they can push their dingbat agendas.

Thanks Wikileaks.

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