In a new feature story from the February issue of Vanity Fair, "The Man Who Spilled the Secrets," veteran reporter Sarah Ellison -- formerly of the Wall Street Journal -- dives deep into the clash between Assange and the editors of the Guardian and the New York Times. A lot has been written about WikiLeaks this year, most of it coming out since the release of the cables, but most of it has been opinion-driven; Ellison is the first to report on the legal action Assange threatened the Guardian with.

Ellison's piece also reveals other little-discussed details. For example, Rusbridger and the Guardian approached Assange instead of the other way around. In discussing WikiLeaks, most reporters, it seems, have quickly glossed over how the documents were handed over -- Assange sent them to the Guardian, Der Spiegel, El Pais, and others, they write -- but that sequence is entirely wrong, months of extensive interviews conducted by Ellison have determined. After reading an article about Private First Class Bradley Manning that mentioned WikiLeaks as an afterthought, the Guardian's Nick Davies knew he had to track down Assange. And track him down he did.



In the end, though, approaching Assange was unnecessary. After months of hunting and negotiating, Assange was working with the Guardian. But after getting a taste of what it was like to work with one big media company, Assange was hungry for more. He started inviting other newspapers into the project against the Guardian's will; if the government tried to shut down Wikileaks, Assange's reasoning went, he wanted to have outlets in several different countries. ("It is unlikely that U.K. courts could block publication," Ellison writes, "but it's even more unlikely that the U.S. government would go after the New York Times, given the strong First Amendment protections and the precedent set by the Pentagon Papers case.")



The Guardian's team played along with Assange even though they didn't have to. It was discovered that Heather Brooke, a British freelance journalist, had obtained a copy of the complete database from a former WikiLeaks volunteer. Brooke was invited to join the Guardian team so that the paper would have its own copy of the leaks. No longer was it bound by the stipulations set out in an agreement with Assange.



Rusbridger worked to calm Assange down that day he stormed into the Guardian's office threatening to sue. He brought all concerned parties to the table and reached a mutual understanding. "Given all the tensions that were built into it, it would have been surprising to get out of it without some friction, but we negotiated it all quite well," Rusbridger told Ellison. But that's raises new questions that Ellison doesn't answer -- or even explore -- in this piece. If the Guardian has its own set of the diplomatic cables and is no longer bound by Assange's rules, why is the paper still following them? We know there are a quarter of a million documents waiting to get out and WikiLeaks is slowly letting them drip out. If he wanted to, Rusbridger could give the sign.



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