Julian Assange

Julian Assange: "Geopolitics will be separated into pre and post 'Cablegate'"

El País features an interview with Julian Assange in the December 5th edition. He talked about the numerous death threats he has been receiving, the attacks against WikiLeaks, the significance of the Cablegate release, and fighting the Swedish case allegations.

On death threats: "We have hundreds of specific death threats from US military militants. That is not unusual, and we have become practiced from past experiences at ignoring such threats from Islamic extremists, African kleptocrats and so on. Recently the situation has changed with these threats now extending out to our lawyers and my children. However it is the specific calls from the elites of US society for our assassination, kidnapping and execution that is more concerning. These range from a US senate bill by John Ensign which seeks to declare us a "transnational threat" to assassination calls from former Bush speechwriters such as Marc Thiessen in The Washington Post and Bill O'Reilly of Fox News."

On the consequences of Cablegate: "It is too early to say yet. The ripples are just starting to flow throughout the world. But I believe geopolitics will be separated into pre and post Cablegate phases."

On the Swedish charges: "We will fight them and expose them, naturally. That there is something "wrong" with this case is now obvious to everyone."

Read the full interview in English or Spanish

Photo credit: AFP

By Greg Barns, barrister and director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, 2010-12-01

Here’s a theory, and a plausible one at that. The Gillard government is getting pressure from Washington to close down Wikileaks founder Julian Assange because he is an Australian citizen. So Attorney-General Robert McClelland announces yesterday that he has asked the Australian Federal Police to see if Mr. Assange can have the book thrown at him and have his passport cancelled.

Mr. McClelland’s decision amounts to little more than posturing. This is because Mr. Assange would appear to have committed no crime under Australia’s suite of laws on disclosure of sensitive state information.

Yesterday the ABC’S Brisbane morning show presenter Madonna King exposed the weakness of McClelland’s position.

McClelland told King that the “law enforcement agencies are looking separately at the issue as to whether any Australian criminal laws have been breached and if so the appropriate course of action to take in response to that.”

Then there was this exchange:

MADONNA KING: Well what could be a criminal law that possibly could have been breached? I’m just thinking what is the crime here?

ROBERT McClelland: The crimes potentially relate to the publication of national security sensitive material, in circumstances where that is intentionally done knowing the sensitivity of it. There are other specific offenses relating to the publishing of details concerning certain places and so forth. So they’re the sort of issues that the police are looking at.

MADONNA KING: But don’t you have a big jurisdictional problem there? The leaks are coming from the United States but that’s a crime under Australian law. How do you actually do that?

By Darren Bailey, Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia

Submitted on 04 December 2010

Subject: Julian Assange

Dear Prime Minister,

I wish to strongly associate myself with the letter addressed to you from NSW Supreme Court solicitor Peter Kemp, dated 4 December 2010, concerning the treatment of Mr Julian Assange.

His rights as an Australian citizen are clearly being infringed and should be vigorously protected "though the heavens may fall". As this nation's Prime Minister, and as a lawyer yourself, you ought to know this fact far better than your official statements would indicate.

Please address this issue as a matter of urgency. Demonstrate that to be an Australian citizen actually counts for something.

Sincerely,

Darren Bailey
Solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia

By Darren Bailey, Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia

Submitted on 04 December 2010

Subject: Julian Assange

Dear Prime Minister,

I wish to strongly associate myself with the letter addressed to you from NSW Supreme Court solicitor Peter Kemp, dated 4 December 2010, concerning the treatment of Mr Julian Assange.

His rights as an Australian citizen are clearly being infringed and should be vigorously protected "though the heavens may fall". As this nation's Prime Minister, and as a lawyer yourself, you ought to know this fact far better than your official statements would indicate.

Please address this issue as a matter of urgency. Demonstrate that to be an Australian citizen actually counts for something.

Sincerely,

Darren Bailey
Solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia

The New York Times' T Magazine features a short profile on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks:

"Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have been jettisoned to fame or notoriety (choose your noun, please) not because of a passing political battle but for reasons much deeper: the desire to possess, distribute and devour information. Ever since the release in July this year of some 92,000 documents relating to America’s involvement in Afghanistan, an old joke from Communist times keeps spinning around my head. ‘‘We cannot predict the future,’’ announces the newsreader of Soviet radio reporting on the Politburo’s deliberations, ‘‘but the past is changing before our very eyes.’’ Now our understanding of the nature of the intervention in Iraq has also changed radically with the publication of a still more astonishing collection of 391,832 secret United States military field reports from the kaleidoscopic theaters of battle.[...]

Assange understands full well the significance of these documents and their surreptitious transmission, and that knowledge translates into power and influence. For most of history, government has enjoyed an easy superiority in adjusting the ebb and flow of information. Now the rules of the contest have changed. In contrast to the petabytes of data flotsam, half-truths and speculation that drift daily around the Internet, WikiLeaks spews forth unvarnished, sensitive truths. Assange’s extraordinary project provides transparency unbridled. Historians, journalists and civic activists will continue to fish in these rich informational waters for some time if the organization does not collapse."
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Photo credit: Max Vadukul, The New York Times

By Peter Kemp, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, on 2010-12-04

Dear Prime Minister
From the Sydney Morning Herald I note you made a comment of "illegal" on the matter of Mr Assange in relation to the ongoing leaks of US diplomatic cables.

Previously your colleague and Attorney General the Honourable McClelland announced an investigation of possible criminality by Mr Assange.

As a lawyer and citizen I find this most disturbing, particularly so when a brief perusal of the Commonwealth Criminal Code shows that liability arises under the Espionage provisions, for example, only when it is the Commonwealth's "secrets" that are disclosed and that there must be intent to damage the Commonwealth.

Likewise under Treason law, there must be an intent to assist an enemy. Clearly, and reinforced by publicly available material such as Professor Saul's excellent article:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/dont-cry-over-wikil...
...Julian Assange has almost certainly committed no crime under Australian law in relation to his involvement in Wikileaks.

I join with Professor Saul also in asking you Prime Minister why has there been no public complaint to the US about both Secretaries of State Condaleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton being in major breach of International law ie UN Covenants, by making orders to spy on UN personnel, including the Secretary General, to include theft of their credit card details and communication passwords. Perhaps the Attorney General should investigate this clear prima facie evidence of crime (likely against Australian diplomats as well), rather than he attempts to prosecute the messenger of those crimes.

Letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

By Peter Kemp, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW, on 2010-12-04

Dear Prime Minister
From the Sydney Morning Herald I note you made a comment of "illegal" on the matter of Mr Assange in relation to the ongoing leaks of US diplomatic cables.

Previously your colleague and Attorney General the Honourable McClelland announced an investigation of possible criminality by Mr Assange.

As a lawyer and citizen I find this most disturbing, particularly so when a brief perusal of the Commonwealth Criminal Code shows that liability arises under the Espionage provisions, for example, only when it is the Commonwealth's "secrets" that are disclosed and that there must be intent to damage the Commonwealth.

Likewise under Treason law, there must be an intent to assist an enemy. Clearly, and reinforced by publicly available material such as Professor Saul's excellent article:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/dont-cry-over-wikil...
...Julian Assange has almost certainly committed no crime under Australian law in relation to his involvement in Wikileaks.

I join with Professor Saul also in asking you Prime Minister why has there been no public complaint to the US about both Secretaries of State Condaleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton being in major breach of International law ie UN Covenants, by making orders to spy on UN personnel, including the Secretary General, to include theft of their credit card details and communication passwords. Perhaps the Attorney General should investigate this clear prima facie evidence of crime (likely against Australian diplomats as well), rather than he attempts to prosecute the messenger of those crimes.

Via The Guardian and WikiLeaks:

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is at the centre of intense media speculation and a hate campaign against him in America, following the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.

He will be live online to answer Guardian readers' questions at 1pm today, subject to his access to an internet connection - which is very much a live issue. His online interview comes at the end of a week of shocking revelations from the cables and on a day when WikiLeaks has been fighting US attempts to take its website down.

Assange will answer your questions in the comments section below. From 1pm you will need to navigate to the latest comments for his replies."

The Guardian page is here.

Update 1: The Q&A page proved so popular that it crashed the Guardian website. "...please be patient: the Guardian site is under *huge* load because of the #Wikileaks Julian Assange Q+A," tweeted @guardiantech.

Update 2: The Guardian has posted Julian Assange's answers here:

"The Cable Gate archive has been spread, along with significant material from the US and other countries to over 100,000 people in encrypted form. If something happens to us, the key parts will be released automatically. Further, the Cable Gate archive is in the hands of multiple news organisations. History will win. The world will be elevated to a better place. Will we survive? That depends on you."

The Sweden Supreme Court has declined today to consider the appeal request filed on behalf of Julian Assange against the arrest warrant previously issued, reports Dagens Nyheter, quoting case handler Kerstin Norman.

This would leave the current warrant standing.

Update 1: The Court's statement says that a review would only be granted if it is essential to the interpretation of the law, or in exceptional circumstances, when there is a "serious reason" for Supreme Court involvement. The Court has not found this to be the case, according to Aftonbladet.

We are to understand that evidence of false charges and prosecutorial misconduct does not constitute a sufficiently serious reason for the Supreme Court to grant a review. The Swedish justice system has failed, again.

WL Central would like to reiterate our support for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and we ask you to do the same. Here are some ways to help.

Update 2: Jennifer Robinson, a UK-based lawyer for Julian Assange, gave a live interview on Democracy Now! earlier today. She said that Assange had not been formally charged and that he was not evading arrest, as some had suggested, but that he kept his location confidential because of genuine concerns over his safety. Robinson said that calls for his assassination (see some examples) are outrageous and illegal, and that those making such statements should be prosecuted for inciting violence. She also noted that there were serious due process problems related to the conduct of the Swedish prosecutors, and that in view of statements like those of Sarah Palin, there are real concerns over whether Assange would get a fair trial in the US, should he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Robinson mentioned that US lawyers were involved in consultations over the Espionage Act, but that in her opinion the WikiLeaks disclosures fall under the protection of the First Amendment.

"Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has confirmed that the Justice Department is examining whether Mr. Assange could be charged with a crime, but legal scholars say that such an effort would encounter steep legal and policy difficulties," writes Charlie Savage in the New York Times.

“The government has never brought an Espionage Act prosecution that would look remotely like this one,” law professor Stephen I. Vladeck told Savage. “I suspect that has a lot to do with why nothing has happened yet.”

"A relic of World War I, the Espionage Act was written before a series of Supreme Court rulings expanded the First Amendment’s protection of speech and press freedoms. The court has not reviewed the law’s constitutionality in light of those decisions," continues Savage. He points to a 2005 case which "ended in embarrassment" for the government because it could not prove that the accused "specifically intended to harm the United States or benefit a foreign country."

“If you could show that [Assange] specifically conspired with a government person to leak the material, that puts him in a different position than if he is the recipient of an anonymous contribution. If he’s just providing a portal for information that shows up, he’s very much like a journalist,” said Jack M. Balkin, a Yale professor of constitutional law.
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Reuters' Mark Hosenball writes that "U.S. authorities could face insurmountable legal hurdles if they try to bring criminal charges against" Assange. "Three specialists in espionage law said prosecuting someone like Assange on those charges would require evidence the defendant was not only in contact with representatives of a foreign power but also intended to provide them with secrets. No such evidence has surfaced, or has even been alleged, in the case of WikiLeaks or Assange."

Reuters quotes Mark Zaid, a defense lawyer who specializes in intelligence cases, saying it would be "very difficult for the U.S. government to prosecute (Assange) in the U.S. for what he is doing."

"Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. Attorney in Washington who prosecuted high-profile espionage cases, said that federal authorities would face "pretty tough" legal obstacles if they tried to bring a prosecution against Assange. But he said officials like Holder had to make threats of prosecution, even if they lack legal substance, to "send a signal" to other would-be leakers."
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Trevor Timm of the New York Law School has already made the case last month that WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have committed no crime in publishing such information.

London-based lawyer Mark Stephens spoke with The Guardian:

"Comparing the Swedish prosecutor to Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Stalin's notorious security chief, Mark Stephens said "neither Mr Assange nor his lawyers have been provided any further information beyond that reported in the press."

He continued: "This appears to be a persecution and a prosecution. It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue a red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor's questions. Mr Assange has repeatedly sought meetings with the prosecutrix – both in Sweden and subsequently – in order to answer her questions and clear his name. It is relevant that Mr Assange sought permission from the prosecutrix to leave Sweden and she gave him her permission. Since leaving Sweden Mr Assange has continued to seek meetings with the prosecutrix, but his requests have either been ignored or met with a refusal."

He added: "At this point in time, we have no evidence pointing to a link between these allegations from August and the issue of the Interpol alert just two days after the WikiLeaks first release of US diplomatic cables. However, it is highly unusual for a red notice warrant to be issued in relation to the allegations reported as having been made, since Swedish law does not require custodial orders in relation to the allegation – indeed to our knowledge this is a unique action by the Swedish prosecuting authorities in applying for a red notice on the basis of these allegations.

London-based lawyer Mark Stephens spoke with The Guardian:

"Comparing the Swedish prosecutor to Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Stalin's notorious security chief, Mark Stephens said "neither Mr Assange nor his lawyers have been provided any further information beyond that reported in the press."

He continued: "This appears to be a persecution and a prosecution. It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue a red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor's questions. Mr Assange has repeatedly sought meetings with the prosecutrix – both in Sweden and subsequently – in order to answer her questions and clear his name. It is relevant that Mr Assange sought permission from the prosecutrix to leave Sweden and she gave him her permission. Since leaving Sweden Mr Assange has continued to seek meetings with the prosecutrix, but his requests have either been ignored or met with a refusal."

He added: "At this point in time, we have no evidence pointing to a link between these allegations from August and the issue of the Interpol alert just two days after the WikiLeaks first release of US diplomatic cables. However, it is highly unusual for a red notice warrant to be issued in relation to the allegations reported as having been made, since Swedish law does not require custodial orders in relation to the allegation – indeed to our knowledge this is a unique action by the Swedish prosecuting authorities in applying for a red notice on the basis of these allegations.

"We are also investigating whether the prosecutor's application to have Mr Assange held incommunicado without access to lawyers, visitors or other prisoners – again a unique request – is in any way linked to this matter and the recent, rather bellicose US statements of an intention to prosecute Mr Assange."

The Guardian also refers to Stephens's statements to The Times arguing that the arrest warrant issued was invalid:

"The arrest warrant has been issued in circumstances where Assange has an outstanding appeal in Sweden," Stephens said in the Times, while a police source was quoted as saying Assange's warrant was "not a properly certified warrant so we can't act on it."

Stephens argued that although Assange was originally wanted on a charge of rape, this had been thrown out after a partially successful appeal and which meant that Swedish law did not allow for another arrest warrant for current allegations.

He said British police had probably not taken any action against Assange because the warrant was issued incorrectly rather than because they didn't know where he was.

"The sole ground for the warrant is the prosecutor's blatantly false allegation that he is on the run from justice: he left Sweden lawfully and has offered himself for questioning. An appeal against this decision was filed on Monday and is pending," Stephens said.

Separately, Melbourne barrister James D. Catlin wrote in Crikey:

"Apparently having consensual s-x in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for r-pe. That is the basis for a reinstitution of r-pe charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.[...]

That further evidence hasn’t been confected to make the charges less absurd does Sweden no credit because it has no choice in the matter. The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilén boasting of their respective conquests after the “crimes”.

In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of r-pe.

But then neither Arden nor Wilén complained to the police but rather “sought advice”, a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid just punishment for making false complaints. They sought advice together, having collaborated and irrevocably tainted each other’s evidence beforehand. Their SMS texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand in order to maximise the damage to Assange. They belong to the same political group and attended a public lecture given by Assange and organised by them. You can see Wilén on the YouTube video of the event even now.[...]

A great deal more damning evidence is yet to be revealed about what passes for legal process in Sweden, such as Assange’s lawyers having not received a single official document until November 18, 2010 (and then in Swedish language contrary to European Law) and having to learn about the status of investigations through prosecution media announcements but make no mistake: it is not Julian Assange that is on trial here but Sweden and its reputation as a modern and model country with rules of law."

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An appeal against the arrest warrant was filed on Tuesday on behalf of Julian Assange with the Sweden Supreme Court, covered here. Our full Sweden case coverage section can be found here.

Speaking with Slate magazine's War Room correspondent Justin Elliott, Aftergood said that the DoJ's legal theory for pursuing WikiLeaks and Julian Assange would set "an extremely dangerous precedent."

"This is novel legal territory. Every step involves uncertainty and virgin territory, and ideally it will be left that way," says Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood, who has been a critic of WikiLeaks in the past, argues that "a prosecution of WikiLeaks would be a horrible precedent that in time would almost certainly be applied to other publishers of controversial information."

Elliott writes that "Many have argued that the law (Espionage Act of 1917) is unconstitutional, and, if it was actually applied broadly, would lead to the prosecution of journalists and newspapers that routinely obtain and publish classified national defense information.

'If a case could be made that WikiLeaks did not simply publish the material as a passive recipient, but that they actually solicited the release of the information, then they would be vulnerable,' Aftergood says. But it's not clear how solicitation would be defined, and it's also not at all clear if the facts of the case would bear this theory out. And, again, if this theory of the law were applied, it's hard to see how it wouldn't ensnare a journalist like Bob Woodward, who asks government officials about classified matters and then publishes the information."
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Photo credit: FAS

Greg Barns, director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, writes for ABC News on the Australian government's decision to look into criminal charges against Julian Assange:

"Mr. McClelland’s decision amounts to little more than posturing. This is because Mr. Assange would appear to have committed no crime under Australia’s suite of laws on disclosure of sensitive state information.

The reality is that the Australian Federal Police can do nothing about an Australian citizen who is running a website out of Sweden which is the repository for American diplomatic cables. And Australia, unlike the UK, does not have an official secrets law. It has scattered throughout the Commonwealth statute books provisions relating to the unauthorised disclosure of information that relates to national security by employees, contractors and the like.

In any event, the current legal thinking in the UK and other common law countries is that leaking sensitive information per se is not necessarily an offence. The law respects the right to freedom of expression and simply because the leaked material embarrasses a government does not mean that a criminal offence has been committed.[...] The Gillard government and the Coalition also need to tread carefully in wanting to strip Mr Assange of his passport simply because they do not like the fact that he is embarrassing an ally.[...]

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen who does not deserve to be harassed by the Australian government, he has done nothing wrong."
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Glenn Greenwald was interviewed earlier today on CBC's Connect with Mark Kelley about WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, the US government and media reactions to Cablegate, and calls to prosecute Assange:

"His whole life has basically been sacrificed on the altar of trying to bring some accountability and some transparency to these powerful people - that's supposed to be the job of journalists, and yet they seem to be quite hostile to someone like him, who's actually doing it.[...]

What ends up happening in American political culture is that most citizens, and especially the established media are essentially identifying with and getting too close to political power - they're supposed to be adversarial to political power, they're supposed to be on the outside, watching over them, prevent them from engaging in wrong-doing, and instead they come to rely upon them for access, for their sources, for their exclusives, and they come to identify with the very people and political office that they're supposed to be monitoring. And so when somebody [who] is truly adverse to political power, which is what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are, emerges, [what happens] is that these media figures, instead of identifying with the values of disclosure and journalistic exposure and bringing about checks and accountability, instead they identify with the political class into which they've essentially been merged, and the reactions between political figures and media figures are basically the same: everybody is angry and offended at the fact that somebody would inform the American citizenry about what the United States government is doing. It's really extremely bizarre, it's not surprising that the government wants to keep secrets, but to watch the media volunteer to be the leaders, the crusaders on behalf of government secrecy is really quite warped, and reflective of something that's gone very wrong in the American media.[...]

He (Assange) is absolutely a hero, and what's particularly bizarre about it is you hear certain members of the press calling for him to be prosecuted, but the only theories that would allow him to be prosecuted would be the same theories that could easily imprison large numbers of journalists. I mean, the Bush administration actively considered imprisoning or prosecuting the New York Times reporters who revealed that President Bush was illegally spying on Americans in violation of the law. Those are the same theories that they're now calling on to be invoked in order to prosecute Julian Assange for publishing secrets that he got his hands on. They seem to not know or not care that if that actually happens, the ones that would be most jeopardized would be them, at least the few of them who are actually doing investigative reporting."

Watch the video

Julian Assange's lawyers have filed an appeal with the Sweden Supreme Court against the warrant issued for him by the Stockholm District Court earlier this month. Kerstin Norman, the case handler on the docket, confirmed to AFP that the Court had received the appeal:

"Norman said the country's highest court would first need to determine whether to hear the case at all. 'This is a so-called high-priority case, so that decision should go quickly,' she said, adding she expected the ruling to come 'tomorrow, the day after, but also perhaps next week.'

'If no trial permit is given, the appeals court verdict will stand, but if a permit is given, we will reconsider whether the detention order was correct,' she said. Such a hearing would also likely go quickly, Norman said, adding it would take anywhere from 'a few weeks to over a month, depending on the circumstances,'" reports The Local via AFP.

In the meantime, The Interpol has issued a "Red Notice" for Julian Assange. The notice is not an international arrest warrant, as the Interpol and the BBC clarify.

Mark Stephens, Julian Assange's London-based lawyer, told The Guardian that "the Swedish attempts to extradite Assange have no legal force. So far he has not been charged, Stephens says – an essential precondition for a valid European arrest warrant. Under the EAW scheme, which allows for fast-tracked extradition between EU member states, a warrant must indicate a formal charge in order to be validated, and must be served on the person accused."

"Julian Assange has never been charged by Swedish prosecutors. He is formally wanted as a witness," Stephens told the Guardian today.

In its report on the Interpol notice, The Independent notes: "Wherever Assange does decide to set up base, one thing is certain – the leaks will keep coming. For the past month, WikiLeaks' administrators have had to suspend the submissions wing of the website because they have been overwhelmed by the number of fresh whistle-blowers sending them information. Anyone who thinks the WikiLeaks founder will take a back seat over the coming months and wait for the heat to die down must be mistaken."

In a wide-ranging interview and cover story for Forbes magazine done earlier this month, Julian Assange discusses the work of WikiLeaks, the "ecosystem of corruption," whistleblowing versus secrecy, previous private sector disclosures, IMMI-style initiatives, and WikiLeaks' next target: an unnamed major US bank, with revelations to rival the infamous Enron emails.

“It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume,” he tells Andy Greenberg.

Photo credit: Forbes

AFP reports that the government of Ecuador has offered Julian Assange residency:

"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas told the Internet site Ecuadorinmediato.

"We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but in a variety of public forums," he said.[...]

Lucas said even though Ecuador's policy was not to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, it was "concerned" by the information in the cables because it involved other countries "in particular Latin America."
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In an email interview with ABC News, Julian Assange spoke about upcoming embassy cable releases and responded to accusations from the US administration.

"He was undaunted by vows from the U.S. and Australia to prosecute him and said the forthcoming diplomatic cables are aimed at 'lying, corrupt and murderous leadership from Bahrain to Brazil.'

'We're only one thousandth of the way in and look at what has so far being revealed. There will be many more,' he wrote defiantly.

Assange also dismissed a warning today by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said the dump of secret documents 'puts peoples lives in danger,' particularly those sources who provided the U.S. with information about abuses in foreign countries.

'U.S. officials have for 50 years trotted out this line when they are afraid the public is going to see how they really behave," Assange said in his email. "The facts are that we wrote to the State Department asking for a list of any specific concerns that might have. They refused to assist, and said they demanded everything, including those documents that revealed abuses, be destroyed.'"
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Julian Assange joined the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism third annual conference today via video link. ARIJ is the region's first media network supporting in-depth reporting. The conference is taking place in Amman, November 26-28, 2010.

"The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world," Assange said, adding that "Over this last month much of my energy and activities have been spent preparing for the upcoming release of a diplomatic history of the United States," as quoted by AFP.

""This is an organisation with a four-year publication history. As far as we are aware, and as far as anyone has ever alleged in any credible manner whatsoever, no single individual has even come to harm as a result of anything that we have ever published," he said.

According to the event website, over 200 Arab journalists, editors and university academics from 16 Arab countries, including those benefitting from the network in the eight ARIJ countries of operation — Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Syria, are attending:

"The conference, sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is an ARIJ initiative to improve both the standards of hard-core investigations that promote accountability and transparency for the benefit of the public and to foster cross-border networking."