By Ryan Kurpess
According to FOX News, the highly anticipated WikiLeaks announcement has been canceled due to security concerns. However, Julian Assange is planning to speak via video during the WikiLeaks tenth anniversary celebration in Berlin. According to the WikiLeaks Facebook page, Assange’s speech will be take place at 3am Eastern Time.
During a recent interview with FOX News, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed to have a variety of different document types from many different institutions involved in the presidential campaign. Assange also assured viewers that the documents will be revealed prior to the November election, so that they can get to know who it is they are voting for.
Julian Assange: “with the DNC leaks, we pushed as fast as we could before the Democratic Nomination Conference, and we will do the same here for the U.S. Election Process because people have the right to see who they are electing.”
Assange has promised to release leaks on Hillary Clinton in addition to more emails that were gathered from the gigantic Democratic National Committee hack. Due to the fact that WikiLeaks has already tarnished Hillary’s reputation in some way, this story got immediate attention and spread like wildfire.
There is no doubt, in the minds of many, that Julian Assange is a brave individual, yet if he continues exposing politicians in the way that WikiLeaks has, his life could be in serious danger. This has been claimed for quite some time now by Assange himself and by many of his supporters, due to the potential danger he represents. In-fact, it was posted by WikiLeaks via Twitter that Hillary Clinton herself might be behind a potential Assange takeout. The tweet, which was posted Monday morning, shows Clinton suggesting a drone strike (through text) on Julian Assange in order to silence WikiLeaks for good. While it is highly unlikely a presidential candidate would suggest this, the tweet does include photographic evidence and has yet to be removed. A Hillary Clinton strategist and supporter “Bob Beckel” also suggested that Assange be assassinated when questioned via FOX News on how WikiLeaks documents would impact American Diplomacy. This was not only surprising, but very unprofessional and extremely out of line.
Considering the damage WikiLeaks has already caused for the Democrats, this comes as no surprise. Over the summer, it was made public by WikiLeaks that many top officials throughout the Democratic National Committee were planning to undermine Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in hopes of Hillary Clinton becoming the nominee. Additionally, over 30,000 emails contained in Hillary Clinton’s private email server became searchable through WikiLeaks’ website and were made available by the U.S. State Department as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.
In a recent interview done Juan Gonzales, Julian Assange claims that WikiLeaks serves as a reliable collection of information which doesn’t exists anywhere in order to show people what this civilization truly is.
Personal Gain?
Even though WikiLeaks has an almost perfect track record over the last ten years, there is a slight possibility that Julian Assange is just using the election’s massive audience for self-promotion. I was personally skeptical of this already due to the nearing ten-year anniversary and celebration of WikiLeaks in Berlin, and the recently announced cancelation did nothing but add to these concerns. While this would be a huge relief for the Democrats, people still have the right to know who they are voting for. Over the last ten years, all documents released through WikiLeaks have proven to be factual, which has made Julian Assange somewhat of a hero amongst conspiracy theorists. Therefore, if these recent claims were made to simply get WikiLeaks in the spotlight, Assange’s own reputation and any future claims made by WikiLeaks may not be taken seriously.
During Julian Assange’s appearance on FOX News, he stated that WikiLeaks wants to fully prepare before releasing any documentation.
According to Assange himself, thorough preparation for the release of these documents would include the following:
- making sure that WikiLeaks is involved with the right media before releasing any documents or information
- figuring out how everything should be formatted and presented
- figuring out the best way to stage everything
- deciding whether they should present all of the documents at once or release them in multiple batches
When dealing with information vital to the U.S. Presidential Election, preparation is expected. Yet, wouldn’t all of this been taken into consideration before announcing a release date of the documents? In other words, all of the preparations and factors listed above should have been taken care of and figured out prior to the initial announcement, especially considering WikiLeaks has ten years experience and a great track record.
While I personally believe this could affect WikiLeaks’ reputation and tarnish Julian Assange’s legitimacy, there is still time before November and a new release date could still be announced.
Ryan Kurpess is an OpsLens Contributor
Links:
New York Mag: https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/wikileaks-cancels-announcement-over-security-concerns.html
