WikiLeaks issue > 영어토론방

- Freed Assange back to leaking

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange vowed to clear his name and pursue his work releasing secret documents as he enjoyed his first day of freedom Friday after being released on bail by a British court in London.

“I hope to continue my work and continue to protest my innocence in this matter and to reveal as we get it -- which we have not yet -- the evidence from these allegations,” Assange said Thursday on the steps of the High Court where he was greeted by a media scrum.

Assange and his lawyers insist that moves to extradite him from Britain to Sweden to face questioning over allegations he sexually assaulted two women are politically motivated.

Amid a hail of camera flashes outside the London court, Assange thanked “all the people around the world who have had faith in me, who have supported my team while I have been away.”

His website has rocked Washington by releasing hundreds of classified U.S. diplomatic cables, and his supporters have linked his detention to the massive leak.

While the WikiLeaks’ founder vowed to continue to release classified documents, he has become a target of exposure by others. The gossip website Gawker exposed some embarrassing e-mails of his on the day he was freed on bail at the London court.

The Daily Mail reported on the e-mails which Gawker revealed Friday and posted captured images of those messages between Assange and a teenager. The e-mails contain evidence of Assange’s “stalkery courtship,” as the Daily Mail described it, of a 19-year-old girl known as Elizabeth (not her real name).

In 2004, Assange, then 33, met Elizabeth, a 19-year-old college student, in Australia at a bar and exchanged an unexpected kiss. He then sent her several messages inviting her on a date, but she dismissed his offer.

Assange called her the following day despite the fact she hadn’t told him her phone number. He also tried to get personal information about her via someone else.

After a series of attempts to meet the girl, Assange finally gave up and sent a final email denouncing her.

According to the Daily Mail report, Elizabeth was never threatened by Assange’s behavior. “I don’t think he’s a bad person. He’s just a funny bugger,” she said.

By Lee Woo-young and news reports
This article is excerpted from The Korea Herald
source: http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20101217000152

- WikiLeaks Founder Signs Book Deal

LONDON — Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, will release an autobiography next year, having signed publishing deals that he told a British newspaper might be worth $1.7 million.

Mr. Assange told The Sunday Times of London that he had signed an $800,000 deal with Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House, in the United States, and a $500,000 deal with Canongate books in Britain. With further rights and serialization, he told the newspaper, he expected his earnings to rise to $1.7 million.

Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Random House, said Monday that the book would be “a complete account of his life through the present day, including the founding of WikiLeaks and the work he has done there.” The deal, Mr. Bogaards said, was initiated by one of Mr. Assange’s lawyers in mid-December and was signed in a matter of days. He would not discuss the financial terms. Canongate has not yet made a public comment but has spoken of its own deal in messages on Twitter.

“I don’t want to write this book, but I have to,” Mr. Assange told the newspaper, explaining that his legal costs in fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about allegations of sexual misconduct, have reached more than $300,000. “I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat,” he said.

Mr. Assange is under what he has called “high-tech house arrest” in an English mansion while he awaits hearings, beginning Jan. 11, regarding those allegations. Two women in Stockholm have accused him of rape, unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation over a four-day period last August. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the matter, and has called the case “a smear campaign” led by those who seek to stop him from leaking classified government and corporate documents.

Mr. Bogaards said the Swedish allegations, with the prospect of lengthy legal proceedings and even prison time in Sweden, had not given the publishers pause before a deal was completed.

It is not yet clear what aspects of a tumultuous rise to fame Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, will cover in his book.

He is, however, likely to be beaten to the punch with his version of events inside WikiLeaks. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a German who was formerly Mr. Assange’s deputy in the organization, will release his own memoir in mid-February. It is likely to detail a public falling out, partly over the sexual allegations against Mr. Assange in Sweden, that led to Mr. Domscheit-Berg’s leaving late last summer.

“Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website,” will “reveal the evolution, finances and inner tensions” of the organization, said an announcement last week from Crown publishers, another imprint of Random House.

Mr. Domscheit-Berg is writing the book, according to a spokeswoman for his publishers in Germany, and is also working on his own Web site to rival WikiLeaks. That site, OpenLeaks, is expected to reveal its first batch of classified secrets early next year.

This article is excerpted from The New York Times (global edition)
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/world/europe/28wiki.html?ref=todayspaper

Quesyion
1. Have you ever heard about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange?
   Tell us what you've heard: about the secrets released, about the founder, Julian Assange, etc.
2. What sorts of possible results would be made after the secrets released?
3. Do you think Assange's work could be justified for the public's right to know or
   it should be banned for the state's secret?

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