Julian Assange – Irresponsible Egomaniac or Freedom Fighter?

Taking the unusual step of answering the question in the title right at the beginning, I'm going for the former. The anarchists and uber-liberals have been heaping adoring praise all over Wikileaks head honcho Julian Assange with a shovel over the past few months. Without any thought towards possible consequences, he has been referred to as a hero, the enemy of big business and friend of the working man. An advocate for complete freedom of information. There has, in truth, been much to admire about some of his actions. But now, Assange is just being an idiot. Assange published on Wikileaks all 251,000 US diplomatic cables without any redactions. “Great,” his supporters will cry. “What do these people have to hide anyway.” Well, how about the identities of US informers, many of whom will now be in danger of losing their lives thanks to this fool of a man, a man who is ever more desperate for attention. There is nothing great, nothing commendable, about what he has done here. There is no higher purpose or greater good that he is serving. He has simply chosen to place lives in danger in order to increase his own dwindling notoriety. Those that think that, by writing about him, I'm giving him what he wanted, well, you do have a point. Still, it seems necessary to at least try to destroy the myth surrounding this man. His latest actions have proven that Assange cares more about his public profile than he does about any perceived moral crusade. The

reports that, “the archive newly placed online by Wikileaks in an entirely unprotected, searchable format contains thousands of cables which identify individual activists or are marked 'STRICTLY PROTECT', denoting sources whose lives could be in danger because their identities are revealed within.” More, the report goes on to say that the cables contain references to, “people persecuted by their governments, victims of sex offences, and locations of sensitive government installations and infrastructure". Former media partners of Wikileaks, like the Guardian newspaper, the New York Times, El Pais and Der Spiegel, all issued a joint statement which read, “We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk. Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough joint editing and clearance process." When former partners turn against you, it is time to take a look at yourself in the mirror and decide if you like what you see.