Belgian journalist and Malibu resident Sophie Radermecker has co-authored a new biography of Julian Assange, the mysterious man behind the infamous whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
By Bibi Jordan / Special to The Malibu Times
Tracking down a man known for his elusiveness is not easy, but that is what Malibu resident Sophie Radermecker took on for her new biography of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “Julian Assange-Wikileaks: Warrior for Truth” delves into the life and mission of the controversial Internet whistle-blower, tracing Assange’s life from his nomadic childhood with two thespian parents to his life on the run as an Internet journalist now facing serious allegations of sexual assault.
“I wrote this book because I wanted to examine the accomplishments of a living person determined to change the world,” Radermecker said.
Born in Queensland, Australia in 1971, Assange moved frequently as a child and was often home-schooled by his mother. As a teenager, Assange displayed a talent with computers and soon developed into an accomplished hacker. Using the codename “Mendax,” Assange hacked into computer databases for a Canadian telecommunications company and an Australian university, among others, for which he was charged with 30 counts of hacking in 1991 and a $2,100 fine.
He later studied Information Technology at the University of Melbourne before going to work for one of Australia’s first public Internet service providers. Committed to the open sharing of software and information on the Internet, he founded WikiLeaks, a whistle-blower website that published secret documents about topics as diverse as Guantanamo Bay procedures and Church of Scientology manuals.
In 2010, WikiLeaks revealed classified information about U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan that stunned the world. The releases included a quarter million confidential cables from U.S. diplomats, field reports from the two wars and, most memorably, a video of U.S. soldiers firing on civilians from an Apache helicopter in Baghdad.
The leaks sparked condemnation from the U.S. government and won praise from advocates of freedom of the press. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the release of the cables constituted “an attack on America’s foreign policy interests.” Private Bradley Manning, an American soldier serving in Kuwait, was later arrested and placed in solitary confinement for leaking the video of the helicopter to WikiLeaks.
But Assange was also named the Readers’ Choice for TIME magazine’s 2010 Person of the Year and garnered a 2011 Nobel Peace Prize nomination. He drew comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg, the former U.S. military analyst who gained fame in 1971 for leaking the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret study of American decision making during the Vietnam War.
To accomplish his mission, Assange needed allies-whistle-blowers and hackers that he knew only by code names-to provide him with secret documents. During their investigation, Radermecker and co-author Valerie Guichaoua were impressed by the commitment that bloggers and hackers, many of whom they said were better informed than mainstream journalists, had for discovering facts and sharing information.
Many lived by the “hacker ethic,” a belief that sharing information is a powerful source of good. They believed it was their duty to create and offer free software, as well as hack into computer files and access confidential documents that reveal the inner workings of vast bureaucracies like governments, corporations and religious organizations. The “hacker ethic” unmistakably impacted Assange’s life and later the world, they said.
“Assange’s philosophical journey led him to understand that the contentions between individuals are not left-wing ideas against right-wing ones, or faith against reason, but rather individuals against institutions,” Radermecker said. “His nonconventional upbringing, international background and technology studies pushed him to envision the world in a new global way that has changed the world.”
Assange’s image as a hero, however, was complicated when a European Warrant for Arrest was issued for him in Dec. 2010 in relation to sexual violence allegations made by two women in Sweden. Assange turned himself in to the English authorities and has been fighting a battle against extradition to Sweden ever since.
Embarking on the book project last December, Radermecker and Guichaoua were challenged by Assange’s undercover lifestyle, which they say became even more secretive after what they call the “Swedish case” and prevented them from contacting their subject directly. The co-authors instead chased down leads via the Internet and on a trip across Europe, ultimately connecting with an international community of hackers and bloggers who opened a window into Assange’s secret world.
“We wanted to understand the man through his story,” Radermecker said. “Not judge him, but rather present him as close as possible to who he is. We took care to separate his court case from his mission to protect freedom of press and freedom of expression on the Internet.”