saluting wikileaks and julian assange.....

Sunday marks 20 years since Australian journalist and activist Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing platform that would publish some of the most consequential leaks of the internet age, exposing classified US war records, CIA hacking tools, mass surveillance and other closely guarded government secrets.

Registered in 2006, the website provided a secure and anonymous channel for whistleblowers to submit material for publication. Its early releases included operating procedures for the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, banking and corporate secrets, and internal documents from the Church of Scientology.

However, it was the scoops published in 2010 that made WikiLeaks a global phenomenon. That year, the website released “Collateral Murder,” raw classified US footage of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad which killed over a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff. WikiLeaks later published more than 91,000 documents from the Washington-led war in Afghanistan and some 391,000 reports from the US invasion of Iraq.

In 2012, Assange hosted ‘The World Tomorrow’ on RT. The 12-episode program covered a number of hotly debated topics and featured guests including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, and Imran Khan – who would later become Pakistan’s Prime Minister.

Later that year, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after losing a legal battle against extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault investigation that was later discontinued. He jumped bail, was granted asylum by Ecuador, and remained in the embassy for nearly seven years.

Major disclosures continued, including leaks exposing surveillance of US allies by the National Security Agency (NSA). Documents released in 2015 indicated that the NSA had spied on French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Francois Hollande, leading to a diplomatic row. In 2017, WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 releases exposed an arsenal of CIA hacking capabilities, including techniques aimed at smartphones and internet-connected TVs.

The following year, US plans to seek Assange’s extradition and prosecution became public. In 2019, Ecuador revoked Assange’s asylum and he was arrested by the British authorities and sent to the high-security Belmarsh prison. That year, Washington charged the journalist under the Espionage Act over WikiLeaks’ acquisition and publication of classified material. In 2024, after more than five years in prison, Assange agreed to take a plea deal with the US under which he was sentenced to time already served and returned to Australia.

Assange has since argued that his prosecution set a dangerous precedent for press freedom, telling the Council of Europe that he was freed after having “pleaded guilty to journalism.”

For a retrospective on WikiLeaks’ two-decade history, watch the full RT report......

https://www.rt.com/news/646704-wikileaks-20-anniversary-assange-videos/

PLEASE VISIT:

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

Gus Leonisky

POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

RABID ATHEIST.

WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

By Gus Leonisky at 5 Oct 2026 - 7:08am
Gus Leonisky's blog
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fifth estate.....

Assange created the ‘fifth estate’ – Ray McGovern (VIDEO)

The WikiLeaks co-founder played a key role in creating an alternative to the mainstream media, which has been controlled by intelligence services for decades, Ray McGovern said.

Julian Assange is a key figure in the creation of alternative media, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has said, expressing hope that the Australian journalist and activist is preparing to get back to work.

McGovern spoke to RT as WikiLeaks marks its 20th anniversary. The website, co-founded by Assange in 2006, has published some of the most explosive leaks of the past two decades, exposing CIA hacking tools, classified US war records, illegal mass surveillance, and other closely guarded secrets.

The platform became a global phenomenon, making Assange one of the most prominent contemporary publishers, while also embroiling him in more than a decade of conflict with the US and other governments. Ahead of the anniversary, Assange suggested that he will return to public life two years after striking a deal for his freedom with the US and securing his release from British custody.

Assange is a key figure in the creation of the alternative media, the “fifth estate,” McGovern said, adding that traditional media has lost its intended purpose, becoming closely controlled instruments for governments worldwide.

“The media in our country, and I dare say in many countries, the UK, Germany, is very tightly controlled. And so that’s the fourth estate, as Edmund Burke said, more important than Parliament itself. The fourth estate is co-opted now, it has been for decades,” he said.

“It’s very clear that the intelligence services have a lot of influence over what goes out into the media. And so you need an alternative. That’s why we placed great hope in what we call the ‘fifth estate,’ namely WikiLeaks and outfits like it that would encourage people to blow the whistle in a secure way and not endanger themselves.”

McGovern welcomed the prospect of Assange’s return to active work, calling it “salvation” for people willing to blow the whistle on dirty government secrets.

“He will find ways to make it possible for people like me and my colleagues, if we come upon information that needs to be spread out into the media or out into the public, to have a secure way of doing that. That was his success. He’s bright enough to do that again, I am convinced.”

https://www.rt.com/news/646766-assange-wikileaks-fifth-estate/

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