Julian Assange Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Julian Assange.
Famous Quotes By Julian Assange
We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage. — Julian Assange
You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion. — Julian Assange
When Enron collapsed, through court processes, thousands and thousands of emails came out that were internal, and it provided a window into how the whole company was managed. It was all the little decisions that supported the flagrant violations. — Julian Assange
The act of assassination - the targeting of visible individuals, is the result of mental inclinations honed for the pre-literate societies in which our species evolved, — Julian Assange
That's a problem. I mean, like any sort of growing startup organization, we are sort of overwhelmed by our growth. And that means we're getting enormous quantity of whistleblower disclosures of a very high caliber, but don't have enough people to actually process and vet this information. — Julian Assange
Every time we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act, we become a party to injustice. — Julian Assange
I found in investigative journalism it is always best, if you have any language skills, not to admit them. — Julian Assange
The greater the power, the more need there is for transparency, because if the power is abused, the result can be so enormous. On the other hand, those people who do not have power, we mustn't reduce their power even more by making them yet more transparent. — Julian Assange
Large newspapers are routinely censored by legal costs. It is time this stopped. It is time a country said, enough is enough, justice must be seen, history must be preserved, and we will give shelter from the storm. — Julian Assange
A great number of those working for liberal causes are not only shy but borderline collusive. They want change to happen nicely, and it won't. They want decency to come about without anybody suffering or being embarrassed, and it won't. And most of all they want to give many of the enemies of open government the benefit of the doubt, and I don't. It's not just a difference of approach, it's a complete schism in our respective philosophy. You can't go about disclosure in the hope that it won't spoil anybody's dinner. — Julian Assange
And if Bradley Manning really did as he is accused, he is a hero, an example to us all and one of the world's foremost political prisoners. — Julian Assange
What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations to you for free, and I'm a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he's Man of the Year. — Julian Assange
Censorship is always cause for celebration. It is always an opportunity because it reveals fear of reform. It means that the power position is so weak that you have got to care what people think. — Julian Assange
If you look at most definitions, a god is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. In particular, god knows when you are doing something that you shouldn't be doing and whether you are playing according to god's rules. — Julian Assange
What is the possible benefit? Can this material save lives? Can it improve the quality of life in Iraq? Can it tend to shape our perceptions of how war should and should not be conducted? Can it shape our perceptions of who should be conducting war and in what manner? And the answer to that is a clear yes. — Julian Assange
The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization. — Julian Assange
Smears don't have much staying power on their own because they deviate from the foundations of reality (what actually happened). They require constant energy from our opponents to keep going. The truth has a habit of reasserting itself. — Julian Assange
You can't publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism. — Julian Assange
It is the media that controls the boundaries of what is politically permissible, so better to change the media. Profit motives work against it, but if we can have the audience understand that most other forms of journalism are not credible, then it may be a forced move. — Julian Assange
I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. — Julian Assange
As we've gotten more successful, there's a gap between the speed of our publishing pipeline and the speed of our receiving submissions pipeline. Our pipeline of leaks has been increasing exponentially as our profile rises, and our ability to publish is increasing linearly. — Julian Assange
So when Putin goes out to buy a Coke, thirty seconds later it is known in Washington DC. — Julian Assange
Stopping leaks is a new form of censorship. — Julian Assange
We have to be careful about applying criminal labels to people until we're very sure. — Julian Assange
As a European Union member state, as a country committed throughout all its history to the fight for the values that I have made my own, as the fifth world power, as a country that has marked my life and European Union houses part of European Union, France can act if it wishes to do so. — Julian Assange
It's interesting that Swiss banks also hide their assets from the Swiss by using offshore bank structuring. — Julian Assange
This movement is not about the destruction of law, but the construction of law. — Julian Assange
Now, is it the case that Facebook is actually run by U.S. intelligence? No, it's not like that. It's simply that U.S. intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure on them. And it's costly for them to hand out records one by one, so they have automated the process. Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies in building this database for them. — Julian Assange
Power is a thing of perception. They don't need to be able to kill you. They just need you to think they are able to kill you — Julian Assange
Cablegate is 3,000 volumes of material. It is the greatest intellectual treasure to have entered into the public record in modern times. — Julian Assange
If we are to produce a more civilized society, a more just society, it has to be based on the truth. — Julian Assange
Society develops a type of self-censorship, with the knowledge that surveillance exists - a self-censorship that is even expressed when people communicate with each other privately. — Julian Assange
WikiLeaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than WikiLeaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, Russian offshore stem-cell centers, former African kleptocrats, or the Pentagon. — Julian Assange
When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book, the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more stressful than you would like. — Julian Assange
Vanity in a newspaper man is like perfume on a whore: they use it to fend off a dark whiff of themselves. — Julian Assange
Don't damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don't change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information. — Julian Assange
One of the hopeful things that I've discovered is that nearly every war that has started in the past 50 years has been a result of media lies. The media could've stopped it if they had searched deep enough; if they hadn't reprinted government propaganda they could've stopped it. — Julian Assange
The goal is justice, the method? is transparency. It's important not to confuse the goal and the method. — Julian Assange
It really is my opinion that media in general are so bad that we have to question whether the world wouldn't be better off without them altogether. They are so distortive to how the world actually is that the result is.. we see wars, and we see corrupt governments continue on. — Julian Assange
The corruption in reporting starts very early. It's like the police reporting on the police. — Julian Assange
If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes. — Julian Assange
It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers, and when powerful abusers are taken on, there's always a bad reaction. So we see that controversy, and we believe that is a good thing to engage in. — Julian Assange
Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism, — Julian Assange
All over the world, the barriers between what is inside an organisation and outside an organisation are being smoothed out. In the military, the use of contractors means that what is the military and what is not the military is smoothed out. — Julian Assange
The supply of leaks is very large. It's helpful for us to have more people in this industry. It's protective to us. — Julian Assange
You can't do anything sensible until you know what the situation is that you're in. — Julian Assange
Journalism should be more like science. As far as possible, facts should be verifiable. If journalists want long-term credibility for their profession, they have to go in that direction. Have more respect for readers. — Julian Assange
Intelligence agencies keep things secret because they often violate the rule of law or of good behavior. — Julian Assange
We have a way of dealing with information that has sort of personal - personally identifying information in it. But there are legitimate secrets - you know, your records with your doctor; that's a legitimate secret. But we deal with whistleblowers that are coming forward that are really sort of well motivated. — Julian Assange
Where they couldn't pick holes in our arguments they would drive horses and carriages through my character. — Julian Assange
It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Price, but an espionage indictment from the US Department of Justice. — Julian Assange
Through the confessional system, the Catholic church spied upon the lives of its congregants. While Latin mass excluded most people who could not speak Latin from an understanding of the very system of thought that bound them. — Julian Assange
I mean there's enormous pressures to harmonize freedom of speech legislation and transparency legislation around the world - within the E.U., between China and the United States. Which way is it going to go? It's hard to see. — Julian Assange
The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. — Julian Assange
Knowledge has always flowed upwards to bishops and kings, not down to serfs and slaves. — Julian Assange
The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance. — Julian Assange
In the United Kingdom at various stages, journalism has been the profession of gentlemen amateurs. And some of them even pride themselves on being amateurs. Their quality is not comparable with the quality of intelligence services even if most of them harbor a remarkable degree of corruption and incompetence. — Julian Assange
Secrecy breeds incompetence because where there is failure, failure is kept secret. — Julian Assange
Seeing ongoing political reforms that have a real impact on people all over the world is extremely satisfying. But we want every person who's having a dispute with their kindergarten to feel confident about sending us material. — Julian Assange
I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work. — Julian Assange
Wikileaks is a mechanism to maximize the flow of information to maximize the amount of action leading to just reform. — Julian Assange
I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination. — Julian Assange
If we can only live once, let it be a daring adventure. — Julian Assange
Dont shoot the messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths. — Julian Assange
If instituted, the TPP's IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you're ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs. — Julian Assange
Although I still write, research and investigate, my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists. — Julian Assange
I am an Australian citizen, and I miss my country a great deal. — Julian Assange
I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud. — Julian Assange
My family has had to move and change their name and have been subject to threats from right wing blogs calling for my son, for example, to be killed to get at me. — Julian Assange
We all only live once. So we are obligated to make good use of the time that we have and to do something that is meaningful and satisfying. This is something that I find meaningful and satisfying ... I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards. — Julian Assange
Reality is an aspect of property. It must be seized. And investigative journalism is the noble art of seizing reality back from the powerful. — Julian Assange
That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes. — Julian Assange
In my role as Wikileaks editor, I've been involved in fighting off many legal attacks. To do that, and keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions. — Julian Assange
I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time. — Julian Assange
One of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice. — Julian Assange
Well, there's a question as to what sort of information is important in the world, what sort of information can achieve reform. And there's a lot of information. So information that organizations are spending economic effort into concealing, that's a really good signal that when the information gets out, there's a hope of it doing some good. — Julian Assange
Cryptography is the essential building block of independence for organisations on the Internet, just like armies are the essential building blocks of states, because otherwise one state just takes over another. — Julian Assange
We released 400,000 classified documents, the most extraordinary history of a war to ever have been released in our civilization. Those documents cover 109,000 deaths. That is serious matter. — Julian Assange
In the history of Wikileaks, nobody has claimed that the material being put out is not authentic. — Julian Assange
Opponents past and present have the same essential weakness about them: first they want to use you, then they want to be you, then they want to snuff you out. — Julian Assange
The penetration of society by the Internet and the penetration of the Internet by society is the best thing that has ever happened to global human civilisation. — Julian Assange
I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform a global role, and to some degree it was clear that it was doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election. — Julian Assange
The attack on the truth by war begins long before war starts and continues long after a war ends. — Julian Assange
You can either be informed and your own rulers, or you can be ignorant and have someone else, who is not ignorant, rule over you. — Julian Assange
During the period of house arrest, I had an electronic manacle around my leg for 24 hours a day, and for someone who has tried to give others liberty all their adult life, that is absolutely intolerable. — Julian Assange
Non-conformity is the only real passion worth being ruled by. — Julian Assange
WikiLeaks is really a litmus test for those people who walk the talk in the media. How much will they really follow their protestations to be brave publishers, and how much do they really want to lick the boots of power? Well, you can tell by their engagement with us and what they do. — Julian Assange
We like to engage in a normal publishing effort, which is to act in a responsible manner and make sure the material is not likely to harm anyone, that it is properly investigated by quality news organizations, and by lawyers and human rights groups and so on. — Julian Assange