Julian Assange Responds to Increasing US Government Attacks on WikiLeaks 4 of 4

It's been ten days since the whistleblower website WikiLeaks published the massive archive of classified military records about the war in Afghanistan, but the fallout in Washington and beyond is far from over. Justice Department lawyers are reportedly exploring whether WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange could be charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for publishing the classified Afghan war documents. Meanwhile, investigators in the Army's criminal division have reportedly questioned two students in Boston about their ties to WikiLeaks and Private First Class Bradley Manning, a leading suspect in the leak. We speak with WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

Lynne Cheney,
the daughter of Dick Cheney,

went on Fox and said,

"I’d really like to see President Obama

move to ask the government of Iceland
to shut the website down.

I’d like to see him move
to shut it down ourselves

if Iceland won’t do it.” Julian?

Yeah, a source of great delight

in Iceland, actually—that statement,
I mean.

She is a not terribly liked individual.

Well, I shouldn’t say that, actually.

Her father is a not well liked
individual.

And she seems to share
the same politics and patronage,

networking, their extended friends
and so on.

So, the Icelandic people are fierce
and fiercely independent,

and I’m sure they’re not going
to be cowered by Liz Cheney.

Right, that was Liz Cheney,
Cheney’s daughter.

How are you protecting yourself
at this point, Julian Assange?

Well, I would like to tell you all
about it, Amy,

but, you know, that might not be wise.

However, there are countries,
Western countries,

even countries in NATO,

that are strongly supportive
of what we do politically.

And, for example, the UK
has announced—

UK Parliament has announced
two inquiries

into Afghanistan,

one on the civilian casualties

and the other on what is
the exit strategy

and how to get out of it.

The Dutch government

just formally announced

its exit from Afghanistan.

And other governments around the world
involved in the ISAF coalition have,

in bigger and small ways,

announced that they are trying

to do something about the revelations
in this material.

And all of them

are taking note
of what the United States’ attitude is,

which is
instead of immediately saying

these revelations are a serious concern,

we never wanted to harm Afghan civilians or to bribe the media,

as an example
of one of the revelations in there,

and we intend to launch
an immediate investigation

to understand this
and compensate those people accordingly

and change our procedures—

that’s what the rest of the world
wants to hear.

That’s what Afghanistan,
the people of Afghanistan want to hear.

But instead they heard

a personal attack on me
and on our organization

and an announcement
that they would be going after

the whistleblower or whistleblowers
involved in this.

And now we see them living up
to those words

and stalking around Boston,

and spying and harassing MIT graduates,

and trunking around the United Kingdom,

where they raided Manning,

the alleged whistleblower,

for a video release called
"Collateral Murder,"

in her home in Wales.

Well, Julian Assange,
we’re going to leave it there,

founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks,
speaking to us from abroad.

This is Democracy Now!,
democracynow.org,

the War and Peace Report.

And on that issue of "Collateral Murder,"

what WikiLeaks called the video
of July 12th, 2007, of a military,

US military Apache attack
on residents of Baghdad,

two Reuters employees killed in that,

you can go to our website,
democracynow.org,

to see the discussion and the video.

And also an update to one of our headlines

Al Jazeera is now reporting at least three lebani soldiers

have been killed by israeli forces in a exchange of rocket and gun fire

along the border between the two countries.

A lebanist journalist was also killed and five more lebani soldiers wounded

in Israeli shelling.

At least two israeli soldiers were shot

That does it for the show, Democracy Now is produced by Mike Berg

Special thanks to Elizabeth Press, Julie Crosby,

Our website is democracynow.org

Thanks to also to

I am Amy Goodman, thank you so much for joining us