WikiLeak's Julian Assange Furious About Unauthorized Biography
A first-draft version of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s unauthorized memoir has been published and the infamous whistleblowing journalist is none too pleased.
Assange has denouncing the autobiography and in a statement issued Thursday, said, "This book was meant to be about my life's struggle for justice through access to knowledge. It has turned into something else."
The book reveals information about Assange’s youth, the rise of WikiLeaks, and the sex scandal he faced in Sweden.
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The book is based on over 50 hours of conversations Assange had with ghostwriter Andrew O’Hagan and is being published by independent British publisher Canongate. The book is titled Julian Assange: The Unauthorized Autobiography.
According to reports, the book has been published because Canongate discovered that Assange had spent his book advance on legal fees.
The book was published under extreme secrecy, with Canongate only telling retailers of the book the day before it was set to hit shelves, according to The Associated Press.
Critics have argued that publication of the memoir gives Assange a taste of his own medicine, with one commentator saying, "It is the one that exposes him before he is ready – a sweet justice for all those he in turn exposed unfairly."
However, Assange continues to feel wronged adding that the publishing of the book became not about "freedom of information" but about "old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity – screwing people over to make a buck."
Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, and computer programmer that rose to fame with his news leaks website, WikiLeaks.
Assange has stated that he set up the website in 2006 in order to create the foundation for governments to be forced to become more open to their citizenry. The website has earned notoriety for exposing major human rights abuses including publishing information on extrajudicial killings in Kenya and exposing Guantanamo Bay procedures.
However, he has also faced a lot of criticism for releasing sensitive intelligence information to the masses.
Assange, currently out on bail in Britain, has said in the past that the purpose of WikiLeaks is to "radically shift the behavior" of government institutions. He has argued to do so, "We must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those that have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forbears could not."
