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Julian Assange

Julian Assange

Julian Assange is an award-winning Australian journalist, author, internet activist and co-founder, editor-in-chief, and spokesperson for the international organization and website Wikileaks. He is gaining both international praise and condemnation for Wikileaks' release of confidential documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and, most recently, U.S. diplomatic cables.

About Julian Assange

Known for: the controversial website Wikileaks

Wikileaks.org hosts anonymously submitted and leaked information in order to promote government transparency and accountability with the public and the international community.

Assange was born in Queensland, Australia and, until recently, would only disclose he was born in the 1970s (it is now known he was born in 1971). In his teenage years his family was constantly on the move and Assange enrolled in 37 schools and 6 universities. During this time, Assange was involved in computer hacking and was a member of the computer hacking group International Subversives. In 1991, he was charged by Australian courts with 24 counts of hacking and pleaded guilty.

Assange began developing Wikileaks in 2006. By 2007, Wikileaks hosted over 1.2 million sensitive documents. He is a member of the Wikileaks advisory board and, though he is largely responsible for developing the organization, does not consider himself the founder of Wikileaks. As editor-in-chief he is responsible for having the final say on publishing materials.

Though millions of prominent documents were available through Wikileaks, in 2010 the most prominent documents were released. In April 2010 a video known as Collateral Murder was published and, in July 2010, the largest leak of sensitive U.S. military information since the 1971 Pentagon Papers was made availble to the public. The Afghan War Diary is a collection of over 92,000 sensitive U.S. military logs on the War in Afghanistan which The New York Times, The Guardian and the weekly German news magazine, Der Spiegel, confirmed were genuine.

Assange was awarded the 2009 Amnesty International UK Media Award.

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Julian Assange