Transparency for Governments and Privacy for Individuals - Assange
The founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange has told an an audience in
London that governments and security agencies need to be policed by the
public. His lecture was part of the 'Web We Want' Festival which runs
this weekend at the Southbank Centre.
He appears on a big screen
like a virtual deity before his worshippers. He sits against a purple,
almost papal, background, totally devoid of anything identifiable, in
a pink check shirt and looks downhome and composed at the same time.
With his beard and long shoulder-length albino hair pushed away from the
forehead Assange could easily pass for a 'Narodnik', a Russian
revolutionary of the 1870s.
His perceived ambiguity is acknowledged straight away in the
introduction made by Baroness Beeban Kidron: "He is accused of betraying
secrets of nations, but for other people he exposed the truth of
nations…He is accused of serious crime in Sweden but as his team is at
pains to point out, he's yet to be charged in any country. And he is
accused of being capricious and paranoid which, I have to say, is
unappealing, but to my knowledge not yet a crime'.
