Skip to main content

Wikileaks' Assange: Governments 'hate transparency. They loathe it'

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview that his organization published hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman "to give the American people true information about the players that they were going to have to deal with."
"We’re in the business of publishing information about power," Assange said. "Why are we in the business of publishing information about power? Because people can do things with power, they can do very bad things with power. If they’re incompetent, they can do dangerous things. If they’re evil, they can do wicked things."
In Part III of the interview, which aired Thursday on the Fox News Channel, Assange also said that governments "hate transparency. They loathe it. Because they have to work harder."
Assange sat down with Hannity for the exclusive at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange has been holed up for the past five years as he battles extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.
Governments are "full of incompetent people," Assange told Hannity. "And the more secretive the area is, the more incompetent it becomes because there’s no proper oversight."
However, the Australian conceded that secrecy was necessary in some areas. Assange noted that Wikileaks keeps its sources confidential, but added that secrecy "should be as small as possible [in terms of] how much it encompasses and for how long it’s encompassed."
"If you don’t know what’s happening in the world with powerful individuals, corporations and governments ... immoral actors within the state or within those big corporations prosper," Assange said at the conclusion of the interview.
"[But] if you have true information coming out about how people actually behave, what’s the result? The rest of the society goes 'You know what? I don’t want to deal with you.'"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Don Jazzy, Wizkid, Davido make Forbes list of richest Africans

Forbes Africa has released its list of Richest African musicians. The list was put together using factors such as endorsement value, popularity, show rates, sales, awards, YouTube views, appearance in newspapers, investment, social media presence, influence and others. Nigerian artistes, Don Jazzy, Wizkid and Davido, are among the top ten richest African musicians. The top 10 are; 1. AKON Akon has over 35 million albums sold worldwide. He has won numerous awards including five Grammy Award nominations and has 45 Billboard Hot 100 songs under his belt. He tops the list according to Forbes Africa. 2. BLACK COFFEE, SOUTH AFRICA The multi-award-winning artist’s real name is Nkosinathi Maphumulo. He was born in South Africa’s house music province, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and raised in the Eastern Cape province, where Nelson Mandela hailed from, before moving back to KZN to study music. 3. HUGH MASEKELA, SOUTH AFRICA Hugh was born in Witbank, east of Johannesburg. He has released more than 43 ...

EFCC denies raid on Dajuma Goje‎ home

The Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, has denied reports that it raided the Abuja home of Senator Dajuma Goje. The EFCC in a statement signed by Wilson Uwujaren urged Nigerian and others to disregard reports that EFCC’s men on Thursday evening raided the home of Danjuma Goje, Uwujaren‎ in the statement said ”Please disregard online reports claiming the EFCC today April 20 raided the Abuja home of Senator Please disregard online reports claiming the EFCC today April 20 raided the Abuja home of Senator Dajuma Goje‎. The report is false as the Commission was not a part of any such activity.

China's green-trading rise puts world on notice

TOKYO -- China is fast emerging as a major force in emissions trading, and experts say that may work against Japanese companies. Now that the Paris Agreement -- a United Nations-backed accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gases -- has gone into effect, governments are expected to ramp up their efforts this year to curb emissions.