The Young Prodigy That Terrorized the CIA
"I'm not for the death penalty, but even I just wanna shoot that son of a b!tch" – former Cia operative
The situation got so terrible that the CIA out of desperation decided to go against every international law and assassinate him from the country in which he was seeking asylum. Nothing was off the table, they just wanted him dead or at least arrested at all cost.
But why? Why did the CIA seek to stain its reputation and go for something so sinister? And who was this man that terrorized the CIA and the US government?
Born in Australia in the year 1971, Julian Assange was a child prodigy and extremely intelligent for his age, so much that at 16 he was able to hack into powerful organizations like Panasonic, the Pentagon, Lockheed Martin, NASA, and the US Department of Defense, under the codename "Mendax"
His luck ran out at the age of 20 when he was arrested while attempting to hack into a Canadian telecoms company. He spent 2yrs in prison and was released for good behavior and for agreeing to use his skills to help the Australian government.
But all of this weren't enough to make him a terror to the US government and global superpowers as well, they were mere shenanigans.
After he was released, he went on to attend the University of Melbourne, Australia where he lived a low-key life. This was where he registered the leak.org domain in the year 1999, which would not be used for another 7years.
Leak.org, otherwise known as WikiLeaks was finally going to be put to use in 2006, and it was going to be a game-changer. It was supposed to put an end to stifled journalism; anybody with super classified information but was too afraid to come out was prompted to submit it anonymously to WikiLeaks.
The admin at WikiLeaks would then sort them out and anonymously send them to huge publishing and media houses.
They were kinda like normal whistleblowing organizations, the difference was that they didn't get the information themselves (they were only a channel and not the source) and so couldn't be charged with stealing information. Also, since they technically didn't steal any info, any evidence presented by the exposè could be used in court.
A handbook for the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo bay in 2007, as well as other relatively minor reveals were published.
They were quite controversial but none of them really got under the skin of the US government, until a bombshell was released in 2010.
In April 2007, the US ordered a Baghdad airstrike which killed 18 people. In the video, the Apache helicopter clearly opened fire at 18 civilians who were moving around peacefully, they were not armed and posed absolutely no threat. But here’s the thing; the video wasn’t released to the public, all they had to rely on was this statement from the US military:
"There's no question that coalition forces were involved in combat operations against a hostile force"
All the people had to work with was the news that 18 people were killed and a statement from the US military. The public put them together and concluded it was just a day in the office for their beloved soldiers.
Reuters, however, was not having any of it.
They filed a freedom of information act and requested a copy of the video footage but were turned down. This was where WikiLeaks joined the party. WikiLeaks managed to grab the encrypted footage, decrypt it and spread the word with the title "Collateral Murder", and was, like I said earlier released in 2010.
Not only did the footage show that there were no "hostile forces", it also revealed that two people among the casualties were photographers working for reuters and may have been shot because their cameras were mistaken for guns.
This means the US military tried to cover up something so dark and sinister. Needless to say the report spread like wildfire and the military was soon in hot water.
WikiLeaks would then go on a publishing spree, where they exposed numerous sensitive and classified information such as over 90,000 official data for the Afghanistan war including all casualties. The military at this point were practically naked.
Julian Assange's organization quickly gained international recognition. Everyone was talking about WikiLeaks and the US government deeply hated this, so much that the Pentagon openly called WikiLeaks a national security threat.
The US couldn't arrest Julian Assange because the videos weren't from him, his organization was merely a channel. They tried to block funding to WikiLeaks but they quickly switched over to bitcoin.
Everything seemed to be going great, Assange was not just skating on thin eyes but dancing on it, there was heavy scrutiny on him by the US government but there was nothing they could do to him. Assange was enjoying his streak of luck... until it ran out.
Trouble in paradise
Later in the year 2010, Assange was accused of an offense that would discredit him and his organization.
After the fiasco with the US military, Assange became uncomfortable with the thought of what the US government was planning so he travelled to Sweden to seek support for WikiLeaks, as well as protection.
3 months into his stay, Assange was accused of sexually harassing two women, however at the time the arrest warrant was issued, Assange was in the UK. He quickly surrendered himself to the British authorities but still insisted he was innocent. He was eventually released on bail.
Isn’t it convenient how, after that huge fiasco, something like this popped up? Assange suspected the US had something to do with it and frankly speaking, who wouldn’t?
The plan was for Assange to be extradited from the UK to Sweden because the US government knew they would have better luck convincing the Swedish authorities to bring him back to the US, something Assange was well aware of.
The British authorities ordered for Assange to be extradited to Sweden; the script was finally playing out but Assange was nowhere to be found.
The British authorities were sure he hadn't left the country so they began looking for him. Turns out Assange was already at the Ecuadorian embassy in London negotiating an asylum and fortunately for him, he got it.
This was announced by the Ecuadorian foreign minister in August 16, 2012. In order to prevent him from being arrested by the UK authorities, Assange had to live in a small office inside the Ecuadorian embassy.
Everything he needed had to be brought to him inside the office; guests and lawyers had to visit him inside the office. He had to do everything inside the office because there were armed British officers waiting to grab him should he step foot outside the office.
He stayed in the embassy for 5 whole years. It was at this period WikiLeaks released the mother of all exposè on the US government, something that would greatly damage it's reputation.
In March 7 2017, WikiLeaks released an information basically mocking the CIA at a global scale, it was called Vault 7.
What were the documents in Vault 7?
Classified information on how exactly the CIA does it’s hacking, down to the letter, it was extremely embarrassing and a slap on the face of the Agency.
The CIA which prided itself with having the best of the best hackers and computer specialist was hacked with strictly confidential information out in the open, years of building an international reputation went down the drain.
Details of cyber weapons, surveillance techniques and equipment, and basically any method they could use to hack into any phone in the world were released to the public. Many more details about their mode of operations, idiosyncrasies, and flaws were made bare at a global scale, in other words, they were humiliated.
The CIA used to make fun of the Pentagon for getting hacked, now the joke was on them, and they sure as hell weren’t laughing. They were out for blood, somebody needed to go down, and there was only one name on their lips.
About 5 weeks after the Vault 7, Mike Pompeo, former US secretary of state formally labelled WikiLeaks a non state hostile intelligence agency. In other words, Mike Pompeo had declared a full blown war against WikiLeaks and it's administration.
"Nothing's off limits, don't censor yourself, I need operational ideas from you, I'll worry about the lawyers in washington"
— Pompeo told a former CIA senior officer.
CIA operatives came up with so many unethical approaches like taking him out with a sniper, ramming into his vehicle, poisoning him, etc but were immediately talked down by their lawyers.
Besides, the whole world already saw them as scum and they were trying to salvage their reputation, not make things worse.
Assange on the other hand was already beginning to overstay his welcome. Not only was he a sloppy guest, he was also using WikiLeaks to bash the Ecuadorian government; something the president didn't take too lightly, and on July 2018, Assange was ordered to vacate the premises.
3 months later, Assange tried to sue the Ecuadorian government for trying to hand him over to the UK government— a classic case of biting the hand that feeds you.
On April 2019, the Ecuadorian President formally announced that Assange was no longer welcome at their embassy. This obviously had something to do with the fact that WikiLeaks released a picture linking the Ecuadorian President to a serious corruption scandal.
The Ecuadorian authorities wanted Assange gone so bad that within 10 days, they invited the UK authorities to grab him from their embassy.
He was arrested and quickly sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for skipping bail. Meanwhile, the US had secretly indicted him a year ago and he was charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
8months into his jail time in the UK, the US added 17 more count charges to the list which would total up to 170 years in prison. On the 4th of January, 2021, the US government’s extradition request was denied on the count of his mental health as he was suicide risk.
This story and that of Edward Snowden made me realize that the best way to collapse a country with hundreds of nuclear weapons at it’s disposal, is with the truth. Which is why governments around the world are so afraid of it.