You cannot arrest an idea

@atopiary

Ah, I’m sick to death of hearing things

From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites

All I want is the truth

Just gimme some truth

I’ve had enough of reading things

By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians

All I want is the truth

Just gimme some truth

John Lennon

I met Julian Assange at the beginning of July 2011, at a dinner with Slavoj Žižek, which I had bought on Ebay. I used the occasion to tell Assange about my plan to do a piece on WikiLeaks, based on interviews with him. I didn’t expect that Assange would go along with it, God knows he had enough problems at the time. He was under house arrest and was being monitored by an electronic tag attached to his ankle. His WikiLeaks publications had angered world power USA, and thoroughly disgraced them too. As we now know from the Stratfor-Leak, a secret grand jury was in meeting at the time preparing a sealed indictment against him. As well as that, he was being threatened with extradition to Sweden. He was to be questioned about allegations of the abuse and rape of two women with whom he had slept. The issue in this ongoing case is mainly about the use of condoms. Despite all that was going on, we still somewhat surprisingly managed to have our initial meeting at Soho House, London in March 2012. It lasted several hours, during which time it was Assange who mainly asked the questions. I was nervous at the time, and I’m sure I wasn’t making a great impression. As we were saying our goodbyes he casually said that I had convinced him, and gave me the nod. His staff member Joseph Farrell subsequently advised me that I should be ready, as the next meeting would take place very soon.

For the following weeks and months I waited for news from London. During that time I broadened my knowledge and spent a lot of time on Twitter, where I not only followed WikiLeaks, but also notorious members of Anonymous as well as the genius hacker group Lulzsec. Day and night I thought of nothing else, and also didn’t talk about anything else, much to the annoyance of those around me. The more I found out, the more questions came up. I developed an obsession with the subject and got completely engrossed in the depths of the internet.

As I hadn’t heard anything from WikiLeaks in months, I started to have my doubts about the whole endeavor. In mid-June I went on a long planned trip to Key West, to swim with dolphins in the wild. I had barely arrived when I got word from WikiLeaks that I should come to London immediately. Assange had lost his last case in Great Britain and was to be extradited to Sweden within two weeks. On Sunday 17 June 2012 a cocktail party was hosted for Assange at the home of Baroness Helena Kennedy, to which friends and potential supporters had also been invited. On the following Tuesday I was to meet Assange at his hideout in Kent, together with Chris Kondek, who was to film the meeting: the interview finally seemed within reach. I left the dolphins and booked the next flight to London.

I rushed from the airport straight to the party, unshowered and jet-lagged, and discovered to my surprise that the majority of his supporters were intellectuals and artists. There were also some representatives of the British establishment with a soft spot for freethinkers. I can still remember thinking that something like this would never happen in Germany. The hostess herself, Baroness Helena Kennedy, a lawyer and member of the House of Lords, supported Assange and gave him legal advice.

There were about two dozen people pr