Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Arrest of WikiLeaks’s Assange a ‘Priority’: US Top Cop

The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US “priority,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the fugitive anti-hero.

The arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a US “priority,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday, as media reports indicated his office was preparing charges against the fugitive anti-hero.

“We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks,” Sessions, America’s top cop, said at a news conference in response to a reporter’s question about a US priority to arrest Assange.

The Justice Department chief said a rash of leaks of sensitive secrets appeared unprecedented.

“This is a matter that’s gone beyond anything I’m aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious,” he said.

“Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.”

Prosecutors in recent weeks have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and members of WikiLeaks that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with the matter.

Several other media outlets also cited unnamed officials as saying US authorities were preparing charges against Assange. The Justice Department declined to comment on the reports.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Assange, 45, has been holed up at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces a rape allegation that he denies.

He fears Sweden would extradite him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents that first gained attention in 2010.

Assange’s case returned to the spotlight after WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic party.

US officials say the emails were hacked with the aid of the Russian government in its bid to influence the US election.

Critics say their release late in the race helped to tip the November 8 election to Republican Donald Trump.

Trump and his administration have put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency last month by releasing a large number of files and computer code from the spy agency’s top-secret hacking operations.

The documents showed how the CIA exploits vulnerabilities in popular computer and networking hardware and software to gather intelligence.

Supporters of WikiLeaks say it’s practicing the constitutional right of freedom of speech and the press.

– ‘Hostile intelligence service’-

CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week branded WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service,” saying it threatens democratic nations and joins hands with dictators.

Pompeo focused on the anti-secrecy group and other leakers of classified information like Edward Snowden as one of the key threats facing the United States.

“WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence… And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations,” said Pompeo.

“It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is — a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

The day before Pompeo spoke, Assange published an opinion piece in The Washington Post in which he said his group’s mission was the same as America’s most respected newspapers: “to publish newsworthy content.”

“WikiLeaks’s sole interest is expressing constitutionally protected truths,” he said, professing “overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of America.”

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

SecurityWeek’s Threat Detection and Incident Response Summit brings together security practitioners from around the world to share war stories on breaches, APT attacks and threat intelligence.

Register

Securityweek’s CISO Forum will address issues and challenges that are top of mind for today’s security leaders and what the future looks like as chief defenders of the enterprise.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Artificial Intelligence

The degree of danger that may be introduced when adversaries start to use AI as an effective weapon of attack rather than a tool...