WikiLeaks.
For 12 years, this rogue organization gained notoriety
for revealing the secrets of governments around the world.
They released the hacked DNC e-mails in the 2016 election,
they exposed Pope Benedict
for impeding investigations into abuse by priests,
and they revealed
that Kim Jong-un had a secret neck-removal surgery.
So, for a decade...
(laughter)
...governments of the world have tried to shut WikiLeaks down.
And today, Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks
and Draco Malfoy's biological father,
has finally been arrested.
After an almost seven year standoff,
holding international law enforcement at bay,
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is under arrest.
Police in London took Assange into custody this morning,
taking him from the embassy of Ecuador
where he's been under protection for years.
TV REPORTER: Julian Assange, now with a beard,
carried out of the Ecuadorian embassy
by London's Metropolitan Police.
Oh, man.
Yo, that is-- that is one of the most embarrassing ways
you could get arrested because-- because look at this.
That's his head.
And then those are his feet.
(laughter)
They carried him out of the embassy
like he was an old couch.
It's just like, "All right, all right, watch the corners.
Watch the corners. Come on, watch the corners."
And by the way, what happened to Assange?
Right? Look-look at him.
Like, in just a few years, he went from Bond villain
to crowd-surfing Hobbit.
But the important part of the story
isn't how he was arrested, it's why he was arrested.
TV REPORTER: His arrest this morning in London
quickly followed by an announcement from the U.S.
that Assange had been charged with conspiracy.
He is accused of working with a former U.S.
Army Intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning,
to hack into Defense computer systems.
They said that Assange had helped Chelsea Manning break
and crack the password
to enter into U.S. government computers.
That's right. Assange is being charged
by the U.S. for trying to hack into
a Defense Department computer back in 2010.
And in 2010, it was really difficult
to hack the government system
because the password was "password1." Yeah.
You expected password, but the "1" threw everyone off.
And you may be thinking, "Wait, I don't get it.
"If he was hacked in 2010,
why is Assange only being arrested now?"
Well, you see, for the last seven years,
Assange has been protected by living
in the Ecuadorian embassy,
but, apparently, Ecuador has discovered
that hackers make terrible houseguests.
Why was that asylum lifted overnight?
There have been reports for some time
that Assange was sort of--
had outlived his welcome there in the embassy,
for all sorts of reasons, including that he was
-skateboarding in the hall, -WOMAN: Oh, weird.
and stealing Wi-Fi, and that his cat had been making a mess.
So, you know, the Ecuadorians
were getting sick of having him there.
-Okay. -(audience reacting)
Okay. w-we're gonna come back to that business casual cat,
but... but the first thing I need to know
is why the hell was Julian Assange skateboarding
in the hallways of an embassy
and stealing their Wi-Fi?
It makes him sound less like a political dissident
and more like a shitty teenager, you know?
Like, the Ecuadorians were probably pounding on his door,
like, "Julian! Why is the Wi-Fi so slow?
You better not be leaking documents!”
And he's like, "I hate you.
You're not even my real country."
And as for the cat, as for that cat,
the most disturbing thing about the story
is somehow not the fact that Assange allowed it
to shit all over the embassy.
No. It's that every day,
he dressed that poor thing up in a tie and collar.
And I'm talking an entire wardrobe, right? Yeah.
(audience exclaiming)
Like, if I worked in the Ecuadorian embassy,
that would be my sign that Assange was losing it.
'Cause it'd be like, "I need some tiny ties for my cat.
He just got his accounting degree.”
You'd be like, "Okay. I think it's time for you to go, buddy."
And if you ever owned cats,
you know that cats don't enjoy that, right?
I mean, cats don't enjoy anything,
but they especially don't enjoy being dressed up as people.
All right? He's not yawning in this photo.
He's screaming, "Help me! Help!"
(laughter)
And now, because Ecuador has stopped protecting Assange,
he's facing Aunt Becky levels of prison time.
Although, a lot of people are concerned
that by arresting Assange, the government is creating
a precedent to lock up journalists
who expose government secrets in the future.
If Assange is extradited,
the process will likely be lengthy.
And there's gonna be a lot of litigation on this issue
of free speech, freedom of the press,
as well as whether WikiLeaks' website
really qualifies as a publisher
and whether Assange really is a journalist at the heart of it.
The Obama administration looked at and tried
to bring charges against Julian Assange.
They ended up deciding that they could not bring charges,
simply because how do you bring charges against Julian Assange
when you don't bring charges against The New York Times
and other news organizations
that published those very same documents,
documents that were stolen
and that were published by WikiLeaks.
Okay, this-this really is an interesting dilemma.
On the one hand, pretty much everyone hates Assange,
partly because he looks like the creepy step-dad in every porno,
but, on the other hand, many people aren't happy
about him getting arrested
because they worry this could open the door
to journalists getting arrested for leaking government secrets.
And you know journalists getting arrested
would be Trump's wet dream.
Well, I mean, that and the dream
where a porn star gives him back the money
because he was so good.
Just kike, "Wow, Donald, 20 seconds.
I should be paying you!”
(laughter)
So, as it stands, Julian Assange is in custody in Britain,
and everyone's waiting to see if he'll get extradited to the U.S.
But the big mystery to me is,
it's just-- it feels like somebody--
somebody on the inside must have done something
to sabotage Assange, someone who he trusted,
someone who had a reason to betray him.
And I-- I don't know, I guess we'll never know who it was.
-(X-Files music playing) -TV REPORTER: WikiLeaks founder
-Julian Assange arrested. -TV REPORTER: Julian Assange.
(TV Reporters overlapping): ...the Ecuadorian embassy.
-...seven years. -...charged with conspiracy.
-...to hack. -...password. -...into Defense computer.
Classified United States documents.
-...computer... -...Julian Assange...
-...thousands of classified documents... -...aiding Russian
-hackers... -Classified material... -...2016 election.
Leaks of classified government documents in history.
(meow)