What does it take to change the world?
A big army? A cure to a pandemic? A revolution?
All of these take either a lot of people thousands of hours or massive amounts of space.
But for Julian Assange, all he needed was a small room an
internet connection, and the world listened.
After almost seven years of self-imposed captivity Assange finally wore out his welcome
as a guest at the Ecuadorian embassy.
He is now being detained at Her Majesty's Prison Belmarsh in east London
where it's safe to assume he doesn't have a laptop.
But during his long stay at the Ecuadorian embassy he posted government secrets,
classified documents and leaked emails of some of the world's most powerful people.
And in doing so has been labelled a hero a villain a nihilist and everything in between.
I think the first taste of what would come later is the hacking that he did as a young programmer
and that really sort of foreshadowed a healthy skepticism of the use and abuse
of technology by governments.
That's Vernon Silver.
I'm a reporter for Bloomberg's investigations team.
Assange's youth as a hacker laid the foundation for him to start Wikileaks in 2006.
In 2010 one of his sources named Bradley Manning now known as Chelsea Manning
provided Assange and WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of leaked government documents.
WikiLeaks quietly began releasing the documents in February of 2010
then made big headlines in April by posting what is now known as the collateral murder video.
It was a vivid graphic video.
It changed the debate on the Iraq war and importantly it put WikiLeaks on the map.
When they put it online and they couldn't be ignored at that point
and those leaks were just the beginning.
They went on to post more than 90000 leaked documents known as the Afghan war logs.
Three hundred and ninety thousand documents known as the Iraq war logs
and a quarter of a million private messages between diplomats called cables,
in what is now known as Cable Gate.
These leaks were met with very real ethical questions.
The problem with publishing those cables was that a number of confidential
sources for U.S. diplomats who face real danger when their names were exposed.
Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drove the point home that every
country including the United States must be able to have
candid conversations about the people and nations with whom they deal.
Shortly after Cable Gate the Swedish government issued an arrest warrant for Assange
on allegations of rape and molestation.
He claimed the allegations were fabricated to get him extradited to the United States,
a claim the U.S. government denied.
Assange's next move was to seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy.
He essentially ran WikiLeaks from their leaking files about
Guantanamo Bay prisoners Syrian political refugees and the draft to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
And then came the 2016 U.S. election.
Thousands of leaked emails show Democratic Party officials possibly plotting against Bernie Sanders in his race against Hillary Clinton.
Over the course of 68 days WikiLeaks released 20,000 confidential Democratic National Committee emails.
In terms of the presidential race, if you look right here
when Assange released the first batch of emails Trump actually takes his first lead against Clinton.
I think we've had enough of the Clintons.
And once WikiLeaks started exposing secrets of the Democratic Party
Julian Assange became a hero to many on the right. Public opinion kind of flip flopped.
WikiLeaks!
When the Muller report was released it did confirm
that Donald Trump Junior was in direct Twitter contact with WikiLeaks
in which they alerted the Trump campaign of the release have been pending hacked e-mails.
I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing.
From those emails we learn that Hillary Clinton's campaign manager makes risotto
and also how the DNC squashed Bernie Sanders campaign.
While a U.S. indictment says Russian agents stole the emails,
Assange has always insisted that WikiLeaks did not get them from Russia.
Our source is not the Russian government and it is not state party.
After almost seven years in captivity with his cat,
reports of disturbing behavior resulted in his expulsion.
He was dragged out by British police arrested and charged with
breaching the bail act on May 1st 2019.
He was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison.
And with Swedish prosecutors reopening their investigation into rape allegations
it looks like the age of Assange could be coming to a swift end.
But for better or for worse his work lives on with or without Assange.
WikiLeaks remains active and governments the world over remain wary of its wrath.