Spy Files: WikiLeaks to publish fourth series of leaks – Assange
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reportedly announced the whistleblowing website will soon release a fourth series of classified documents.
The leak is currently being prepared, Assange told the Lisbon and Estoril Film Festival (LEFFEST) on Sunday, according to teleSUR. He gave no date or further details about the publication.
Regarding the contents of the leaks and the release date, he said via teleconference from the London’s Ecuadorean Embassy, “I've delegated that to someone else in the organization.”
Assange is still holed up in the South American state’s London embassy. He sought political asylum there in June 2012 to avoid extradition.
Swedish authorities want to question Assange over allegations of rape and sexual molestation, although he has not been charged.
The Australian activist believes the US government will seek his extradition for publishing thousands of classified diplomatic cables and military secrets if he travels to Sweden.
The last Spy Files released by WikiLeaks in 2013 included 250 documents from more than 90 surveillance companies. The leak uncovered the extent of the secret, global mass surveillance industry.
READ MORE:Spy Files: New WikiLeaks docs expose secretive, unruly surveillance industry
“WikiLeaks’ Spy Files #3 is part of our ongoing commitment to shining a light on the secretive mass surveillance industry. This publication doubles the WikiLeaks Spy Files database,” the accompanying press release for the leak quotes Assange.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that the BBC is working on a comedy series called Asylum, inspired by Assange’s prolonged stay at the Ecuadorean embassy. The show is described as “a satirical comedy about a government whistleblower and a millionaire internet entrepreneur trapped together in a London embassy.”
Asylum will air early next year.
In October, Assange launched an attack on Google, claiming the search engine giant has turned “big and bad,” slamming its chairman Eric Schmidt.
READ MORE:'Google grown big & bad': Assange reveals company & its founder's links to US govt
In an extract from his upcoming book, When Google Met WikiLeaks, published in Newsweek, Assange said Google's worldwide dominance of the internet and its mass harvesting of data are cause for “serious concern.”
“Nobody wants to acknowledge that Google has grown big and bad. But it has. Schmidt’s tenure as CEO saw Google integrate with the shadiest of US power structures as it expanded into a geographically invasive megacorporation.”
