Julian Assange

“In my role as Wikileaks editor, I've been involved in fighting off many legal attacks. To do that, and keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions.”

“We get information in the mail, the regular postal mail, encrypted or not, vet it like a regular news organization, format it - which is sometimes something that's quite hard to do, when you're talking about giant databases of information - release it to the public and then defend ourselves against the inevitable legal and political attacks.”

“Cryptography is the essential building block of independence for organisations on the Internet, just like armies are the essential building blocks of states, because otherwise one state just takes over another.”

“I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination.”

“In the history of Wikileaks, nobody has claimed that the material being put out is not authentic.”

“If journalism is good, it is controversial, by its nature.”

“Knowledge has always flowed upwards to bishops and kings, not down to serfs and slaves.”

“Intelligence agencies keep things secret because they often violate the rule of law or of good behavior.”