 |
         
|
This uneasiness was resolved in the figure of Julian Assange. CBS' Elizabeth Palmer had a premonition that the story would stop being about the State Department's conduct of foreign policy and about Assange himself when she interviewed him at London's Frontline press club. "You have become the story almost despite yourself," Palmer suggested. "I think we would like to hear what you have to say about that." "So you want me to become even more part of the story?" "I do."
NBC's Lisa Myers was an early one to shift the focus away from the actual cables. She filed a profile of Assange in which she quoted an unidentified "US official" insulting him as "very anti-American and a deeply disturbed and dangerous individual." Myers claimed that "he is on the run" one day and, despite his lawyer's assertion that police knew his whereabouts, depicted him as "living the life of a fugitive," the next. Then Myers interviewed the Stockholm lawyer who represents the two anonymous women who have filed sexual-molestation charges against Assange. "They have been abused," he asserted even as "he would not discuss details of the incident."
In short order, there were two tracks to the WikiLeaks story: the warrant for Assange's arrest; and global cyber warfare. With its Scandinavian setting and its mix of sex and hacking, this narrative could be covered as a thriller rather than an abstract dilemma of national security media ethics. CBS' Palmer forecast that Assange would fight extradition to Stockholm "in case the Swedes, under political pressure, turn him over to the United States."
Highlights included the overblown drama of the Interpol warrant for Assange's arrest and the sketchy details of Assange's alleged sexual indiscretions, indiscretions that may or may not be criminal, consensual that "turned non-consensual," as ABC's Sciutto put it, spelling out accusations of absent condoms, forcibly parted legs and fucking while sleeping.
The WikiLeaks Website was taken down "under constant cyberassault," as ABC's Sciutto put it. It lost its server and then "popped back up again with new addresses," CBS' Palmer pointed out. It set up "mushrooming" mirror sites, according to NBC's Peter Alexander. It lost its payment system--MasterCard, VISA and PayPal--and its Swiss bank account was frozen. It distributed password-protected supersecrets to hundreds of supporters worldwide--"encrypted with a code so strong it is unbreakable, even by governments," CBS' Palmer marveled. It had supportive hackers--"hactivists," as CBS' Mark Phillips dubbed them--launch counter attacks on its behalf.
Check out a pair of reports on CBS, Palmer on the initial attack and Phillips on the response. Zombie Armies on the March!
Thank goodness for those Dragon Tattoo/Playing with Fire/Hornet's Nest scenarios! Denial of service attacks and extradition proceedings…mirror Websites and unprotected sex…password-protected insurance files and honey traps. As long as the story was about Swedish prosecutors, cybersleuthing and sexual molestation then the network news divisions did not have to gaze too scrupulously into their navels to work out how much government secrecy and transparency they actually wanted after all.
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
