WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could step down: Report

The New York Observer has learned this morning that the high-profile Australian whistleblower behind the document leaks website WikiLeaks could be stepping down. The rumors follow allegations of rape, and the paper suggests that this may be reason for a departure until all investigations by Swedish police have been cleared up.

An Icelandic parliamentarian told The Daily Beast that Assange should step down, at least until the allegations have lost momentum.

"I am not angry with Julian, but this is a situation that has clearly gotten out of hand," she said told a reporter. "These personal matters should have nothing to do with WikiLeaks. I have strongly urged him to focus on the legalities that he's dealing with and let some other people carry the torch."

An anonymous source has told the parliamentarian, known as Birgitta Jonsdottir, that Assange has been 'resisting hints from supporters of the site's mission that he step aside' and that recent site outages have merely been attempts at sending him a message.

According to the New York Observer:

Birgitta Jonsdottir may want Assange to step away as point man for Wikileaks, but she seemed to understand how the accusations against the Australian-born hacker could have resulted from a sort of cultural miscommunication. Assange is brilliant, said Jonsdottir, "but he doesn't have very good social skills."

[Via The New York Observer] 

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Julian Assange: I was smeared, women stick by molestation charges

The high profile whistleblower behind the controversial website WikiLeaks has spoken out against a group of women who claimed they were raped by him, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It is clearly a smear campaign," Julian Assange told Al-Jazeera yesterday. "The only question is, who was involved?"

One of the two women claim that consensual sex with the internet icon turned abusive, although it was never rape. "The accusations against Assange are not staged by either the Pentagon nor anyone else," the accuser told a Swedish newspaper. "The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl are with a man with a disturbed view of women and problems accepting a no.

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Wikileaks only spends 10% of all the money it takes

It has been revealed that 'secret-spilling' website WikiLeaks only spends 10% of its budget - which is made up of donations by individuals who use and support the site.

Perhaps not exactly in keeping with the group's mission of supporting transparency within society and the organizations that operate within it, both the website and its founder, Julian Assange, have been reluctant to comment with regard to the economics of the website.

According to Wired:

Wikileaks has received 400,000 euros (U.S. $500,000) through PayPal or bank money transfers since late December, and spent only 30,000 euros (U.S. $38,000) from that funding, says Hendrik Fulda, vice president of the Berlin-based Wau Holland Foundation.

The money has gone to pay the travel expenses of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and spokesman Daniel Schmitt, as well as to cover the costs of computer hardware, such as servers, and leasing data lines, says Fulda. Wikileaks does not currently pay a salary to Assange or other volunteers from this funding, though there have been discussions about doing so in the future, Fulda adds. The details have not yet been worked out.

“If you are drawing from volunteers who are basically doing stuff for free and if you start paying money, the question is to whom, and to whom not, do you pay, and how much?” Fulda said. “It’s almost a moral question: How much money do you pay?”

[Via Wired Magazine/Threat Level]

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The internet's new pet love: WikiLeaks founder is being 'hunted'

It has been reported for some time now that the Pentagon is supposedly 'frantically searching' for the founder, Julian Assange, of the up and coming website, WikiLeaks, which allows users to anonymously upload classified files and documents.

Is that all that difficult to follow? I think he's in Las Vegas. If they are frantically searching as a number of trusted websites claim they are, they can't be doing a very good job. [Via Gawker]

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