Julian Assange Quotes

I think the good old British democracy should keep scrutinising and pressing to get the truth out.

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has on several occasions talked about transparency as an absolute principle. I don't personally believe that.

The work of WikiLeaks is with principal documentary evidence; that's where the truth lies. It gets to the heart of the matter. It educates people and in turn empowers them.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

I'm a freedom of information campaigner, so obviously I support the cause of Wikileaks.

Openness, transparency - these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt... and that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done.

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow the whistle on bad government acts done in secret. But it does. And that is an immense problem for democracy, one that all journalists should be united in fighting.

Democracies can’t accomplish much of anything without the free flow of information – including waging the war on terrorism.

… a guarantee of public access to government information is indispensable in the long run for any democratic society.... if officials make public only what they want citizens to know, then publicity becomes a sham and accountability meaningless.

“Activist” is a dirty word in the United States. We are not activists for any particular political position on most issues. We are activists only for ending government secrecy.

WikiLeaks is a service to the population. Assange should get an award for - presidential medal of honor.

The media helps keep government honest.

WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions.

The aim of Wikileaks is to achieve just reform around the world and do it through the mechanism of transparency.

I always believed that WikiLeaks as a concept would perform a global role, and to some degree it was clear that it was doing that as far back as 2007 when it changed the result of the Kenyan general election.

There are many people, including me, who admire the original mission of WikiLeaks.

Any unveiling is also veiling. No matter how transparent our governments want to be, governments will be selectively transparent.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

This whole idea of visibility by the public creates a pretty powerful lever. In the new transparency era, you are able to make change you would otherwise have difficulty making. It's no longer possible for somebody just to bury the problem. It's the reason why things like WikiLeaks are important.

The fact is that when it comes to judgment as to what should be secret and what should not be secret, Julian Assange's judgment has been pretty good so far.

What I'm thinking about more and more these days is simply the importance of transparency, and Jefferson's saying that he'd rather have a free press without a government than a government without a free press.

Obama has already rejected the bright sunlight of public knowledge, which is democracy's great disinfectant and cure.

Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news.

In a film muddied by fictional detail, the new Spielberg production 'Fifth Estate''s portrayal of the 'Guardian''s work with Wikileaks is accurate in describing the running dispute between journalists who wanted to redact documents to make them safe and Julian Assange, who wanted no such restraint.

The values of WikiLeaks have been completely overshadowed by Julian Assange.