Information leaker known as the founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange and the US Department of Justice have reached an agreement to release Assange on bail.
The release decision was reached after Assange agreed to plead guilty to violating the US Espionage Act.
Assange, released from British prison, is currently on his way to the US-owned island of Saipan in the Pacific Ocean. The judge there is to say that Assange has served his sentence and is now a free man.
Julian Assange and other famous leakers are one of the most followed people of our time, who have been made into documentaries and who have otherwise been put on a pedestal. States, on the other hand, have condemned information leakers as traitors to severe punishments.
These three pictures show how Assange has changed over the years:
So what should one think of people like Assange and their actions? To what extent has leaking sensitive information managed to change the world?
Data security expert Petteri Järvinen attitude depends on the point of view. For example, the American one Edward Snowden the revelations 11 years ago were appropriate in Järvinen’s opinion, because they also forced, for example, Finland to sharpen its information security.
– Yes, at least for us Finns and Europeans, it was important to see how widely the NSA, i.e. the US National Security Agency, had access to various services and how technically advanced the NSA’s digging was, says Järvinen.
– This partly led to Finland getting a signal intelligence law, which before Snowden seemed impossible, Järvinen states.
According to Järvinen, Snowden revealed amazing information about how the US government weakens the encryption protocol and embeds something that doesn’t belong in devices owned by private people or companies, for example phones or computers. The awareness of abuse of power and the extent of control changed completely.
Julian Assange, on the other hand, became known as the founder of the Wikileaks website. The site revealed the questionable actions of the United States in the Iraq war and what was left unsaid in the official announcements.
– We will always remember the videos where the United States shoots civilians in Iraq, says Järvinen.
According to Järvinen, however, Assange acted more irresponsibly than Snowden, because anyone could publish their information on the Wikileaks website. Instead, Snowden released his material to reporters and protected the identity of his sources.
Järvinen is surprised by Assage’s release.
– There was supposed to be a severe punishment, and suddenly the news comes that he has been released.
The United States, like many other countries, is very strict with information leakers. According to Järvinen, there has even been talk of a hundred-year prison sentence for Assange. There was even a demand for the death sentence for Snowden, but he has not been sentenced.
The third known leaker is from the United States Chelsea Manning. In August 2013, a court-martial judge sentenced Manning to 35 years in prison and ordered him discharged from the US Army. Finally, the president Barack Obama pardoned Manning. Järvinen estimates that Manning, like Snowden, had a personal motive to expose US war crimes.
– It was kind of a moral issue for him, Järvinen states.
Järvinen does not want to judge who is the hero and who is the villain in these cases. At the end of the day, he considers information disclosures to be good, at least from the point of view of Finnish citizens.
– They have broadened the picture of what happens in intelligence and warfare, states Järvinen.
According to Järvinen, the world has changed rapidly in terms of data collection and espionage. What was horrified ten years ago is now considered an almost normal activity.
– When it is known how Russia and China constantly inquire and collect information, the corresponding action of one’s own state is no longer a concern, Järvinen assesses and continues:
– Let’s consider that our own country and Europe are in the same camp, and then China, Russia or Iran are on the opposite side. Although basically it’s the same thing.
In Järvinen’s opinion, intelligence and espionage are, as it were, invisible warfare, which has turned into an increasingly tough game.
– Something is going on all the time. Let’s break into critical infrastructure sites, power grids, water plants. Traps are installed there, which can then be used when the conflict escalates, says Järvinen.
– This is how Russia acted long before, before it attacked Ukraine.
According to Järvinen, the revelations also show how easy it is to leak information in the digital age.
– Before the age of the internet, information would not have spread as hard copies, he states.
Keeping secrets is therefore increasingly difficult in the digital age.
– It has led to the fact that they no longer necessarily even try to keep secrets. Russia and China spy quite openly. They don’t mind if they get caught by spyware, says Järvinen.
Järvinen cannot predict the next big data leak in the future, but he has one wish.
– I expect that a local Snowden would come from either Russia or China, who would reveal information from inside the organization there.
– This way we would also get a better picture of their espionage, Järvinen states.