揭秘者——朱利安.阿桑奇

他身携一台电脑和一个背包便辗转漂泊于全球,肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚、澳大利亚、美国和欧洲各国都有他的足迹;他长着一张年轻的脸,却拥有一头老人的银发,工作与生活的艰辛已然在他身上留下了痕迹;他是黑客“罗宾汉”,以自己的方式推动信息完全透明化,美军袭击伊拉克平民视频、关塔那摩监狱手册、佩林私人邮件内容、阿富汗战争日志等的揭露都是他的“杰作”。他便是被美国政府视为“眼中钉”的神秘人物——“维基泄密”网站的创始人朱利安·阿桑奇。他的人生经历复杂离奇,他的泄密工作颇受争议,他就像是一个说不清道不明的谜。

Everything about this is odd. Julian Assange, the founder, director, frontman2, guiding spirit of global whistleblowing service WikiLeaks looks a bit odd for a start. Tall, cadaverous3, dressed in ripped jeans, brown jacket, black tie, battered trainers. He detests subjectivity in journalism; I fear that part of him detests journalists, too, and that WikiLeaks—which describes itself as an “uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking”—is essentially a way of cutting out subjectivist idiots such as me.

If Assange was producing this article, he would post the rambling4 hour-and-a-half-long talk he delivers at the Centre for Investigative Journalisms summer school at Londons City University online, plus the 10 minutes we spend talking on the way to a restaurant and the additional 20 minutes of chat in the restaurant before its politely suggested Ive exhausted my time. “When youre dealing with any secondary sources about me, be extremely careful,” he says as we walk.

“Journalism should be more like science,” he tells me in the restaurant. “As far as possible, facts should be verifiable5. If journalists want long-term credibility for their profession, they have to go in that direction.” He likes the idea of a 2,000-word article backed by 25,000 words of source material, and says there is no reason why you cant provide that on the internet.

Assanges Wikileaks

Assange unveiled wikileaks.org in January 2007 and has pulled off6 some astonishing coups7 for an organisation with a handful of staff and virtually no funding. It has exposed evidence of corruption in the family of former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi8, published the standard operating procedures for the Guantánamo Bay detention centre9, even made public the contents of Sarah Palins Yahoo account. But what has really propelled WikiLeaks into the media mainstream is the video it released in April, 2010 of a US helicopter attack in Baghdad in July 2007, which killed a number of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters personnel.

The video, posted in a 39-minute unedited version and as an 18-minute film called Collateral10 Murder, gives a chilling insight into US military attitudes: sloppiness in identifying targets, eagerness to finish off11 a grievously wounded man as he attempts to crawl to safety, and lack of concern even for two children in a van that arrives to pick up the bodies and is immediately attacked. “Its their fault for bringing their kids to a battle,” says one of the pilots. “Thats right,” replies his colleague matter-of-factly12.

WikiLeaks has just five full-time staff and about 40 others who, he says, “very frequently do things”, backed by 800 occasional helpers and 10,000 supporters and donors—an amorphous13, decentralised structure, which might become the model for many media organisations in the future, as what might be called “journalism factories” become both outmoded and unfinanceable. This is a delicate moment in the development of what Assange prefers to think of as a “movement”. “We have all the problems that a growing startup organisation has,” he says, “combined with an extreme adversarial14 environment and state spying.”

The danger of penetration by the security services is acute. “It makes it hard to get new talent quickly,” he says, “because everyone has to be checked out, and it makes internal communication very difficult because everything has to be encrypted and security procedures put in place. And we also have to be ready to respond to lawsuits.”

Assange has to be careful about his personal security. Bradley Manning15, a 22-year-old US army intelligence analyst, has been arrested and charged with allegedly giving WikiLeaks the footage of the Baghdad attack. There have also been disputed reports that WikiLeaks may be holding 260,000 classified diplomatic cables, and the US authorities have been quoted as saying they want to interview Assange about all this material. Some sources with links in the intelligence agencies have warned him he is in danger and advised him not to travel to the US.

When I ask him whether the rapid growth and increasing significance of WikiLeaks surprises him, he says no. “I was always confident the idea would succeed, otherwise I wouldnt have spent my time on it or asked other people to spend their time on it.” He has spent a good deal of that time in Iceland, where freedom of information is protected and he has high-level supporters. It was here that the complex work of decrypting the video of the Baghdad attack was done.

Assanges Life

Assange was born in Queensland in 1971 into what sounds a highly unconventional family. His parents ran a touring theatre company, and he went to 37 different schools, though some accounts suggest his mother thought school encouraged deference16 to authority, so educated him mainly at home. His parents divorced, his mother remarried, there was a bustup with her new husband, which led to her, Julian and his half-brother going on the run.

He fell in love with computers in his teens, became a skilled hacker and formed a group called International Subversives, which broke into US defence department computers. He married at 18, and he and his wife soon had a son, but the marriage broke down and he fought a long custody battle, which, it is said, entrenched17 his dislike of authority. There are also suggestions he felt some people in the government had been conspiring18 against him. So we have a neat journalistic picture: computer expert with two decades of hacking experience, hostility to authority, conspiracy theorist. Setting up WikiLeaks in his mid-30s looks like an inevitable move.

Challenging Conventional Journalism

In his talk, Assange had said that he is neither of the right nor the left—his enemies are forever trying to pin labels on him in order to undermine his organisation. What matters first and foremost is getting the information out. “First the facts, maam,” is how he summarises his philosophy to me. “Then well get down to what we want to do about it. You cant do anything sensible until you know what the situation is that youre in.” But while he rejects political labels, he says WikiLeaks does have its own ethical code. “We have values. I am an information activist. You get the information out to the people. We believe a richer intellectual and historical record that is fuller and more accurate is in itself intrinsically good, and gives people the tools to make intelligent decisions.”

Is WikiLeakss impact today an inherent criticism of conventional journalism? Have we been asleep19 on the job? “There has been an unconscionable20 failure to protect sources,” he says. “It is those sources who take all the risks.” Journalists, he says, let other people take the risks and then take the credit. They have been letting the state, big business, vested interests get away with it21 for too long, and a network of hackers and whistleblowers hunched over computers, making sense of complex data and with a mission to make it freely available, is now ready to do a better job. Its an incendiary22 argument, and one Id stay and contest if he wasnt sipping white wine and about to order dinner.

But one thing I have to say. Julian Assange may represent the future of news reporting, but he is not a journalist, at least not in the conventional sense.

这事无论怎么看都很怪异。首先，作为“维基泄密”这家全球性揭秘服务网站的创始人、总指挥、领头人和精神领袖，朱利安·阿桑奇一开始看上去就有点怪异。此人瘦高个子，身上的牛仔裤开着口子，穿着棕色夹克，打着黑色领带，脚上的运动鞋破破烂烂。他讨厌新闻报道中的主观主义;我觉得他其实在一定程度上也讨厌记者。“维基泄密”将自己描述为无需接受审查的系统，专门用于泄露难以查询的文件。我想这一网站从本质上来说是要取代像我这样的主观主义傻瓜。

如果让阿桑奇来写这篇文章，他肯定会把他在伦敦城市大学新闻调查中心开设的暑期培训班上发表的冗长的演讲发到网上，外加我们在去饭店的路上那十分钟的聊天录音，以及我们在饭店里那20分钟的谈话内容。要不是我礼貌地提醒他我没有时间了，他还会聊下去。“当你研究任何有关我的二手资料时，一定要非常小心。”我们走的时候，他如是说。

“新闻报道应该更像科学，”他在饭店里面告诉我，“事实应该尽可能地得到证实。如果记者们想让自己的行业拥有长期的信誉，他们就应该朝这个方向努力。”他崇尚这样一种观点:一篇2，000字的文章应该有25，000字的原始材料作为支撑。他还说，你完全有理由在互联网上提供这些原始材料。

阿桑奇的“维基泄密”

阿桑奇于2007年1月将wikileaks.org公布于众，自那以后便有“惊人之举”迭出。对于一个只有几名员工，也基本没有资金支持的机构来说，能有这些“惊人之举”着实令人惊讶。该网站揭露了肯尼亚前总统丹尼尔·阿拉普·莫伊家族腐败的证据，发表了关塔那摩监狱的标准运作程序，甚至还将萨拉·佩林的雅虎邮箱的邮件内容公之于众。但真正让“维基泄密”进入主流媒体行列的，还是其于2010年4月公布的一架美军直升机于2007年7月在巴格达发动攻击的录像。那次攻击杀害了许多伊拉克平民以及两名路透社的工作人员。

这段录像以一段39分钟的未经剪辑版本和一段18分钟的名为《连带谋杀》的影片形式发布出来，使公众了解到美军那令人不寒而栗的态度:确定目标时的马虎，干掉一个试图爬向安全地带的受重伤男子时的迫切，以及哪怕是面对两个孩子时也同样表现出的漠然。那两个孩子坐着货车来收尸，却立刻遭到了攻击。“那是他们的错，谁让他们把孩子带到战场上来呢。”一名飞行员说。“没错。”他的同事毫无表情地回应道。

“维基泄密”只有五名全职员工，据阿桑奇宣称，网站还有大约四十名经常参与干活的人士、八百名偶尔提供帮助的人，以及一万名支持者和捐助者。这是一种非结构化的、权力分散的组织形态。随着现在或许可能被称为“新闻工厂”的模式变得过时且难以融资，这种组织形态很可能会成为媒体机构未来的模式。阿桑奇倾向于把这种发展趋势称做“运动”，目前这一运动进入了微妙的时刻。“我们同样面临着处于成长阶段的新兴机构所遇到的全部问题，”他说，“而且我们还处于极端敌对的环境和政府的监视之下。”

安全机构的介入对网站来说是个严重的威胁。“这使我们很难快速获得新的人才，”阿桑奇说，“因为每个人都不得不接受个人背景调查，而且这也使得内部沟通非常困难，因为所有的交流都必须加密，并严格执行安全程序。而且，我们还必须准备好应诉。”

阿桑奇不得不注意自己的人身安全。22岁的美国陆军情报分析员布拉德利·曼宁已经被捕，并因涉嫌向“维基泄密”提供巴格达直升机发动攻击的那段录像而受到指控。还有一些具有争议的报道称，“维基泄密”可能掌握了260，000份机密的外交电报。有人引用美国当局的话说，政府想与阿桑奇会面，谈谈这些电报的事。而一些与情报机构有联系的消息来源警告阿桑奇，说他会有危险，并建议他不要去美国。

“维基泄密”快速成长，影响力与日俱增。当我问阿桑奇是否对此感到惊讶时，他回答说没有。“我一直坚信这个主意会成功，否则我是不会在上面花费时间的，也不会叫其他人在上面花费时间。”他花在“维基泄密”上的很大一部分时间是在冰岛度过的，因为那里保护信息自由，而且他还有高层的支持者。对直升机在巴格达发动攻击的那段录像进行解密这一复杂工作就是在那里完成的。

阿桑奇生平

阿桑奇1971年生于澳大利亚的昆士兰州，他的家庭听起来相当的不同寻常。他的父母经营一家流动剧团，他上过37所不同的学校，当然也有人说，他主要是在家里接受母亲的教育，因为他母亲觉得学校总是助长屈从权威的恶习。他父母后来离了婚，母亲改嫁，与新丈夫大吵一架后，最后只好带着阿桑奇和他同母异父的弟弟四处流浪。

阿桑奇十几岁的时候爱上了电脑，成了一名技术娴熟的黑客，并成立了一个名为“国际颠覆者”的组织，该组织曾侵入过美国国防部的电脑。他18岁结婚，不久妻子就给他生了个儿子。但是后来他的婚姻破裂，为了争取孩子的监护权，他陷入了耗时漫长的官司之中。据说，正是这场官司让他对政府权威深恶痛绝。还有人说，他觉得政府里有人在密谋对付他。这样，我们就勾勒出一幅有关阿桑奇的完整的新闻图片:一位具有20年黑客经历的电脑专家，一个对政府充满敌视的人，一个阴谋论者。看来，他在三十多岁时创立“维基泄密”是人生不可避免的一步了。

挑战传统新闻

阿桑奇在谈话中声称自己既不是右派也不是左派——他的敌人总是想给他贴上标签，以破坏他的机构。对他来说，首要的事情是把信息发布出去。“首先要有事实，女士。”他这么向我总结他的信条。“然后，我们才能认真考虑如何处理这些事实。只有当你知道自己所处的形势如何时，才能采取明智的行动。”不过，他尽管拒绝政治性的标签，却也表示“维基泄密”有自己的道德准则。“我们有自己的价值观。我是信息活动分子。你得把信息透露给民众。我们相信，如果能够有更丰富、更全面和更准确的知识与历史记录，从本质上来说是一件好事，它能够为民众作出理智的决定提供必要的材料。”

“维基泄密”当今收获的影响力从本质上看是不是对传统新闻事业的一种批判呢?我们这些传统记者一直以来是不是已对工作麻木不仁了呢?“对于信息来源我们没有尽力保护，这是极不公正的，”阿桑奇说，“现在承担所有风险的都是这些信息来源人士。”

他说，记者让其他人承担风险，到头来却把功劳揽到自己身上。长久以来，他们一直让政府、大企业和既得利益集团逃脱惩罚，逍遥法外。而现在，一帮黑客和揭秘者弯腰弓背地坐在电脑前，从纷繁复杂的资料中梳理头绪，担负起让民众能自由获取这些资料的使命，他们已为改变新闻现状作好了准备。这是一个煽动性的论调，如果不是因为他边品着白葡萄酒边准备开始点菜的话，我是会坐下来与他好好辩论一番的。

但是有一点我还是得声明。朱利安·阿桑奇可能代表了新闻报道的未来，但他并不是一名记者，至少不是传统意义上的记者。

注释

1. whistleblower n. 告密者，揭发者

2. frontman n. 领头人

3. cadaverous a. 瘦削的，骨瘦如柴的

4. rambling a. 长而离题的

5. verifiable a. 能作证的，能证实的

6. pull off:干成某事，努力实现

7. coup n. 妙计，出乎意料的行动

8. Daniel arap Moi:丹尼尔·阿拉普·莫伊(1924~)，1978~2002年间担任肯尼亚总统一职，于2006年被查出在担任总统期间涉嫌收受巨额贿赂资金。“维基泄密”通过英国《卫报》公布了有关其家族收受贿赂等的腐败证据。

9. Guantánamo Bay detention centre:关塔那摩监狱，位于古巴东南端的关塔那摩市，是美军2002年1月建立的一座监狱，最初的目的是临时关押囚犯，现已改建成一个长期使用的监狱。2007年，“维基泄密”公布了一份美国国防部下发给士兵的《关塔那摩监狱管理指导手册》，规定了对囚犯权利的限制条款。

10. collateral a. 连带的，并行的

11. finish off: 结束，干掉

12. matter-of-factly:不动感情地

13. amorphous a. 无组织的，不定型的

14. adversarial a. 对抗的，敌手的

15. Bradley Manning: 布拉德利·曼宁(1987~)，美国陆军情报分析员，因涉嫌向“维基泄密”提供文中提到的美军在巴格达的空中袭击视频而被捕，今年7月份又被怀疑与泄露阿富汗战争日志有关，现已经受到泄露军方机密数据等数项指控。

16. deference n. 顺从，服从

17. entrench vt. 确立，使……处于牢固地位

18. conspire vt. 搞阴谋

19. asleep a. 麻木的，不重视的

20. unconscionable a. 不合理的，极不公正的

21. get away with it:逃脱惩罚，侥幸成功

22. incendiary adj. 煽动的