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Narrator: What does it take to change the world? A big army? A cure to a pandemic? A revolution? All of these take either a lot of people, thousands of hours, or massive amounts of space. But for Julian Assange, all he needs is one room, an internet connection, and the world will listen.

[cheers]

Assange is located here, and more specifically, right here. And from that location, he's posted government secrets, classified documents, and leaked e-mails from some of the world's most powerful people. And in doing so, has been labeled a hero, a villain, a nihilist, and everything in between. This is how an Australian programmer sequestered in the Ecuadorian embassy in London became one of the most influential and notorious people in the world.

Born in 1971 in Townsville, Australia, Assange has always been on the move. Living in over 30 homes by the time he was in his mid-teens, Assange, along with his mother and half brother, finally settled down in Melbourne. His introduction to hacking started at 16 when he was given a Commodore 64, which he attached to a modem. He attended the University of Melbourne, where he studied programming, physics, and mathematics. He never graduated, but that doesn't mean he didn't get an education.

By 1991, Assange hacked into the Pentagon, US Navy, and other branches of the US government. In 1996, he was caught by the Australian federal police and charged with over 30 counts of hacking and computer related crimes. He didn't get any jail time, but he was fined $2,100.

Vernon Silver: I think the first taste of what would come later was the hacking that he did as a young programmer, and that really sort of foreshadowed a healthy skepticism of the use and abuse of technology by government.

Narrator: That's Vernon Silver.

Vernon Silver: I'm a reporter for Bloomberg's investigations team.

Narrator: Assange's youth as a hacker laid the foundation for him to start Wikileaks in 2006. But what is WikiLeaks? It's a website that posts unfiltered, usually classified, documents. What separates it from every other media outlet is that they have no editorial hierarchy. With a publication like the New York Times, information comes in, they take that information, package it, then disseminate it for the public to see. Wikileaks, however, cuts out the middleman.

Vernon Silver: Wikileaks gathers information, most of it given to them anonymously. So what they're doing is really very simple-- they get the information in one end from who gives it to them, and out the other with sometimes minimal interference. Julian Assange is the leader of that, the mastermind, the creator, and really because he thinks of it as a journalistic enterprise, the editor-in-chief.

Narrator: But every story starts with a source, and Assange has some unconventional sources.

Eli Lake: Julian Assange does not hack, as far as we know. He is the recipient of people who are either insiders who give him secret documents, or hack e-mails from a foreign power.

Narrator: That's Eli Lake.

Eli Lake: I am a columnist for Bloomberg.

Narrator: And there was no source bigger for Assange than Chelsea Manning. He used to be known as US soldier Bradley Manning. In 2010, Manning provided Assange and WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of leaked government documents. WikiLeaks quietly began releasing the documents in February of 2010, then made big headlines in April by posting what is now known as the collateral murder video.

Man: Come on, fire.

[gunshots]

Vernon Silver: It was a vivid, graphic video. It changed the debate on the Iraq war. And importantly, it put WikiLeaks on the map when they put it online. And they couldn't be ignored at that point.

Narrator: And those leaks were just the beginning. They went on to post more than 90,000 leaked documents, known as the Afghan war logs, 390,000 documents known as the Iraq War logs, and a quarter of a million private messages between diplomats called cables in what is now known as Cablegate. These leaks were met with very real ethical questions.

Eli Lake: The problem with publishing those cables was that a number of confidential sources for US diplomats could face real danger when their names were exposed.

Narrator: Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drove the point home that--

Hillary Clinton: Every country, including the United States, must be able to have candid conversations about the people and nations with whom they deal.

Narrator: Shortly after Cablegate, the Swedish government issued an arrest warrant for Assange on allegations of rape and molestation. He claimed the allegations were fabricated to get him extradited to the United States-- a claim the US government denied. Either way, Assange's next move was--

Eli Lake: To seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, which really was the beginning of a new chapter in his life and what we're dealing with now, which is him being stuck in London.

Narrator: What was supposed to be an office in an embassy is now Assange's self-imposed prison to this very day. But that doesn't mean he slowed down. Since being trapped in the embassy, WikiLeaks has released files about Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Syrian political figures, and the draft of the Trans Pacific Partnership. And then came the 2016 US election.

Reporter: Thousands of leaked e-mails show Democratic Party officials possibly plotting against Bernie Sanders in his race against Hillary Clinton.

Narrator: Over the course of 68 days, WikiLeaks released 20,000 confidential Democratic National Committee e-mails. In terms of the presidential race, if you look right here when Assange released the first batch of e-mails, Trump actually takes his first lead against Clinton.

Donald Trump: I think we've had enough of the Clintons, in all fairness.

[cheers]

Vernon Silver: Once WikiLeaks started exposing secrets of the Democratic Party, Julian Assange became a hero to many on the Right. Public opinion kind of flip-flopped.

Donald Trump: WikiLeaks.

Narrator: From the e-mails we now know Hillary Clinton's campaign manager makes risotto, and also how the DNC squashed Bernie Sanders' campaign. One thing we don't know is who gave Assange the stolen emails in the first place.

Eli Lake: Many leading Democrats say they suspect it was the Russians. They released an analysis from a private cybersecurity firm that had said it was the Russians.

Narrator: But Assange claims--

Julian Assange: Our source is not the Russian government, and it is not a state party.

Narrator: So this is where we stand today-- the public still doesn't know who provided the e-mails to WikiLeaks. Meanwhile, Assange is still running WikiLeaks and still releasing documents. In March 2017, he started publishing documents from the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence called Vault. 7

Stephanie Baker: The CIA, the agency charged with finding and keeping our top secrets, can't keep its own secrets.

Narrator: As long as Assange has a connection to the world, no government secret will be too far from exposure.

Vernon Silver: Julian Assange is still in the embassy. Maybe he'll leave, maybe he won't. Regardless, his work has been done. He's changed the way people think about their governments, about their own secrets, about their own hackability. And really the world has changed because of him.

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