Politics & Power Quote by Julian Assange

Assange frames his work less as publishing and more as a kind of operational chess match against states. The sentence is built to sound managerial and procedural, almost boring on purpose: “spread assets,” “encrypt everything,” “move telecommunications and people.” That bland cadence is a rhetorical shield. If it reads like compliance language, it’s harder to pin it as conspiracy. He’s laundering drama into logistics.

The intent is twofold. First, it casts WikiLeaks as a defensive institution under siege, not a rogue actor courting chaos. “Fighting off many legal attacks” positions courts and governments as aggressors, while he and his team appear as the ones forced into extraordinary measures. Second, it reassures potential sources: your risk is our core design constraint. “Keep our sources safe” is the moral center of the claim, but it’s also recruitment copy, signaling professional competence in an ecosystem where trust is everything.

The subtext is more provocative: law itself becomes terrain to be gamed. “Activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions” isn’t an appeal to justice so much as a strategy for exploiting the seams between legal systems. He’s describing jurisdictional arbitrage - using borders the way multinationals use tax codes, except the commodity is information and the consequence is political embarrassment, prosecution, or both.

Context matters because this is the post-9/11, post-Snowden world taking shape: surveillance expands, whistleblowing becomes geopolitical, and encryption shifts from nerd tool to lifeline. Assange’s language asks you to see him as a rights defender navigating a hostile empire, while quietly conceding that his project depends on mobility, secrecy, and the constant anticipation of the state’s next move.