A series of revealing internet publications

have upset established diplomatic channels, corporate and government secrets

and traditional journalism.

The powers that be aren't having it.

The hunt for Wikileaks frontman Julian Assange is on.

Now, his longtime companians are next.

Dutchman Rop Gonggrijp for example:

Branded by De Telegraaf as enemy of the state to the United States.

This is today's Telegraaf, the frontpage: United States after hacker Gonggrijp.

- It's a scandalous article, a series of allegations that really are scandalous.

The American justice department may be looking for him, but here he is:

Rop Gonggrijp, welcome.

My part in the case is yet undetermined, whether I'd be a witness or a suspect

it's unclear, it only says that there's information they'd like to have.

Tonight in Backlight: How Assange, Gonggrijp and other Wikileaks members

from a small Iceland house, published that which was supposed to be kept secret.

backlight

THE WIKILEAKS CODE

Good evening, this is the news, but not all of the news we wanted to tell you.

Tonight, we wanted to report on the enormous loans made by Kaupthing

to companies owned by the owners of the bank. But unfortunately, we can't.

The information published online caused great unrest.

Julian Assange got his first Commodore 64 at 16 years old.

He quickly became active as a hacker under the alias Mendax.

Together with two of his friends, he founded the International Subversives.

Their first large hack was cracking secure computers of Canadian Nortel telecom company.

In 2006, Assange started his weblog,

where he explained that the battle is no longer one of left versus right,

but of the individual versus institutions.

I first met Julian at a congress in Kuala Lumpur

and the conversations I and others had with him were about strengthening the press.

We saw, and see, a press that's in trouble.

His way of thinking was, that when a huge gap arises between what is really happening

in the world, and what people know and the media is putting out there,

the perception that exists with the public at large and within the media,

if the gap between that and what's really happening, becomes too large

and instead just grows uncontrollably larger,

then a situation arises wherein the public can no longer correct government.

where elections no longer serve to elect the right politicians,

and it's all about empty soundbites and spin.

And that's something we shouldn't want to see happen.

As long as I've known Julian, he's had a strong idea about that gap

as something that with new knowledge and an independant approach should do something about.

Iceland has some of the natural features

that in terms of data centers, for large collections of computers and cables

is very optimal: because it has near free energy, and easy access to coolants

as well as short distance glassfiber connections to the European and American continent.

So Iceland, in terms of offering large amounts of data

and for being the worlds media-hub, it has the right features.

Good afternoon, welcome.

What are we going to discuss? - The IMMI of course.

You are in the fortunate position of leading two Departments.

The law has to be adjusted somewhat...

The law has to be adjusted somewhat... (Consultation with the Minister of Justice)

to clarify the purpose of the IMMI.

I wrote it down here...

It falls under the Departments of Transport and Justice.

The laws of Telecommunications.

Smari also told me to tell you...

that the new law on our domain name is not much of an improvement.

It's good to hear your responses...

...on the WikiLeaks leak.

In response to that we've proposed

that regarding the IMMI we write a declaration

that the internet service providers will have to sign.

To establish their reliability.

Where these companies promose not to bow to external pressures.

Then the only way to disrupt service will be...

a ruling by the courts.

The basic plan was there, the video was there.

But then all this other stuff still had to be done.

And we were on very tight deadlines, a lot had to be done in a very short time.

Kristinn and Ingi, both Icelandic journalists, went to Baghdad.

And I went from ATM to ATM in the middle of the night

to give them some cash upfront

so that they'd be able to do their thing in Baghdad.

Because we'd been working so much on the images of the van

we saw that van come across a couple of times already in the video.

That really hits home, the moment you realize those shots hitting the windshield...

what that really meant.

And you see those images of the two children... it did make me cry for a time.

There was a general feeling that it'd be unfortunate if the Defence Department

was able to completely anticipate the things that were about to be leaked.

You could imagine all sorts of things...

Intelligence services trying to find out... the easiest way to find out

what's going on inside a house is standing outside the windows.

So you close the drapes. I don't think that's a bizarre precaution to take.

Julian twittered that people from the US embassy...

followed him on a plane.

And he discovered this, and this caused a lot of distress for him.

And a series of defensive tweets.

At one point, we closed our notebooks at the last minute

Julian changed into somewhat presentable clothes...

We checked in...

and they told Julian they couldn't process his ticket.

So we panicked, intelligence agencies are fucking with us, God knows what's going on.

And it became clear Julian booked his own ticket but didn't complete the payment.

My face was pale, and Julian had this smirky smile,

"Good luck at the press conference Rop, I'll see how it goes online."

So I was completely pale faced by that time.

American website Wikileaks has published confidential footage...

showing a lethal helicopter attack on Iraqi civilians and journalists.

The images of the American helicopter attack may be shocking to some viewers.

Interpol has placed the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange

on its list of most wanted criminals

following a warrant for his arrest in a Swedish rape case.

This is what it's all about: The Swedish arrest warrant

to arrest Julian Assange on suspicion of rape.

A purely Swedish case which, according to the prosecutor, the US don't have any part in.

Sucks. My friend Julian has a problem.

(Court hearing)

You quickly noticed Julian was five steps ahead of most people around you.

- That can be a difficulty.

That can be difficult, it probably doesn't make your relationships any easier.

We see a trend towards more transparancy.

There's a trend towards information spreading faster, is shared faster by more people.

But there's also a trend in government who in part want to prevent this and in part

want to be able to intervene, the internet kill switch that Lieberman talks about.

The idea that there needs to be surveillance of the things that go on online.

Governments that try to limit even basic internet freedoms.

Who put filters in place, who will be filtering out large parts of the internet.

So you see these in part opposite trends.

I do think that in the next 5 years or 10 years...

it will be decided which of these trends will be dominant, and which will win.