julian assange

Eric Schmidt met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in secret in 2011, according to the transcript of a wide-ranging discussion published late Thursday by the document-leaking organization.

The transcript of the meeting, which occurred while Assange was under house arrest in the U.K., was published just days before the scheduled release of Schmidt's new book, "The New Digital Age," on Tuesday. The book's co-author, Google Ideas director Jared Cohen, was also present during the discussion, according to the transcript.

The interview, offering an intimate look into the thought processes of two of the tech world'… Read more

You can now search among 2 million confidential, or formerly confidential, government documents courtesy of Wikileaks.

The whistle-blowing group has set up a new "public library of U.S. diplomacy" offering more than 1.7 million diplomatic files from 1973 to 1976. Dubbed "The Kissinger Cables," the files reveal diplomatic cables, intelligence reports, and congressional correspondence, many of which relate to then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

As expected, the documents focus on some hot-button issues, including U.S. involvement with dictatorships in Latin America and Greece and the 1973 "Yom Kippur war" … Read more

The White House warned today of the threat posed by WikiLeaks, LulzSec, and other "hacktivist" groups that have the ability to target U.S. companies and expropriate confidential data.

A new administration-wide strategy (PDF) disclosed at a high-profile event in Washington that included Attorney General Eric Holder says the theft of trade secrets is on the rise and predicts such theft will undermine U.S. national security unless halted.

It's a "steadily increasing threat to America's economy and national security interests," Holder said at the event, which also featured officials from the State Department … Read more

Julian Assange, the controversial WikiLeaks founder, is planning to run for a senate seat in Australia, reports out of that country say.

Assange's application to enroll in the election for a Victoria Senate seat was filed with the Australian Electoral Commission in Melbourne yesterday, The Age is reporting. His father, John Shipton, was among the people who filed the application on his behalf.

Assange, a native-born Australian, is currently living in political asylum at the Ecuador embassy in London, which has provided him a sanctuary from the Swedish and U.S. governments. Swedish officials have sought Assange to question … Read more

It can't be easy to create a movie in which the hero is seen by some as the villain.

Yet that is the difficult task for the production team behind "The Fifth Estate," a movie whose filming has already begun.

This DreamWorks opus traces the rises, falls, and drips of pathos surrounding Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks enterprise.

The Associated Press reveals that Assange will be played by Benedict Cumberbatch, one of the many who have impersonated Sherlock Holmes on film.

Cumberbatch is quite posh, so he should quite easily be able to express that touch of … Read more

Devil or martyr? For Julian Assange, it appears there's no easy answer. The WikiLeaks founder has spent six months holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearing the moment he steps outside he'll be arrested and deported to Sweden, where he faces charges of rape and sexual assault. Assange says he'd return to Sweden if the government would guarantee that he won't be extradited to the United States, where he fears he could face espionage charges related to a massive leak of classified military and diplomatic documents.

The man accused of providing those documents, of … Read more

Technology topics can mark a rare bipartisan area of political agreement: Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama say they would make cybersecurity a priority, and both like to talk up government funding of basic research.

If you look a bit more closely, however, differences emerge. They're perhaps most marked over federal regulation, where the two major parties have long-standing disagreements, but also exist on topics like WikiLeaks, copyright legislation, and whether to levy a new tax on broadband providers.

Keep reading for CNET's 2012 Tech Voters' Guide, in which we highlight where the four candidates -- we've … Read more

A military appeals court will be asked tomorrow to decloak the prosecution of Bradley Manning, an Army private accused of handing thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks.

Prosecutors have insisted on intense secrecy in the case. No transcripts of the legal proceedings have been published. No court orders have been disclosed. To date, even the government's written legal arguments remain off-limits to the public.

So far, at least, military courts have been perfectly happy to accede to those requests in Manning's court martial. A trial judge, Denise Lind, rejected requests for access to the records, as did the … Read more

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange lashed out at the U.S. government today, saying it took "arbitrary and excessive action" against the document-leaking Web site and a U.S. soldier suspected of being its source of classified files.

"It is time for the U.S. to cease its persecution of WikiLeaks, to cease its persecution of our people, and to cease its persecution of our alleged sources," Assange said during an event convened by Ecuador to coincide with a a United Nations diplomatic summit this week.

Assange, who remains holed up in Ecuador's London embassy in … Read more