Julian Assange

“We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage.”

“When Enron collapsed, through court processes, thousands and thousands of emails came out that were internal, and it provided a window into how the whole company was managed. It was all the little decisions that supported the flagrant violations.”

“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.”

“Although I still write, research and investigate, my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists.”

“All over the world, the barriers between what is inside an organisation and outside an organisation are being smoothed out. In the military, the use of contractors means that what is the military and what is not the military is smoothed out.”

“It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers, and when powerful abusers are taken on, there's always a bad reaction. So we see that controversy, and we believe that is a good thing to engage in.”

“These megaleaks... They're an important phenomenon, and they're only going to increase.”

“As we've gotten more successful, there's a gap between the speed of our publishing pipeline and the speed of our receiving submissions pipeline. Our pipeline of leaks has been increasing exponentially as our profile rises, and our ability to publish is increasing linearly.”

“The greater the power, the more need there is for transparency, because if the power is abused, the result can be so enormous. On the other hand, those people who do not have power, we mustn't reduce their power even more by making them yet more transparent.”

“I had had a lot of experience in bringing the Internet to Australia, and I saw that knowledge in the hands of people achieves reform.”

“Cablegate is 3,000 volumes of material. It is the greatest intellectual treasure to have entered into the public record in modern times.”

“The penetration of society by the Internet and the penetration of the Internet by society is the best thing that has ever happened to global human civilisation.”

“Whistleblowers often take very significant efforts to bring us material and often at very significant risks.”

“Well, I mean, the real attack on truth is tabloid journalism in the United States.”

“I mean there's enormous pressures to harmonize freedom of speech legislation and transparency legislation around the world - within the E.U., between China and the United States. Which way is it going to go? It's hard to see.”

“WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical.”

“The supply of leaks is very large. It's helpful for us to have more people in this industry. It's protective to us.”

“One of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice.”

“When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book, the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more stressful than you would like.”

“Intelligence agencies keep things secret because they often violate the rule of law or of good behavior.”