The founder of WikiLeaks has warned that his supporters are primed to publish a 'deluge' of leaked government documents should his activities be curtailed by any country; where as his lawyer Mark Stephens says that the organisation held further secret material which it regarded as a "thermo-nuclear device" to be released if it needs to protect itself.
Julian Assange has distributed to fellow hackers an encrypted 'poison pill' of damaging secrets, thought to include details on BP and Guantanamo Bay. He believes the file is his 'insurance' in case he is killed, arrested or the whistleblowing website is removed permanently from the internet. Mark Stephens said Mr Assange would "certainly" fight deportation to Sweden on the grounds that it could lead to him being handed over to the US, where senior politicians have called for him to be executed.
He said that the WikiLeaks site which was last week forced to move to a Swiss host after being dumped by US internet companies had come under siege from "a huge number of cyber-attacks". WikiLeaks has been in the eye of a media and diplomatic storm since it started leaking US diplomatic cables from a collection of some 250,000 it had obtained, embarrassing and infuriating Washington. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, who is believed to be in Britain, broke cover on Friday to say in an online chat that he had boosted security after receiving death threats.
WikiLeaks says 831 cables have been posted to its site so far. His lawyer Mark Stephens also warned that WikiLeaks had secret material in reserve, which he likened to a "thermo-nuclear device", to be released if it needed to protect itself.
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