What I Would Do if I Were Julian Assange, World's Most Wanted

Forget Mark Zuckerberg and "The Social Network".  The man below is bound to have a movie made about him sometime soon, and the true story is a hell of a lot more exciting than any contrived Hollywood plotline:

Barney Stinson or World's Most Wanted Criminal?  (Both??)

The man pictured above is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.  He has embarrassed the world's most powerful leaders and is currently on the run from Interpol and Swedish authorities on allegations of rape (Assange claims it is a smear campaign, and there is certainly something fishy going on: a few months ago, Sweden withdrew his arrest warrant, with the chief prosecutor claiming the case lacked substance).

But Assange isn't backing down - he's traveling nomadically, with his computer in his backpack, Skyping from unknown locations.  In a recent interview, he (conditionally) called for Sec. of State Hillary Clinton's resignation and revealed that he has been offered asylum in Ecuador.  The man has cajones.

But is he hero or villain?

The dividing line appears to be a political one: liberals like Daniel Ellsberg are defending Assange, claiming he is performing work that "is serving our [American] democracy", while conservatives want him locked up in Gauntanamo as an "enemy combatant".  Adding to the fire are claims that he has endangered lives by the release of confidential information - as Daniel Yates claims about the leaked Afghan war diary (the second biggest WikiLeak), "The logs contain detailed personal information regarding Afghan civilians who have approached NATO soldiers with information.  It is inevitable that the Taliban will now seek violent retribution on those who have co-operated with NATO.  Their families and tribes will also be in danger."(source) 

For his part, Assange seems to welcome the controversy.  When describing the philosophy behind WikiLeaks, Assange says:

"To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not." (source)

Assange is a self-described cynic, but if he truly believes in his own ideals, he will turn himself in and, like Socrates, put his faith in the people.

Democracy!

Let's take a logical look at Assange's philosophy:

1) Sharing information is good

Assange believes that "opening up governments" to expose their corruption is a good thing, that's why he started WikiLeaks.  Exposing corruption is good because...

2) People are rational

If the public learns about corruption, they will not tolerate it, but rather change their government to eliminate the corruption.  People don't like corrupt people.

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Assange, look in the mirror.  You have leaked a quarter million documents and plan to expose the corruption that will turn a major American bank inside-out (UPDATE - looks like it will be Bank of America).  Yet despite all of these seemingly noble acts, you are on the run for rape charges.  The jury's still out on you, and taking asylum in Ecuador will make you look like a coward.

If you truly are innocent and really believe in the people, you will do the following:

1) Turn yourself in to Switzerland, cooperate with authorities, and win your case.

2) Travel freely, telling people IN PERSON why you did what you did.  Go on Larry King, the Daily Show, NBC.  Welcome the same tough-hitting journalism that you strive to create with WikiLeaks. Defend yourself.

3) If you are arrested by authorities (a very reasonable thing to expect), cooperate fully but use the trial (and publicity surrounding the arrest) to criticize the government.  It's called civil disobedience - Rosa Parks didn't change the world by fleeing on a motorcycle after the cops were called (but that would've been awesome).

Above all, make yourself vulnerable.  If you're truly a visionary, spending some time in the pound shouldn't scare you - in fact, it could be the most effective way of championing your cause.  People aren't going to listen to a nomadic rapist, but they may just open their ears to a helpless man in jail who's been chased around the world by repressive government authorities.

You've done everything a reasonable person could aspire to do.  Now's the time to man up and make this whole thing about something bigger than yourself.  Good luck.

UPDATE (11:25 am, 12/6/10): The case for Assange is getting harder to make as WikiLeaks listed sites vital to US security interests in a move that was criticized as "a gift to any terrorist".  It's hard to justify how the broader public would benefit from this obviously sensitive information.