Forget that old saw about where you see yourself in five years. A journalist interviewing for a job at WikiLeaks faced this question: “What would you do if you had to kill one man to save a hundred?" The question came from Julian Assange, founder of the anti-transparency organization that has released hundreds of thousands of classified documents on the Afghan and Iraq wars and secret U.S. diplomatic cables.
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| Julian Assange |
Writing in
The Independent, journalist Aled John recounts the rather unsettling interview he had after answering an ad for a position with WikiLeaks’ London press office.
“Sitting there with Assange, it strikes me how small and disorganized the operation seems. Fewer than 10 people work there full-time and my role would consist largely of trawling through media reports about WikiLeaks and Assange,” John writes. “Do I want to spend my day monitoring public sentiment for and against this former hacker? Not really."
Assange is under house arrest in Britain, where he is appealing a court decision to extradite him to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning on rape allegations.
“I suggest that Assange's profile and ego, compounded by his notorious court case, have overshadowed the work" WikiLeaks does, John says. “I suggest that people would be less suspicious if WikiLeaks revealed its workings and exemplified the transparency for which it calls.”
Not surprisingly, John says these comments didn’t go over too well with his interviewer. Guess he didn’t get the job.
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