“Aftergood is too close to the center of power,” said Julian Assange. “He is not an independent fighter for freedom of information.”
The passing criticism of me (I’m also “jealous”) was the first thing that caught my eye in the new book “Staatsfeind WikiLeaks” by Der Spiegel reporters Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark. But the book itself is quite a bit more interesting and perceptive than that.
The authors, who are neither fans nor opponents of WikiLeaks, go out of their way to gather new information about the origins and development of the project. They seek out contrasting perspectives and bring them to bear in interesting and challenging ways. Of course, the story is unfinished.
“WikiLeaks is an organization in transition, with a dialectical relation to the mass media. WikiLeaks has changed journalism, but journalism has also changed WikiLeaks,” they write.
See the Spiegel website on “Staatsfeind WikiLeaks” here. An English-language excerpt, published last month, is here.
With summer 2025 in the rearview mirror, we’re taking a look back to see how federal actions impacted heat preparedness and response on the ground, what’s still changing, and what the road ahead looks like for heat resilience.
Satellite imagery of RAF Lakenheath reveals new construction of a security perimeter around ten protective aircraft shelters in the designated nuclear area, the latest measure in a series of upgrades as the base prepares for the ability to store U.S. nuclear weapons.
It will take consistent leadership and action to navigate the complex dangers in the region and to avoid what many analysts considered to be an increasingly possible outcome, a nuclear conflict in East Asia.
Getting into a shutdown is the easy part, getting out is much harder. Both sides will be looking to pin responsibility on each other, and the court of public opinion will have a major role to play as to who has the most leverage for getting us out.