. . . . When Assange was eight, Claire left her hus*band and began see*ing a musi*cian, with whom she had another child, a boy. The rela*tion*ship was tem*pes*tu*ous; the musi*cian became abu*sive, she says, and they sep*a*rated. A fight ensued over the cus*tody of Assange’s half brother, and Claire felt threat*ened, fear*ing that the musi*cian would take away her son. Assange recalled her say*ing, “Now we need to dis*ap*pear,” and he lived on the run with her from the age of eleven to six*teen. When I asked him about the expe*ri*ence, he told me that there was evi*dence that the man belonged to a pow*er*ful cult called the Family—its motto was “Unseen, Unknown, and Unheard.” Some mem*bers were doc*tors who per*suaded moth*ers to give up their new*born chil*dren to the cult’s leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The cult had moles in gov*ern*ment, Assange sus*pected, who pro*vided the musi*cian with leads on Claire’s where*abouts. In fact, Claire often told friends where she had gone, or hid in places where she had lived before. . . .

Around 1964 Dr Raynor John*son was host*ing reg*u*lar meet*ings of a reli*gious and philo*soph*i*cal dis*cus*sion group led by Hamilton-Byrne at San*ti*nike*tan, his home at Ferny Creek in the Dan*de*nong Ranges on the east*ern out*skirts of Mel*bourne. Also con*nected was a series of weekly talks he gave at the Coun*cil of Adult Edu*ca*tion in Mel*bourne, enti*tled “The Macro*cosm and the Micro*cosm”. The group pur*chased an adjoin*ing prop*erty which they named San*ti*nike*tan Park [1] in 1968 and con*structed a meet*ing hall, San*ti*nike*tan Lodge.
The asso*ci*a*tion con*sisted of mid*dle class, pro*fes*sional peo*ple; it has been esti*mated that a quar*ter were nurses and other med*ical per*son*nel, and that many were recruited by John*son who referred them to Hamilton-Byrne’s hatha yoga classes.[2] Mem*bers mainly lived in nearby sub*urbs and town*ships in the Dan*de*nongs, meet*ing each Tues*day, Thurs*day and Sun*day evening [3] at San*ti*nike*tan Lodge, Crowther House in Olinda or another prop*erty in the area known as the White Lodge [4].
Dur*ing the late 1960s and 1970s Newhaven Hos*pi*tal in Kew was a pri*vate psy*chi*atric hos*pi*tal owned and man*aged by Mar*ion Vil*limek, a San*ti*nike*tan mem*ber; many of its staff and attend*ing psy*chi*a*trists were also members.
Many patients at Newhaven were treated with the hal*lu*cino*genic drug LSD [7]. The hos*pi*tal was used to recruit poten*tial new mem*bers from among the patients, and also to admin*is*ter LSD to mem*bers under the direc*tion of the San*ti*nike*tan psy*chi*a*trists Dr John Mackay and Dr Howard Whitaker . One of the orig*i*nal mem*bers of the Asso*ci*a*tion was given LSD, elec*tro*con*vul*sive ther*apy and two leu*co*tomies dur*ing the late 1960s.
Although the psy*chi*atric hos*pi*tal had been closed down by 1992, in that year a new inquest was ordered into the death of a Newhaven patient in 1975 after new claims that his death had been due to deep sleep ther*apy. The inquest heard evi*dence con*cern*ing the use of elec*tro*con*vul*sive ther*apy, LSD and other prac*tices at Newhaven but found no evi*dence that deep sleep had been used on this patient. The Newhaven build*ing was later reopened as a nurs*ing home with no con*nec*tions to its pre*vi*ous owner or uses.
Anne Hamilton-Byrne acquired four*teen infants and young chil*dren between about 1968 and 1975. Some were the nat*ural chil*dren of San*ti*nike*tan mem*bers, oth*ers had been obtained through irreg*u*lar adop*tions arranged by lawyers, doc*tors and social work*ers within the group who could bypass the nor*mal processes. The children’s iden*ti*ties were changed using false birth cer*tifi*cates or deed poll, all being given the sur*name ‘Hamilton-Byrne’ and dressed alike even to the extent of their hair being dyed uni*formly blonde[11].
The chil*dren were kept in seclu*sion and home-schooled at Kia Lama, a rural prop*erty usu*ally referred to as “Uptop”, at Tay*lor Bay on Lake Eil*don near the town of Eil*don, Vic*to*ria. They were taught that Anne Hamilton-Byrne was their bio*log*i*cal mother, and knew the other adults in the group as ‘aun*ties’ and ‘uncles’ They were denied almost all access to the out*side world, and sub*jected to a dis*ci*pline that included fre*quent cor*po*ral pun*ish*ment and star*va*tion diets.
The chil*dren were fre*quently dosed with the psy*chi*atric drugs Anaten*sol, Diazepam, Haloperi*dol, Largac*til, Mogadon, Serepax, Ste*lazine, Tegre*tol or Tofranil[4]. On reach*ing ado*les*cence they were com*pelled to undergo an ini*ti*a*tion involv*ing LSD[13]: while under the influ*ence of the drug the child would be left in a dark room, alone apart from vis*its by Hamilton-Byrne or one of the psy*chi*a*trists from the group[4].

The leader of Australia’s most noto*ri*ous cult, The Fam*ily, remains unre*pen*tant two decades after the raid that shocked the nation.
Anne Hamilton-Byrne broke her silence yes*ter*day, say*ing she was ready to die after rec*on*cil*ing with Sarah Moore, the “daugh*ter” who betrayed her to the authorities.
The Fam*ily made head*lines around the world in 1987 when the Aus*tralian Fed*eral Police and Com*mu*nity Ser*vices Vic*to*ria raided the cult’s prop*erty at Lake Eil*don and took six chil*dren into care.
Police later found 14 chil*dren had been brought up in almost com*plete iso*la*tion believ*ing they were the off*spring of Hamilton-Byrne and her late hus*band Bill.
In fact none of them was the Hamilton-Byrnes’, but chil*dren of sin*gle moth*ers who had been pres*sured into giv*ing them up for adop*tion or cult mem*bers who did not want them.
But it was the way the chil*dren had been treated that really shocked the nation.
Hamilton-Byrne had ordered the children’s hair be dyed per*ox*ide blonde and they be dressed in iden*ti*cal outfits.
It was also alleged they had been half-starved, beaten and forced to take large quan*ti*ties of tran*quilis*ers to “calm them down” and even fed LSD when they became adults.
Now, in the first ever inter*view at her sprawl*ing Olinda com*pound, the cult leader has defended how she raised the chil*dren and attacked those who said she mis*treated them as “lying bas*tards”. Of her crit*ics, she said: “I would love to put them right, but I can’t.” . . .

Lex De Man, the police*man who spent five years bring*ing The Fam*ily cult leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne to jus*tice, is still haunted by the case and its toll on every*one involved.
And while proud that Oper*a*tion For*est, the task*force on which he worked from 1989 to 1994, even*tu*ally secured her con*vic*tion for per*jury, he is still angry Hamilton-Byrne escaped pun*ish*ment for alleged mal*treat*ment of the chil*dren in her care.
Mr De Man said Hamilton-Byrne was lucky the chil*dren who had endured beat*ings, drug*gings and star*va*tion at The Family’s Lake Eil*don prop*erty were too trau*ma*tised to tes*tify against their alleged tormentor.
“One girl looked like she was seven but was, in fact, 11. She was suf*fer*ing from psycho-social dwarfism,” Mr De Man said.
“I didn’t think at that time – and even today – that many of the kids would be able to sus*tain giv*ing evi*dence in the wit*ness box. I think they’d been dam*aged too much.”
The detective’s deci*sion to go after Hamilton-Byrne for fal*si*fy*ing doc*u*ments came in 1991 when the cult’s solic*i*tor, Peter Kibby, decided to co-operate with police.
“Doc*u*ments don’t lie. Peo*ple lie on doc*u*ments. A doc*u*ment might be false, but it’s a human being that puts the infor*ma*tion on it,” Mr De Man said.
Kibby then per*suaded one of the for*mer “Aun*ties”, Pat Mac*Far*lane, to make a statement.
After months of inter*views, and later armed with the evi*dence to secure a war*rant to arrest Hamilton-Byrne, police still took three years to find her.

. . . Conway’s auto*bi*og*ra*phy says that he began his LSD exper*i*ments at St Vincent’s Hos*pi*tal. And for*mer patients say that Con*way also admin*is*tered LSD to them at the Newhaven psy*chi*atric hos*pi*tal which was sit*u*ated at 86 Nor*manby Road, Kew, in Melbourne’s inner east.
In the late 1960s and dur*ing the 1970s, Newhaven hos*pi*tal was owned and man*aged by Mar*ion Vil*limek, a mem*ber of a “New Age” sect called the San*ti*nike*tan Park Asso*ci*a*tion, also known as “The Fam*ily”. A leader of the sect, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, was also an admin*is*tra*tor at the Newhaven. Con*way, Eric Seal and other ther*a*pists hired con*sult*ing rooms there on a ses*sional basis, and were not involved with the sect. Newhaven ceased being a hos*pi*tal in 1992.
Ronald Con*way became one of Australia’s most promi*nent Catholic intel*lec*tu*als, writ*ing books and news*pa*per arti*cles about Aus*tralian soci*ety. He also appeared in radio and tele*vi*sion dis*cus*sion pro*grams as a psy*chol*o*gist and social commentator.
When the church’s sex*ual scan*dals became news in Aus*tralia in the 1990s, Con*way some*times com*mented on the issues of celibacy and sex*ual abuse. . . .

. . . “After sev*eral ses*sions with Con*way, it was sug*gested that I undergo LSD ther*apy in Newhaven Pri*vate Hos*pi*tal as an overnight patient. It was explained to me that this ther*apy was a way to fast-track psy*cho*analy*sis and would be very help*ful in accept*ing my sex*u*al*ity. Con*way, as a psy*chol*o*gist, had no qual*i*fi*ca*tions to admin*is*ter drugs. I did not under*stand this at the time.
“Dur*ing the last ses*sion I came to believe that I had been in the pres*ence of God who autho*rized me to lead the sex*ual life which had been cho*sen for me.
“Con*way then sug*gested that I con*tinue to see him with*out the use of LSD.I explained to him that my finances were stretched and that it was not pos*si*ble. He said that it was impor*tant that I con*tinue to see him and that if I were will*ing he would see me at his home in Tor*ring*ton Street, Can*ter*bury, gratis.
“What a shock I got when one night he made advances to me and we ended up on the floor of his sit*ting room. The room was dec*o*rated as if it were the inside of an Egypt*ian tomb. He said this should not have hap*pened but that, as it had, we should do it prop*erly in his bed*room. It was a spar*tan room with the bed cov*ers on a sin*gle bed already turned down and elec*tric bar heaters turned on rest*ing on tables either side.
…”In the early 1990s, when I was 48 years of age, I was a patient in the Freemason’s Hos*pi*tal and woke up one after*noon to find Ron Con*way sit*ting on my bed hold*ing my hand. He had heard from some*one that I was in hos*pi*tal. I made it clear that I was not happy with his pres*ence .He explained to me that he had been fol*low*ing my life through a work col*league of mine, another psychologist.
“Ron Con*way never appeared again.” . . .

My mother was Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the leader of a small sect in the Dan*de*nongs called the Fam*ily or the Great White Broth*er*hood. I was a small part of her plan to col*lect chil*dren in what she her*self once called a “sci*en*tific exper*i*ment”. Later I dis*cov*ered it was her inten*tion that we chil*dren would con*tinue her sect after the earth was con*sumed by a holo*caust. She saw us as the “inher*i*tors of the earth”. I didn’t know that then. In those days I was just a child. A child of a guru, but a child no less.
Twenty-two to twenty-eight chil*dren in all lived at Uptop in its hey*day, although the fos*ters had vary*ing lengths of stay
She used to say that she couldn’t remem*ber all the dates very well because she had so many chil*dren. Maybe, in ret*ro*spect, we should have realised that was weird but then we never thought it was any*thing out of the ordi*nary. She decided upon sets of twins and triplets and gave us ages and birth-dates to fit in with that idea. Birth*day changes were just some*thing you accepted. It was as if Anne knew so much more about every*thing than us and she just might be reveal*ing another piece of our life plan if she changed our birthdays.
We were the chil*dren of The Fam*ily, the chil*dren of Anne Hamilton-Byrne. We were dressed alike. Most of the girls’ hair was dyed blond, cut into fringes and worn long with iden*ti*cal hair*styles and identically-coloured rib*bons. All the boys had bowl haircuts.
…Why did she raise us in almost total social iso*la*tion, miles from any*where, with min*i*mal con*tact with other humans apart from the sect mem*bers who looked after us? Why did she sub*ject us to the bizarre and cruel reg*i*men in which we grew up? Was it to demon*strate that she had the power to cre*ate a gen*er*a*tion that would be reared with her beliefs and believ*ing in her? I sus*pect per*haps that there were more sin*is*ter motives than these alone. Some of us had mul*ti*ple birth cer*tifi*cates and pass*ports, and cit*i*zen*ship of more than one coun*try. Only she knows why thus was and why we were also all dressed alike, why most of us even had our hair dyed iden*ti*cally blond.
I can only con*jec*ture because I will never know for sure. How*ever I sus*pect that she went to such great lengths in order to enable her to move chil*dren around, in and out of the coun*try. Per*haps even to be sold over*seas. I’m sure there is a mar*ket some*where in the world for small blond chil*dren with no trace*able iden*ti*ties. If she did it, it was a per*fect scam. Many ex-sect mem*bers have said that they were aware that Anne was cre*at*ing chil*dren by a “breed*ing pro*gram” in the late 1960s. These were ‘invis*i*ble’ kids, because they had no papers and there is no proof that they ever existed. Yet we Hamilton-Byrne chil*dren had mul*ti*ple iden*ti*ties. These iden*ti*ties could per*haps have been loaned to other chil*dren and the sim*i*lar*ity of our appear*ance used to cover up their absence. One lit*tle blond kid looks very like another in a pass*port photo. I don’t sup*pose we will ever know the truth because only Anne Hamilton-Byrne knows the truth about the whole affair and the truth is some*thing she will never tell.
…I am train*ing to be a doc*tor but some*times I think my med*ical career will be sab*o*taged because there are still many in the sect who have a lot of influ*ence in pro*fes*sional and aca*d*e*mic cir*cles. It may sound melo*dra*matic, but I know that some who were Anne’s ene*mies have dis*ap*peared in strange circumstances. . . .

. . . It has been sug*gested that Anne would have had no power with*out a syringe. She claimed a lot of knowl*edge of med*ical things. She said she had been the matron of a hos*pi*tal but there is no evi*dence she ever did nurs*ing. I can’t empha*sise the impor*tance of nurs*ing in the sect enough. It was crit*i*cal to the way she viewed the Aun*ties and, it was what she planned for the girls’ future pro*fes*sion. She said nurs*ing was one of the ideal occu*pa*tions because it was a form of ‘self*less ser*vice’ that led to spir*i*tual advance*ment. We knew that on their weeks off from Uptop the Aun*ties were either train*ing to be nurses or prac*tised as nurses. Sev*eral of the Aun*ties nursed Lord Casey, a for*mer Governor-General of Aus*tralia. [Ital*ics are mine–D.E.] Rumour has it that he made a sig*nif*i*cant dona*tion to the sect. . . .

In pub*lic, Casey seemed to be a devoted Cold-War war*rior, fer*vently sup*port*ive of Britain and the U.S.A., and deeply hos*tile towards the Soviet Union and China; he was the min*is*ter respon*si*ble for the Aus*tralian Secret Intel*li*gence Service.”

…Once ini*ti*ated, came the ‘go-through’ and that meant LSD trips. Every*one knew that it was an inevitable con*se*quence of ini*ti*a*tion, one of the rit*u*als that was inte*gral to the spir*i*tual devel*op*ment of the new ini*ti*ate. I’ve been present at many ‘go-throughs’ of peo*ple in the sect and ended up hav*ing at least a dozen myself.
Dur*ing a ‘go-through’ you were sup*posed to look at your*self and see the bad*ness inside, to regress to sig*nif*i*cant inci*dents in child*hood and in pre*vi*ous lives which affected your per*son*al*ity and retarded your spir*i*tual devel*op*ment. The drug, which Anne some*times called the ‘herb’ or the ‘dream med*i*cine’, was meant to make this eas*ier. It was also meant to make the spir*i*tual bond*ing eas*ier between mas*ter and dis*ci*ple. You were sup*posed to recog*nise her as the “one true mas*ter”, Christ incarnate.
She would come in to peo*ple when they were under and ask, “Do you know who I am?” The cor*rect answer was, “the Lord Incar*nate”. The incor*rect answer meant you weren’t ‘work*ing’ hard enough. “Work*ing” was ‘look*ing at your*self’ and real*is*ing what a “hor*ri*ble” per*son you were, repent*ing for your sins and puri*fy*ing yourself.
Before my first ‘go-through’ I was deprived of sleep for sev*eral nights and made to read ‘Yoga and the Bible’. Before*hand I’d watched one of my broth*ers get down on his knees and beg me not to hate him for being a closet homo*sex*ual. This con*fes*sion had been wrung out of him by Anne after sev*eral days of inten*sive ‘work*ing’ under the drug. He felt that he was a fail*ure and I did my best to tell him that he’d never be a fail*ure to me because I loved him. We were all scared of reveal*ing our weak*nesses but doubted that we would be able to hold any*thing back once under the influ*ence of the drugs.
Anne’s tech*nique, pretty typ*i*cal, of keep*ing us awake for sev*eral days before a ‘go-through’ meant that we were incred*i*bly vul*ner*a*ble any*way. You have to hand it to Anne, she knew her stuff; this was chronic sleep depri*va*tion and it added to the strain of the whole expe*ri*ence. Even today, I find if I am really tired I’m prone to flash*backs of LSD and it is harder to cope than it should be. Add to that the sen*sory depri*va*tion, for I was placed in a quiet and dark room and never knew whether it was day or night.
…It was also at this time in 1984, just before my ini*ti*a*tion, that Anne changed my name and gave me a new iden*tity. No longer was I to be called Andree who was born in June, July or maybe Sep*tem*ber. Now, for some rea*son that I never knew, I was called Sarah. I was now a triplet and had even changed nation*al*i*ties: I was now born in New Zealand on 16 Novem*ber 1970. I even had a pass*port to prove this.
It may seem bizarre now but at the time I took this in my stride. I didn’t even con*sider it strange that Anne had never told me this infor*ma*tion up to now, that pre*vi*ously I had believed I was some*one else. This sort of thing – sud*den changes in our real*ity– was par for the course in our lives and we never ques*tioned sur*prises. We were used to unpre*dictabil*ity as far as Anne was con*cerned. I hated the name Andree any*way and being a triplet was more inter*est*ing than being a sin*gle. I now know that there were sev*eral pass*ports in my name, a cou*ple of which were Aus*tralian. They all had dif*fer*ent birth-dates. I also had sev*eral birth cer*tifi*cates in dif*fer*ent names and in dif*fer*ent states.. . .

…The bulk of the sect was made up of pro*fes*sional peo*ple. With*out their sup*port and par*tic*i*pa*tion, Anne Hamilton-Byrne would never have become what she is today. It was their names, or most impor*tantly, the let*ters that went after their names, that gave her the cred*i*bil*ity and social power she needed. It gave her the means to keep those she already had and to get more and sim*i*lar peo*ple into the cult..
These pro*fes*sional peo*ple: doc*tors, lawyers, engi*neers, archi*tects, psy*chi*a*trists, nurses and social work*ers allowed her suc*cess*fully to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes for more than twenty years.
Had The Fam*ily been a group of strangely dressed peo*ple meet*ing once or twice a week for med*i*ta*tion, an address by the Mas*ter, play*ing of music and chant*ing, they would never have gone unno*ticed for so long. But pin-striped pro*fes*sion*als in their con*ser*v*a*tive suits with their impec*ca*ble social cre*den*tials could get away with main*tain*ing in their pri*vate life morals that were com*pletely at vari*ance with their pro*fes*sional ethics. They looked respectable, peo*ple thought, there*fore they must be respectable.
Who were these pro*fes*sion*als? They were doc*tors who wrote out the pre*scrip*tions that con*trolled us; lawyers, who wrote out the Deed Polls that were needed to forge pass*ports and birth cer*tifi*cates that cre*ated our false iden*ti*ties; social work*ers, who allowed Anne to by-pass nor*mal chan*nels to allow her to adopt, or sim*ply steal in some instances, six*teen chil*dren; doc*tors and nurses who gave her con*tacts with rich dying peo*ple who then left their estates to her. It was the same doc*tors who signed their death cer*tifi*cates; psy*chi*a*trists who had peo*ple com*mit*ted to Newhaven – the Fam*ily owned psy*chi*atric hos*pi*tal; and doc*tors and nurses who super*vised the abuse of LSD,( which for a while they actu*ally obtained free of charge from the Swiss drug com*pany, Sandoz). . . .

. . . Assange, despite his claims to sci*en*tific jour*nal*ism, empha*sized to me that his mis*sion is to expose injus*tice, not to pro*vide an even-handed record of events. In an invi*ta*tion to poten*tial col*lab*o*ra*tors in 2006, he wrote, “Our pri*mary tar*gets are those highly oppres*sive regimes in China, Rus*sia and Cen*tral Eura*sia, but we also expect to be of assis*tance to those in the West who wish to reveal ille*gal or immoral behav*ior in their own gov*ern*ments and cor*po*ra*tions.” he has argued that a ‘social move*ment” to expose secrets could ” bring down many admin*is*tra*tions that rely on con*ceal*ing reality–including the US administration.”
Assange does not rec*og*nize the lim*its that tra*di*tional pub*lish*ers do. Recently, he posted mil*i*tary doc*u*ments that included the Social Secu*rity num*bers of sol*diers, and in the Bunker I asked him if Wik*iLeaks’ mis*sion would have been com*pro*mised if he had redacted these small bits. [Ital*ics are mine–D.E.] He said that some leaks risked harm*ing inno*cent people–“collateral dam*age, if you will”–but that he could not weigh the impor*tance of every detail in every doc*u*ment. Per*haps the Social Secu*rity num*bers would one day be impor*tant to researchers inves*ti*gat*ing wrong*do*ing, he said; by releas*ing the infor*ma*tion he would allow judg*ment to occur in the open.
A year and a half ago, Wik*iLeaks pub*lished the results of an Army test, con*ducted in 2004, of elec*tro*mag*netic devices designed to pre*vent IED’s from being trig*gered. The doc*u*ment revealed key aspects of how the devices func*tioned and also showed that they inter*fered with com*mu*ni*ca*tion sys*tems used by soldiers–information that an insur*gent could exploit. By the time Wik*iLeaks pub*lished the study, the Army had begun to deploy newer tech*nol*ogy, but some sol*diers were still using the devices. I asked Assange if he would refrain from releas*ing infor*ma*tion that he knew might get some one killed. He said that he had insti*tuted a “harm-minimization pol*icy,” whereby peo*ple named in cer*tain doc*u*ments were con*tacted before pub*li*ca*tion, to warn them, but that there were also instances where the mem*bers of Wik*iLeaks might get “blood on our hands.” . . . .

. . . . In 2007, he pub*lished thou*sands of pages of secret mil*i*tary infor*ma*tion detail*ing a vast num*ber of Army pro*cure*ments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He and a vol*un*teer spent weeks build*ing a search*able data*base, study*ing the Army’s pur*chase codes and adding up the cost of the procurements–billions of dol*lars in all. The data*base cat*a*logued materiel that every unit had ordered: machine guns, Humvees, cash-counting machines, satel*lite phones. Assange hoped that jour*nal*ists would pore through it, but barely any did. “I am so angry,” he said. ‘This was such a fuck*ing fan*tas*tic leak: the Army’s force struc*ture of Afghanistan and Iraq, down to the last chair, and nothing.” . . .

The secret-spilling web*site Wik*iLeaks appears to be a fru*gal spender, tap*ping less than 5 per*cent of the funds received through two of its three dona*tion meth*ods, accord*ing to the third-party foun*da*tion that man*ages those contributions.
Wik*iLeaks has received 640,000 euros (U.S. $800,000) through Pay*Pal or bank money trans*fers* since late Decem*ber, and spent only 30,000 euros (U.S. $38,000) from that fund*ing, says Hen*drik Fulda, vice pres*i*dent of the Berlin-based Wau Hol*land Foundation.
The money has gone to pay the travel expenses of Wik*iLeaks founder Julian Assange and spokesman Daniel Schmitt, as well as to cover the costs of com*puter hard*ware, such as servers, and leas*ing data lines, says Fulda. Wik*iLeaks does not cur*rently pay a salary to Assange or other vol*un*teers from this fund*ing, though there have been dis*cus*sions about doing so in the future, Fulda adds. The details have not yet been worked out. . . .
. . . . The site got another boost in dona*tions in April after it pub*lished the con*tro*ver*sial video show*ing a 2007 U.S. Army heli*copter attack in Bagh*dad. Wik*iLeaks claimed it raised more than $150,000 in less than a week after the release of the video. A U.S. Army intel*li*gence ana*lyst named Bradley Man*ning was since arrested and charged with being Wik*iLeaks’ source for the video. Assange and other Wik*iLeaks vol*un*teers have claimed that the orga*ni*za*tion com*mis*sioned lawyers to defend Man*ning, and the group has cam*paigned for more dona*tions from the pub*lic to cover the legal expenses.
Fulda said that no money han*dled by the foun*da*tion has gone to pay expenses for Manning’s defense. [Ital*ics are mine, D.E.] He didn’t know if Wik*iLeaks obtained money from other sources for the pur*pose. He said, how*ever, that his foun*da*tion would have no prob*lem in prin*ci*ple pay*ing such legal expenses. . . .

The con*tro*ver*sial web*site Wik*iLeaks, which argues the cause of open*ness in leak*ing clas*si*fied or con*fi*den*tial doc*u*ments, has set up an elab*o*rate global finan*cial net*work to pro*tect a big secret of its own—its funding.
Some gov*ern*ments and cor*po*ra*tions angered by the site’s pub*li*ca*tions have already sued Wik*iLeaks or blocked access to it, and the group fears that its money and infra*struc*ture could be tar*geted fur*ther, founder Julian Assange said in an inter*view in Lon*don shortly after pub*lish*ing 76,000 clas*si*fied U.S. doc*u*ments about the war in Afghanistan in July. The move sparked inter*na*tional con*tro*versy and put Wik*iLeaks in the spotlight.
In response, the site has estab*lished a com*plex sys*tem for col*lect*ing and dis*burs*ing its dona*tions to obscure their ori*gin and use, Mr. Assange said. Anchor*ing the sys*tem is a foun*da*tion in Ger*many estab*lished in mem*ory of a com*puter hacker who died in 2001.
WikiLeaks’s finan*cial sta*bil*ity has waxed and waned dur*ing its short his*tory. The site shut down briefly late last year, cit*ing a lack of funds, but Mr. Assange said the group has raised about $1 mil*lion since the start of 2010.
WikiLeaks’s lack of finan*cial trans*parency stands in con*trast to the total trans*parency it seeks from gov*ern*ments and corporations. . . .

A Swedish Inter*net com*pany linked to file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay says it’s help*ing online whistle-blower Wik*iLeaks release clas*si*fied doc*u*ments from servers located in a Stock*holm sub*urb. Mikael Viborg, the owner of the Web host*ing com*pany PRQ, on Fri*day showed The Asso*ci*ated Press the site — the base*ment of a drab office build*ing — in Solna on the con*di*tion that the exact loca*tion was not revealed.
“This is the office. The server room is fur*ther inside,” the 28-year-old Viborg said, with the door to the office cracked open. Desks with com*put*ers, doc*u*ments, and empty pas*try boxes and soda cans could be seen inside before he closed the door.
Wik*iLeaks posted more than 76,900 clas*si*fied mil*i*tary and other doc*u*ments, mostly raw intel*li*gence reports from Afghanistan, on its web*site July 25. The White House angrily denounced the leaks, say*ing they put the lives of Afghan infor*mants and U.S. troops at risk.
The secre*tive web*site gives few details about its setup, but says its “servers are dis*trib*uted over mul*ti*ple inter*na*tional juris*dic*tions and do not keep logs. Hence these logs can*not be seized.” . . .

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange’s application for permanent residency in Sweden has been rejected, a Swedish Migration Board official told CNN Monday. His application failed to fulfill all the requirements, Gunilla Wikstrom said. She declined to give further details, citing Swedish confidentiality laws.
… Assange faces charges of rape and molestation in Sweden, allegations that came out after the Afghanistan documents were published. It is not clear if the outstanding investigation had any bearing on his residency application.

Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist. … Moneybookers moved against WikiLeaks on 13 August, according to the correspondence, less than a week after the Pentagon made public threats of reprisals against the organisation. Moneybookers wrote to Assange: “Following an audit of your account by our security department, we must advise that your account has been closed … to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities.”
When Assange emailed to ask what the problem was, he says he was told in response by Daniel Stromberg, the Moneybookers e-commerce manager for the Nordic region: “When I did my regular overview of my customers, I noticed that something was wrong with your account and I emailed our risk and legal department to solve this issue. “Below I have copied the answer I received from them: ‘Hi Daniel, you can inform him that initially his account was suspended due to being accessed from a blacklisted IP address. However, following recent publicity and the subsequently addition of the WikiLeaks entity to blacklists in Australia and watchlists in the USA, we have terminated the business relationship.’”
… Moneybookers, which is registered in the UK but controlled by the Bahrain-based group Investcorp, would not make anyone available to explain the decision. Its public relations firm, 77PR, said: “We have never had any request, inquiry or correspondence from any authority regarding this former customer.” Asked how this could be reconciled with the references in the correspondence to a blacklist, it said: “We stick with our original statement.”

According to e-mails provided to CNN by Assange, Moneybookers informed WikiLeaks of its decision in August, shortly after the Pentagon demanded WikiLeaks return all of the military documents and remove them from its website. WikiLeaks refused to do so and is expected to release hundreds of thousands of additional Pentagon papers later this month.
The first e-mail from Moneybookers that notified WikiLeaks of its decision indicated one of the potential grounds for termination was “to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities, agencies or commissions.” When Assange asked for a further explanation, he received another e-mail from the company saying the account was initially suspended “due to being accessed from a blacklisted IP address. However following recent publicity and the subsequently addition of the WikiLeaks entity to blacklists in Australia and watch lists in the USA, we have terminated the business relationship.”
Moneybookers refused to discuss the specifics of its decision, but in a statement denied it had been asked by the United States to terminate the WikiLeaks account. “We simply assess risk like any other financial institution,” said the statement. “We can assure you that we have never had any direct request, inquiry or correspondence from any governmental authority regarding this former customer.”

I certainly share {SecDef’s} concerns about the recklessness with which classified documents were both leaked and then posted online. As I said earlier this week, I am appalled by this behavior, and, frankly, outraged that anyone in their right mind would think it valuable to make public even one sensitive report, let alone tens of thousands of them, about a war that is being waged. Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family. Disagree with the war all you want, take issue with the policy, challenge me or our ground commanders on the decisions we make to accomplish the mission we’ve been given, but don’t put those who willingly go into harm’s way even further in harm’s way just to satisfy your need to make a point.

Our initial review indicates most of the information contained in these documents relates to tactical military operations. The initial assessment in no way discounts the risk to national security; however, the review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure.
… The documents do contain the names of cooperative Afghan nationals and the Department takes very seriously the Taliban threats recently discussed in the press. We assess this risk as likely to cause significant harm or damage to the national security interests of the United States and are examining mitigation options.