According to a recent Vanity Fair article, the Wikileaks founder threatened to sue the The Guardian for—wait for it—publishing leaked documents from Wikileaks itself. (You know the drill: first stolen, first serve.)
From the article:
On the afternoon of November 1, 2010, Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of Wikileaks.org, marched with his lawyer into the London office of Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian. Assange was pallid and sweaty, his thin frame racked by a cough that had been plaguing him for weeks. He was also angry, and his message was simple: he would sue the newspaper if it went ahead and published stories based on the quarter of a million documents that he had handed over to The Guardian just three months earlier …
He had become the victim of his own methods: someone at Wikileaks, where there was no shortage of disgruntled volunteers, had leaked the last big segment of the documents, and they ended up at The Guardian in such a way that the paper was released from its previous agreement with Assange—that The Guardian would publish its stories only when Assange gave his permission. Enraged that he had lost control, Assange unleashed his threat, arguing that he owned the information and had a financial interest in how and when it was released.
The Guardian has since negotiated a new deal with Wikileaks to allow them to publish the full diplomatic cables. Does anyone besides Assange not see how ridiculous this is?
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