Assange's Next WikiLeak Could Turn Him into a Robin Hood

Wikileaks' Founder Julian Assange (CBS)

WikiLeak's impresario Julian Assange has stirred up multiple hornet's nests with the release this year of intelligence documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and, most recently, candid diplomatic cables that reveal the raw underbelly of U.S. international relations.

He has been painted as a villain by the U.S. government, and has defied requests to cease his document dumps. The Department of Justice is considering bringing charges against him, and he is becoming a man without a country.

While the revelations from the cables have caused some damage to the U.S. internationally, they are not among the most pressing concerns on Main Street America. Polls show U.S. citizens are far more outraged about the economy, jobs and taxes than body counts in Iraq, the locations of European nukes or U.S. diplomats' impressions of world leaders. 

Assange's next act may turn him from nerdy villain to a Robin Hood figure, however, particularly with Main Street. 

According to reports, Assange's next target is Wall Street. In a Forbes interview, he stated that WikiLeaks' would unleash data from an existing American bank early next year.  (There's a good chance it's Bank of America.) In the interview with Andy Greenberg, Assange stated that the documents "will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume."  He continued:

Usually when you get leaks at this level, it's about one particular case or one particular violation. For this, there's only one similar example. It's like the Enron emails. Why were these so valuable? When Enron collapsed, through court processes, thousands and thousands of emails came out that were internal, and it provided a window into how the whole company was managed. It was all the little decisions that supported the flagrant violations.

This will be like that. Yes, there will be some flagrant violations, unethical practices that will be revealed, but it will also be all the supporting decision-making structures and the internal executive ethos that cames out, and that's tremendously valuable. Like the Iraq War Logs, yes there were mass casualty incidents that were very newsworthy, but the great value is seeing the full spectrum of the war.

You could call it the ecosystem of corruption. But it's also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that's not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they're fulfilling their own self-interest. The way they talk about it.

As we saw in the aftermath of the financial collapse, U.S. bankers and Wall Street are not held in the highest esteem on Main Street. In a December 2009 interview on 60 Minutes, President Obama offered an assessment of Wall Street that seemed designed to resonate with average Americans: "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street."  

In a New York Times profile of J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, author Roger Lowenstein wrote:

"America's five biggest banks, including Dimon's, now control 46 percent of all deposits, up from a mere 12 percent in the early '90s. Since the financial crisis, a sort of Jacksonian animosity toward big financial institutions has overtaken the public -- witness that, in the recent election, no fewer than 200 candidates spent money on ads attacking Wall Street. 'Big banks don't have a lot of friends right now,'  says Nancy Bush, an analyst with NAB Research. 'Europe loves its big banks. America hates them.' "

Unlike the revelations revealing the inner workings and machinations of the U.S. military and government,  a WikiLeaks document dump that sheds unflattering light on a U.S. bank amounts to feeding red meat to the lions of Main Street America. The documents may not reveal much more than what came out during the April 2010 financial reform hearings in Washington, but Main Street is not in a particularly forgiving mood. 

More on WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks Founder: Clinton Should Resign
Leaked Docs: Karzai Freed Connected Drug Dealers
WikiLeaks Sends U.S. Scrambling Over Security
Leaked Cables Reveal Locations of European Nukes
Hoekstra on WikiLeaks: "A Number of Time Bombs"
Outrage Over Wikileaks
The WikiLeaks Impact
WikiLeaks Releases State Dept. Documents
Key GOP Pol: WikiLeaks a Terrorist Group
Ahmadinejad Dismisses WikiLeaks Cable "Mischief"
U.S. Cables: Iran Armed Hezbollah Via Ambulances
Hoekstra: World's Trust in U.S. Now at Risk
U.S. Encouraged Diplomats to Spy, Leaks Show
Leaked Cables Shine Light on Iran Nuclear Threat
Worldwatch: Embarrassing Revelations Abound
Worldwatch: Diplomatic Shockers
White House Condemns WikiLeaks' Document Release
WikiLeaks Defies U.S., Releases Embassy Cables

---

Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here. You can also follow him on Twitter.

[robbyr2]

Did anyone notice how the announcement of the pending leak of bank documents led to the CIA manufacturing the charges against Assange in Sweden? Up until then, no one seemed too urgently worried.

[wyodutch]

We need WikiLeaks because we have a federal government that has proved itself time after time after time, not to be trusted.
.
If the United States government was honest, open and clean... WikiLeaks would not be needed. Unfortunately, such is not the case.

[cyclingpete]

JULIEN ASSANGE IS A HERO!!! TELL THE WORLD EVERYTHING!

[skepticalJM]

Looks like the masters are being ratted out! Another Empire built on lies and the sweat and blood of the disadvantaged multitudes, is falling to the deceit and backstabbing it created. You masters wanted to destroy trust, now it has come back to bite you. What was that about honor among thieves...

[rightbehind]

He needs to spill the goods on wall street now. Wall street is a lie. There isn't enough real money in wall street to pay out even 1% of the lie posted from day to day. Employee 401k contributions are disappearing as fast as they come in. They'll never have to pay it up either. All they have to do is make the lie disappear in an hour and the wealth of an entire nation is lost.

[rykatspop]

His wiki is a leaky. What? As long as he's providing information that would otherwise be hidden from public scrutiny, I don't care. Someone has to hold govts and corporations accountable these days.

[newsbarn]

god bless wikileaks

[YrWrongAgain]

... and his prophet, Oogah bin Boogah...

[nopatriot]

Let me trust this, now the wikileak founder on the charge on rape by Swedish authority ,
but in the USA history, Bill Clinton was charged for woman issue, and why every time woman scandal
ruins their activities ?

I don't know about wikileak ( Because I am not really interested in that )
but if this is the activity to stop to let him leak, I don't think it works fine.

Because someone else wants to do that.

When I talked to international students, they did not believe NASA sent men to the moon.
they believe source provided by not American authorities .

I have no words for that, I don't think I can do something for this without
knowing facts.

[YrWrongAgain]

Check the movie posters. More like Maid Marian.

[marandalaw]

You guy's and technology!!First he's a Criminal,,now he's "Robin Hood",,Tomorrow he'll be a new MOTHER,,,or the "Pope".I have heard of,,a man without a cause,,,,But a Man without a Whole Dam Country??

[marandalaw]

If you people don't leave my Facebook account alone---you are all gonna be without INTERNET SERVICE!!!