Step Aside Bernanke: Julian Assange In Leading Spot For Time's 2010 Person Of The Year

by Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/06/2010 - 14:27

Earlier today it was announced that in lieu of a physical arrest, Julian Assange is currently undergoing a liquidity one, after earlier today first Swiss NZZ and subsequently the WSJ reported that the Australian's funds in Swiss PostFinance bank have been frozen: "In a statement Monday, WikiLeaks said there was €31,000 in the PostFinance account, belonging to the defense fund and to Mr. Assange personally. WikiLeaks described this money as "frozen." But €31k may be a small price to pay knowing that very soon Assange will most likely succeed Ben Bernanke as the magazine's Person of the Year.

From the Julian Assange profile on Time magazine:

He is a new kind of whistle-blower: one made for the digital age. Those before him (like Daniel Ellsberg) were limited in the ways they could go public with their information. But in founding WikiLeaks.org, Julian Assange gave himself the freedom to publish virtually anything he wants, whether it's the true nature of Iraqi prisoner abuse, the double role Pakistan plays in Afghanistan or the personal e-mails of Sarah Palin. Assange's site, which he started four years ago, has made public a trove of secret and classified documents — close to 500,000 pages on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone. But in the process, governments he has targeted (like the U.S.'s) claim he has put the lives of informants and soldiers in jeopardy. Warranted or not, Assange is convinced that the governments and intelligence agencies he is unmasking are watching his every move, and as a result, he finds himself in virtual exile in Europe.
And based on popular polling, Julian Assange is currently firmly in the lead (ahead of Lady Gaga in third place and Glenn Beck in fifth) in terms of influence. The only question that remains is whether Assange will watch the awards ceremony from a maximum security prison cell somewhere in Europe...