It’s all over the news. The interpol is now actively searching for Julian Assagne, founder of Wikileaks. See article here: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/727071.html

Since they know there is no hope of prosecuting him for what wikileaks actually does (and does extremely well), they’re pulling an Al Capone on him. Apparently an individual’s sexual deviance is now enough for Interpol to issue a red notification, an international apprehension order.  They couldn’t get Capone for racketeering so they got him on tax evasion. They can’t get Assagne for telling the truth and leaking official documents (because the fact is they know he’s not responsible for stealing this information and they have not been able to find those who would be accountable for actual crimes), but they will now attempt to get him on the “grave crim”e of erotic mischief.

There is a lot more to this story than Assagne’s ability to stay underground (let’s see for how long) or legal proceedings. The real juice behind this is the fact that Web 2.0 and new social media have been able to do something that not even international terrorism had been able to: hit government hard enough to actually get them trembling.

When the twin towers got hit, the end target was to collapse the US financial system. To a certain extent, the terrorists were succesful but the hit was quickly returned in the form of smart bombs and air raids over Afghanistan and Iraq. The US economy was hit but kept afloat, in great part through activating the system with war machine revenues.

When Assagne setup Wikileaks and got his hands on a number of confidential documents (most recently the now famous US diplomatic cables) and shared them with the world, the target was truth. And truth hurt the US government (and others implied in these cables)… it hurt it bad enough for Hillary Clinton to pay attention and react.  The executive branch of US government is in a more fragile state today than they have been as a result of terrorist attacks.

The good news is that no innocent lives will be lost due to wikipedia and a nation which prides itself on the pursuit of truth above all, will get a dose of reality.  The even better news is that a site like wikileaks is not and never will be dependant on its founder’s personal life to remain afloat. Like the rest of Web 2.0 and under concepts such as open sourcing and open innovation, wikileaks may have been founded by Assagne but it (like truth) belongs to the world.