It is completely outrageous. It is the worst form of censorship we have seen by the United States since the 1950s, since the mccarthy era. Are you surprised . I am surprised, actually. But you are screwing with the forces of nature. [ticking] [blows whistle] you might not think of sugar, corn, or metal as material that can cause a catastrophic explosion in a factory. But when theyre ground into dust and suspended in the air, all it takes is a small spark to set off a disaster. If this material were gasoline, there would be no doubt in any owners or operators mind what needed to be done. That would be an emergency. Absolutely. Is dust functionally the same thing . It has the same power. Hundreds of industries create huge amounts of lethal dust and arent even aware of the risk. [ticking] welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. Im steve kroft. In this edition, we talk with Julian Assange, the mysterious and eccentric founder of wikileaks, whose website made public thousands of u. S. Secrets. And we examine the secret danger behind a type of dust thats killing American Factory workers. We begin with wikileaks, a website that publishes classified and suppressed material from whistleblowers around the world. In the late summer of 2011, wikileaks made news when someoneits not clear who dumped 250,000 unredacted and classified state department and pentagon documents, which had been in wikileaks possession, onto the internet. When we interviewed assange, he was already under investigation by the Justice Department for publishing classified material and possible violations of the espionage act. He was also under house arrest in britain, fighting extradition to sweden in connection with two Sexual Assault cases, which he has called part of a Smear Campaign against him. In what is still his most extensive television interview, assange talked to us about the idea behind wikileaks and the prospect of facing criminal charges in the United States. I mean, youve been called a lot of names. Youve been characterized as a hero and as a villain, a martyr, terrorist. Im not yet a martyr. Right. Lets keep it that way. For now, Julian Assange is holed up on this bucolic 600acre english estate with an ankle bracelet, a 10 00 curfew, and a slow internet connection. He declined to talk to us about the allegations in sweden on the advice of his attorney but proclaims he is innocent. Well, i suppose if you have to be under house arrest, there could be worse places. Well, its a gilded cage. Its still a cage. But when you are forced to stay somewhere against your will, it does become something that you want to leave. Its a radical departure from the lifestyle that the peripatetic internet muckraker is used to bounding from city to city, country to country, and regularly changing his cell phones, hair styles, and general appearance he says to elude surveillance and avoid being killed, kidnapped, or arrested. And there are reasons for his paranoia. Wikileaks has published information that played some role in deciding the 2007 elections in kenya and fueling the anger that recently brought down the government of tunisia. Its divulged membership rolls of a neonazi organization in britain and secret documents from the church of scientology. And that was before assange began publishing u. S. Secrets, provoking what he calls threatening statements from people close to power. What statements are you referring to . The statements by the Vice President biden saying, for instance, that i was a hightech terrorist, sarah palin calling to our organization to be dealt with like the taliban and be hunted down. Theres calls either for my assassination or the assassination of my staff or for us to be kidnapped and renditioned back to the United States to be executed. Well, as you know, we have a First Amendment and people can say whatever they want, including politicians. I dont think that many people in the United States took seriously the idea that you were a terrorist. I would like to believe that. On the other hand, the incitements to murder are a serious issue. And unfortunately, there is a portion of the population that will believe in them and may carry them out. If nothing else, wikileaks is the latest demonstration that a small group of people with a powerful idea can Harness Technology and affect large institutions. In wikileaks case, it was the idea to aggregate state and corporate secrets by setting up an online electronic drop box where whistleblowers around the world could anonymously upload sensitive and suppressed information. The secrets are stored on servers around the world, beyond the reach of governments or law enforcement, then released worldwide on the internet. The u. S. Does not have the technology to take the site down. Because . Just the way our technology is constructed, the way the internet is constructed. Its quite hard to stop things reappearing. So weve had attacks on particular domain names, little pieces of infrastructure knocked out. But we now have some 2,000 fully independentin every way websites, where we are publishing around the world. Wikileaks first caught the attention of most americans in april 2010, when it released this video. It shows a u. S. Apache helicopter crew in iraq opening fire on a group of suspected insurgents who were standing on a Street Corner in baghdad. Some of the men were armed, but two of them were journalists from reuters. Come on, fire. [machine gun firing] yeah, roger. [machine gun firing] at least a dozen people were killed in that attack, some of them innocent civilians. Then, that july, wikileaks released 76,000 classified field reports of u. S. Operations in afghanistan that provided a chaotic and bleak groundlevel view of the war. A few months later, there were another 400,000 classified documents released from iraq showing that civilian casualties there were much higher than the pentagon had claimed and, finally, in november 2010, thousands of state Department Cables that lifted the veil on highly sensitive backroom diplomacy. The documents revealed that arab leaders were lobbying the u. S. To attack iran and that the state department had been secretly collecting intelligence on leaders at the united nations. It triggered outcries that assange was a political actor trying to damage the u. S. Government. Are you a subversive . Im sure there are certain views amongst Hillary Clinton and her lot that we are subverting their authority. But youre right. We are subverting illegitimate authority. The question is whether the authority is legitimate or whether it is illegitimate. Do you consider the u. S. State department a legitimate authority . Its legitimate insofar as its actions are legitimate. It has actions that are not legitimate. And youve gone after the ones that you think are illegitimate . We dont go after. Thats a bit of a misconception. We dont go after a particular country. We dont go after a particular organization or group. We just stick to our promise of publishing material that is likely to have a significant impact. [ticking] coming up. Assange on possible prosecution by the u. S. Justice department. There is the First Amendment. It covers the case. And theres been no precedent that im aware of in the past 50 years of prosecuting a publisher for espionage. It is just not done. When 60 minutes on cnbc returns. [ male announcer ] this store knows how to handle a saturday crowd. [ male announcer ] the parking lot helps by letting us know whos coming. The carts keep everyone on the right track. The power tools introduce themselves. All the bits and bulbs keep themselves stocked. And the doors even handle the checkout so we can work on that thing thats stuck in the thing. [ female announcer ] today, cisco is connecting the internet of everything. So everyone goes home happy. [ticking] to increase the impact of the u. S. Documents wikileaks released, Julian Assange decided to share them with some of the leading news organizations in the world, including the New York Times, a relationship that grew testy when assange published the first set of war logs without removing the names of afghans who were cooperating with u. S. Forces. The most persistent criticism from within the press has been that you have behaved recklessly from time to time. And the example that they cite is that you decided to release afghan documents without redacting the names of people who had provided intelligence to the u. S. Government. Theres no evidence or any credible allegation or even any allegation from an official body that we have caused any individual at any time to come to harm in the past four years. The pentagon said that theyve gone through all of these documents and they found the names of 300 people. Well, thats new Public Information to us. Its possible that there are 300 names in the publicly released afghan material. We dont pretend that that process is absolutely perfect. We did hold back one in five documents for extra harm minimization review and we also improved our process. So when iraq came around, there was not even a single name in it. I mean, there have been reports of people quoting taliban leaders, saying that they had the names of these people and that they were going to take retribution. The taliban is not a coherent outfit. But we dont say that it is absolutely impossible that anything we ever publish will ever result in harm. We cannot say that. Theres a perception on the part of some people who believe that your agenda right now is antiamerican. Not at all. In fact, our founding values are those of the u. S. Revolution. They are those of people like jefferson and madison. And we have a number of americans in our organization. If youre a whistleblower and you have material that is important, we will accept it, we will defend you, and we will publish it. You cant turn away material simply because it comes from the United States. After the release of the state Department Cables, attorney general eric holder condemned wikileaks for putting National Security at risk. Theres a real basis. Theres a predicate for us to believe that crimes have been committed here. Holder announced that the Justice Department and the pentagon were conducting a criminal investigation. They are reportedly looking at the espionage act of 1917 and other statutes to find a way to prosecute assange and extradite him to the u. S. Its completely outrageous. Are you surprised . I am surprised, actually. But you are screwing with the forces of nature. You have made some of the most powerful people in the world your enemies. You had to expect that they might retaliate. Oh, no, i fully expected theyd retaliate. You took, you gathered, you stored all sorts of classified cables and documents and then released them to the world on the internet. They see that as a threat. And they want to well, they see it as highly embarrassing. I think what its really about is keeping the illusion of control. Im not surprised about that. I am surprised at how the sort of flagrant disregard for u. S. Traditions. That is what im surprised about. Youre shocked . Someone in the Australian Government said that, look, if you play outside the rules, you cant expect to be protected by the rules. And you played outside the rules. Youve played outside the United States rules. No. Weve actually played inside the rules. We didnt go out to get the material. We operated just like any u. S. Publisher operates. We didnt play outside the rules. We played inside the rules. There is a special set of rules in the United States for disclosing classified information. There is. There is a longstanding. Theres a special set of rules for soldiers, for members of the state department who are disclosing classified information. Theres not a special set of rules for publishers to disclose classified information. There is the First Amendment. It covers the case. And theres been no precedent that i am aware of, in the past 50 years, of prosecuting a publisher for espionage. It is just not done. Those are the rules. You do not do it. No one has accused assange of stealing secrets. The apache video and the classified documents were allegedly provided to wikileaks by private first class bradley manning, a lowlevel Intelligence Analyst in iraq who is accused of copying them from a classified Government Network that a half a Million People have access to. Manning is now in solitary confinement at a military prison, facing charges that could put him away for 50 years. Youve called him prisoner of a conscience, correct . Ive said that if the allegations against him are true, then he is the foremost prisoner of conscience in the United States. Theres no allegation it was done for money. Theres no allegation its done for any other reasons than a political reason. Now, im sorry if people in the United States dont want to believe that they are keeping a political prisoner. But in Bradley Mannings case, the allegations are that he engaged in illegal activity for political motivations. People in the United States think hes a traitor. Thats clearly not true. Regardless of what happens to private manning, any prosecution of assange will be fraught with problems because wikileaks wasnt alone in publishing the classified material. The New York Times also published some of it. If the government were to try and prosecute wikileaks and not the times, it would likely need to prove that assange was actively involved in a conspiracy to illegally obtain the documents. Did you encourage anyone to leak this material to you . Or have you done anything in connection with the u. S. Cases, in terms of encouraging an individual to provide you with material . No, never. There are people that believe that it has everything to do with the next threat, that if they dont come after you now that what they have done is essentially endorsed a small, powerful organization with access to very powerful information, releasing it outside their control. And if they let you get away it, then they are encouraging then what . That well have to have freedom of the press . Then they willthat its encouragement to you. And, and . Or to some other organization . And to every other publisher. Absolutely correct. It will be encouragement to every other publisher to publish fearlessly. Thats what it will encourage. To publish information much more dangerous than this information. If were talking about creating threats to small publishers to stop them publishing, the u. S. Has lost its way. It has abrogated its founding traditions. It has thrown the First Amendment in the bin, because publishers must be free to publish. When we come back, Julian Assange talks about his background and his political beliefs. [ticking] [ male announcer ] this is the story of the little room over the pizza place on Chestnut Street the modest first floor bedroom in tallinn, estonia and the southbound bus barreling down i95. This magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. And of those who believed they had the power to do more. Dell is honored to be part of some of the worlds great stories. That began much the same way ours did. In a little dorm room 2713. This magic moment theres nothing like being your own boss and my customers are really liking your flat rate shipping. Fedex one rate. Really makes my life easier. Maybe a promotion is in order. Good news. I got a new title. And a raise . Management couldnt make that happen. [ male announcer ] introducing fedex one rate. Simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex. [ticking] Julian Assange is not a traditional journalist or publisher. In fact, many have argued that he is not really a journalist at all. He is an antiestablishment ideologue with conspiratorial views. He believes that large government institutions use secrecy to suppress the truth. And he distrusts the Mainstream Media for playing along. While most reporters pride themselves in gathering information and interpreting it for a larger audience, wikileaks wants to make the raw Data Available and let others decide the meaning. Regardless of whether you agree with this or not, the idea beats close to the heart of the internet and a younger generation, and it runs through the life of Julian Assange. You obviously have a mistrust of authority. Where does that come from . Thats a good i think it comes from experience with various types of authorities. Assange gave us an example from his childhood, a story about him and his mother, christine, who was present at one of his recent court hearings. She was a political activist who helped scientists gather information about Nuclear Tests conducted by the british in the australian outback. He remembers them being stopped late one night and questioned by authorities, one of whom said look, lady, youre out at 2 00 a. M. In the morning with this child. It could be suggested youre an unfit mother. I suggest you stay out of politics. And which she did for the next ten years in order to make sure Nothing Happened to me. So thats a very early abuse of power and of secrecy that i saw in my life. His was an unconventional and sometimes tumultuous childhood. He was frequently uprooted and moved around the countryside and attended 37 different schools. So youve always been a little