THE DAILY BEAST: WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange has derided the unauthorized release of his autobiography by his estranged publishers as “profiteering,” calling it “old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity—screwing people over to make a buck.” The hardcover, weighing in at nearly 250 pages, hit shelves today in London (at a W.H. Smith near Oxford Circus, it was marked down to half-price). The media frenzy over the release was such that The Guardian devoted a liveblog to the occasion, while The Independent led with an exclusive extract of what it called the “explosive confessions” of the controversial hacker.
Assange, who is in Britain fighting extradition on rape charges to Sweden, tried to suppress the memoir—which is based on a draft written by a ghost writer and encompasses some 50 hours of interviews with Assange—and became embroiled in a contract fight with Canongate, the Edinburgh-based publishers. Assange claims not to know the book’s exact contents, saying in a statement posted on WikiLeaks last night, “Tomorrow, I will have to buy ‘my autobiography’ in order to learn the extent of the errors and inaccuracies of the content of the book.”
So what do the alleged confessions reveal? Here are six of the most eye-catching bits… (more)
