Giorgio Agamben speaks about Julian Assange

Giorgio Agamben explains why Assange was arrested and removed. It sheds a very different light on what we all are going through today.

— translation is mine, original in Italian is here.

Giorgio Agamben:

“I met Assange two years ago in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and thinking back to what he told me during our meeting I think we can understand why he was arrested today. Assange told me that he was investigating the use that Google was preparing to make of the immense amount of information it has. According to Assange, it was about selling to insurance companies and to the secret services data on interests, desires, consumption, health status, readings, in short, on the life in all its aspects of millions of individuals. According to Assange — and I believe we can share his opinion — this would have meant an unprecedented increase of the possibilities of control by economic and police powers on human beings. At issue in the arrest of Assange is therefore not only the desire to punish the past investigations of Wikileaks, but to prevent the investigation still in progress, which is evidently perceived by those concerned as a threat. It is also for this reason that one must unreservedly express one’s solidarity with Assange.”

April 13, 2019