Julian Assange: Time running out for WikiLeaks Cupboard Boy

Cupboard Boy Julian Assange clicks away at Solitaire, becoming increasingly clear he has worn out his welcome at Ecuador’s London embassy.

Earlier this week the Ecuadorean Government severed Australian hacktivist Julian Assange’s links with the world, rendering his laptop into a very expensive, beautifully designed and engineered clock.

The Ecuadorians did as any parent would with an unruly 12-year-old, calling an arbitrary time out off the net, interrupting Assange’s World of Warcraft game where he was well on the way to democratising Azeroth and establishing himself as the first troll among equals in Northrend and Pandaria.

Now Assange must while away the hours playing Hearts, Minesweeper and Solitaire.

It has been four years and four months since Assange entered the Ecuadorean embassy in London and sought political asylum. Some may see it as a clever way for millennials to solve the housing crisis while having their smashed avocados on toast and eating them, too.

But really, Assange has been like one of those guys from your youth that knocks on the door years later, babbling some hard luck story and asking to spend a few nights on the couch while he gets his act together. Almost five years later, he’s still there, leaving pizza boxes and his underpants on your living room carpet.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appears on-screen in a live video address to honour the platform's 10th anniversary earlier this month.

Assange’s particular hard luck story is he was avoiding extradition to Sweden to face a raft of sexual assault charges. Assange, 45, now lives in a small office within the embassy converted into an apartment with a kitchenette, exercise treadmill and his expensive clock.

A number of charges Swedish authorities brought against him have now lapsed under their statute of limitations but Assange is still wanted for rape.

His strict confines have led to Assange, once seen a shiny beacon of hope to the Left, being ascribed the cruel moniker of Cupboard Boy.

When faced with people filled with their own certainty, my father used to say, “He’s got an ego as big as this room.” The expression doesn’t really work for Cupboard Boy unless he opens a window.

Cupboard Boy has not emerged from the confines of the embassy since and should he do so, he will be summarily arrested. It is long time to be on the lam and his incarceration tan means that even if he did make his way out to face the music, he would have to slather on the Factor 40 even in a tepid, watery English winter sun.

Swedish authorities have not been idle and at a date to be fixed next month will interview Assange regarding the outstanding sexual assault matters.

The founder of Wikileaks has hardly been idle either and in the long US presidential campaign, Cupboard Boy and his gang have been dropping hacked material, more often than not embarrassing to Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

I have no problem with that and indeed it has added to the general entertainment in a presidential contest already brimming with craziness. The issue though, is why do Cupboard Boy et al publish material US intelligence services are convinced has been hacked by murky Russian state espionage sources without Wikileaks bothering to check the material’s provenance?

A good deal of the purloined data, known as the Podesta emails, named after the email account of John Podesta, the Chairman of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, clearly contains numerous forgeries. Hint for young players: when a letter misspells ‘Clinton’ it’s probably not quite the ticket, eh?

The other, perhaps more pertinent point is why do Cupboard Boy and Wikileaks continue to publish material adverse to US interests but not say, those of China, Russia or Saudi Arabia? Obviously Ecuador is off the hook. One must be a civil houseguest after all.

Even the other master hacker bringing the US into disrepute, Edward Snowden, has demurred. On 29 July, Snowden tweeted “Democratizing information has never been more vital, and Wikileaks has helped. But their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake.”

What Snowden and his gigantic brain were insinuating is Wikileaks receives hacked material from a range of sources including the Russian state espionage apparatus and releases it holus-bolus at a time of their choosing.

The patriots at Wikileaks weren’t going to take that affront lying down and so with an index finger crooked with venom, tweeted: “Opportunism won’t earn you a pardon from Clinton & curation is not censorship of ruling party cash flows.”

This is what it sounds like when nerds fight.

It is a deeply amusing irony that many Americans who clamour in darkened rooms to their info-wars websites would have shot Cupboard Boy on sight a year ago but now would happily carry him around in a sedan chair as a warrior for truth justice and the American way.

A year ago and more, it was the Left’s turn to glory in Cupboard Boy’s truthiness.

He is not a hero. He is a fugitive from justice. A wanted man. That doesn’t make him guilty but it does mean he shouldn’t be sitting in the Ecuadorean embassy chowing down on a light soup consisting of red onion, garlic, chilli and guinea pig.

The political playing field in Ecuador is changing. President Rafael Correa is due to retire at the country’s election next year, an election observers believe will install an administration more US friendly.

As Cupboard Boy clicks away at Solitaire it is becoming increasingly clear he has worn out his welcome.

The good news is Cupboard Boy’s confinement since 2012 should hold him in good stead for where he’s heading next.