User Reviews

I'm a retiree living in Mexico who doesn't read newspapers, internet news or watch television. I'm as unbiased as you can get. I was stunned by the venom of many reviewers, most of whom are pro Assange. I kept reading reviews, waiting for someone to state what I considered the obvious point of the movie makers. I didn't see it, so here is my opinion of what the movie is about.

People are weak. We easily lose sight of our original goals when we obtain power. Through power, we become what we originally detested. It's inherent in human nature, and cannot be avoided.

The United States struggles worldwide. Each public servant begins with ideals. Gradually, though the accumulation of power, they face the same decisions as their predecessors. Often, they make the same mistakes. Thus, the Obama of today becomes what the pre-presidential Obama would have considered a war criminal. Ironically, WikiLeaks began the same; idealistically. Then they, particularly Julian Assange, succumbed to the same faults in human nature as their government antagonists. The documentary is the story of good people doing bad things, including Assange. It is also the story of inevitable consequences. If you make a credible challenge to the United States government, don't expect the enemies you've made to say "thank you, you're right, nice job." When a small power declares war on a larger power, don't expect fair play. Expect annihilation.

In war amongst nations, strange allies are created. Assange living in the Ecuadorian embassy? If you believe, as I do, that you can tell the character of a person (or nation) by their friends, what does this say about Assange? One thread of the movie is the character development of this unusual and charismatic man, from idealist to Rock Star Rebel screwing attractive women without thoughts of consequence to paranoid recluse turning on his own friends and ideals to fugitive living under the protection of a corrupt government that is the antithesis of every ideal of freedom he began with. The documentary shows clearly that Assange is just a human being misusing immense power, no different that the governments he first turned on. The movie would have been better if he had been interviewed, but succeeds in making it's point without it. Assange, the man who supposedly puts the dissemination of information ahead of all other considerations, won't do the interview without being paid huge sums of cash. He will also accept in payment secrets damaging to his enemies. He ends up being what he originally hated. Like all great main characters in all good stories, he changes from who he was at the beginning. Through the power of media, he becomes a digital Dorian Gray, an ugly reflection of what once was a beautiful, courageous person.

The documentary carefully gives credit to the original ideal of WikiLeaks, and shows the inevitable path of every idealistic rebel in history (except the American Founding Fathers, especially George Washington) who gains power then becomes what he hated...a corrupt person who puts the protection of acquired power ahead of all other goals.

The movie ends with an image of earth viewed from space, and questions of how we can save ourselves from this vicious cycle of idealism becoming corrupted with power. Every who views this movie with a political axe to grind gets disappointed. There are no heroes or villains in this movie. The documentary is an indictment of human nature, a problem they evoke clearly and with great skill. It's also a problem they don't attempt to solve, except by initiating a dialog.

To those wanted this movie to reflect their own political, moral or legal views, try setting aside your agenda and watching it again. This is a remarkably well made movie with balanced reporting. Their only agenda is telling the truth.

This two hour documentary attempts to tell the story of Wikileaks and does so using TV footage, interviews with government people and former Wikileaks employees and even Adrian Lamo.

Is it a fair documentary? I don't really know. It builds the case against Assange, but it keeps a friendly and supportive view of Wikileaks. It shows that Bradley Manning is practically being tortured under US incarceration, but does its best to describe the boy as an uber-gay mal-adapted geek. It seems to try to be as objective as possible, but does not interview either Assange or Manning and makes them both look like defective weirdos.

My opinion? If this were a politically commanded documentary, then it is a very subtle one, trying to polarize the audience, break any collaboration between Assange and his former employees and fans, even going so far as to show the regret of Adrian Lamo (the guy that ratted out Manning) when he cries on camera, so that he can never be an objective party in the story. This is the usual way official documentaries work, though. They gain power through polarization.

But if this is not a political order, then the documentary doesn't actually say much, other than go through a weak and one sided timeline amongst the various special effects and dramatic music that fill the movie and make it rather boring. At one time I fell asleep while watching it.

Therefore I cannot rate it but below average. I have this fear that the makers of the film were actually trying to show the story and report it accurately, but I fell into the trap of sympathizing with one side or another, but then again, if they wanted objectivity, they should have surfed the middle line, not throw Assange to the wolves.

Watched with lot of expectation but there should be more to the documentary. The first half an hour was good but then it all became boring

Both the US government and Julian Assange come under lots of criticism in this movie. One of the major arcs of the movie is Assange's descent into what he claims to hate: a power-mad autocrat obsessed with secrecy. Meanwhile, the US government comes across poorly for their treatment of Bradley Manning, along with them casting Assange as a villain but ignoring the mainstream media that worked with Assange.

The doc probably could have used a little bit more of a pro-Assange viewpoint. To be fair, they did ask to interview Assange, but (according to the doc) he asked for $1 million.

While the movie doesn't have interviews with Assange or Manning, they do have interviews with former Wikileaks employees, people who knew Bradley Manning, and others. The film focuses on more than just Assange, as it also looks at the impact of the cables released by Wikileaks, along with the US government's policies before and after Wikileaks.

It should be noted that Wikileaks disputes the accuracy of the film, while the director disputes the account of Wikileaks. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Steal_Secrets#Response_from_Wikileaks

Looking at the other reviews, this review will probably be voted as "unhelpful" by Assange supporters, but oh well. Watch the movie and make up your mind for yourself.

Watch this documentary if you have heard about WikiLeaks only in papers or on the daily news channel. The documentary is the longest I have even seen(~130 minutes); bit it needs those extra minutes to explain a complex whistle-blowing organization. The film provides you with the core details of the organization, its working, its past employees and mainly on Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. It will take you on a super informative ride,and will constantly shift your bias!

What I loved about this documentary was that the unbiased view which which the narration is done. Don't get fooled by the title! This film is not to tear apart WikiLeaks, nor is it in place to be a propagandist of Julian Assange. It praises as well as take digs at Assange, his personal life; providing a view from the both sides of the coin. It will provoke you to ponder as to is WikiLeaks really a one man show? When does a whistle-blower turns into a traitor-aiding the enemy? Who is the "real" enemy? Are the informants of WikiLeaks safe?

Gibney has done an excellent job of storytelling. Its easy to see that much effort has been put to compile this brilliant piece of work. Sometimes it takes a full 2 hr feature film to stitch something we think we already know! Kudos!

A documentary that details the creation of Julian Assange's controversial website, which facilitated the largest security breach in United States history.

How do you make a documentary on Assange without being political? Even if you try to be neutral, you will inevitably be able to lump interview into two groups: his supporters and his detractors. And he has plenty of both.

For supporters, you can rally around the "Collateral Murder" video and how it shows war in its unvarnished form. Whether or not this video showed a crime or a mistake, it makes us aware of what war is -- something that most of us today will never experience.

Detractors can appreciate how this film not only focuses on Assange's hacking (which is good or bad depending on who you are), but also shows how he is something of a sketchy person, abandoning his children and allegedly assaulting women. And then, he may even have been using Wikileaks funds to pay for his assault defense, which would be wrong.

The documentary also looks closer at Bradley (or Chelsea) Manning than any other source thus far. The e-mails, the access he had and his personal problems. I learned relatively little about Wikileaks from this film, but a good deal on Manning. And for that, I would highly recommend it.

Despite being yet another WL documentary in a long-series, this suspiciously- well-funded production has some excellent interviews not seen elsewhere. It tries hard to give the appearance of impartiality, unfortunately, however where it sells itself on being unbiased, it fails - with very transparent bias that anyone with full knowledge of all the facts it omitted, and the previous interviews given by JL's 'accusers' would quickly remember how they had contradicted themselves with yet another version of events.

This doco, does do a good job of hammering-home the human element, and in particular brings to light that JL apparently, is not a demi-god, but indeed a human being! with limitations and 'the urge to reproduce' (bringing him into line with every other mortal living entity on the planet)

Although the intent of this documentary may have (from the outset) been to aid in the effort by intelligence organisations to gut WL, you can't fault them for that, they're doing their job, I would expect nothing-less. They need to make an example of people who have broken a law that exists for a reason, or too many would flaunt the rules that exist for a reason, rules that keep us safe(just as sometimes breaking them in rare cases can play a positive role) Those who haven't broken a written law, but endangered lives should expect they will be pursued and dealt with outside the law.

That said: places like WL need to exist for a reason, and should be left to do so, assuming they do so in the right way, effecting change for the better while rendering as little harm as possible (perhaps if more competent people had been willing to put their necks out, then protection of the innocent and uninvolved would have been given greater attention?).

Each side has a role to play or the system would decay, they each have a job to do. As distasteful as it may be to some, his policies on transparency/redaction/his role as a public figure, make the most sense when looking at the bigger picture (or at least until someone devises a better way to deal with need for whistleblower mechanisms).

This doco points-out the irony of WL needing staff to sign NDA's but neglects to mention these are most likely pertaining to protection or sources and public-image related affairs(perhaps if they were allowed the normal means for fund-raising, they wouldn't need to sell celebrity, and NDAs to prevent attacks financially motivated or otherwise on that image). Despite the subtle, but heavy slant towards character assassination(were it truly unbiased I would have scored it much higher), I would still recommend every human with a brain watch this documentary, read the interesting WL page that addresses the(many) shortcomings in impartiality, and make-up their own mind.

This is a fairly straightforward documentary with some fancy graphic interludes between segments, but some character development that was somewhat surprising. It proceeds primarily chronologically, from an early hacking of NASA & government sites to the establishment of Wikileaks as a self-made depository of accountability and "open source" government. It progresses through the early publishing of government data through the Bradley Manning data provided at the behest of background hacker and the final outing of the State Department cables. I thought the film did a reasonably good job of depicting Assange and his motives, from his early teenage hacking of government sites purely for fun to his firm belief in the right of the public to know what its government is doing behind its back. I had followed some of the developments around 2010-11, but learned a lot more about the background of the other players besides the charismatic and rather self-serving Assange. In particular, a fair amount of time is spent on Manning, including interviews with friends, a superior in his unit, and video and photo clips of him prior to the story breaking. I had known nothing about Adrian Lamo, a mysterious hacker in the background whom Manning confided in anonymously and eventually trusted enough to follow through with recommendations for disclosing the material, only to have Lamo rat him out. Although the popular press had always depicted Manning as simply "apparently gay" the film delves much deeper into his sexual identify conflicts (prior to and during his deployment and throughout the leaking process he struggled with whether to pursue transgender surgery) and marked self-esteem and isolation issues. Assange initially comes across as a quasi-anarchist on a mission to make government accountable, but narcissistic and borderline personality traits become quite apparent as his fame and infamy grow. The "rape" charges are explored, including an interview with one of the two women. What we've heard in the press about one of them being a CIA agent affiliated with Miami/Cuba is blown apart, and (IFF the woman is to be believed) the charge that he had sex and broke a condom but kept going are depicted as true. The woman sounds like she just wants him to admit it. However, the take home message from this film is that everyone may-- or may not-- be lying part or all of the time: Assange, Manning, Lamo, the two purported "rape" victims, and above all governments. Lamo is described in the film as having Asperger's syndrome, but his stilted speech suggests he falls more to the autistic side of the pervasive developmental spectrum. The film succeeds as a character study of the major players even if it does not move in interesting directions or reveal much more than is already known. The saddest aspect is the fate of Manning, whose naiveté is likely to result in a lifetime of torture in a Supermax while the real criminals in the Bush administration remain free.

I found it to be a good documentary but it is not consistent over the 2hrs. It tells the story of Wikileaks & Julian Assange & Peter Manning. But it barely manages to scratch surface of the subjects, does not focus on each subjects properly & switches to something else. In my opinion it would have been great if it focused on one topic say Peter Manning & act of whistle blowing. In the last 10 minutes , 2 guys who were affiliated to Wikileaks talk about whistle blowers. "Whistle blowing is an isolating act. You are doing something which your colleagues and friends won't like you to do or they won't understand. That alienated you further from them. " "In the end everybody is just human, if you are leaking something important to a reporter , something that's really makes a difference, then from a human perspective it is difficult not to get credit for it, no one can tap you on shoulder & say courageous thing you did. & that's the complicated part about it , how do you make sure your source don't compromise themselves" It would have been better if more insight into mind of whistle blower was given to us. That would be something which I have n't seen, (except in The Insider (1999), which is a masterpiece). The interviewees could tell more about how the delicacy of the whole process of getting some classified information, protecting the source of information. The whole material of the documentary, with proper story telling can make a very good movie, but not an excellent documentary. I believe documentaries are supposed to be about insight into something & draw some conclusion. It does provide us with lot of information but less insight.

In short: just a handful of misquotations and easily verifiable lies.

I want to give this the best and most impartial review I can, so here goes my disclaimer: I've been following Wikileaks work since circa 2009 and I admire it a lot. I never got much information on the organization's personnel though, just the regular news on Assange, and also some news on Bradley Manning (not a member of WL, but a self-confessed source for the Iraq/Afghanistan war logs). Having watched some of Alex Gibney's previous documentaries (Enron, Taxi to the Dark Side, Park Avenue - all quite good, although a little biased to the left, esp. the last one), I was looking forward to watching this one, since I also knew beforehand it'd focus on Assange and Manning, not so much on the organization itself, so that maybe I could finally shed some light on their personas.

Unfortunately, it was just a waste of time, I got out of it with basically the same information I came in with. That's because, specially from the middle to the end, there are so many factual mistakes that you learn nothing; there's no new data, just smear. And this is easily verifiable, in fact so easy that Wikileaks published the full transcript of the film (just google "transcript we steal wikileaks"), with annotations on the side pointing to where one can find the original material (eg. the link to the guardian or nytimes site) that bases what is being said by the narrator or interviewee, and showing how the source material irrefutably contradicts what is said upon it.

There are also cases where crucial information is lacking. For example, Assange's "rape" affair. The justice4assange website covers the issue thoroughly, mentioning that there was no trace of Assange's DNA in the condom he allegedly teared, that the Swedish authorities only want to extradite Assange for questioning (no criminal charges were filed against him) but do not allow him to be questioned at the Scotland Yard by a Swedish authority nor accept that his questioning is undertaken via internet in real-time (Skype), that Assange accepts to fly to Sweden if the Swedish authorities guarantee that he won't be extradited to the USA once in Swedish soil (such guarantee was denied), etc. None of this is mentioned in the movie, though it is at hand for anyone that searches 5 mins for it.

There are so many dirty tricks in the edition of the movie that makes it impossible to think that Gibney didn't make the misquotes on purpose. I don't know what his reason was, but he surely knew too about most, if not all, the factual mistakes highlighted in WL's transcript. Anyone that researched WL or Manning for some days would end up knowing it.

My humble opinion: this film is just a 2 hours long ad hominem fallacy on Assange and Manning, trying to portrait them as "troublemakers" coming from difficult childhoods/backgrounds so to shift the focus out of the politics that created the leaks and into these "troubled souls", reckless children that act out of hybris and not moral principles. I think even this could be worth watching if it had any factual support, but it surprisingly manages to ground itself only on lies. As it is, it's only interesting to watch if you compare it with WL's transcript, because there you can get some facts and see how skewed a documentary can be. As a conclusion, I'd say don't waste your money on this, specially supporting it.

Just one last thought on my "summary" title: "We steal secrets" is not a phrase from Wikileaks, it comes from Michael Hayden, former NSA and CIA director, and I think it fits perfectly the American intelligence motto, to steal secrets even from its own law-abiding citizens. This "documentary", just like this phrase, fits strangely well to NSA's narrative of the case, which makes one wonder why the director made so many gross factual errors.

WE STEAL SECRETS recounts in minute detail the rise and fall of Wikileaks, concentrating especially on its release of classified American government material, and the careers of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. We learn a lot about Assange's career, his devotion to computers, his turbulent childhood, and his determination to do the right thing by releasing material. The same goes for Manning; although employed by the US Army, he believed it was in the public interest to tell the truth about the army's conduct during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. However Alex Gidney's film seems a little uncertain about how to judge the protagonists in the Wikileaks affair; on the one hand we are asked to admire Assange for his decision to act in the public interest, but on the other hand we see him as something of a fantasist, obsessed with conspiracy theories and apt to bend the truth if it serves his interests. Similarly Manning is praised for his bravery in releasing sensitive material, but criticized on account of his sexuality. While there are certainly no winners and losers in the entire affair, I think that the film should have adopted a bolder perspective - especially as it seems that Assange and Manning are now doomed to spend the rest of their lives in some form of captivity.

I came across " We Steel Secrets" while browsing Netflix one night and started watching it at 1 in the night...wanted to watch something for 15 minutes as I got ready to sleep and boy I got hooked and sat up 2 hours to watch the entire documentary!

I am not sure if 'Current History' is an official genre of films but this movie should fall under 'Current History Genre' …. 'History' because it is something that happened in the past....'Current' because 'I' and a lot of people ' currently' inhabiting the planet have live through it.

I like watching movies on 'Current History'…it helps me catch up!

I knew about Julian Assange/Wiki leaks but had not really followed the story closely. This two hour documentary give a wonderful synopsis of the 2-3 years of the rise and fall of Wiki-Leaks. It is not a biased view for or against Julian Assange, I though it was a well rounded portrayal. But It was Bradley that my heart actually went out to! I think Bradley Chelsey/Edward…whatever you want to call him/her was the actual hero and the sufferer in the whole story. I wish him luck. I will now follow this story actively...

Overall I would recommend you watch "We Steel Secrets" …it is informative and engaging even though it is a little longer than what a documentary should ideally be! Not sure if you will enjoy it if you have followed the story closely as it unfolded..

Firstly, Julian Assange is not the 'second coming' -- not even in his own circles. His 'hacker' background is by no means unique, and was almost a common experience amongst 'geeks' who grew up during the late 80's and early 90's. Being investigated for, or even charged with, hacking / phreaking / fraud offences was as common amongst his peers as trailer trash being arrested for shoplifting, or simple assault. (Heck, if you were trailer trash with a modem you might have been charged with all of them!)

The information required to exploit various devices, systems and networks was freely available, if you knew where to look (or what number to dial), and the mechanics of doing so were often trivial (Captain Crunch whistle, anyone?) Anyhow, let's just get all of that out of the way, and accept that for the purposes of this review, Assange was, prior to Wikileaks, nothing particularly extraordinary, just someone in possession of some useful but dangerous knowledge.

However, having the chutzpah to publish classified information when 'everyone knows' what would happen to you for doing so is really what differentiated Assange from the rest of the crowd -- no one can or should dispute that. It's surprising he hasn't already had an 'accident', and he should be applauded for his evident vigilance in keeping himself alive. But, there are other documentaries that do that. What this particular documentary seemingly wants to explore is not whether what Assange did was exceptional (we already agree that it was), but whether how he elected to bring his 'secrets' to the world was done in the most appropriate, compassionate way.

'We Steak Secrets' recognises that, to some, this is important -- even if many of Assange's supporters think that it isn't.

Bradley Manning is a tragic individual. Those who find themselves questioning their gender identity (often before pursuing gender reassignment) do not typically make the best choices. (This is why to proceed on such a path one usually needs to see a psychiatrist.) It is an incredibly confusing, frightening and yet euphoric time and I don't generally advise people in such circumstances to make any decisions that could change their lives in any real degree while they mull over their future, since they're not likely to be their best choices in retrospect.

Being transgendered may not itself be a 'mental illness', but the anxiety, depression and mania associated with coming to terms with being so certainly is, and one can't be considered of 'sound mind' in such a state -- this is an important point to make, and one the documentary attempts to impart through Manning's IRC chats with the sad little man who would eventually turn him in.

Obviously, deciding to copy a large amount of classified data and deliver it to Wikileaks would qualify as a 'poor decision', especially when you're in the US military, and have practically zero likelihood of defending your actions to your superiors. This is what the documentary suggests, and to do so is not slander -- it merely tries to explain to the layperson why such a bright young man would choose to martyr himself in such a dramatic way when very few others (if anyone) would ever consider embarking on such an ambitious but dangerous course of action.

The documentary assumes that a completely rational individual in a similar scenario would never jeopardise his personal security in such a rash fashion irrespective of a perceived collective humanitarian benefit -- which is not an unfair assumption to make -- and asks what made Manning different; what could lead him to behave so contrary to that norm.

In doing so, 'We Steal Secrets' makes a decent hypothesis.

Moving on from Manning to Assange, the documentary then raises the question, "If Assange was aware of Manning's personal difficulties, was he irresponsible in choosing to receive the classified information, and go ahead with publishing it, knowing what would result?" This is an ethical conundrum that is open for debate, but open for debate it most certainly is -- regardless of whether Assange's supporters like it or not.

Although Assange evidently concluded that releasing the information was of greater value to humanity than preserving the remainder of Bradley Manning's productive life, others may not have felt similar. But go ahead Assange did, at full steam.

He made his choice, fair enough -- but could Assange have redacted details that weren't all that important to the context of the information, such as the names of informants? Could he have released statistics, or related overall 'stories' told by the data, rather than the data itself, to mitigate some of the consequence to Manning? Would Manning's looming punishment have been reduced had the information been handled differently?

We can only speculate -- but we are entitled to, make no mistake.

It's not 'unfair' for the documentary to ask these questions, either. It's also not 'unfair' to continue on and examine Assange's exploitation of his subsequent 'rock-star' status -- after all, it speaks to his motivations, and casts a shadow on his supposed altruism. However, although to me the documentary tells the unfortunate tale of a fame-seeker who took advantage of someone in the grip of reconciling a very difficult truth in order to further his own agenda, others could interpret it differently.

I'm not sure how, but I'm sure they could. Can you?

This documentary was just meh... Felt a bit too long and seemed to focus on the sex allegations of Julian and the sexuality of Chelsea (Bradley) Manning too much, not really sure why the director thought the latter was so important in this story. I guess this documentary did give some insight in Julian and his persona, which my impression of him has certainly changed, but was expecting more information on Wikileaks itself.

There will be people that hate this Documentary, on both sides of this story. I found it pretty fair! It is though, still an ongoing story.

NOTE: Those that whine about Assange not being interviewed, obviously are planted reviews and never watched the film. The Film states a for the record that it was the desire, and the filmmakers made every attempt to interview him! The problem was that he REFUSED to be interviewed unless the filmmakers made a large donation to WikiLeaks. SO that tells the story right there.)

First I really don't think this story is unfair to either those that oppose Wikileaks and hate them, or those that support them...or him (Assange). It gives the story about who the mysterious Assange, and how he became the man he is. Starting as a computer hacker, and turning into a bit of a hypocritical, ideologue who has become reclusive and even turned on those that worked with him.

It does show Bradley Manning as sort of a confused man, and almost a victim, but that is a bit tempered by what he really did. There is no doubt that this man needs to be in prison. And Adrian Limo, who turned in Bradley Manning, was portrayed in a pretty neutral light. Limo probably has a little less morals than desired, and facilitated Manning's leaks, but it's hard to get a read if he really should be a villain or not, but it's pretty certain he isn't a real good guy.

There are those that are all-in Idealogues that support Assange and WikiLeaks. Personally, if WikiLeaks was just publishing leaked info passed onto them, I would say that they are doing nothing any other news source would not do. This is something the film pushes a bit. BUT. What wikileaks WAS doing was putting out a "wishlist" of the type of info they wanted, and was actively encouraging people to spy, or steal sensitive information from governments. People who have access to such information have taken oaths to keep it. On that point they are horrible people. Assange is just an idealistic ego maniac who has no morals and is just as evil as those he claims to expose. Take the scene where a reporter says he asked Assange if he would publish information that could get Afghan civilians killed, Assange's answer was "Yes," justifying if by saying if the Afghan civilian cooperated with U.S. forces, that is cooperating with the enemy and therefore deserved to die.

Assange is NOT a hero, or noble character like his supporters think he is. No, he is more about Julian Assange, and anything to stroke his own ego. Tell me, did he seek out documents and leaks from the Iranian or North Korean Nuclear programs? How about looking for communications from Terrorist groups and suicide bombers? How about the Chinese government and their human rights abuses? Did WikiLeaks go after the abuses of the Assad Regime in Syria? Before you label someone a hero take a look at what they are really doing. Just something to ponder

With all the haters and supporters alike it will be hard to give this documentary a fair review. I give it a nine. I think it was pretty well done but the story hasn't ended yet. I also think it tells a good portion from several sides and I really don't think it is extremely biased in any way. Those that support him....well. it's hard to ignore the negatives about Assange coming from those that supported and worked with him in the beginning but were thrown out due to an ego maniacs paranoid delusions. I would also say that a "hero" doesn't run and hide. If he feels he is right he stands tall and is prepared to face and consequences of his actions. That does not describe Assange.

"We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks" is about the rise and fall of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Through interviews of various associates and correspondents we find out what kind of person Assange is, his aims, his goals, his beliefs, and how they seem to have changed over time.

Also of note were Bradley Manning, the Army soldier who leaked thousands of documents and files regarding the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Adrian Lamo, a hacker who turned in Bradley Manning.

The world of hackers is a world I will only know through movies and T. V. They all seem strange to me, and this documentary only confirmed that. It's a good documentary though. I only had a trifle of knowledge about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. This documentary does a good job of shedding light upon the entirety of the matter of exposing state secrets and the ethical dilemma it causes. This is not among Alex Gibney's best work, but if I were to watch anyone's documentary on the subject, it would be his.

I am not shocked by the amount of really dismal reviews this film has gotten from users on IMDb considering the passionate following the Assange has maintained. But people don't give Alex Gibney enough credit. I think the director has built a reputation as a fair, objective critic of power, and his filmography ('Taxi to the Dark Side, Smartest Guys in the Room') has shown that. I believe Julian Assange built a personality cult around him, and many of his followers are either unwilling or unable to see the complexities of this saga, and would rather blindly follow this man into the abyss. What a strange and modern tragedy.

The tragedy and irony of the story really is how such a great and noble idea as Wikileaks was corrupted by the same forces it railed against, and how the need for secrecy prevails.

Excellent and compelling documentary.

I didn't know much about Assange or Wikileaks or Private Manning. I remember little things from the news, but this was a solid documentary on the subject. A good history of Wikileaks, and a thoughtful film that poses interesting questions.