Wikileaks passport founder confiscated
Julian Assange, the Australian founder of the whistleblower website Wikileaks, says he had his passport taken away from him at Melbourne Airport and was later told by customs officials that it was about to be cancelled.
Last year Wikileaks published a confidential Australian blacklist of websites to be banned under the government's proposed internet filter.
The Age has been told that Assange's passport is classified ''normal'' on the immigration database, meaning the Wikileaks director can travel freely on it.
Assange told
The Age his passport was taken from him by customs officials at Melbourne Airport when he entered the country last week after he was told ''it was looking worn''.
When the passport was returned to him after about 15 minutes, he says he was told by authorities that it was going to be or was cancelled.
Passports are routinely taken from travellers for short periods by immigration officials if they are damaged.
Wikileaks has risen to prominence for posting leaked footage of US forces laughing at the dead bodies of 12 people they had just killed in Iraq in 2007.
It was in the Australian spotlight last year after publishing a confidential blacklist of websites that forms the basis of the government's proposed internet filter.
The list as published by Wikileaks then blocked links to YouTube clips, sites on euthanasia, fringe religions, and traditional pornography - as well as the websites of a tour operator and a dentist.
The government says the intention is to block extreme sites depicting such things as child pornography, bestiality and rape.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has also asked the Australian Federal Police to investigate the leaking and publishing of the Australian internet blacklist.
But a spokeswoman for the AFP said yesterday the federal police had dropped the case earlier this year because it was ''not in our jurisdiction''.
Assange said half an hour after his passport was returned to him, he was approached by an Australian Federal Police officer who searched one of his bags and asked him about his criminal record relating to computer hacking offences in 1991.
Assange's allegations about his passport were first made on SBS current affairs program
Dateline, which aired a story on the Wikileaks founder.
Australian Wikileak founder's passport confiscated
This government looks more and more like a bunch of fascists.
They are determined to stamp out free speech.
It's time the people take this jackboot off our asses.