Journalist Fowler terms WikiLeaks founder Assange a professional

ABC journalist Andrew Fowler, fundraiser for the release of the Wikileaks vedio on 2007 US military attacks on Baghdad where civilians and journalists were killed, said Wikileaks is a by-product of the high level of security placed on information in Western countries.

“The problem that governments had was that they created an extraordinary pressure cooker,” Fowler said. “Then 9/11 came along and[they had to share information more broadly,” said he.

Fowler says wikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is paranoid because of the leak that left him on the edge. “When they got the leak of the 650,000 documents, I know Assange felt under threat and they feared the CIA getting them picked up,” he said.

Assange was recently condemned by the former Wikileaks spokesperson, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, for imposing penalty of up to £12 million on any employee who reveals any information of the Wikileaks' operation.

He had threatened to sue the critics when his personal behavior and website came under increasingly harsh public scrutiny.

Fowler on the other hand had an interesting experience working with him and he would rather define him as a journalist. He discussed his interactions with WikiLeaks founder at the AusCERT conference on the Gold Coast.

“Assange is more of a journalist and shows more traits of being a journalist than many other people that I have worked with,” said Fowler.