[ A playground, Australia, mid-1980s. Two girls are gossiping.]

SALLY
You know who I love?
That band Men at Work.
Did you hear the scandal
With Annie and Dirk?
They were caught making out
By a school clerk

LISA
Someone told me. I think it was Lou.
They were over by the football ground
They were naked; she was making a sound
Like a hot and bothered kangaroo.

SALLY
I also heard that Mr. Nantz
Was driving his car without any pants

LISA
He’s the one
With the red Impala?
He has tufts of hair
Just like a koala

[JULIAN ASSANGE approaches.]

SALLY
Uh oh, it’s Julian
He’s a little bit strange
Let’s lower our voices
As he comes into range

LISA
I agree with you
This is not for his ears
We can start talking normal
When he disappears

[SALLY and LISA start to whisper.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
What are you guys
Talking about?

LISA
It’s none of your business
Don’t stick in your snout

JULIAN ASSANGE
But whispering is impolite
It’s cliquish, mean, and just not right.
Your secrecy is a kind of slap.

LISA
You should tell someone who gives a crap

JULIAN ASSANGE
I don’t like how this is going
My curiosity is growing
Come on, tell me. Really, tell!
To not know is a kind of hell

[SALLY and LISA whisper more and then leave, giggling.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
I’ll get you!
I’ll get you!
Don’t believe me?
I’ll bet you!
There will be retribution!
There will be tit for tat!
There will be revolution
I will see to that!

[ Enraged and frustrated, JULIAN ASSANGE becomes a hacker. He devotes himself to the unchecked distribution of all information.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
I’ll dub myself Mendax
It means “noble liar.”
I’ll remake myself as a
High-tech town crier
When people attempt
To hide information
I will be the one
To compel revelation

[ After two decades moving between the hacking subculture and academia, JULIAN ASSANGE founds WikiLeaks, a website devoted to challenging secrecy regulations by releasing documents.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
To radically shift regime behavior
We must accept a new kind of savior
How can any authority control what we see
When all information wants to be free?

[ At first, JULIAN ASSANGE uses WikiLeaks for good, exposing assassinations in Kenya.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
Witness how I used my network
To interfere with Kenyan wetwork.
It’s hard to grasp this type of power
I liken it to Bentham’s tower
He called it the panopticon
It acted as a check upon
All who thought they were being observed
This is what we have long deserved.

[ One day JULIAN ASSANGE is contacted by BRADLEY MANNING.]

BRADLEY MANNING
Hello, I am Bradley Manning
I work in intelligence
I know you by your reputation
And frankly, sir, I have the sense
That my position in the army
Grants me special access to
Secret information that I
Think that I might leak to you.

JULIAN ASSANGE
What’s your name, now? Manning? Bradley?
Tell me more; I’ll listen, gladly.

BRADLEY MANNING
Where should I start?
My head is spinning.

JULIAN ASSANGE
Just go back
To the beginning

BRADLEY MANNING
When I was younger, I was teased
Almost every single day
For spending time on my computer
For me, it was the only way
In high school, it just got worse
I was bullied, called a fairy
I dropped out as soon as I could
And went to join the military

I thought that I would find contentment.
But, alas, just more resentment.

In the army, I’m not noticed
No one pays me any mind
This neglect has given me
A dark opinion of mankind
I work hard but I’m not rewarded
I feel like an abused horse
I have a need to make a difference
Let me be your secret source

[BRADLEY MANNING sends JULIAN ASSANGE video of an Apache helicopter flying over Baghdad and engaging in fire that results in the death of a dozen civilians. The video, which is titled “Collateral Murder,” ignites a media firestorm. JULIAN ASSANGE even appears on the Colbert Report.]

STEPHEN COLBERT
You say you are objective
But this title is incendiary
Tell me why, in light of that,
The rest of us should not be wary
Of your motives and your sympathies.
Are you the cure or a new disease?
This whole thing feels nefarious.

JULIAN ASSANGE
Ha ha, Stephen, you’re hilarious.

[BRADLEY MANNING, excited by the attention, contacts JULIAN ASSANGE again and promises an even bigger set of leaks.]

BRADLEY MANNING
So I came across some secret cables
Guess how many I managed to download?

JULIAN ASSANGE
A hundred? A thousand? A hundred thousand?

BRADLEY MANNING
A quarter million! I might explode!

[BRADLEY MANNING promises JULIAN ASSANGE access to tens of thousands of classified documents.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
I’m a hacker, not a shrink
But something strikes me kind of funny
You’re not doing this for fame,
Not exactly, not for money
So what then, are your motives here?
Are you simply trying to right the scales?
Or is there a more deeply rooted
Reason to give up these details?

BRADLEY MANNING
What do you mean?
Do you posit that a leak
Is a way to open up
The closet, so to speak?

I hadn’t thought it through
Though it comes as a relief
After years of dark, the light
Don’t ask, do tell: that’s my belief.
And what about you?
You must feel this way too.

[JULIAN ASSANGE nervously clears his throat.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
Well, look, don’t think too much about it
I don’t want to cause you aggravation

BRADLEY MANNING
No, no&mdash:I find it interesting
But what about your motivation?

JULIAN ASSANGE
What about my motivation?
Yes, indeed, a valid question
And one that after all these years
Still causes me indigestion
I can shift the course of nations
I can make great leaders cower
I can take pure information
And use it to disorder power
My reasoning for doing this
Isn’t, I don’t think, germane
Let’s set aside this speculation
And go on with this great campaign

[JULIAN ASSANGE hangs up the phone quickly, before BRADLEY MANNING can answer.]

BRADLEY MANNING
That man is great
His site is greater
Society will
See that later

He drinks in
Information, see,
And takes a leak
For liberty

I did my best
To help his cause
And circumvent
Dishonest laws

I drew a breath
And blew a whistle
And launched the truth
Like a cruise missile

And I’m still here
I’m brave and proud
And I’m unbloodied
And unbowed

[ As he is speaking, BRADLEY MANNING is arrested by Army investigators. Six months later, JULIAN ASSANGE leaks more than 250,000 pages of documents he has received.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
Once the world was benighted
Once the planet’s eyes were closed
Now the Earth has come awake
To all the facts that I’ve disclosed
That flabby old chap, Kim Jong-il,
Will be in the grave very soon.
Angela Merkel is rarely creative.
The U.S. spied on Ban Ki-moon.
Pakistan’s stockpile of nukes
Isn’t kept under lock and key.
The world now knows all these things
Because of me, because of me.

[ Immediately, there is worldwide condemnation.]

HILLARY CLINTON
Diplomacy shaken, sources betrayed
Allies forsaken, leaders dismayed
This self-styled hero, this weasel Australian
Is the worst threat to freedom since Sarah Palin

GEORGE OSBORNE
It’s a new day, a nova aurora,
Here is the box and here is Pandora
This kind of thing is a Hobson’s Choice
Do I really have a high-pitched voice?

VLADIMIR PUTIN
The way I’m being talked about
Fills me up with deep disquiet
That should concern the rest of you
Remember the Litvinenko diet?

NICHOLAS SARKOZY
Much of what’s in here
Is rumor and twaddle
Plus, what do I care?
My wife is a model.

ANGELA MERKEL
They say I don’t like risk
And that I’m not creative
That is absurd,
As anyone can tell you.

[JULIAN ASSANGE is triumphant, even in the face of rape accusations from Sweden. He keeps on the run, living in airports and communicating mostly through online chats.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
I’m almost done, I’m almost done.
Just one more thing to do.
I made a promise years ago
And now I’ll follow through

[SALLY, now in her thirties and living in America, is walking home from work. A black limousine pulls up alongside her. The window goes down. The DRIVER speaks.]

DRIVER
Excuse me miss
Please define “inform”
While I knock you out
With this chloroform

SALLY
A cloth? A goon?
By my troth, I swoon.

[SALLY passes out and wakes in a room filled with computers. JULIAN ASSANGE is sitting in a black leather armchair, watching her.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
You can scream all you want
This room traps every sound

SALLY
Hey, you’re that weird kid
From the middle-school playground.

JULIAN ASSANGE
The way I rub my hands together
Demonstrates that I am evil
The dark, malignant overlord
Of all information retrieval

I want you here now
To watch as I humble
The earth’s greatest nations
Let them all crumble!

More importantly, Sally,
Let’s settle a score
For years I have suffered
I will suffer no more.

Back in Australia
You and Lisa concealed
Information from me
I want it revealed

SALLY
Are you kidding or
Are you just insane?
Why would that stuff
Still be in my brain?
We were kids back then
A lifetime’s passed.
I am shocked and stunned
Agog and aghast.

JULIAN ASSANGE
Seriously? You don’t remember?
That’s quite disappointing to hear
Lisa said the exact same thing
When I met her in Sweden last year

[JULIAN ASSANGE lets Sally go.]

JULIAN ASSANGE
Very sorry for the fuss.
Let’s just keep this between us.