A close ally of Edward Snowden has told filmmakers that Russia's intelligence agency sought to recruit the former NSA contractor, but he declined the offer. WikiLeaks staffer Sarah Harrison says the Russian FSB intelligence security service approached Snowden while he was stuck in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport for six weeks in 2013.

O'Hagan, an Editor at Large of Esquire, has now written a 25,000-word lambasting in the London Review of Books, in which he describes the 42-year-old Australian as "thin-skinned, conspiratorial, untruthful, [and] narcissistic." O'Hagan, who is actually quite sympathetic to Assange, spent months around the publisher and his entourage.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) involves a 12-nation regional trade bloc that accounts for almost 40% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and about one-third of all world trade. The U.S. is leading negotiations and expects them to be finished this year. WikiLeaks published a draft, dated Aug. 30, that it says is the intellectual property rights chapter of the proposed pact that was debated in the 19th negotiating round. Intellectual property law expert Matthew Rimmer told the Sydney Morning Herald that the leaked draft favored U.S. trade objectives and multinational corporate interests "with little focus on the rights and interests of consumers, let alone broader community interests."

"My prediction for 2012 is a rise in the importance of ethics. I foresee a kind of WikiLeaks emerging to tackle the maneuvrings of less-ethical brands. The move will come from an independent organization with the sole mission of disclosing what those companies are up to. Most companies will be vulnerable to being targeted, despite having some sort of written standards. You see, in most cases, the small print is far too complex and removed from consumers daily reality. The safety net as designed will hardly save a soul.