Julian Assange is under arrest. Will WikiLeaks continue to be relevant? : NPR

What does the arrest of Julian Assange mean for the role that WikiLeaks could play in future election interferences targeting the United States?

National security officials are confident that foreign activity will continue until 2020, but no one knows how familiar it may seem, how much this can evolve – or whether a WikiLeaks without Assange could play a similar role.

The cyberobservers say the answer is probably yes … but.

"WikiLeaks has a reputation for credibility," said Jake Williams, founder of cyber security firm Rendition Infosec. "They also have the reputation of being a spokesman for the Russian government."

WikiLeaks, by his account, is bigger than Assange, with over 100 employees worldwide. But he is his best known staff and his public face, and he has been removed from the loop yet.

Assange was accused of helping an American at the time. An army intelligence service soldier, Chelsea Manning, has access to US government systems to download secret documents. WikiLeaks then published a considerable number of these documents.

Assange would need to be extradited from the UK to the United States to face the charges. This process, then his eventual trial, could mean months or years during which he would be absent from the operation of the site he had created.

The Streisand effect

Even then, the fact that Assange's arrest drew attention to the inherited organization rather than him could strengthen his profile, Williams said. He likened it to how Barbra Streisand ended up drawing more attention to his mansion on the beach trying to suppress his photos.

"Bringing it out of the game can actually have the Streisand effect, where more people are now aware of [WikiLeaks] that would have been before, "Williams said.

Despite this, more people than ever before could also realize that WikiLeaks had served as a barrier to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU in 2016. The agency used cyberattacks to steal data from Americans it then communicated to WikiLeaks, because of his reputation as an independent arbiter of secrets.

The agents used WikiLeaks to unveil a multitude of embarrassing emails: a data dump that resulted in the resignation of the Democratic National Committee chairman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and a dramatic shift in media attention for much of of the 2016 presidential race.

US intelligence has made it clear that efforts to influence the US elections have not stopped.

"We believe that foreign players will see the 2020 US elections as an opportunity to defend their interests," National Intelligence Director Dan Coats told a Senate committee this year. "We expect them to refine their abilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other's experiences and efforts."

The type of phishing attacks that led to these data breaches remains one of the most popular forms of cyberactivity, and attempts have been made to use them in 2018 as well.

Then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Said that Russia had sent its staff fake emails last summer in order to obtain a password.

WikiLeaks has long been considered the gold standard for the disclosure of secret information. The site has developed a broad reach, has worked with many traditional media organizations and has generally made great efforts to protect the sources, Williams said.

The organization could even use Assange's arrest to raise funds, said David Fidler, cybersecurity expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Those who support what WikiLeaks has done in the past will take [this] as a call to arms, as a rallying cry, that it should double the mission originally created by Assange and the other founders of WikiLeaks, "said Fidler.I could see them using Assange as a kind of whistleblower or martyr to increase the scale of what they're trying to do. "

WikiLeaks still retains a lot of goodwill around the world, based on the revelations from these documents, which could motivate other travelers to use this type of disclosure in the future.

However, because of the actual or perceived links of WikiLeaks with the Russian government, Fidler and Williams both said that if an opponent wanted to introduce information into the American speech – and that he took seriously the preparations for the upcoming elections – he could take another route. Wikileaks.

This could mean creating a new avenue, as tried by Russian agents with the DCLeaks website, or the use of established social media or other websites.

"I would probably avoid Wikileaks and probably use another distribution method," Williams said. "What it is, remains to be determined."