Feds Look for Wikileaks Founder at NYC Hacker Event

Declan McCullagh writes on C|Net News:

Federal agents appeared at a hacker conference on Friday morning looking for Julian Assange, the controversial figure who has become the public face of Wikileaks, an organizer said.

Eric Corley, publisher of 2600 Magazine and organizer of The Next HOPE conference in midtown Manhattan, said that five Homeland Security agents appeared at the conference a day before Assange was scheduled to speak.

The conference program lists Assange -- who has been at the center of a maelstrom of positive and negative publicity relating to the arrest of a U.S. serviceman and videos he may have provided the document-sharing site -- as speaking at 1 p.m. ET on Saturday.

"If he shows up, he will be questioned at length," Corley told CNET. Assange did not immediately respond to questions late Friday.

More here.