feds look for wikileaks founder at nyc hacker event

from cnet: Federal agents appeared at a hacker conference 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 five Homeland Security agents appeared at the conference a day before Wikileaks Editor in Chief 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 the serviceman may have provided to 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.

Corley announced on April 19 that Assange would be a keynote speaker. But by June 14, after news of the arrest of Army intelligence specialist Bradley Manning leaked, the conference was warning that Assange might remain outside of the United States for fear of being arrested on related charges.