US News

Inside the WikiLeaks lair

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This is the entrance to the WikiLeaks lair where Julian Assange stores the 250,000 secret cables that are wrecking US diplomacy.

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Here sit two old German submarine engines, which act as emergency back-up generators.

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WikiLeaks' secret lair is a high-tech granite cave, carved out of hard rock and hidden 100 feet below a downtown Stockholm park.

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Inside, there are all the trappings of a James Bond villain.

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It was built originally as a World War II bunker, then strengthened in the 1970s to serve as a refuge for Swedish government officials in case the capital suffered an attack by a Soviet hydrogen bomb. Its interior was redesigned by a Swedish architect who was inspired by the futuristic Bond sets of the 1960s.

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It has a “floating” conference room, with designer furniture...

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...connected by a glass bridge and soaring above the massive work area, with what’s described as a lunar-landscape floor.

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To soften the stark atmosphere, there are walls of green plants, solar lighting and humidifiers.

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Workers pound away on keyboards in the lair's enormous computer area.

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The "floating" conference room hovers above the main server area.