Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from half
Speaker 1: stuff Brooks dot com. Hayley, and welcome to text Us.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Day. We want to
Speaker 1: talk about a very controversial subject. It's actually one that
Speaker 1: we have covered on tech Stuff before, at least to
Speaker 1: some extent. Chris and I talked about this a little
Speaker 1: bit in previous episodes. We're talking about wiki leaks. So
Speaker 1: before we even get into wiki leaks, we do have
Speaker 1: to say this is an incredibly emotionally charged subject with
Speaker 1: lots of political players, right, and Jonathan and I are
Speaker 1: going to eight we you know, if you've listened to
Speaker 1: the show, you probably know a little bit about a
Speaker 1: personal politics. We're going to be really careful with this
Speaker 1: one to to report the facts as they are and
Speaker 1: not slam our foreheads into the microphone. Um. Also, real quick,
Speaker 1: before we get into this, I do want to give
Speaker 1: a brief trigger warning. It's it's a light trigger warning, really. UM.
Speaker 1: Juliana Sang being Um, one of the so called founders
Speaker 1: of wiki leaks, has been brought up on some rape
Speaker 1: charges and so there will be a non graphic discussion
Speaker 1: of that later on in the podcast. Um, if that
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that you would rather avoid hearing,
Speaker 1: than perhaps you would like to uh skip the rest
Speaker 1: of this episode now spoiler alert. Both Lauren and myself
Speaker 1: and and with our particular political views, feel that no
Speaker 1: one in this story really comes out being a complete hero.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's just it's humans being humans, which means
Speaker 1: it's complex. It's it's complex and gets kind of messy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna get messy. But before we get messy,
Speaker 1: let's just clear things up a little bit. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about what wiki leaks is. Now. First of all, the
Speaker 1: name wiki gives you this sense that it has this
Speaker 1: sort of collaborative, open structure that allows people to come
Speaker 1: in and add things and tweak things. Not so much.
Speaker 1: They tried that early on in the timeline of wiki leaks,
Speaker 1: but eventually moved away from it. The name has stuck, however, right,
Speaker 1: and I think that I think that really what they
Speaker 1: wanted to do was, um, it was used, was used
Speaker 1: that that easy reading format of wikis without you know,
Speaker 1: and then they decided to really close down the part
Speaker 1: where hey, anyone can edit it, because that's bad times right,
Speaker 1: right when you're talking about what it is WikiLeaks is
Speaker 1: trying to do and uh and be yes, the sourcing
Speaker 1: of information in order to remain um anonymous and pertinent. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are all things that make it. You know, if
Speaker 1: you were to just open it up for what wiki
Speaker 1: leaks does, it would just be a mess very quickly.
Speaker 1: It also has created a lot of confusion among people
Speaker 1: who are just casually following this or have just heard
Speaker 1: about it, who think that wiki leaks has some sort
Speaker 1: of connection to Wikipedia, which it does not know. The
Speaker 1: Wikipedia and wiki leaks are not at all related. So
Speaker 1: what is wiki leaks. Well, it's a not for profit organization,
Speaker 1: and the purpose of wiki leaks is to publish information
Speaker 1: that would uh normally not be available to the public. Right,
Speaker 1: normally normally be the stuff that's either been classified or yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be trade secret stuff, it could be a
Speaker 1: corporate uh communications that normally would not be available to
Speaker 1: anyone outside a certain group of people within that corporation. Really,
Speaker 1: it's any information that would be of public interest but
Speaker 1: is not publicly available. And in fact, WikiLeaks go so
Speaker 1: far as to say that the organization does not want
Speaker 1: anything that's been published elsewhere. That's not the purpose for WikiLeaks.
Speaker 1: They also make pains to say that they do not
Speaker 1: solicit any kind of information or files. They accept it,
Speaker 1: but they don't solicit, which is an important distinction they
Speaker 1: have to make so that they can, yeah, because otherwise
Speaker 1: they could start getting charges about being a spy or
Speaker 1: or trying to bribe officials or people in who have
Speaker 1: access to to classified information too then share it. If
Speaker 1: they merely accepted donations of information, that absolves them of
Speaker 1: of some of that responsibility kind of technically, yeah, and
Speaker 1: just at least prints a better picture of them, right
Speaker 1: as far as it makes it more difficult to make
Speaker 1: a case against them, doesn't necessarily mean that a case
Speaker 1: would not be made against them and it wouldn't be successful.
Speaker 1: But anyway, we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves now. Um.
Speaker 1: According to Columbia University's Journalism School, I read this, there
Speaker 1: was a very long article about wiki leaks and it's
Speaker 1: association with the Guardian newspaper, a newspaper in the UK,
Speaker 1: and uh, in fact, there was quite a strong relationship
Speaker 1: between the two for a while until an event that
Speaker 1: we will discuss later. Yeah, yeah, that will come important later.
Speaker 1: But according to that particular article, it said that Julian Assange,
Speaker 1: who is often referred to as a founder, found or
Speaker 1: or at the very least the spokesperson for wiki leaks,
Speaker 1: he's certainly the most identifiable personality associated with yeah figurehead,
Speaker 1: if if nothing else. Yeah, Yeah, and that gets complicated too,
Speaker 1: and we'll explain that in a bit. But according to
Speaker 1: this article, he registered the domain name back in nine However,
Speaker 1: every other source I could find six was the earliest
Speaker 1: that it was actually UM registered. This is another part
Speaker 1: that makes talking about wiki leaks challenging, in that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of misinformation about the site itself, not just
Speaker 1: about all the shenanigans that went on both within wiki
Speaker 1: leaks and surrounding Wiki leaks, but just when it really
Speaker 1: got started. Right, And part of the problem we should
Speaker 1: mention now is that a lot of the information out
Speaker 1: there about wiki leaks comes from either Juliana Sounds himself
Speaker 1: or um other other personalities that have been involved with
Speaker 1: the organization and have left it violently and bitterly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so so all of all of this is uh
Speaker 1: not necessarily it's difficult to track down the exact truth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of subjectivity here. I mean, everyone involved
Speaker 1: has their own agenda and uh, and that doesn't that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily align with the organization stated mission. Right, So
Speaker 1: this is this is what makes this complicated. Now what
Speaker 1: is that stated mission? Well, the whole idea here is
Speaker 1: that what wiki leaks is trying to do is make
Speaker 1: available information that the public that that that you know,
Speaker 1: the organization feels the public should have access to but
Speaker 1: otherwise would not because of the secrecy of either governmental
Speaker 1: or corporate organizations or even just other organizations in general,
Speaker 1: and that it's an attempt to make these organizations more transparent. Right.
Speaker 1: They cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UM, in
Speaker 1: particular Article nineteen UM, which which just says that that
Speaker 1: everyone has the right to freedom, freedom of opinion and
Speaker 1: expression right and that they should be able to pursue
Speaker 1: information regardless of frontiers, Which is kind of like saying,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, a person in in say, China, who
Speaker 1: otherwise might not have access to certain information completely has
Speaker 1: the universal right to that, even if the Chinese government
Speaker 1: says they don't. So in other words, it's kind of
Speaker 1: this idea that everyone has this right regardless of what
Speaker 1: your government says. This is the United Nations that has
Speaker 1: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And it's not like
Speaker 1: this is somehow legally binding for all. It's a very
Speaker 1: nice idea. Yeah, it's it's an ideal, right, It's not
Speaker 1: so much legal wording. It's it's saying, ideally, we would
Speaker 1: say all people have the right to these expectations, and
Speaker 1: one of them would be this right to freedom of expression. Now,
Speaker 1: depending on where you are in the world, your right
Speaker 1: to freedom of expression maybe fairly generous or it might
Speaker 1: be really restrictive. In the United States, we like to
Speaker 1: think that we have the freedom of speech, but there
Speaker 1: are certain limitations. I mean, obviously, if you are using
Speaker 1: that freedom of speech to inflict harm upon someone and
Speaker 1: it is completely unjustified, and you know, you could be
Speaker 1: taken to court for things things like lives, um. You know,
Speaker 1: the whole there's the whole argument about you can't yell
Speaker 1: fire in a crowded theater because it could cause people
Speaker 1: your your right or freedom of expression does not override
Speaker 1: someone else's right to safe safety right or at least
Speaker 1: the expectation of safety. Um. And so there are a
Speaker 1: lot of complications here. But even in the United States,
Speaker 1: you know, it's fairly wide open people will argue as
Speaker 1: to how wide open it is because of their own
Speaker 1: personal views. If you go to someplace like the United Kingdom,
Speaker 1: there rights of free speech are are more narrow. There
Speaker 1: are very specific laws that prevent newspapers, for example, from
Speaker 1: violating secrecy agreements. So something The Guardian had to make
Speaker 1: some really tough decisions when they got information from Wiki
Speaker 1: leaks onto whether or not to publish it, because it
Speaker 1: could result in some injunctions from the government, So that
Speaker 1: gets really complex as well. Anyway, Wiki Leaks essentially says
Speaker 1: we don't subscribe to any of these regional concepts. We
Speaker 1: subscribe to this universal concept and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: And so they try to provide the material that journalists
Speaker 1: can use to tell the stories that otherwise would be untold.
Speaker 1: Right um Assan Assam said in one interview with Time
Speaker 1: Um that this organization practices civil obedience. It tries to
Speaker 1: make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations
Speaker 1: that are pushing it in the opposite direction. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny to call it civil obedience considering that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know that they are directly disobeying. Yes, they're being
Speaker 1: disobedient by by very nature. But it's it's all an
Speaker 1: argument about who has the power responsibility if you have
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, as as Uncle Ben would say,
Speaker 1: with great power becomes great responsibility. Now that's that's one
Speaker 1: of those little cliche sayings, but there is truth to that.
Speaker 1: It's very true that if you are a governmental agency
Speaker 1: or a corporation that has a lot of power, then
Speaker 1: there is a certain expectation that you will use that
Speaker 1: power in a responsible way and not do it in
Speaker 1: such a way that you are going to violate people's rights, right.
Speaker 1: You know. At the same time, frequently information is withheld
Speaker 1: by by governments, in particular because because of of of
Speaker 1: measures of national security, because they're trying to protect um,
Speaker 1: you know, either their their military interests or their scientific interests,
Speaker 1: or or you know, the people and the research that
Speaker 1: go into making that country a safe place to be. Right.
Speaker 1: So there is a very delicate balance here, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could argue that there are there's certain information that's
Speaker 1: out there that it's good that it's secret, because that
Speaker 1: means that the people who are doing valuable work, and
Speaker 1: it may be valuable work that in no way is
Speaker 1: violent towards any other person it may be completely humanitarian
Speaker 1: work that their lives could be in jeopardy if the
Speaker 1: information were made public, and that is something that you know,
Speaker 1: needs to be taken into consideration. Now, the what Wicked
Speaker 1: Leaks would say is, on the other hand, you also
Speaker 1: have these instances where UH agencies or the military or
Speaker 1: a corporation are behaving in an unethical or corrupt or
Speaker 1: illegal manner, and without this information becoming public, they can
Speaker 1: never be held accountable for that. And so if they
Speaker 1: you know, this transparency gives accountability to those agencies. And
Speaker 1: in fact, they go so far as to say it's
Speaker 1: the media's role to to reveal this kind of information
Speaker 1: to the public, to to make the public informed enough
Speaker 1: to be good citizens, right, because this is that that
Speaker 1: big relationship. You know, we often think of the government
Speaker 1: as being this kind of separate entity. That is, in
Speaker 1: some cases we think of as sort of that big
Speaker 1: brother Orwellian idea of this this other that dictates what
Speaker 1: we do. But in reality, at least in in you
Speaker 1: can argue to watch right. You know, they're definitely fringe
Speaker 1: theories about how much your your average citizen does or
Speaker 1: doesn't have power over over these things. But but but
Speaker 1: saying that, you know, if we take democracy in the
Speaker 1: United States for what it's supposed to be, if we
Speaker 1: assume that that in fact is the case, then what
Speaker 1: Wiki Leak's role is to tell the public, Hey, this
Speaker 1: is what your officials are up to, and if you
Speaker 1: don't approve of that, you need to be aware of
Speaker 1: it so that you can the next time voting comes
Speaker 1: around behave in a way that that allows you to
Speaker 1: get the right people in charge, assuming of course that
Speaker 1: the right people are the ones who are running for office.
Speaker 1: That's that's a different political discussion. That's the whole other,
Speaker 1: whole other cannon worms. I'm honestly, I'm I'm probably coming
Speaker 1: across is really cynical. I'm actually not at cynical. I'm
Speaker 1: just aware of a lot of cynicism. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where you kind of dance around it anyway. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, the thing is that I read one
Speaker 1: thing about how the US Information Security Oversight Office reported
Speaker 1: that um the number of new secrets designated as such
Speaker 1: by the government rose from two tho nine and so
Speaker 1: so partially what this has to do with is the
Speaker 1: way that governments are processing information and UM and releasing
Speaker 1: it to the public right and and to be fair,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Obama administration in the United States specifically
Speaker 1: said that one of its cornerstones was going to be transparency.
Speaker 1: And so in a way, you can think of the
Speaker 1: media in general and wiki leaks in particular in this case,
Speaker 1: trying to hold them accountable for that claim, saying you
Speaker 1: said you're going to be transparent. Here are all these
Speaker 1: things that have not been reported. What is your stance
Speaker 1: on this? And so, I mean, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: disagree with that motivation. I think that that's very important.
Speaker 1: I think that any nation where you have a free press,
Speaker 1: that presses job to keep an eye and make sure
Speaker 1: that things are not being uh, that people are not
Speaker 1: behaving in an unethical manner or taking advantage of a situation,
Speaker 1: and if they are, that that's reported. I think that's
Speaker 1: very important. It's a key role in journalism, and it's
Speaker 1: something that some people would say has really been slipping
Speaker 1: from journalism over the last couple of decades. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: not a journalists, so I'm not going to comment on that. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's another you know, there's also a lot of
Speaker 1: ideas about out there about how entertainment based the journalism
Speaker 1: industry is these days. Yes, yeah, the whole idea of
Speaker 1: of the the commercialization of journalism. Uh well, anyway, Wiki
Speaker 1: leaks does have some policies that try to guide the
Speaker 1: organization and how it behaves. One of those is that
Speaker 1: that they do sometimes delay or remove some details in
Speaker 1: stories in order to protect people from immediate harm, especially
Speaker 1: either current victims of of harm somewhere or the whistleblowers
Speaker 1: who are reporting this information right. And then on top
Speaker 1: of that, they also try to make sure that every
Speaker 1: single leaked report that they receive, which by the way,
Speaker 1: they they've set up an electronic dropbox, that's their preferred
Speaker 1: method of receiving information is electronically, and that this dropbox
Speaker 1: is encrypted so that again in theory, you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to trace the origin of that other than being
Speaker 1: able to see that this is original source material, but
Speaker 1: it's not tied to any particular person. So the electronic
Speaker 1: dropbox is supposed to be a secure way of getting
Speaker 1: files two Wiki leaks, and they have said that they
Speaker 1: would also receive files or or documents in other forms
Speaker 1: like including through the mail, but they prefer not to
Speaker 1: because that kind of stuff can be intercepted in securities
Speaker 1: and questions, Sharon, and also also if they have a
Speaker 1: physical mailing add dress, that makes it more difficult for
Speaker 1: them to uh avoid entanglements, all right. So anyway, they
Speaker 1: they do refer to their electronic drop box as being
Speaker 1: the preferred method, and they say that everything they get
Speaker 1: they use traditional investigative journalism techniques as well as more
Speaker 1: modern technology based methods to verify that that information is
Speaker 1: in fact accurate and true, and that it really is
Speaker 1: from a verifiable source, right, that the documents are actually
Speaker 1: from wherever the person the anonymous source says they're from.
Speaker 1: So if an anonymous source drops off a enormous file
Speaker 1: that is supposed to contain all these documents from the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice in the United States, for example, they
Speaker 1: would go through and try to verify that those were
Speaker 1: in fact d o J documents and not just someone
Speaker 1: using some logos or whatever to fabricate something. Right. This
Speaker 1: is through a largely volunteer based system, they've They've reported
Speaker 1: and again you know, these members are kind of whibbly wobbly,
Speaker 1: but um they reported having up to eight hundred volunteer members,
Speaker 1: mostly mostly journalists. I think helping helping them out with
Speaker 1: stuff like this, right, and some of those volunteers have
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff to say about wiki leaks, but
Speaker 1: again we'll cover that probably in the second half. I
Speaker 1: think of this of this episode. So they their policies
Speaker 1: to verify everything, to keep it secure, and then once
Speaker 1: they verified it, the next step is deciding on when
Speaker 1: to publish this information. And wiki leaks has done uh well.
Speaker 1: They've done their own journalism. They've had their own journalists right,
Speaker 1: stories that were based off of the documents that they
Speaker 1: had found. That I think you mentioned earlier that that
Speaker 1: part of what wiki leaks holds very DearS that they
Speaker 1: want to publish original material. They don't want to republish anything,
Speaker 1: and and that's and so yes, so um so actually
Speaker 1: doing writing an investigation, it's a big part of that.
Speaker 1: They also will partner with existing media outlets, although there's
Speaker 1: been sort of a contentious relationship between wiki leaks and
Speaker 1: several high profile newspapers UH in multiple nations, and and
Speaker 1: part of that I think has to do with the
Speaker 1: sana's personal handling of situations. But anyway, they they their
Speaker 1: goal is to have stories written about the information they
Speaker 1: have because It's kind of like if you were to
Speaker 1: walk into a laboratory that's doing scientific experiments and you
Speaker 1: see the experiment going on, but you can't really necessarily
Speaker 1: make any meaningful conclusion based on that. You need to
Speaker 1: have the report written up where you can see what
Speaker 1: the actual methodology was, what the results were, and what
Speaker 1: the conclusions are. That's what is digestible to the average person.
Speaker 1: Same thing with these wiki leaks reports. It's usually the
Speaker 1: raw material is something that they hand over to journalists,
Speaker 1: and the journalists and up rutting the stories, and then
Speaker 1: the raw material is published along with the story, so
Speaker 1: that way transparency that they're really going for right that way,
Speaker 1: so that you can check their sources exactly exactly. Like
Speaker 1: if if Lauren reads the story and then you know,
Speaker 1: she reads one journalist's perspective on that story and they're
Speaker 1: the way that they have taken this information and then
Speaker 1: communicated it, she can then go to the the source material,
Speaker 1: read the source material and see if her own interpretation
Speaker 1: of that source material is aligned with what the journalists said.
Speaker 1: Because remember, no matter what, we're all humans, so we
Speaker 1: all view things through our own kind of lens in
Speaker 1: the world, and we try and be as you know,
Speaker 1: a journalists try to be as objective as possible, at
Speaker 1: least most people call themselves journalists try that's the hypothetical ideal.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, but it's it's you know, there's no way
Speaker 1: to ever truly attain that sure And and and in
Speaker 1: some of these cases, they the Assange and and other
Speaker 1: folks at wiki leaks have admitted to wanting to market
Speaker 1: some of these bigger releases, uh, to to really get
Speaker 1: things into the public eye. Right, I don't I haven't
Speaker 1: personally read any any ill intent to change details, but
Speaker 1: but just to bring the most important details to the forefront,
Speaker 1: because they are a political organization, right and when you
Speaker 1: look at it, you're you're talking about sometimes they're getting
Speaker 1: files that are enormous, Like they're talking about pages and
Speaker 1: pages and pages of documentation. It's like like over over
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand documents and ago that that's you know,
Speaker 1: obviously way too much for anyone to just wade through
Speaker 1: beginning to end and find the nuggets that are meaningful,
Speaker 1: because a lot of this stuff has information that's not
Speaker 1: really um, you know, important in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: It might have been important for a very specific purpose,
Speaker 1: but you know, beyond that, it doesn't really matter so much.
Speaker 1: So well, we'll mention a few examples of stuff like
Speaker 1: that a little bit later. Yeah, so they you know,
Speaker 1: this is this is their basic purpose and their basic approach.
Speaker 1: To go into more detail, we'll have to kind of
Speaker 1: look at the timeline and discuss what had happened throughout
Speaker 1: the history of wiki leaks, which course is still in
Speaker 1: existence today. I don't mean to suggest that that history
Speaker 1: is over, but it is. It is a continuing story.
Speaker 1: But um, but most of the most of the action
Speaker 1: within wiki leaks was going on around Yeah, that's when
Speaker 1: the big big stuff was going on, although it's played
Speaker 1: a part in other stories since then, and of course
Speaker 1: before then too. But before we get into that discussion,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Alright, so we've had an
Speaker 1: overview of what wiki leaks is, what its purpose is,
Speaker 1: what you know, role it's it's ideally would fill within
Speaker 1: the world of journalism and transparency and accountability. Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the timeline. So it was around
Speaker 1: two thousand six that wiki leaks began to coalesce, and
Speaker 1: it was officially launched in two thousand seven. Right, either
Speaker 1: December two thousand six or early two thousand seven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's right around then. The first public nations were coming
Speaker 1: out in in December of two thousand and six, but
Speaker 1: most folks just say that are the official launch where
Speaker 1: we've had a thing was in early two thousand seven, right,
Speaker 1: And and I did want to mention that this is
Speaker 1: coming on the heels of in two thousand five, the
Speaker 1: commission that had been investigating the nine eleven terrorists attacks
Speaker 1: here in the United States had found that that poor
Speaker 1: information sharing was a huge failure of the government in
Speaker 1: the in the lead up to the attacks, of of
Speaker 1: of preventing this sort of thing from happening, and and
Speaker 1: that that had led to internally a lot of reorganization
Speaker 1: of how information is shared in between different departments department. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this is something that we see in all levels
Speaker 1: of organization where you have multiple departments and then the
Speaker 1: communication between departments. Sometimes the communication within a department tends
Speaker 1: to get bogged down by red tape. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you see this all the time. If you ever read
Speaker 1: any stories about UH police investigations that spanned multiple jurisdictions,
Speaker 1: that's always part of the story is how complicated it
Speaker 1: was to get the cooperation of one police office versus another,
Speaker 1: and if their federal UH investigators, then that adds another
Speaker 1: layer of complexity. And and it was it wasn't until
Speaker 1: around that time that UM, I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of agencies had been kind of resisting going digital just
Speaker 1: because of the ease of flow of information, which isn't
Speaker 1: really considered a good thing when you're trying to keep
Speaker 1: things secret. UM. And but but it was after after
Speaker 1: two five after that report from that commission, that things
Speaker 1: started going going online. And the first story that wiki
Speaker 1: leaks partnered with The Guardian on was for around August
Speaker 1: thirty one, two thousand seven. It was a story about
Speaker 1: the alleged corruption of Daniel A Rotmi, the former president
Speaker 1: of Kenya, and it was a leaked report. The Kenyan
Speaker 1: government had elected to keep this report secret, and UH
Speaker 1: someone leaked the information to wiki leaks. Wiki leaks then
Speaker 1: approached The Guardian and the Guardian was very cautious about
Speaker 1: this kind of relationship. It was one of those things
Speaker 1: where they saw the value in what WikiLeaks was doing.
Speaker 1: WikiLeaks was setting itself up to be a completely independent
Speaker 1: safe house of information leaked information. UH. The idea being
Speaker 1: that of course anyone who would submit to it would
Speaker 1: remain anonymous, WikiLeaks would not point the finger at anybody,
Speaker 1: and that that information could then get to some sort
Speaker 1: of outlet that could communicate it to the wider world.
Speaker 1: So this was the first attempt of The Guardian and
Speaker 1: WikiLeaks to work together. From the story I read from
Speaker 1: Columbia University, it really did sound like Julian Assange was
Speaker 1: a big part of this early early on, and that
Speaker 1: that was both a good thing in the early days
Speaker 1: and turned into a complicated thing as time went on. Um.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, he can he can have an
Speaker 1: effect on people, uh and make them feel like they're
Speaker 1: not really being listened to. He's frequently described as being
Speaker 1: a very um dynamic personality. That's a very generous way
Speaker 1: of putting it. Uh. Yeah, people who have taught to
Speaker 1: him have had some pretty contentious things to say about him.
Speaker 1: I've never met the man, so I know nothing about
Speaker 1: him personally, nor have I had any interactions with him,
Speaker 1: But just going from what other people said, it seems
Speaker 1: like he seems he seems very intense. Yeah, he could
Speaker 1: be a handful, yes, um Uh. This the WikiLeaks would
Speaker 1: later be presented with an award from Musty International um
Speaker 1: on behalf of the Kenyan folks who leaked this information.
Speaker 1: Um uh. Now that's one of the awards that Wiki
Speaker 1: leaks has won. Wiki Leaks, of course, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it is very controversial, but there are organizations that have
Speaker 1: recognized its role in UH in uncovering corruption and even
Speaker 1: going so far as to uh giving enough information so
Speaker 1: that authorities could end up pursuing and correcting problems. UM
Speaker 1: or that people could end up going out and voting
Speaker 1: what would what some would call a corrupt administration out
Speaker 1: of power. This is, of course, you know, on a
Speaker 1: global scale, not not limited to just one country. Uh.
Speaker 1: In February of two eight, a Wiki leaks report along
Speaker 1: with The Guardian exposed a Swiss bank called Julius Bear
Speaker 1: for money laundering uh and UH that ended up getting
Speaker 1: Wiki leaks hit with one of their first major lawsuits,
Speaker 1: which is not something unusual for the organization. They've been
Speaker 1: hit with many of them. Right. Also in two eight,
Speaker 1: they posted a bunch of scientologies secret membership manuals. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because there's there are some stories that
Speaker 1: talk about how Wiki leaks expected certain things to get
Speaker 1: a lot more attention than what they what it actually did,
Speaker 1: and that these manuals were that was one of the
Speaker 1: things thought that a lot more attention would be devoted
Speaker 1: to the scientology manuals than what actually happened. And that's
Speaker 1: another reason why wiki leaks was looking to partner with
Speaker 1: various newspapers around the world, because they were discovering that
Speaker 1: trying to direct people to wiki leaks to find out
Speaker 1: about the information was tricky. Anyone who makes a website
Speaker 1: learns pretty quickly it's hard to get folks to go
Speaker 1: to your website. It is folks need to want to
Speaker 1: go to your website, you can't really make them go.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, if WikiLeaks was going to fulfill
Speaker 1: its mission and being this this uh depository of secret
Speaker 1: information that could then be used by journalists, they determined
Speaker 1: that they had to reach out to more journalists to
Speaker 1: make that happen. Um, the next thing I have is
Speaker 1: November two thousand nine. Do you have anything before that? Okay?
Speaker 1: That's when they published a comprehensive list of text pager
Speaker 1: messages that were sent during September eleventh, two thousand one,
Speaker 1: which of course was the date of the terrorist attacks
Speaker 1: that that that ended thousands of lives here in the
Speaker 1: United States. Um. And they were criticized for this because
Speaker 1: a lot of those text messages were just simple messages
Speaker 1: from between family members or co workers to let people
Speaker 1: know that they were all right, that they had um
Speaker 1: managed to to stay clear of the impact zones, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing, and that there was a real question
Speaker 1: of is this actually newsworthy? Is this is this valuable
Speaker 1: information to publish? Is this are is this getting a
Speaker 1: little too voyeuristic into the personal tragedies that happened during
Speaker 1: this day? And and and there was a little bit
Speaker 1: of a question um. And this ties back into the
Speaker 1: scientology bit of of whether wiki leaks was was publishing
Speaker 1: things to get attention and to be sensational um rather
Speaker 1: mission right. Yeah, And that's that's played wiki leaks throughout
Speaker 1: its history as well. Like the again, the goal that
Speaker 1: it states seems very noble in the journalistic sense, but
Speaker 1: the behavior of at least some of the people in
Speaker 1: wiki leagues may have been so is aligned quite with that.
Speaker 1: It seemed it seemed like you said, a little more sensationalists,
Speaker 1: and that might not have ever been the intent of
Speaker 1: the people in wiki leaks. It just maybe the impression
Speaker 1: that everyone got from the way it was handled. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: getting back in, one last little thing about these these
Speaker 1: text pager messages, UM, was that Wiki leaks said their
Speaker 1: response to the criticism of is this actually newsworthy? Their
Speaker 1: response was, this helps create a more complete picture of
Speaker 1: what happened on that day. And I'm not. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's more complete. I just don't know that it's more relevant. Sure,
Speaker 1: sure I could, I could. I could argue that one
Speaker 1: you know that that that could easily be argued either way.
Speaker 1: But um, but yeah, I did want to mention also
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, UM, that was the year that
Speaker 1: President Obama signed the executive order requiring a whole bun
Speaker 1: of people who hold classified status here in the States
Speaker 1: um to receive extra training on what actually needs classification
Speaker 1: and UM and also forced people who who are creating
Speaker 1: these classified documents to identify themselves on those documents. And
Speaker 1: again this is that this is that effort for official
Speaker 1: transparency to say, you know, let's not just blanket whitewash
Speaker 1: everything is classified, because that just all that really does
Speaker 1: is engender a spirit of distrust in the government to say,
Speaker 1: like what, why are they hiding this? What else do
Speaker 1: they have to hide? And uh, And of course, I
Speaker 1: mean this is an ongoing story, stuff that we're finding
Speaker 1: out about now, about things like clandestine surveillance, which are
Speaker 1: these are stories that are breaking as we are recording
Speaker 1: this podcast in early June two thousand thirteen. There are
Speaker 1: all these stories about the n s A and surveillance
Speaker 1: and cell phones and things like that. And some might
Speaker 1: even argue that the things that happened with wiki leaks
Speaker 1: are what kind of led to those policies, which is
Speaker 1: the antithesis of what they were supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: I think I think that there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: that actually from from I think a lot of governments
Speaker 1: have kind of cracked down on openness in response to
Speaker 1: the sort of thing, yeah it's it's you know. And
Speaker 1: some might argue they're cracking down on one side while
Speaker 1: really doubling down on the shady stuff on the other side.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like the Wookie defense. Hey it's Chewbacca.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, I mean, these is complicated issue. April
Speaker 1: that's when Assane goes to the National Press Club in
Speaker 1: d C and shows a video of a two thousand
Speaker 1: seven incident. Now this is the the most probably the
Speaker 1: most notorious Wiki leaks release. Yeah, of I mean, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of high profile ones, but this one
Speaker 1: is like the defining one, I think. And this is
Speaker 1: one that showed an incident in two thousand seven in
Speaker 1: which UH two US Apache helicopter pilots allegedly executed UH
Speaker 1: innocent people on the ground in Iraq, including to Reuter's correspondence.
Speaker 1: The whole thing was caught on video, and Assange called
Speaker 1: it collateral murder. That's what he named the video. And
Speaker 1: again that seems very sensationalist. Now, at the same time,
Speaker 1: the video itself really did portray a horrific act. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and I mean, and there's and there's full audio
Speaker 1: in it, so there's this very chillingly calm discussion of
Speaker 1: everything that they're doing and um and and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's you. You can you can see. I think at
Speaker 1: least eighteen people are killed during the course of the
Speaker 1: y and two of them were Reuters reporters, right, right.
Speaker 1: This has been a project that had been going on
Speaker 1: since March and had been they had received these files
Speaker 1: and UH kind of went into a frenzy of work
Speaker 1: in Iceland putting them together. It was called Project B
Speaker 1: and and they knew that it was big. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: knew it was big. And and again as Sange was
Speaker 1: trying to find a way to get more visibile be
Speaker 1: for wiki leaks. So part of that sensationalism was in
Speaker 1: fact intended because it was meant to to get as
Speaker 1: much press as possible. But also, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it was an absolutely pressworthy release. Yes, I mean, you
Speaker 1: know you can't Yeah, it was, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was a legitimate It was a completely legitimate story.
Speaker 1: It was something that needed to be broken because it
Speaker 1: was people needed to be held accountable. Although it should
Speaker 1: be said that the military never did charge those helicopter
Speaker 1: pilots with anything illegal or the official statement was essentially
Speaker 1: that the people were in an area where there was
Speaker 1: a suspected um uh ambush that was going to attack
Speaker 1: US forces and that the helicopter pilots acted responsibly. That's
Speaker 1: the official response. So anyway, definitely was newsworthy. Uh. Then again,
Speaker 1: it was the handling of it that I think was sensational,
Speaker 1: not the material itself, but that was again completely valid. Uh.
Speaker 1: On the Pentagon arrested US Army private Bradley Manning on
Speaker 1: charges of downloading and then leaking thousands of classified US documents,
Speaker 1: including this video. And uh, that's sort of been the
Speaker 1: The video and and the handling of Bradley Manning and
Speaker 1: and Bradley Manning's case have been this sort of defining
Speaker 1: element to what Wiki leaks is and the way that
Speaker 1: it's portrayed in general. I mean, this story is still
Speaker 1: ongoing to this day, right, I believe that the trial
Speaker 1: for Manning is going on right now as we're recording
Speaker 1: this podcast. Yes, it is, although it apparently it's going
Speaker 1: much more quickly than what they had originally planned. They
Speaker 1: thought it was going to take It was gonna be
Speaker 1: a three month trial, but apparently there moving through witnesses
Speaker 1: much more quickly than they had previously thought. And uh,
Speaker 1: and there were thousands of documents involved in this, not
Speaker 1: just the video, right right. Uh. WikiLeaks ended up publishing
Speaker 1: over two documents from Manning. He had downloaded all of
Speaker 1: these diplomatic cables while he was in an Iraq Army
Speaker 1: outpost between November two thousand nine in April um reportedly
Speaker 1: having burned them to a c d R labeled Lady
Speaker 1: Gaga and told a told a hacker friend that he
Speaker 1: had them. The hacker turned him in, and apparently that
Speaker 1: hacker has since felt a great deal of conflict about
Speaker 1: that act. UH. The charge, the main charge against Bradley
Speaker 1: Manning is that he knowingly gave intelligence to the enemy
Speaker 1: through indirect means. And UH because before he was arrested
Speaker 1: and put on you know, put on trial, he had
Speaker 1: obviously leaked these documents to wiki leaks, right, and so
Speaker 1: in the trial I can say this because this was
Speaker 1: reported very recently as of the recording of this podcast. UH.
Speaker 1: The defense called the senior intelligence or one senior intelligence
Speaker 1: analyst from Manning's unit. Her name is Casey Fulton, and
Speaker 1: Fulton's said that the unit received no specific warning about
Speaker 1: sites visited by al Qaeda. She did say that al
Speaker 1: Qaeda would visit sites like Facebook or Google or even
Speaker 1: Google Maps to gather information, but she did not mention
Speaker 1: Wiki leaks among them. And the defenses case is saying that, UH,
Speaker 1: that there was information went directly to right well that
Speaker 1: the al Qaeda was not using wiki leaks specifically together
Speaker 1: information that that was not Manning's intent, and in fact,
Speaker 1: the judge in the case has said that the prosecution
Speaker 1: has to show that Manning had actual knowledge that he
Speaker 1: was actually giving intelligence to the enemy through a third
Speaker 1: party and intermediary or in some other indirect way, and
Speaker 1: that the soldier must have had quote a general evil
Speaker 1: intent unquote, and to have known he was dealing directly
Speaker 1: or indirectly with an enemy of the United States in
Speaker 1: order for this particular charge to hold. Now keep in
Speaker 1: mind this one charge out of all the trial. So
Speaker 1: but it sounds to me that it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really tough case to make, you know, to prove the
Speaker 1: intent parts specifically, but improving intent is one of those
Speaker 1: things that's uh, basically impossible, but doesn't when people don't
Speaker 1: do it or don't don't achieve it. Now to say
Speaker 1: they also point out that this is a military trial.
Speaker 1: It's different from other trials in the United States. Typically
Speaker 1: in the United States you have a trial with in
Speaker 1: front of a jury of your peers. But in this case,
Speaker 1: it is a judge that is overseeing the case and
Speaker 1: her word is final at least unless you go through
Speaker 1: an appeals process. But and you do not have exactly
Speaker 1: the same the same rights to see what is a
Speaker 1: normal citizen in a court of law. So getting back
Speaker 1: to two Wiki leaks back in UH July two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten, so so Bradley Manning had been arrested. By
Speaker 1: this point, three news organizations released separate accounts of the
Speaker 1: war logs gathered from Wiki Leaks regarding the war in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: And in August UH, that's when another big controversial event
Speaker 1: in the history of Wiki leaks in general and Julian
Speaker 1: Assange in particular happens. UH. Two former employees of Wiki
Speaker 1: leaks filed rape charges against Julian Assange, and Assange has
Speaker 1: essentially spent the rest of his life from that point
Speaker 1: evading any extradition to Sweden to stand trial for this.
Speaker 1: All right, right, these charges were brought up in Sweden. UM.
Speaker 1: The the two women who have brought up the charges,
Speaker 1: their names have not been revealed to the press. UM
Speaker 1: and UH. In Sweden there are laws about using using condoms.
Speaker 1: If partner tells you to use one and you do not,
Speaker 1: then you can be brought up on what is called
Speaker 1: a rape charge and and the technical definition I shall
Speaker 1: leave up to other political parties. Yeah. At any rate,
Speaker 1: he has been fighting extradition since then, and at this
Speaker 1: point he's actually um been a granted asylum from by Ecuador.
Speaker 1: Ecuador has granted asanjea sailing. I'll tell him more about
Speaker 1: that when we get a little further down. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: whole the whole drama is a story and of itself.
Speaker 1: But because again it's so hard to get to the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter, there's just we actually talked about
Speaker 1: doing an episode just about Julian Sange, but instead of
Speaker 1: about wiki leaks. But the more we looked into it,
Speaker 1: the more we realize that this there's no way to
Speaker 1: verify half the information that's out there, right, you know,
Speaker 1: as as I said at the beginning of the episode,
Speaker 1: all of the information about Julian Assange comes from either
Speaker 1: Assange himself UM or from very close personal ex compatriots
Speaker 1: who are pretty angry at him. Right, So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of biases, and neither of those sources are
Speaker 1: really necessarily reliable. So the UH in July you had
Speaker 1: the UH, the the Afghanistan reports released. Now that was
Speaker 1: one third of three big blocks of information that we're
Speaker 1: going to be released UH that year. The other two
Speaker 1: were about the ira Key War, which that information came
Speaker 1: out in October, and then there was a huge block
Speaker 1: of classified US diplomatic cables, and a cable is essentially
Speaker 1: a message, So these were all these thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of diplomatic messages that came out in November twenty ten.
Speaker 1: That was the trifecta of big, big bombshell releases that
Speaker 1: came out in twenty that really established what wiki leaks
Speaker 1: was all about. I think I think there's in November
Speaker 1: where the ones are specifically from Manning. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then in September twenty a little bit earlier, that's when
Speaker 1: Daniel dom Scheideberg left Wiki leaks, right, that's when he walked.
Speaker 1: He had joined in two thousand eight and had become
Speaker 1: sort of Asannge's right hand man. Yeah, he was kind of.
Speaker 1: He was specifically a spokesperson four Wiki Leaks in Europe,
Speaker 1: mainly in Germany, and he had a major falling out
Speaker 1: with a Sange to the point where it went from
Speaker 1: he and Assange sharing the same ideals to both of
Speaker 1: them demonizing one another whenever they had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: speak to the media. And they were roommates somewhere in
Speaker 1: between there. So this is like talking about that band
Speaker 1: you used to love and then they broke up, and
Speaker 1: now no one has anything good to say about each other,
Speaker 1: multiplied by about a billion. Right later, later on, he
Speaker 1: would publish a book called Inside wiki Leaks, My Time
Speaker 1: with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was not particularly complementary of Osange in that book
Speaker 1: or in any of his interviews. He left to try,
Speaker 1: and his goal was to found a competing leak site.
Speaker 1: He felt that wiki leaks had lost sight of its ideals,
Speaker 1: that it was not following, it was not behaving in
Speaker 1: a way that again was aligned with its ideals. Perhaps
Speaker 1: he felt that it was more sensationalized, the kind of
Speaker 1: way that we've been talking about. How you know, that's
Speaker 1: always been my personal impression, But again that's a personal impression. Um.
Speaker 1: So he wanted to found a company called open leaks
Speaker 1: that would be essentially a competitor to wiki leaks. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he wanted it to be more transparent than wiki
Speaker 1: leaks was. So he didn't want to have these kind
Speaker 1: of deals with various news organizations where it was almost exclusive,
Speaker 1: like a partnership saying Hey, I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: this information and then you can run it, and you know,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll have this buddy buddy relationship. Just link back
Speaker 1: to my site. Make sure you do that. If you
Speaker 1: link back to my site, we're all good. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to do any of that, but eventually he ended
Speaker 1: up changing his tune for open leaks because it just
Speaker 1: didn't go well. Part of it was that when he left,
Speaker 1: one of the things he did was he copied about
Speaker 1: thirty five hundred files and then deleted them from wiki
Speaker 1: leaks's database, and he left with those files. Depending upon
Speaker 1: whom you ask, he was either trying to partially sabotage
Speaker 1: wiki leaks and establish open leaks by getting a jump
Speaker 1: start with these files, or from his point of view,
Speaker 1: he felt that what wiki weeks was doing was irresponsible
Speaker 1: and endangering the information that was within these thirty files,
Speaker 1: and he was only copying it so that that information
Speaker 1: would remain safe until such time that he could return
Speaker 1: those files to wiki leaks. This is why this gets
Speaker 1: really complicated, because people get you know, they get a
Speaker 1: little irritated at each other and then they act out
Speaker 1: a bit. So um Anyway, open leaks never really took off.
Speaker 1: It ended up sort of transforming into more of a
Speaker 1: site that's designed to teach other people how to set
Speaker 1: up sites that that can accept and publish leaked material.
Speaker 1: So it really did change quite a bit. So then
Speaker 1: we had October and November where those other big releases
Speaker 1: came out. In two thousand eleven, that's when wiki leaks
Speaker 1: was hit by a pretty hard blow, and it didn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do with a lawsuit. This was a blockade,
Speaker 1: a financial blockade. This was when several major financial companies,
Speaker 1: banks and credit card companies all decided to end any
Speaker 1: transfer of funds towards Wiki leaks. Wiki leaks existed solely
Speaker 1: upon uh submissions of of monetary donations to the site.
Speaker 1: You know, people were donating money in order for wiki
Speaker 1: leaks to keep going. This was essentially all those methods
Speaker 1: of transmission saying we are no longer allowing payments to
Speaker 1: go to wiki leaks, So even if you want to donate,
Speaker 1: there was no route for you to go right. Um.
Speaker 1: It actually got to a point where Assange said that
Speaker 1: wiki leaks had burned through of its assets UH and
Speaker 1: and that it wasn't able to really regenerate them in
Speaker 1: any meaningful way because this blockade was preventing payments to
Speaker 1: go to wiki leaks. Absolutely, and this was also going
Speaker 1: on at the same time that um or or a
Speaker 1: little bit before this, UH servers had started withdrawing their
Speaker 1: services from wiki leaks. Amazon dumped them, every DNS had
Speaker 1: terminated their service, right it got to a point where
Speaker 1: you know, you could still get there. It was you know,
Speaker 1: they would have work around so that people could still
Speaker 1: get to UH to wiki leaks, but it was a
Speaker 1: lot of that that support was going away, and you know,
Speaker 1: there were theories on all sides of this as well,
Speaker 1: saying that was a conspiracy that these companies had been
Speaker 1: pressured by various governments around the world to end any
Speaker 1: support so that way wiki leaks would essentially kind of
Speaker 1: starved to death, that no one would be able to
Speaker 1: get there, that it would no one would be able
Speaker 1: to financially support it, and that it would just go
Speaker 1: away and then hey, no more problems with all this
Speaker 1: leaked information because no one has any place for this
Speaker 1: leaked information to go. So UH, whether or not that's
Speaker 1: true or if it was just the company saying, you know,
Speaker 1: this is something that is going to cause us problems
Speaker 1: and we just don't want to be a part of it,
Speaker 1: and they were independently coming to that decision. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess if there was a leak about it, we'd
Speaker 1: find out this was. This was also around the same
Speaker 1: time that UM that they had published in September of two,
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, they had published over two cables that
Speaker 1: did not contain redactions, which means that UM that the
Speaker 1: sources of this information and in some places victims names
Speaker 1: and etcetera, had not been blacked out. Yeah. In other words,
Speaker 1: there were names of individuals within these cables that someone
Speaker 1: who is reading over this could then target, either politically
Speaker 1: or literally target these these folks that are mentioned in
Speaker 1: these cables, And so there were there's a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism leveled against Wiki leaks and against Assange, saying that
Speaker 1: it was being irresponsible and endangering people's lives. Assange has
Speaker 1: not been the most um compassionate person in regards to this.
Speaker 1: He's often said that, uh, his goal is to save
Speaker 1: innocent lives, but if it endangers a few people because
Speaker 1: of the information that's revealed in these in these cables,
Speaker 1: then that's you know, that's acceptable. I'm paraphrase thing that's
Speaker 1: not exactly what he said. But it's it's more or
Speaker 1: less the message that has been given collateral murder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's yeah. That's the problem is that the Lauren seems
Speaker 1: to feel that this might be a little touch hypocritical,
Speaker 1: considering the uh, the criticisms that WikiLeaks has levied against UH,
Speaker 1: you know, governments and corporations that WikiLeaks itself seems to
Speaker 1: be engaging in the same sort of cavalier behavior towards
Speaker 1: people's safety. And to be fair, it is absolutely not
Speaker 1: a parallel to compare um, uh putting putting a source
Speaker 1: in hypothetical danger of persecution versus and Apache pilot killing
Speaker 1: a child in a car. That's that's different. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the obviously very different things. But it does seem to
Speaker 1: suggest that there's a little bit of hypocrisy going on.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with Lauren, is what I'm saying. UM.
Speaker 1: But but but that's but but that is that is
Speaker 1: my personal opinion and uh and I apologize a little
Speaker 1: bit for injecting it. Um. This this move did did
Speaker 1: create a great rift between WikiLeaks and UM. Several of
Speaker 1: those newspapers or or reporting organizations that we had been
Speaker 1: talking about them being in cahoots with earlier at The Guardian,
Speaker 1: the New York Times, UM, a bunch of papers around
Speaker 1: the world. Der Spiegel was another one. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: actually uh. And the way that Assange was handling the
Speaker 1: relationship between wiki leaks and these news organizations was starting
Speaker 1: to cheese them off. Like the Guardian had certain expectations,
Speaker 1: The New York Times had certain expectations uh, And the
Speaker 1: Guardian had felt that the New York Times was going
Speaker 1: to be able to report on certain things which the
Speaker 1: Guardian actually wanted to have happened, because again the Guardians
Speaker 1: in the UK and the secrecy laws are such that
Speaker 1: there were there were these partnerships between the Guardian and
Speaker 1: New York Times where New York Times could publish some
Speaker 1: stuff that would possibly get the Guardian into trouble but
Speaker 1: would still benefit the Guardian in some way. So it
Speaker 1: was this this kind of weird relationship that was going on.
Speaker 1: But then Assange got essentially got ticked off at the
Speaker 1: New York Times for the way that the New York
Speaker 1: Time Times handled its information because one thing that the
Speaker 1: New York Times would do is approached the government and say, hey,
Speaker 1: we receive these cables and we plan on running with
Speaker 1: a story, but we're letting you know ahead of time,
Speaker 1: whereas in the UK that's generally not done. Generally in
Speaker 1: the UK, they run the story. So that put pressure
Speaker 1: on the Guardian. It also put pressure on a Sange.
Speaker 1: And then Assange was apparently very much upset about this
Speaker 1: and wanted to sever the relationship with the New York Times,
Speaker 1: but the Guardians still wanted this relationship with the New
Speaker 1: York Times. If this is starting to sound like the
Speaker 1: relationships in middle school drama club, that's kind of what
Speaker 1: it comes out to being, except the stakes are obviously
Speaker 1: way higher. Absolutely, and uh yeah, they the newspapers five
Speaker 1: five global newspapers found up putting out a joint statement
Speaker 1: that said, um, we deplore the decision of Wiki Leaks
Speaker 1: to publish the unredacted State Department cables, which may put
Speaker 1: sources at risk. The decision to publish by Julian Assange
Speaker 1: was his and his alone, right, yeah, because they all
Speaker 1: had the policy of actually going through and very carefully
Speaker 1: uh redacting any identifiable information to protect sources and to
Speaker 1: protect people who could potentially become a victim of some agency.
Speaker 1: And uh and you know that was an important part
Speaker 1: of their process to the point where you had people
Speaker 1: entire departments in charge of reviewing every single cable to
Speaker 1: make certain that all the stuff they published was going
Speaker 1: to be safe. And so for this move to happen
Speaker 1: on Wiki leaks and meant that a lot of that
Speaker 1: work was just nullified. And obviously that is a good
Speaker 1: reason to become upset. Well. Once you get into about
Speaker 1: May two thousand twelve, so Assange had been fighting extradition
Speaker 1: attempts and he had been living in London while Sweden
Speaker 1: authorities were trying to extradite into Sweden. He had he
Speaker 1: had spent about a week in jail in December of
Speaker 1: on on those um extradition charges. Yeah, and he had
Speaker 1: been released on bail, been in and out of court
Speaker 1: trying to appeal extradition, and by May two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: the British Supreme Court, it had gone all the way
Speaker 1: up to the British Supreme Court said no, we're not
Speaker 1: going to prevent your extradition. You are going to have
Speaker 1: to go to Sweden to stand trial. That's when a
Speaker 1: Sange then started to appeal to Ecuador the embassy in
Speaker 1: the UK and actually saying will you grant me asylum.
Speaker 1: And um, it was at a point where he was
Speaker 1: in the he was staying in the embassy, he had
Speaker 1: not officially been granted asylum by Ecuador, and then there
Speaker 1: was going to be apparently a raid on the Ecuador
Speaker 1: embassy in order to get a Sange out, and that's
Speaker 1: when Ecuador said we're giving you asylum. So it's almost
Speaker 1: it's possible that that that raid was the precipitating Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was exactly the moment where the Ecuador said, you know,
Speaker 1: we weren't going to but now we totally are because
Speaker 1: now it's political. So still very complicated issue. Um, and
Speaker 1: you know, guilt or innocence aside. It's it's one of
Speaker 1: those stories that is really complicated and tough to to
Speaker 1: kind of unwind and follow. So anyway, Wiki leaks is
Speaker 1: still still a thing still around. It's still you know,
Speaker 1: accepts leaked information. Uh. It has uncovered lots of stories,
Speaker 1: not just with governments, but like we said, with corporations,
Speaker 1: some of which have caused newspapers to get into trouble
Speaker 1: for running the stories. Things like you know, major corporations
Speaker 1: that may have fallen short on promises for doing things
Speaker 1: like cleaning up a gasoline spill. There was a specific
Speaker 1: example of that, UM, and it continues to fulfill that role.
Speaker 1: Some argue that it's even possible that the whole Ossange
Speaker 1: story could just be a smoke and mirrors for Wiki
Speaker 1: Leaks to continue doing what it does without having to
Speaker 1: worry about so much focus because there's this fall guy. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got this very flash bang kind of person over
Speaker 1: here who's going like, look at me, extradition charges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they can continue doing their their political political work. Right. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I doubt that anything is that planned out because life
Speaker 1: is just complicated and messy and it's tough to ever
Speaker 1: have a plan that, like James bondishes be very impressed.
Speaker 1: But but you know it's possible. You know, if they
Speaker 1: did do that, then it's it's the stuff of movie legend.
Speaker 1: Speaking of movie legends, there is a film being made, well,
Speaker 1: there's there. There are two films that that have been
Speaker 1: UM in production recently. One is a documentary that was
Speaker 1: just released I believe, um Alex Gibney's We Steal Secrets, right,
Speaker 1: and that one focused both on a Sange and on
Speaker 1: Manning and uh and sort of it was supposed to be,
Speaker 1: you know, like a warts and all kind of portrayal,
Speaker 1: and some people say that his portrayal of Assange does
Speaker 1: give sort of a warts and all approach. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, Assange definitely did not make that
Speaker 1: relationship shop a sweet one because apparently he demanded outright
Speaker 1: that if Gibney where to talk to a Sane it
Speaker 1: would cost him a million bucks, and the documentary filmmaker,
Speaker 1: that's probably not the best way to win that person
Speaker 1: over to your side. No, Yeah, Sane has come out
Speaker 1: very vocally against this documentary, which is funny because people
Speaker 1: other people have also on both sides, have come down
Speaker 1: upon this documentary right and and some some people are
Speaker 1: proponents of it. One uh four more Wiki Leaks employee
Speaker 1: in particular, James ball Um reported reported it being a
Speaker 1: very accurate portrayal, like to the point that it was
Speaker 1: deja vu seeing the film. Now, there are some who
Speaker 1: say that the Manning's portrayal was overly sympathetic. That they
Speaker 1: do you know, it's hard to say that that it's
Speaker 1: unjustified because you're talking about one person who may very
Speaker 1: well have been acting in what he thought was the
Speaker 1: right way to to exp supose what he saw as
Speaker 1: unethical behavior and there's no you know, there's no official
Speaker 1: way of doing it and any hope of it being addressed,
Speaker 1: and so he went outside the system in order to
Speaker 1: try and have this done. That's that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: the story that's being told. There are other people who
Speaker 1: say it's more complicated than that, and that you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't truly altruistic motivations that had him do what
Speaker 1: he did. But again, that's a really complicated story. When
Speaker 1: you're doing a documentary film, you have to simplify things
Speaker 1: so that you can and so two hours long and not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that was one of the criticisms I saw was
Speaker 1: that it made uh Manning out to be more sympathetic
Speaker 1: than than the person felt that he should be. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard to say that you can't
Speaker 1: feel sympathy for someone who's being held for a military
Speaker 1: trial that doesn't have the same same protections as a
Speaker 1: criminal or civil case would in a normal court of law.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, I don't know, so we don't
Speaker 1: know the guy, don't know all the details. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, that will play out and the judge will
Speaker 1: come to a decision. So the other one is, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fictional film, or I mean fictional, it's
Speaker 1: a biopic. Maybe Barnaby cumber bund in it benefitted cumber
Speaker 1: Batch right right, I'm sorry, John Harrison? Is that John Harrison?
Speaker 1: And um? This this film is called The fifthest Stage.
Speaker 1: It's being directed by Bill Condon, UM and it is
Speaker 1: slated to be released on October eleventh, um and uh.
Speaker 1: Cumber Batch has said that Assange directly asked him to
Speaker 1: not do the film, um, calling it a massive propaganda attack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then maybe it is. I haven't seen it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll have to wait yet. But if you want to
Speaker 1: see some really cool pictures of Benedict cumber Batch looking
Speaker 1: intense with Bleach with um, those are on the internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh. I remember seeing that for the first time.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what the what? Uh So anyway, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: it's a complicated story Wiki leaks, you know. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things we actually debated on whether or not
Speaker 1: we wanted to do a full episode on it because
Speaker 1: it's it's a tough topic. It's and it's got a
Speaker 1: lot of controversial elements to it, but it's important. It's
Speaker 1: definitely one of those things that has raised a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about, you know, transparency, surveillance, expectations of privacy,
Speaker 1: what is classified information, I mean, and the role the
Speaker 1: role of the media and the role of the of
Speaker 1: the government in reporting to citizens what's going on in
Speaker 1: their world. Yeah, and the role of the Internet and
Speaker 1: net neutrality. I mean, all of these things have been
Speaker 1: tied up in this and if wiki leaks had not
Speaker 1: been a thing, the conversation might be very, very different
Speaker 1: in all of those arenas. So we felt that it
Speaker 1: had to be something we would cover. So hopefully you
Speaker 1: guys appreciated and and enjoyed this episode, even though it
Speaker 1: was one of the probably darker ones that we've done recently.
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