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