Risk (2016) - full transcript
Filmed over six years, Risk (2016) is a character study that collides with a high stakes election year and its controversial aftermath. Cornered in a tiny building for half a decade, Julian Assange is undeterred even as the legal jeopardy he faces threatens to undermine the organization he leads and fracture the movement he inspired. Capturing this story, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle.
This programme contains some strong language.
INAUDIBLE SPEAKING
Thank you.
Want some more?
Should we cheers?
GLASSES CLINK
Um...
Most people who have very strong,
principled stances don't survive for long...
..actually.
We all want them to survive for long,
but they don't survive for long. Um...
- And do much...
- Because that...
- And do much at the same time.
- Um...
- Yeah.
There are many times in WikiLeaks' evolution
where I've had to be ruthlessly pragmatic.
So it is to...
..understand the medium-term or the long-term goal in principle.
But in fact, um, you'll corrupt your principles
in the short-term, but be quite willing
to balance one for another...
..in order to actually survive the moment.
INSECTS BUZZ
Ukraine...
Egypt.
- You got it?
- Yeah.
- Zimbabwe.
Iraq.
All they can see is that we've put it on the web,
- which looks irresponsible.
- I know.
- Have you got the US embassy yet?
- No.
Well, please, do it.
Are you recording?
Yeah.
RINGING TONE
Oh, hello, can I please speak to Hillary Clinton?
I'm calling from the office of Julian Assange. It's very important.
Yeah, so, Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks.
OK, and all of the US Department of State cables...
We have intelligence that they are about to be put on the web,
unredacted, not by us,
and I would like to speak to her about this.
Sarah...
WHISPERS:
Yes.
You need to call me back?
PAPER RUSTLES
This is an emergency.
You're the emergency line, and it will take a while?
OK, well, do you want to do that right now, and I'll wait?
He would like to speak to her about that, yes.
OK, well, let me start by giving you my phone number. One moment, please.
- WHISPERS:
- He's not going to do it.
More details,
other than the entire unredacted
cable set is about to go on the internet.
I mean, literally, it's about to happen.
I don't understand why you're not seeing the urgency in this.
- Just put her on, put him on. Who is he?
- OK.
- Who is he?
Hello?
G'day, Chad, this is Julian Assange.
To try to make it clear - we don't have a problem, YOU have a problem.
And we are trying to help you solve your problem
because we are indirectly connected to your problem.
Um...
I would like to speak to the most senior person available
who can execute an action quickly to send someone
to a location here in Norfolk.
OK. OK, thank you, bye-bye.
Hello.
- Are you off?
- Hi.
- Dinner's on the side.
- What's for dinner, Sue?
Lamb chops, roast potatoes, vegetables,
creme brulee, and raspberries.
Mm. Very nice. Thank you.
- See you tomorrow.
- Great...
- Bye!
Production journal.
I had a strange dream about Julian.
I was moving between two spaces.
One, doing an insider expose,
the other at a hidden location.
I didn't tell Julian what I was working on in the dream.
The anxiety must be a fear of betrayal
and my worry about how Julian will react.
With this film, the lines have become very blurred.
Sometimes I can't believe what Julian allows me to film.
Ego, yes, but also brave.
He is managing his image, but also being vulnerable.
It's a mystery to me why he trusts me,
because I don't think he likes me.
- Jordan?
- Yeah.
- Uh-huh.
MOBILE ALERT
Hello.
- 'Hello, is this Ms Harrison?'
- Speaking.
'Hi, Ms Harrison, this is the State Department Operations Center,
'we spoke yesterday. If Mr Assange is available,
'I have one of the Secretary's lawyers on the line
'who has been asked to return the call
'on the Department of State's behalf.'
Hello, g'day, Cliff, thank you for calling back.
Um, have you been briefed?
'Um, I believe so, we had understood
'that you and perhaps Sarah had been trying to reach out
'both to the Department, and that there had been some calls.'
Yeah, so, the situation is, we have intelligence that the
Department database archive
is being spread around,
and our view is that it is more your problem than it is ours,
but what we want the State Department to do
is to step up its warning procedures, which it was engaged in,
um, earlier in the year and late last year, to um,
to State Department sources that are mentioned in the cables.
'Well, surely you can understand that when you're talking about this volume of material,
'that even with the best efforts of the United States government,
'that we are able to protect all or even a significant amount of
'of sourced equities, and there's also national security material
'throughout the classified cables
'that also causes us harm.
'I mean, you know, Mr Assange,
'we had in our public statements tried to dissuade WikiLeaks
'from doing its releases on the same ground.
'And...
'It was... I don't know why we would fare any better with...'
- Well, I mean, I mean, um...
- '..with you.'
- I understand you need to make that statement for legal reasons...
- MOBILE ALERT
..and you understand that I need to make the following statement also,
that, um, we need to make sure that there is no harm to the interests
of the United States, and rather the news benefit is paramount
in everything that we do.
I have to say, from our perspective,
a lot of this happened as a result of the...
..um, overbearing pressure by the United States.
This is an example of when you push people into a corner,
um, they stop behaving
in a, um, a step-by-step, methodical manner,
um, because of the threats that they are under.
Exactly, there is no outfit that...
I was stopped at the border again.
My detentions have become more aggressive
since I began filming WikiLeaks.
The US agent at Heathrow wouldn't tell me his name
or who he worked for.
At JFK, they collected all my electronics
and asked if I had any hidden USB drives.
When I got home, my apartment door was open.
Did I forget to close it? Or are they sending me a message?
Can we start? You need to be able
to talk about exciting projects without giving anything away.
Those of you who can,
cos some of you will want to be sort of covert.
- Cover stories.
- That's what he means.
- That's what I'm talking about.
So, Joe and Sarah are already very publically visible.
They're Joe, Joe and Sarah.
I want each person to give their story, and you can correct it,
because then we hear it from them, and then if other people
ask us who they are, we've heard it in their voice.
Who are you?
I'm a Swedish journalist.
- And, uh, I am a good friend.
- OK.
Renata, what's your name? ARE you Renata?
I'm Renata, I'm from Guatemala, a lawyer,
and I have been researching the last years about freedom of information,
human rights issues in general,
and many of the issues I work with
converge with the issues of the organisation.
But are you a lawyer for Julian? Are you a lawyer for WikiLeaks?
Are you... What?
- What should I say? I don't know.
- I think you should say that you are...
- ..a lawyer for WikiLeaks.
- OK.
- Ednisa?
- Uh, my name is Ednisa...
TRAFFIC, BEEPING
HUBBUB
I would like to introduce Jacob Appelbaum,
the speaker of WikiLeaks.
He is an independent security specialist.
Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.
I guess I'd like to start off by saying that, um...
..the best indicator for telling the future is to look at the present,
and to understand how the past informs on the present.
So, for example, a major security threat
is internet filtering and censorship.
And several people on this panel
represent companies that, during the revolution,
they censored the internet quite heavily.
Most respectfully, TE Data blocking Twitter.
I was actually accessing computer networks
from the United States that were located here in Egypt.
And, um, now you look at the pamphlets around here,
you see that the companies
at ICT, and I mean this with all due respect,
are saying that they powered the revolution.
What they actually powered was the regime.
And now that the regime has fallen, they want to
exploit the revolution for corporate profits.
- Wha...
- Jacob, can you define censorship in your terminology?
Absolutely. So, censorship in this case is restricting access
to a particular website.
I had a list of all of the servers that Twitter runs,
and all but two of them were blocked by TE Data.
And this meant that Twitter was not able to be used.
- CHATTER INCREASES
- Specifically, I have data...
- Extremely dangerous to talk with
inaccurate information in such matters.
I have accurate data.
I mean, we could also talk about the propaganda SMS
sent by the mobile phone providers - we can get to that later.
I have data, independent data from Egyptians and
that I gathered myself, so while it might be dangerous to
have this conversation, I'm happy to talk about it,
because it's truthful.
For example, did someone hold a gun to the heads of your engineers and
say, "Block these sites"? Because Noor did not do this blocking.
The Noor ISP did not do this, so why did TE Data collaborate
with the Mubarak regime
and block these sites and try to stop the revolution?
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
- Jacob...
- You want to build a future?
Will you agree to stand against all censorship?
Will you abide by the Egyptian constitution?
TRANSLATED:
Wait, wait, please. I ask you,
right now, since you are here. Every person, Vodafone,
Nokia, who collaborates with the Iranian dictators and
apparently Mubarak, for a year,
I'd like to know, will you all agree
to stand against censorship on the internet and to abide by
the Egyptian constitution? Will you do it?
- HE SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE
- Is that a yes?
- Just a minute.
TRANSLATED:
APPLAUSE
Will you agree to stand against censorship?
We'll come back, Jacob, we'll come back to the panel.
He's got the microphone. I'd just like to ask...
- We'll come back to the panel.
- It's OK, he can say yes, because he
believes in the right of the Egyptian people.
- Come back to the panel. We have a question there.
- OK.
CHANTING
TRANSLATED:
APPLAUSE
These remarkable trove of documents
that have been released in the last year...
..the Iraq war logs, the Afghanistan war logs
and the US State Department documents -
why does it matter so much?
It has been my long-term belief that
what advances us as a civilisation
is the entirety of our understanding.
What human institutions are actually like.
And at the moment we are severely lacking
in the information from big, secretive organisations
that have such a role in shaping how we all live.
Institutions, the most powerful institutions,
from the CIA to news corporations,
are all organised using technical young people.
What does that mean,
when all those technical young people adopt a certain value system,
and that they are in an institution where they do not agree
with the value system, and yet, actually,
their hands are on the machinery?
- Come on, fire.
- GUNFIRE
- TV:
- Manning is being held in solitary confinement
and is stripped naked each night before bed.
Ultimately, the treatment of Private Manning,
who has yet to be brought to trial,
is prompting some questions that are now making it up to the President.
- PRESIDENT OBAMA:
- With respect to Private Manning,
I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures
that have been taken in terms of his confinement
are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.
They assure me that they are.
Hi, how are you?
Did you see the news?
I'm just actually in the car with Dan Ellsberg
and Laura. I'll put you on.
Julian, hi.
It's outrageous that this court martial is continuing, given
the President's proclamation that he's guilty already,
it's impossible to get a fair military trial. Here you go.
Did you get all that?
Oh, my God! We're driving past the Pentagon.
CHUCKLING
Just in brief, they've said that they've found
an Al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan's computer
that had the WikiLeaks Afghan documents downloaded onto it.
They showed a video of Al-Qaeda's media service
showing an Al-Qaeda leader talking about jihad and how they
ought to use WikiLeaks in their efforts towards jihad.
And the argument they're making is that
Manning has, by providing information to WikiLeaks,
has materially aided the enemy,
because by posting it on the internet,
WikiLeaks is providing information to the enemy.
To terrorist organisations.
It was unbelievable, the whole... It was just,
we were sitting there thinking, "Are they serious?"
And it even says the free internet is a tool for jihad.
Authorities say there are concerns about his safety
and the fact he might commit suicide now that there's
been condemnation from around the world...
on an investigation by the UN's torture investigator
into those conditions, but the military, the US government,
is continuing to press this case. The most serious charge is one
of aiding the enemy. Now prosecutors in this case have said
they won't seek the death penalty,
so, if found guilty, he would face life in prison.
- CAMERAS CLICK
- There he is.
He's smiling.
I was 20 in my first court case.
My two co-defendants both ratted me out to the police under pressure.
And they both became...
..um, Crown witnesses.
Um...
And I refused, under principle.
And... But it's not that I didn't think about it.
Um, I don't believe in martyrs, I don't think.
Some very rare exceptions that people should be martyrs,
but I think people, they should certainly take risks,
understand...
..carefully what the risks are, what the opportunities
of the situation are, and make sure these are in balance.
Um, sometimes the risk can be very high.
But the opportunity can also be extremely high.
Um, and by opportunity, I mean for things that you care about.
I mean, to keep things in perspective,
I mean, there's... the risk of inaction
is extremely high.
And every day you live your life, you lose another day of life.
What's the...the risk of just sitting there? You just lost a day.
You just died a day.
You don't have that many, so...
If you're not fighting for the things that you care about
and every day is disappearing, then, I mean, you are losing.
CHATTER
BEEPING
That's your machine!
It's up here, it's up here.
Pick it up so it doesn't go somewhere else. Shit!
- And then you just pick it up and press the...
- Hello.
HE CLEARS HIS THROAT
Yes, um, you called on this, um, box.
Julian Assange.
No, I wasn't in the house.
It's about you getting your mind into not using language
that sounds hostile to women or to suggest
that in general, women are absolutely entitled
to bring cases against men who rape.
Your position is, "I'm not one of them."
You know? So you have to sort of find the language
that helps you to explain that.
Um, other than sounding as if you're somebody who thinks, you know,
that this is all a mad, um,
feminist conspiracy. I don't think that's helpful to you.
No, to say it publically is not helpful.
I know, but I'd like to persuade you that it isn't true as well!
But, privately, it's, uh...
- It feels like...
- Privately,
it's a social democratic party plus general...
..influence from the government.
It's just a thoroughly...
..tawdry...
..radical feminist political positioning thing.
It's some...
..um, some stereotype.
- And you stumbled into this nest of, of...
- Yeah.
She started the lesbian nightclub in Gothenburg.
I mean, you know, what people would say is, what's her
setting up a lesbian nightclub got to do with the price of fish?
- You know...
- No, but she is in that circle, that circle of...
She... The fact that somebody is a feminist,
and even a radical feminist, doesn't mean...
Yeah, but...and the policewoman have been running
- as a tag-team, they go to...
- You see, I need to stop you using
that kind of language of saying they were running as a tag-team.
- Because it's making it sound...
- I won't do it in public,
- I'm just say...
- I, I, you, of cour....
SHE SIGHS
An actual court case, I mean,
it's going to be very, very hard for these women.
They will be reviled forever,
by a large segment of the...
..global population.
So...
..I don't think it's in their interest...
..to proceed that way. If I was them, I would go.
They need to save face.
So they would do something like, we'd do a deal where...
Um...
I would apologise for anything that I did or didn't do that...
..hurt their feelings.
Uh,
and they would say, "Enough is enough.
"We didn't want...
"We absolutely didn't want to, we didn't intend to file a complaint,"
"and that's publically agreed, and this is too severe."
Part of the problem in this case is that there's, there's two women,
and the public just can't even keep them separate.
So if there was one, you could go, "She's a bad woman."
I think that would have happened by now.
"This person is a bad character,
"bad faith, and here's the evidence that points to it."
Because there's two, it's much harder.
I thought I'd try and look as much like the judges as possible.
It works.
Here we are, here we are.
Julian, Julian!
JOURNALISTS CHATTER
Do you think you will win this appeal?
- Sir, sir!
- How do you feel?
- MAN:
- A man who has been involved
in exposing the crimes of the US empire is under threat
of potentially being extradited to the United States.
It seems very likely to be a malicious prosecution against him,
and that's why I'm here to show my solidarity.
If he assaulted the women, then that's a different case
and it's important that he answers to that, has to answer to her.
But at the moment I don't know, and
whatever he did there, I still support
what he's doing with WikiLeaks.
APPLAUSE
Mr Assange, how confident are you of a win?
INDISTINCT CHATTER
Production journal. This is not the film I thought I was making.
I thought I could ignore the contradictions.
I thought they were not part of the story.
I was so wrong.
They are becoming the story.
So, quick save.
BACKGROUND CHATTER
You are in a region that is extremely valuable to wiretap,
and you are almost certainly being monitored.
In Tunisia, we know that this is happening.
That is true for all of us right now. No question.
And if you look, you can see that this is the case,
because some websites are blocked.
In Syria, they use devices called Blue Coat.
They record everything that goes in and out of Syria.
So every time you send an e-mail, they record the entire thing.
Think about it in terms of safe sex.
Right? And this is the same thing.
People are practising unsafe computing.
Sometimes in some places, the result of that is death.
So you have to make those choices and know that there are options.
Just like condoms, they could break.
And you are in a world of hurt.
That's maybe not the greatest and most culturally appropriate analogy.
SOMEONE LAUGHS
I'm glad one of you did. That's awkward.
Good times.
Technology can always be used in two ways.
Isn't the internet just an infrastructure, one that can be
used to spread the idea of freedom, but also to control people?
Yes, of course. The infrastructure as we build it today...
In a way that has never been possible before.
Well... I don't know. I mean, it depends.
I think the scary thing is the control thing.
There is control that is afforded
now, that is unlike anything else
that has ever happened.
At the same time, the avenues for communication are everything
we had before, plus this.
Maybe that allows for us to build new alternatives that
previously were not possible without the internet.
I think that that is the case.
That is what we think that we are doing with Tor.
And don't you give bad guys a hideout?
No. Not any more than, for example, roads help terrorists to travel,
or trains or something like this, or aeroplanes.
What we do is we ensure that every person, not one person excluded,
has the right to read and the right to speak freely.
With no exceptions.
DISTANT CHATTER
It's like what happened in Egypt.
They did use all these completely insecure
- communications mechanisms.
- Mm-hm.
But they did it quickly.
So they were able to communicate quickly
because they use insecure communications mechanisms.
So you whip...
A political situation was whipped up and evolved much faster
than their opponents could see it, understand it, and act on it.
I think the general principle you have there is true.
But I don't think that it actually is the case that, long run,
all of those insecure technologies will actually benefit them.
In Tunisia, we were told that people in Syria were killed.
How many people are you willing to sacrifice in order to get
the political gain?
Or if you're one of those people, how much of your own
life are you willing to risk in order to get that political gain?
- Part...
- Actually, you might be willing to risk rather a lot.
And if you slow everyone down, such that you're not going to get
the political gain at all, yes, you might protect people,
but on the other hand are you protecting people by permitting
a situation to continue where you have 20,000 political prisoners?
It's not protecting people either.
It's just that I'm not clear if they understand what will happen.
I think most people don't understand data retention.
I don't think it works like that, actually.
I think...you have a short-term crisis
and you decide that the ability to activate quickly
and en masse is more important than preventing
the internet from forming a long-term profile on them.
People just don't understand the threat model.
There's two different threat models here.
There's one where they know who you are and they're going to spend
a certain amount of resources on targeting you.
And following you physically.
And the other is, they don't yet know who you are.
And as long as you keep your anonymity, you don't end
up in this first category.
And once you're in this first category, it's very hard.
I'm in this first category.
- You're in this first category.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER
MUSIC PLAYS
# Croatia, Albania... #
Move your head forward so I don't cut your neck.
I will just trim your hair a little bit.
That's nice.
# Somewhere far overseas... #
A little rat tail there.
LAUGHTER, MUSIC STOPS
Did you look at the Occupy London photos?
Make sure the sound is up.
VIDEO PLAYS
HE LAUGHS
THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
No. I don't want to cut it too short on the back.
MUSIC PLAYS ON VIDEO
INDISTINCT CHATTER
We just need to wash it.
INDISTINCT CHATTER, LAUGHTER
BIRDSONG
Three guys arrive, and they approach him, and they say, "FBI."
- They ask about my...
- About your name and his involvement with you.
And they said, "You were involved with WikiLeaks, right?
"And we have been following you."
They admitted that they have been following you.
"And we're contacting you because we want to ask you some questions."
Like what?
Well, very general stuff, like, "We want to know your relationship
- "with Julian Assange," general stuff like that. Uh...
- TWIG SNAPS
Sh...
There's two guys.
Shall I continue, or...?
- Go on...
- Huh?
- Could you just have a look there, Laura?
This question about communication with Manning, for example,
that's clearly the most important question I've heard so far, but...
I said, "Did they mention Jacob?"
And he said, "No, they didn't mention Jacob.
"They just mentioned Julian,"
because they mentioned you again, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange...
- In the car.
- The three spooks.
- Yeah.
When they were trying to make him answer the questions,
because the matter was closed, what they could do is give him
a ride on the car to the house that he was staying at,
and he said to them that he was staying alone in the house.
He's such a fucking idiot! Get into a car with three FBI guys?!
- Yeah, all right, yeah...
- Yeah.
And they said, "What you have to do now is call this and this
- "and this and this..."
- DOG BARKS
- Go on.
- That's his security...
I bumped into four people I knew in Sweden.
They all say the same thing,
that WikiLeaks has lost ground because of you.
It doesn't matter when you go, "Yes, but, you know... WikiLeaks IS him,
"it's all his ideas," and all that. That almost puts them off even more.
I mean, you're toxic there.
They all say, "Apologise."
I'm not telling you this is what I'm saying,
- I'm just passing on what they...
- So?!
- I'm just passing on.
- 500 days of detention without charge.
- Yeah.
The only person who put it differently was Thomas Olsson,
who said you need to address the issue.
He said, "What you do is you need to address the girls, say,
" 'I'm sorry you felt that way. I wasn't disregarding you.'
"That sort of thing."
Just fly her over. I'm sure she'll be happy to have a private meeting.
- Who? SW?
- Yeah.
- Are you being sarcastic?
- No.
Erm...
If you can demonstrate that due process hasn't been followed,
that will really upset the Swedes,
- because they're a stickler for process.
- No, they're not.
- No, I know they're not.
- They're a stickler for PRETENDING
- that there's process.
- Yeah.
- But you've got to...
- We HAVE been demonstrating it
- again and again and again.
- That's why I said, "I disagree."
- And I said...
- That's why they hate me.
Anyway...
I'm sure they'd much prefer to fuck me and have no whimpering sounds.
This is my debrief. So can you keep quiet?
- Go on.
- Because every time I say...
They're like, "He should just come back and..." You know.
- "Get into that prison cell!"
- Yeah.
Hi. I'll put him on.
Hello?
Yeah, of course. Well, you need to say that,
that these are weasel words.
No, fuck that. You don't need to worry about that.
The US has an active grand jury with FBI agents detaining
people at airports.
No, they're not. That's a lie.
It's a grand jury. It's secret. All you have to do is quote...
No, no. No, no, no. All you have to do is quote
what was in the Sydney Morning Herald
from the Australian government's own material, which is,
"It cannot be confirmed on the record"...
..ie it can be confirmed OFF the record.
Witnesses who have been dragged in have...
..released the subpoenas, have been on the steps of the grand jury.
Julian runs the organisation like an intelligence agency,
using codenames, denial and deception, compartmentalisation.
He's teaching me things about secrecy
I didn't realise I needed to learn.
I don't know what he's planning. I'm only able to see one step ahead.
BELL TOLLS
INDICATOR CLICKS
RINGING TONE
Hi. How's it going?
But don't tell that journalist.
And, um... Yeah. Any journalists.
Yeah, well, tell him to bugger off.
Those who support Julian Assange believe that his extradition
is only the beginning of a very long process that could land
the whistle-blower in a US prison.
TV IS ON
In the last few moments,
the UK's Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of Julian Assange,
effectively paving the way for him to be extradited to Sweden
within the next ten days. He has not been charged with any crime.
At this stage, he is only wanted in Sweden for questioning
in relation to some sexual allegations,
which Mr Assange denies.
Assange was not in court for that judgment to be handed down.
We understand he wanted to be, but was caught in traffic.
He was not in court,
although he may well be watching it here on television.
No, thank you.
PHONE BEEPS
SHE WHISPERS
I'm just saying don't talk about this one.
SIREN WAILS
Well, we're told that he is inside this embassy here.
We're not getting a lot of information on the ground.
His supporters even were caught by surprise by this move.
PHONE RINGS
Yes, we considered many countries.
However, on our analysis,
Ecuador was the most likely to agree to the asylum.
We do have a lot of support in Iceland, and Iceland was moving
in that direction, but unfortunately they were simply not far enough.
Well, we say that my activities are protected by the First Amendment,
but it's all a matter of politics. Laws are interpreted by judges.
In any event, we require that the United States
guarantee that it does not apply the death penalty in my extradition.
However, um, there still could be life imprisonment
or 30 years of imprisonment, and the conditions might be very severe.
Well, there's still an awful lot of people here, not just supporters
of Assange but also passers-by wondering what on earth is going on.
And as I'm sure you can imagine, there's a lot of media here, too.
The UK previously sent a letter
which has been interpreted by Ecuador as a threat to storm
the embassy and get Assange out by any means necessary.
That didn't go down very well with the Ecuadorians at all.
They said that it was an act
that was not fitting of a civilised nation.
And even in a state of war, even if the UK was at war with Ecuador,
they do not have the right to go into the mission.
Yeah.
The news that Julian Assange has been granted
asylum by the Ecuadorian government is slowly spreading through
a large, substantial crowd here outside the Ecuadorian embassy.
But the Britain Government is insisting it changes nothing.
- WOMAN LAUGHS
- How pathetic is that?
A press conference with all of the London media, who hate us...
- ..and doing it live to the world.
- It'll be fine.
I'm f...king terrified!
- I'll read it to you.
- Yeah.
- I'm so scared, OK?
- It'll be fine.
"Thanks for coming.
"I'm going to talk a bit about today's release then walk you
"through our interface, then I'll take a few questions at the end.
"Just now, at 11am BST, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files.
- "Over the next two months, ground-breaking stories..."
- Er...
HE WHISPERS
But you're doing really well otherwise.
- "Over the next two months..."
- No...
- Agh!
Just read it in your head, so buffer up.
Get the first four words into my head...
- Then look up and speak them.
- OK.
Here we go.
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be with us today
"but has given this comment on the Syria Files.
" 'The material is embarrassing to Syria,
" 'but it is also embarrassing to Syria's opponents.
" 'It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another
" 'but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts.' "
We won't just be pissing off Assad,
we'll be pissing off his enemies, as well.
OK, give me a couple of questions.
The one that I'm most nervous about is...
..the typical one, the girlfriend one, and I just give a funny look
and Joseph says, "That's not on this topic."
Just imagine they're a piece of shit on your shoe. A piece of dogshit.
Don't look at all scared, just look, "What?"
"Ridiculous question right now."
No, no, no, just...
"Oh, please!" Do the feminine thing.
- OK.
- "You've assaulted my femininity.
"How dare you."
Thanks for coming.
Just now, at 11am BST, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files,
more than two million e-mails from Syrian political figures,
ministries and associated companies.
This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syrian-related
entities or domain names,
including those of the ministries of presidential affairs,
foreign affairs, finance, information, transport and culture.
We'll take a very limited amount of questions.
But I know Julian is very newsworthy at the moment -
can we just keep the questions to do with the release?
Does this mean WikiLeaks is back on top and able to continue
publishing new data, after quite a hiatus of not doing so?
Can you give us any headlines from this,
anything that we can take away from this
before going through the interface?
And just the latest on Mr Assange
and what he's feeling there in the Ecuador embassy right now.
Mr Assange?
Erm, as my colleague said, this isn't about Mr Assange.
..and this is another we did... earlier this year
and then this is the second large release of this year...
- That's good.
- ..that we are continuing.
I don't know if there's a rebranding...
We're up to, like, 150 tweets a minute.
Production journal.
I had a nightmare that hung with me for days.
Julian was being detained at a US military base.
I've been off the radar since I started editing.
I should check-in with Sarah so they don't freak out.
See, my profile didn't really take off until the sex case.
- Oh, it's...
- No, no, it was very high amongst media circles
and intelligence circles and so on, but it didn't really,
really take off as if I was a globally recognised household name.
It wasn't until the sex case.
So I was joking to one of our people...
..sex scandal every six months.
I think that was me you were joking to. I died a little bit inside.
- That's the way to...
- SARAH LAUGHS
"That's going to keep my profile up, isn't it, Sarah?" A big grin.
I was like, "Please, please, please don't.
"I will kill you on every level available."
- Come on. It's a platform.
- SARAH LAUGHS
No, they didn't move. This is incredible.
Those are the guys I can encourage to let you go.
So, y'know, please don't share this with anybody,
not a single soul, but let's talk about it and figure it out.
But this is clearly a man in the middle, right?
We tried to connect to Tor Project's web server.
It says that it's five hops upstream and then it closes the connection.
Erm, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of stuff...
- I have an idea. If you prepare me...
- What the fuck is that?!
You don't even have a bathrobe that fits you?
- Do we need to go shopping for you?
- Sh-sh-sh. No, no, no.
- If you prepare me...
- Does it say "Boss" on it?
- Yeah.
If you prepare me, um...a...
..typical USB or external drive with an onion server...
..that goes through a shell...
If you get on this network, then you can do the tests.
- Give me a computer, and I will give you that.
- OK.
- We should build that.
- Please get in the shower. You have ten minutes.
Please.
It's like you're in college.
Where do you sleep?
- The other side of the book shelf. Do you want to have a look?
- What?!
- This is your room?
- Not mine. I get to go home at night.
I want you to look like you just took your shirt off
and you're at home, you know? You should just be in...
..something like that, like a dirty fucking T-shirt, like a rebel.
- With a stain on it.
- Yeah.
- Yeah...
- What's your favourite kind of food?
- SHE LAUGHS
Well, I went to Malaysia...
Well, first of all, first of all, erm...
..let's not pretend for a moment that I'm a normal person.
I-I am obsessed with our political struggle.
- I'm not a normal person.
- Right.
I just would really like for you to tell me how you feel,
- because I've been trying to get that.
- OK.
Why does it matter how I feel? I mean, who gives a damn?
I don't see...
I don't care how I feel.
- Do you ever feel like just fucking crying?
- No.
- Never?
- Never.
- Even when you're happy?
- So you love your mom.
- Yeah.
How about your dad?
Er, my dad is much more abstract, so...
No! Nothing like you, then!
Just kidding.
Who is after you, Mr Assange?
Formally, there are more than 12
United States intelligence organisations,
- investigative organisations that are after us.
- What are they?
I mean, those include, most importantly, the FBI,
the Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency,
uh, the Department of Defense
and the subsets of the Department of Defense.
Uh, Centcom sections of the US Army, including CCIU,
the US Army's computer crimes investigative unit.
Uh, those include in Australia, various...
So a series of institutions.
So there are... And of course the State Department,
the diplomatic security service here within the United Kingdom,
the, uh, Home Office, the extradition squad,
the Serious Crimes...SOCO...
Serious Organised Crime...
So basically a whole bunch of fucking people in America?
- Uh...
- Now, what about the rest of the world?
So in the rest of the world, there's...
The Australian government started out with what they called
a Whole of Government investigation
that included the internal intelligence agency, Asio,
the external intelligence agency, Asis,
- the, uh... Attorney General...
- OK.
- The Department of...
- So we've got the US, Australian...
- ..the Australian federal police...
- Where else?
- ..the Swedish prosecution authorities...
Swedish prosecution.
Uh, that includes the foreign ministry run by Carl Bildt,
the, um, some aspects of the...
- It's become a national issue now.
- So a lot of people.
- Well...
- Lot of systems.
- There's the Scientologists...
- There's a lot of friends of...
- The Scientologists, there's people...
A lot of friends of friends doing things to put you in this position
- that you are now in. Correct?
- Sure.
HEAVY RAINFALL, THUNDER
RAPID THUMPING
Five, four, three, two, one.
Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.
Quicker. Good.
Good.
Quick. That's good.
I've been contacted by an anonymous source.
He claims to have documents about illegal NSA spying.
I wonder if the FBI is trying to entrap me, Jake, or Julian.
Julian would be the likely target.
HE BREATHES HEAVILY
I haven't told him about the source.
BUZZING
OK, um, I need you to move the camera and stop filming.
Give me that bag?
- TV:
- 29-year-old Edward Snowden
blew open those secrets by leaking unprecedented details
of top-secret government surveillance programmes.
Julian contacted me
after I published the video.
He said Snowden isn't safe
in Hong Kong.
I told him I can't assist with Ed's asylum.
The risks are too high.
When they investigate this leak,
they will create a narrative to say it was all a conspiracy.
They won't understand what really happened -
that we all kept each other in the dark.
- TV:
- Breaking news this hour.
WikiLeaks claims one of its legal advisers
accompanying Snowden after the whistle-blowing organisation
- secured a safe exit...
- ..has Snowden aboard,
scheduled to land in the Russian capital within minutes.
As you may have heard, there is a CIA agent
who has revealed a lot of information
and he is now trapped in the, uh, the airport in Moscow.
We managed to get him out of Hong Kong,
but when he landed in the Moscow airport,
the American government had cancelled his passport
to try and grab him.
We're trying to arrange a private jet
to take him from Moscow to Ecuador
or perhaps maybe Venezuela.
Or maybe Iceland. Countries where he would be safe.
But there isn't much time, this is the problem.
We need to raise the money for the jet.
Well, the quote's coming back at somewhere between 120,000
and $300,000 for the... uh, for the private flight.
And one of our people is accompanying him.
- NEWSREADER:
- Today we've had information
from the official Russian news service, Interfax,
that at the Moscow airport, Edward Snowden applied for asylum there
with the help of Sarah Harrison - you see her there on the right.
- NEWSREADER:
- The British national
says that her lawyers have advised her not to return to the UK
because she risks arrest under the Terrorism Act.
Not guilty on aiding the enemy.
But specification 1, charge 2, unwanted publication, guilty.
Afghan war diary and espionage, guilty.
Spec 8 on the Gitmo files, guilty,
which is ten years max.
Cablegate, guilty.
Ten years. Reykjavik cable, two years max, guilty.
God.
It goes on.
10, 20, 30...
90...100...
102, 112...
Yeah. So far, 142 years maximum possible sentence.
I spoke to Julian for the first time in months.
He is furious, and feels betrayed.
He wants me to give him NSA documents,
and accused me of dividing the community
by not publishing with WikiLeaks.
I tell him I can't be his source.
I don't tell him that I don't trust him.
He's still yelling when I hang up the phone.
Testing, testing. OK.
OK, so, uh, there's a film-maker named Laura Poitras.
Laura Poitras is known through the defence community
as a documentary film-maker who's anti-US.
So she's known in the Wiki community,
the anti-US, anti-government monitoring community.
When we were pursing Snowden,
we went balls-to-the-wall to try and get this guy.
We were able to revoke his visa
the day before he boarded the plane for Moscow.
So they get the guy on the plane, he ends up in Moscow,
and then at that moment we realised,
we lost him, we're probably not going to get him back.
PHONE RINGS
Hi.
INDISTINCT REPLY
How's it going?
INDISTINCT REPLY
Mmm. Mmm.
It looks almost certain now
that it's going to be Hillary versus Trump.
Basically it will be Hillary versus Trump
unless one of them has a stroke or is assassinated.
Yeah.
So that's quite a bad outcome in both directions.
We have a definite warmonger in the case of Hillary,
- who's gunning for us.
- Yep.
Uh, and in the case of Trump,
we have someone who's extremely unpredictable.
- Yes.
- There's quite a lot of interesting stuff
- in relation to Hillary.
- Mm-hmm.
Uh, fortunately for Trump,
there's, uh, not so many known interesting documents.
Think of his business ventures all over -
there must be a whole bunch of stuff.
Mm-hmm.
After something like this happens in your community,
it kind of tears it apart.
You know, Tor is just kind of
the epicentre of this particular instance.
But I think there is kind of a...
You know, a degree of sickness within the community
that allows these things to happen,
and so I think we're still uncovering
and trying to make sense of what actually happened,
like, how did it process?
What were the mechanisms by which it was covered up or hidden
or enabled?
I have some comments, but I would like to actually not be on camera.
I'm a programmer, and all I would like to do
is to be able to contribute to radical projects.
But I knew that I wouldn't work with Tor ever because of Jacob Appelbaum.
And I was never directly affected by him,
but I just knew so many stories.
Jake often asked me,
what decision would I make in the Prisoner's Dilemma?
Would I stay silent, or betray him?
Jake sent me a text after the website went live.
We had been involved briefly in 2014.
After I ended things, he was abusive to someone close to me.
Jake was now worried about what I would say.
I asked to interview him for the film.
He said no. He wants the film to have a different ending.
So do I.
TYPING
CHEERING
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- WikiLeaks published a trove of hot, stolen DNC e-mails
and voice messages indicating efforts by party officials
to hinder Bernie Sanders's campaign
and assist Hillary Clinton's campaign.
US government sources strongly suspect
that Russian intelligence agents were behind the data breach.
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- The grand total of e-mails
pushed out there by WikiLeaks is now well over 10,000.
..progressives' concern that she was taking all this money
from Goldman Sachs and others.
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- Assange has given a series of interviews
in which he says that there's no proof whatsoever
that the e-mails that he's already released came from Russian sources.
Of course, WikiLeaks likes to create maximum ambiguity
about where its information comes from.
It's very hot on the protection of sources.
Does that not trouble you at all, if a foreign government is trying to
meddle in the affairs of another foreign government?
Well, it's...it's an interesting speculative question
that's for the press and others to...
But that doesn't bother you.
That is not part of the WikiLeaks, uh, credo.
Well, it's a... It's a metastory.
If you're asking, would we accept information
from US intelligence that we had verified
to be completely accurate, and would we publish that,
and would we protect our sources in US intelligence?
The answer is yes, of course we would.
- CHANT:
- Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
WHISTLING AND CHEERING
- TV:
- Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States.
Assange is obviously back in the headlines
after WikiLeaks released thousands of e-mails from the Democratic Party
in the lead-up to the presidential election.
The Department of Homeland Security
says the e-mails come from Russian hackers
backed by the highest levels of the Kremlin.
CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK
Could I get through?
Are you pleased the interview is finally taking place?
The Swedish Prosecuting Office will make a decision
as to whether to carry the investigation forth,
possibly bring charges against Julian Assange,
or perhaps drop the investigation altogether.
I have been authorised by the Department of Justice
to confirm that the FBI, as part of
our counterintelligence mission,
is investigating
the Russian government's efforts to interfere
in the 2016 presidential election.
And that includes investigating the nature of any links
between individuals associated with the Trump campaign
and the Russian government
AND whether there was any coordination between the campaign
and Russia's efforts.
Thank you, Mr Chairman. I just want to follow up with a few questions.
Director Comey, are you aware that Roger Stone played a role
- in the Trump campaign?
- I'm not going to talk about
any particular person here today, Mr Schiff.
I'm going to continue to ask these questions
because I want to make sure you are aware of these facts,
whether you're able to comment on them or not.
Are you aware that Mr Stone also claimed that he was in touch with
an intermediary of Mr Assange?
Same answer.
This question I think you CAN answer.
Do you know whether the Russian intelligence services
dealt directly with WikiLeaks
or whether they too used an intermediary?
We assess they used some kind of cut-out.
They didn't deal directly with WikiLeaks,
in contrast to Guccifer 2.0.
There is evidence, is there not,
of a break-in of the Democratic headquarters
by a foreign power using cyber means?
- Yes there was.
- And there was an effort by the Russians
to cover up their break-in
by using cut-outs like WikiLeaks to publish the stolen material.
Isn't that right?
Certainly to cover up that they were the ones releasing it.
MAN SIGHS
LIGHT SWITCH
Everyone who knows that I'm doing this,
they want to know why.
The motivation.
So if we actually... If I don't try and make an excuse,
- but rather...
- Or a sound bite or anything, but really what...
If I don't... Maybe close that door.
I don't feel there's even a choice in that.
I was in a lucky position
that the new thing, that is... It is...
That element which is really causing the world to globalise,
and that element which is, um, producing most of the changes
that we're seeing, including the bad ones,
I was an expert in.
If you...
..uh, see the global problems that we have as a global civilisation,
you actually see them and understand them,
then...acting locally is completely inconsequential.
Relative to what you understand.
So the only way to then act...
..to...
make the world the way you want it,
to remove those features which you do not like,
is to act globally.
'Cos the features that you are concerned about
are a global phenomenon.
I understand what you're saying on a tactical level.
But, like, really the motivation.
That IS the motiva... I mean, it's...
- But isn't it also something about power?
- Er...
If you're... Let's say
your perception was limited to your garden.
And so you spend your time going, "Oh, I don't like, um..."
"I don't like to have weeds, I like to have flowers in my garden.
"I like my garden to be healthy."
Then you spend your time doing that.
If your perception has been globalised,
then...
..this perception of your garden, I mean,
Perhaps I have a god complex, right?
The perception of your garden...
My perception of what my environment is...
..um, the area that I care about is the whole world.
(Laura Poitras speaks in the background)
Julian texted me after
I showed him a cut of the film.
He said...
Laura... I ask that you cease
putting into press releases
and interviews
that we have fallen out.
After the screening,
we will continue to try
to find a path
of mutual interest.
However, presently,
the film is a severe threat
to my freedom,
and I'm forced
to treat it accordingly.
WHIRRING
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- Efforts are now well under way...
to prosecute the founder of the group...
that Candidate Trump said he loved so much,
WikiLeaks.
The Justice Department are preparing
charges against Julian Assange.
The Attorney General said
he is focused on prosecuting leaks,
and the Justice Department
is taking steps to do that.
We are going to step up our efforts
on all leaks.
Whenever a case can be made,
we will seek to put some people in jail.
INAUDIBLE SPEAKING
Thank you.
Want some more?
Should we cheers?
GLASSES CLINK
Um...
Most people who have very strong,
principled stances don't survive for long...
..actually.
We all want them to survive for long,
but they don't survive for long. Um...
- And do much...
- Because that...
- And do much at the same time.
- Um...
- Yeah.
There are many times in WikiLeaks' evolution
where I've had to be ruthlessly pragmatic.
So it is to...
..understand the medium-term or the long-term goal in principle.
But in fact, um, you'll corrupt your principles
in the short-term, but be quite willing
to balance one for another...
..in order to actually survive the moment.
INSECTS BUZZ
Ukraine...
Egypt.
- You got it?
- Yeah.
- Zimbabwe.
Iraq.
All they can see is that we've put it on the web,
- which looks irresponsible.
- I know.
- Have you got the US embassy yet?
- No.
Well, please, do it.
Are you recording?
Yeah.
RINGING TONE
Oh, hello, can I please speak to Hillary Clinton?
I'm calling from the office of Julian Assange. It's very important.
Yeah, so, Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks.
OK, and all of the US Department of State cables...
We have intelligence that they are about to be put on the web,
unredacted, not by us,
and I would like to speak to her about this.
Sarah...
WHISPERS:
Yes.
You need to call me back?
PAPER RUSTLES
This is an emergency.
You're the emergency line, and it will take a while?
OK, well, do you want to do that right now, and I'll wait?
He would like to speak to her about that, yes.
OK, well, let me start by giving you my phone number. One moment, please.
- WHISPERS:
- He's not going to do it.
More details,
other than the entire unredacted
cable set is about to go on the internet.
I mean, literally, it's about to happen.
I don't understand why you're not seeing the urgency in this.
- Just put her on, put him on. Who is he?
- OK.
- Who is he?
Hello?
G'day, Chad, this is Julian Assange.
To try to make it clear - we don't have a problem, YOU have a problem.
And we are trying to help you solve your problem
because we are indirectly connected to your problem.
Um...
I would like to speak to the most senior person available
who can execute an action quickly to send someone
to a location here in Norfolk.
OK. OK, thank you, bye-bye.
Hello.
- Are you off?
- Hi.
- Dinner's on the side.
- What's for dinner, Sue?
Lamb chops, roast potatoes, vegetables,
creme brulee, and raspberries.
Mm. Very nice. Thank you.
- See you tomorrow.
- Great...
- Bye!
Production journal.
I had a strange dream about Julian.
I was moving between two spaces.
One, doing an insider expose,
the other at a hidden location.
I didn't tell Julian what I was working on in the dream.
The anxiety must be a fear of betrayal
and my worry about how Julian will react.
With this film, the lines have become very blurred.
Sometimes I can't believe what Julian allows me to film.
Ego, yes, but also brave.
He is managing his image, but also being vulnerable.
It's a mystery to me why he trusts me,
because I don't think he likes me.
- Jordan?
- Yeah.
- Uh-huh.
MOBILE ALERT
Hello.
- 'Hello, is this Ms Harrison?'
- Speaking.
'Hi, Ms Harrison, this is the State Department Operations Center,
'we spoke yesterday. If Mr Assange is available,
'I have one of the Secretary's lawyers on the line
'who has been asked to return the call
'on the Department of State's behalf.'
Hello, g'day, Cliff, thank you for calling back.
Um, have you been briefed?
'Um, I believe so, we had understood
'that you and perhaps Sarah had been trying to reach out
'both to the Department, and that there had been some calls.'
Yeah, so, the situation is, we have intelligence that the
Department database archive
is being spread around,
and our view is that it is more your problem than it is ours,
but what we want the State Department to do
is to step up its warning procedures, which it was engaged in,
um, earlier in the year and late last year, to um,
to State Department sources that are mentioned in the cables.
'Well, surely you can understand that when you're talking about this volume of material,
'that even with the best efforts of the United States government,
'that we are able to protect all or even a significant amount of
'of sourced equities, and there's also national security material
'throughout the classified cables
'that also causes us harm.
'I mean, you know, Mr Assange,
'we had in our public statements tried to dissuade WikiLeaks
'from doing its releases on the same ground.
'And...
'It was... I don't know why we would fare any better with...'
- Well, I mean, I mean, um...
- '..with you.'
- I understand you need to make that statement for legal reasons...
- MOBILE ALERT
..and you understand that I need to make the following statement also,
that, um, we need to make sure that there is no harm to the interests
of the United States, and rather the news benefit is paramount
in everything that we do.
I have to say, from our perspective,
a lot of this happened as a result of the...
..um, overbearing pressure by the United States.
This is an example of when you push people into a corner,
um, they stop behaving
in a, um, a step-by-step, methodical manner,
um, because of the threats that they are under.
Exactly, there is no outfit that...
I was stopped at the border again.
My detentions have become more aggressive
since I began filming WikiLeaks.
The US agent at Heathrow wouldn't tell me his name
or who he worked for.
At JFK, they collected all my electronics
and asked if I had any hidden USB drives.
When I got home, my apartment door was open.
Did I forget to close it? Or are they sending me a message?
Can we start? You need to be able
to talk about exciting projects without giving anything away.
Those of you who can,
cos some of you will want to be sort of covert.
- Cover stories.
- That's what he means.
- That's what I'm talking about.
So, Joe and Sarah are already very publically visible.
They're Joe, Joe and Sarah.
I want each person to give their story, and you can correct it,
because then we hear it from them, and then if other people
ask us who they are, we've heard it in their voice.
Who are you?
I'm a Swedish journalist.
- And, uh, I am a good friend.
- OK.
Renata, what's your name? ARE you Renata?
I'm Renata, I'm from Guatemala, a lawyer,
and I have been researching the last years about freedom of information,
human rights issues in general,
and many of the issues I work with
converge with the issues of the organisation.
But are you a lawyer for Julian? Are you a lawyer for WikiLeaks?
Are you... What?
- What should I say? I don't know.
- I think you should say that you are...
- ..a lawyer for WikiLeaks.
- OK.
- Ednisa?
- Uh, my name is Ednisa...
TRAFFIC, BEEPING
HUBBUB
I would like to introduce Jacob Appelbaum,
the speaker of WikiLeaks.
He is an independent security specialist.
Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.
I guess I'd like to start off by saying that, um...
..the best indicator for telling the future is to look at the present,
and to understand how the past informs on the present.
So, for example, a major security threat
is internet filtering and censorship.
And several people on this panel
represent companies that, during the revolution,
they censored the internet quite heavily.
Most respectfully, TE Data blocking Twitter.
I was actually accessing computer networks
from the United States that were located here in Egypt.
And, um, now you look at the pamphlets around here,
you see that the companies
at ICT, and I mean this with all due respect,
are saying that they powered the revolution.
What they actually powered was the regime.
And now that the regime has fallen, they want to
exploit the revolution for corporate profits.
- Wha...
- Jacob, can you define censorship in your terminology?
Absolutely. So, censorship in this case is restricting access
to a particular website.
I had a list of all of the servers that Twitter runs,
and all but two of them were blocked by TE Data.
And this meant that Twitter was not able to be used.
- CHATTER INCREASES
- Specifically, I have data...
- Extremely dangerous to talk with
inaccurate information in such matters.
I have accurate data.
I mean, we could also talk about the propaganda SMS
sent by the mobile phone providers - we can get to that later.
I have data, independent data from Egyptians and
that I gathered myself, so while it might be dangerous to
have this conversation, I'm happy to talk about it,
because it's truthful.
For example, did someone hold a gun to the heads of your engineers and
say, "Block these sites"? Because Noor did not do this blocking.
The Noor ISP did not do this, so why did TE Data collaborate
with the Mubarak regime
and block these sites and try to stop the revolution?
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
- Jacob...
- You want to build a future?
Will you agree to stand against all censorship?
Will you abide by the Egyptian constitution?
TRANSLATED:
Wait, wait, please. I ask you,
right now, since you are here. Every person, Vodafone,
Nokia, who collaborates with the Iranian dictators and
apparently Mubarak, for a year,
I'd like to know, will you all agree
to stand against censorship on the internet and to abide by
the Egyptian constitution? Will you do it?
- HE SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE
- Is that a yes?
- Just a minute.
TRANSLATED:
APPLAUSE
Will you agree to stand against censorship?
We'll come back, Jacob, we'll come back to the panel.
He's got the microphone. I'd just like to ask...
- We'll come back to the panel.
- It's OK, he can say yes, because he
believes in the right of the Egyptian people.
- Come back to the panel. We have a question there.
- OK.
CHANTING
TRANSLATED:
APPLAUSE
These remarkable trove of documents
that have been released in the last year...
..the Iraq war logs, the Afghanistan war logs
and the US State Department documents -
why does it matter so much?
It has been my long-term belief that
what advances us as a civilisation
is the entirety of our understanding.
What human institutions are actually like.
And at the moment we are severely lacking
in the information from big, secretive organisations
that have such a role in shaping how we all live.
Institutions, the most powerful institutions,
from the CIA to news corporations,
are all organised using technical young people.
What does that mean,
when all those technical young people adopt a certain value system,
and that they are in an institution where they do not agree
with the value system, and yet, actually,
their hands are on the machinery?
- Come on, fire.
- GUNFIRE
- TV:
- Manning is being held in solitary confinement
and is stripped naked each night before bed.
Ultimately, the treatment of Private Manning,
who has yet to be brought to trial,
is prompting some questions that are now making it up to the President.
- PRESIDENT OBAMA:
- With respect to Private Manning,
I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures
that have been taken in terms of his confinement
are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.
They assure me that they are.
Hi, how are you?
Did you see the news?
I'm just actually in the car with Dan Ellsberg
and Laura. I'll put you on.
Julian, hi.
It's outrageous that this court martial is continuing, given
the President's proclamation that he's guilty already,
it's impossible to get a fair military trial. Here you go.
Did you get all that?
Oh, my God! We're driving past the Pentagon.
CHUCKLING
Just in brief, they've said that they've found
an Al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan's computer
that had the WikiLeaks Afghan documents downloaded onto it.
They showed a video of Al-Qaeda's media service
showing an Al-Qaeda leader talking about jihad and how they
ought to use WikiLeaks in their efforts towards jihad.
And the argument they're making is that
Manning has, by providing information to WikiLeaks,
has materially aided the enemy,
because by posting it on the internet,
WikiLeaks is providing information to the enemy.
To terrorist organisations.
It was unbelievable, the whole... It was just,
we were sitting there thinking, "Are they serious?"
And it even says the free internet is a tool for jihad.
Authorities say there are concerns about his safety
and the fact he might commit suicide now that there's
been condemnation from around the world...
on an investigation by the UN's torture investigator
into those conditions, but the military, the US government,
is continuing to press this case. The most serious charge is one
of aiding the enemy. Now prosecutors in this case have said
they won't seek the death penalty,
so, if found guilty, he would face life in prison.
- CAMERAS CLICK
- There he is.
He's smiling.
I was 20 in my first court case.
My two co-defendants both ratted me out to the police under pressure.
And they both became...
..um, Crown witnesses.
Um...
And I refused, under principle.
And... But it's not that I didn't think about it.
Um, I don't believe in martyrs, I don't think.
Some very rare exceptions that people should be martyrs,
but I think people, they should certainly take risks,
understand...
..carefully what the risks are, what the opportunities
of the situation are, and make sure these are in balance.
Um, sometimes the risk can be very high.
But the opportunity can also be extremely high.
Um, and by opportunity, I mean for things that you care about.
I mean, to keep things in perspective,
I mean, there's... the risk of inaction
is extremely high.
And every day you live your life, you lose another day of life.
What's the...the risk of just sitting there? You just lost a day.
You just died a day.
You don't have that many, so...
If you're not fighting for the things that you care about
and every day is disappearing, then, I mean, you are losing.
CHATTER
BEEPING
That's your machine!
It's up here, it's up here.
Pick it up so it doesn't go somewhere else. Shit!
- And then you just pick it up and press the...
- Hello.
HE CLEARS HIS THROAT
Yes, um, you called on this, um, box.
Julian Assange.
No, I wasn't in the house.
It's about you getting your mind into not using language
that sounds hostile to women or to suggest
that in general, women are absolutely entitled
to bring cases against men who rape.
Your position is, "I'm not one of them."
You know? So you have to sort of find the language
that helps you to explain that.
Um, other than sounding as if you're somebody who thinks, you know,
that this is all a mad, um,
feminist conspiracy. I don't think that's helpful to you.
No, to say it publically is not helpful.
I know, but I'd like to persuade you that it isn't true as well!
But, privately, it's, uh...
- It feels like...
- Privately,
it's a social democratic party plus general...
..influence from the government.
It's just a thoroughly...
..tawdry...
..radical feminist political positioning thing.
It's some...
..um, some stereotype.
- And you stumbled into this nest of, of...
- Yeah.
She started the lesbian nightclub in Gothenburg.
I mean, you know, what people would say is, what's her
setting up a lesbian nightclub got to do with the price of fish?
- You know...
- No, but she is in that circle, that circle of...
She... The fact that somebody is a feminist,
and even a radical feminist, doesn't mean...
Yeah, but...and the policewoman have been running
- as a tag-team, they go to...
- You see, I need to stop you using
that kind of language of saying they were running as a tag-team.
- Because it's making it sound...
- I won't do it in public,
- I'm just say...
- I, I, you, of cour....
SHE SIGHS
An actual court case, I mean,
it's going to be very, very hard for these women.
They will be reviled forever,
by a large segment of the...
..global population.
So...
..I don't think it's in their interest...
..to proceed that way. If I was them, I would go.
They need to save face.
So they would do something like, we'd do a deal where...
Um...
I would apologise for anything that I did or didn't do that...
..hurt their feelings.
Uh,
and they would say, "Enough is enough.
"We didn't want...
"We absolutely didn't want to, we didn't intend to file a complaint,"
"and that's publically agreed, and this is too severe."
Part of the problem in this case is that there's, there's two women,
and the public just can't even keep them separate.
So if there was one, you could go, "She's a bad woman."
I think that would have happened by now.
"This person is a bad character,
"bad faith, and here's the evidence that points to it."
Because there's two, it's much harder.
I thought I'd try and look as much like the judges as possible.
It works.
Here we are, here we are.
Julian, Julian!
JOURNALISTS CHATTER
Do you think you will win this appeal?
- Sir, sir!
- How do you feel?
- MAN:
- A man who has been involved
in exposing the crimes of the US empire is under threat
of potentially being extradited to the United States.
It seems very likely to be a malicious prosecution against him,
and that's why I'm here to show my solidarity.
If he assaulted the women, then that's a different case
and it's important that he answers to that, has to answer to her.
But at the moment I don't know, and
whatever he did there, I still support
what he's doing with WikiLeaks.
APPLAUSE
Mr Assange, how confident are you of a win?
INDISTINCT CHATTER
Production journal. This is not the film I thought I was making.
I thought I could ignore the contradictions.
I thought they were not part of the story.
I was so wrong.
They are becoming the story.
So, quick save.
BACKGROUND CHATTER
You are in a region that is extremely valuable to wiretap,
and you are almost certainly being monitored.
In Tunisia, we know that this is happening.
That is true for all of us right now. No question.
And if you look, you can see that this is the case,
because some websites are blocked.
In Syria, they use devices called Blue Coat.
They record everything that goes in and out of Syria.
So every time you send an e-mail, they record the entire thing.
Think about it in terms of safe sex.
Right? And this is the same thing.
People are practising unsafe computing.
Sometimes in some places, the result of that is death.
So you have to make those choices and know that there are options.
Just like condoms, they could break.
And you are in a world of hurt.
That's maybe not the greatest and most culturally appropriate analogy.
SOMEONE LAUGHS
I'm glad one of you did. That's awkward.
Good times.
Technology can always be used in two ways.
Isn't the internet just an infrastructure, one that can be
used to spread the idea of freedom, but also to control people?
Yes, of course. The infrastructure as we build it today...
In a way that has never been possible before.
Well... I don't know. I mean, it depends.
I think the scary thing is the control thing.
There is control that is afforded
now, that is unlike anything else
that has ever happened.
At the same time, the avenues for communication are everything
we had before, plus this.
Maybe that allows for us to build new alternatives that
previously were not possible without the internet.
I think that that is the case.
That is what we think that we are doing with Tor.
And don't you give bad guys a hideout?
No. Not any more than, for example, roads help terrorists to travel,
or trains or something like this, or aeroplanes.
What we do is we ensure that every person, not one person excluded,
has the right to read and the right to speak freely.
With no exceptions.
DISTANT CHATTER
It's like what happened in Egypt.
They did use all these completely insecure
- communications mechanisms.
- Mm-hm.
But they did it quickly.
So they were able to communicate quickly
because they use insecure communications mechanisms.
So you whip...
A political situation was whipped up and evolved much faster
than their opponents could see it, understand it, and act on it.
I think the general principle you have there is true.
But I don't think that it actually is the case that, long run,
all of those insecure technologies will actually benefit them.
In Tunisia, we were told that people in Syria were killed.
How many people are you willing to sacrifice in order to get
the political gain?
Or if you're one of those people, how much of your own
life are you willing to risk in order to get that political gain?
- Part...
- Actually, you might be willing to risk rather a lot.
And if you slow everyone down, such that you're not going to get
the political gain at all, yes, you might protect people,
but on the other hand are you protecting people by permitting
a situation to continue where you have 20,000 political prisoners?
It's not protecting people either.
It's just that I'm not clear if they understand what will happen.
I think most people don't understand data retention.
I don't think it works like that, actually.
I think...you have a short-term crisis
and you decide that the ability to activate quickly
and en masse is more important than preventing
the internet from forming a long-term profile on them.
People just don't understand the threat model.
There's two different threat models here.
There's one where they know who you are and they're going to spend
a certain amount of resources on targeting you.
And following you physically.
And the other is, they don't yet know who you are.
And as long as you keep your anonymity, you don't end
up in this first category.
And once you're in this first category, it's very hard.
I'm in this first category.
- You're in this first category.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER
MUSIC PLAYS
# Croatia, Albania... #
Move your head forward so I don't cut your neck.
I will just trim your hair a little bit.
That's nice.
# Somewhere far overseas... #
A little rat tail there.
LAUGHTER, MUSIC STOPS
Did you look at the Occupy London photos?
Make sure the sound is up.
VIDEO PLAYS
HE LAUGHS
THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
No. I don't want to cut it too short on the back.
MUSIC PLAYS ON VIDEO
INDISTINCT CHATTER
We just need to wash it.
INDISTINCT CHATTER, LAUGHTER
BIRDSONG
Three guys arrive, and they approach him, and they say, "FBI."
- They ask about my...
- About your name and his involvement with you.
And they said, "You were involved with WikiLeaks, right?
"And we have been following you."
They admitted that they have been following you.
"And we're contacting you because we want to ask you some questions."
Like what?
Well, very general stuff, like, "We want to know your relationship
- "with Julian Assange," general stuff like that. Uh...
- TWIG SNAPS
Sh...
There's two guys.
Shall I continue, or...?
- Go on...
- Huh?
- Could you just have a look there, Laura?
This question about communication with Manning, for example,
that's clearly the most important question I've heard so far, but...
I said, "Did they mention Jacob?"
And he said, "No, they didn't mention Jacob.
"They just mentioned Julian,"
because they mentioned you again, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange...
- In the car.
- The three spooks.
- Yeah.
When they were trying to make him answer the questions,
because the matter was closed, what they could do is give him
a ride on the car to the house that he was staying at,
and he said to them that he was staying alone in the house.
He's such a fucking idiot! Get into a car with three FBI guys?!
- Yeah, all right, yeah...
- Yeah.
And they said, "What you have to do now is call this and this
- "and this and this..."
- DOG BARKS
- Go on.
- That's his security...
I bumped into four people I knew in Sweden.
They all say the same thing,
that WikiLeaks has lost ground because of you.
It doesn't matter when you go, "Yes, but, you know... WikiLeaks IS him,
"it's all his ideas," and all that. That almost puts them off even more.
I mean, you're toxic there.
They all say, "Apologise."
I'm not telling you this is what I'm saying,
- I'm just passing on what they...
- So?!
- I'm just passing on.
- 500 days of detention without charge.
- Yeah.
The only person who put it differently was Thomas Olsson,
who said you need to address the issue.
He said, "What you do is you need to address the girls, say,
" 'I'm sorry you felt that way. I wasn't disregarding you.'
"That sort of thing."
Just fly her over. I'm sure she'll be happy to have a private meeting.
- Who? SW?
- Yeah.
- Are you being sarcastic?
- No.
Erm...
If you can demonstrate that due process hasn't been followed,
that will really upset the Swedes,
- because they're a stickler for process.
- No, they're not.
- No, I know they're not.
- They're a stickler for PRETENDING
- that there's process.
- Yeah.
- But you've got to...
- We HAVE been demonstrating it
- again and again and again.
- That's why I said, "I disagree."
- And I said...
- That's why they hate me.
Anyway...
I'm sure they'd much prefer to fuck me and have no whimpering sounds.
This is my debrief. So can you keep quiet?
- Go on.
- Because every time I say...
They're like, "He should just come back and..." You know.
- "Get into that prison cell!"
- Yeah.
Hi. I'll put him on.
Hello?
Yeah, of course. Well, you need to say that,
that these are weasel words.
No, fuck that. You don't need to worry about that.
The US has an active grand jury with FBI agents detaining
people at airports.
No, they're not. That's a lie.
It's a grand jury. It's secret. All you have to do is quote...
No, no. No, no, no. All you have to do is quote
what was in the Sydney Morning Herald
from the Australian government's own material, which is,
"It cannot be confirmed on the record"...
..ie it can be confirmed OFF the record.
Witnesses who have been dragged in have...
..released the subpoenas, have been on the steps of the grand jury.
Julian runs the organisation like an intelligence agency,
using codenames, denial and deception, compartmentalisation.
He's teaching me things about secrecy
I didn't realise I needed to learn.
I don't know what he's planning. I'm only able to see one step ahead.
BELL TOLLS
INDICATOR CLICKS
RINGING TONE
Hi. How's it going?
But don't tell that journalist.
And, um... Yeah. Any journalists.
Yeah, well, tell him to bugger off.
Those who support Julian Assange believe that his extradition
is only the beginning of a very long process that could land
the whistle-blower in a US prison.
TV IS ON
In the last few moments,
the UK's Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of Julian Assange,
effectively paving the way for him to be extradited to Sweden
within the next ten days. He has not been charged with any crime.
At this stage, he is only wanted in Sweden for questioning
in relation to some sexual allegations,
which Mr Assange denies.
Assange was not in court for that judgment to be handed down.
We understand he wanted to be, but was caught in traffic.
He was not in court,
although he may well be watching it here on television.
No, thank you.
PHONE BEEPS
SHE WHISPERS
I'm just saying don't talk about this one.
SIREN WAILS
Well, we're told that he is inside this embassy here.
We're not getting a lot of information on the ground.
His supporters even were caught by surprise by this move.
PHONE RINGS
Yes, we considered many countries.
However, on our analysis,
Ecuador was the most likely to agree to the asylum.
We do have a lot of support in Iceland, and Iceland was moving
in that direction, but unfortunately they were simply not far enough.
Well, we say that my activities are protected by the First Amendment,
but it's all a matter of politics. Laws are interpreted by judges.
In any event, we require that the United States
guarantee that it does not apply the death penalty in my extradition.
However, um, there still could be life imprisonment
or 30 years of imprisonment, and the conditions might be very severe.
Well, there's still an awful lot of people here, not just supporters
of Assange but also passers-by wondering what on earth is going on.
And as I'm sure you can imagine, there's a lot of media here, too.
The UK previously sent a letter
which has been interpreted by Ecuador as a threat to storm
the embassy and get Assange out by any means necessary.
That didn't go down very well with the Ecuadorians at all.
They said that it was an act
that was not fitting of a civilised nation.
And even in a state of war, even if the UK was at war with Ecuador,
they do not have the right to go into the mission.
Yeah.
The news that Julian Assange has been granted
asylum by the Ecuadorian government is slowly spreading through
a large, substantial crowd here outside the Ecuadorian embassy.
But the Britain Government is insisting it changes nothing.
- WOMAN LAUGHS
- How pathetic is that?
A press conference with all of the London media, who hate us...
- ..and doing it live to the world.
- It'll be fine.
I'm f...king terrified!
- I'll read it to you.
- Yeah.
- I'm so scared, OK?
- It'll be fine.
"Thanks for coming.
"I'm going to talk a bit about today's release then walk you
"through our interface, then I'll take a few questions at the end.
"Just now, at 11am BST, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files.
- "Over the next two months, ground-breaking stories..."
- Er...
HE WHISPERS
But you're doing really well otherwise.
- "Over the next two months..."
- No...
- Agh!
Just read it in your head, so buffer up.
Get the first four words into my head...
- Then look up and speak them.
- OK.
Here we go.
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be with us today
"but has given this comment on the Syria Files.
" 'The material is embarrassing to Syria,
" 'but it is also embarrassing to Syria's opponents.
" 'It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another
" 'but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts.' "
We won't just be pissing off Assad,
we'll be pissing off his enemies, as well.
OK, give me a couple of questions.
The one that I'm most nervous about is...
..the typical one, the girlfriend one, and I just give a funny look
and Joseph says, "That's not on this topic."
Just imagine they're a piece of shit on your shoe. A piece of dogshit.
Don't look at all scared, just look, "What?"
"Ridiculous question right now."
No, no, no, just...
"Oh, please!" Do the feminine thing.
- OK.
- "You've assaulted my femininity.
"How dare you."
Thanks for coming.
Just now, at 11am BST, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files,
more than two million e-mails from Syrian political figures,
ministries and associated companies.
This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syrian-related
entities or domain names,
including those of the ministries of presidential affairs,
foreign affairs, finance, information, transport and culture.
We'll take a very limited amount of questions.
But I know Julian is very newsworthy at the moment -
can we just keep the questions to do with the release?
Does this mean WikiLeaks is back on top and able to continue
publishing new data, after quite a hiatus of not doing so?
Can you give us any headlines from this,
anything that we can take away from this
before going through the interface?
And just the latest on Mr Assange
and what he's feeling there in the Ecuador embassy right now.
Mr Assange?
Erm, as my colleague said, this isn't about Mr Assange.
..and this is another we did... earlier this year
and then this is the second large release of this year...
- That's good.
- ..that we are continuing.
I don't know if there's a rebranding...
We're up to, like, 150 tweets a minute.
Production journal.
I had a nightmare that hung with me for days.
Julian was being detained at a US military base.
I've been off the radar since I started editing.
I should check-in with Sarah so they don't freak out.
See, my profile didn't really take off until the sex case.
- Oh, it's...
- No, no, it was very high amongst media circles
and intelligence circles and so on, but it didn't really,
really take off as if I was a globally recognised household name.
It wasn't until the sex case.
So I was joking to one of our people...
..sex scandal every six months.
I think that was me you were joking to. I died a little bit inside.
- That's the way to...
- SARAH LAUGHS
"That's going to keep my profile up, isn't it, Sarah?" A big grin.
I was like, "Please, please, please don't.
"I will kill you on every level available."
- Come on. It's a platform.
- SARAH LAUGHS
No, they didn't move. This is incredible.
Those are the guys I can encourage to let you go.
So, y'know, please don't share this with anybody,
not a single soul, but let's talk about it and figure it out.
But this is clearly a man in the middle, right?
We tried to connect to Tor Project's web server.
It says that it's five hops upstream and then it closes the connection.
Erm, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of stuff...
- I have an idea. If you prepare me...
- What the fuck is that?!
You don't even have a bathrobe that fits you?
- Do we need to go shopping for you?
- Sh-sh-sh. No, no, no.
- If you prepare me...
- Does it say "Boss" on it?
- Yeah.
If you prepare me, um...a...
..typical USB or external drive with an onion server...
..that goes through a shell...
If you get on this network, then you can do the tests.
- Give me a computer, and I will give you that.
- OK.
- We should build that.
- Please get in the shower. You have ten minutes.
Please.
It's like you're in college.
Where do you sleep?
- The other side of the book shelf. Do you want to have a look?
- What?!
- This is your room?
- Not mine. I get to go home at night.
I want you to look like you just took your shirt off
and you're at home, you know? You should just be in...
..something like that, like a dirty fucking T-shirt, like a rebel.
- With a stain on it.
- Yeah.
- Yeah...
- What's your favourite kind of food?
- SHE LAUGHS
Well, I went to Malaysia...
Well, first of all, first of all, erm...
..let's not pretend for a moment that I'm a normal person.
I-I am obsessed with our political struggle.
- I'm not a normal person.
- Right.
I just would really like for you to tell me how you feel,
- because I've been trying to get that.
- OK.
Why does it matter how I feel? I mean, who gives a damn?
I don't see...
I don't care how I feel.
- Do you ever feel like just fucking crying?
- No.
- Never?
- Never.
- Even when you're happy?
- So you love your mom.
- Yeah.
How about your dad?
Er, my dad is much more abstract, so...
No! Nothing like you, then!
Just kidding.
Who is after you, Mr Assange?
Formally, there are more than 12
United States intelligence organisations,
- investigative organisations that are after us.
- What are they?
I mean, those include, most importantly, the FBI,
the Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency,
uh, the Department of Defense
and the subsets of the Department of Defense.
Uh, Centcom sections of the US Army, including CCIU,
the US Army's computer crimes investigative unit.
Uh, those include in Australia, various...
So a series of institutions.
So there are... And of course the State Department,
the diplomatic security service here within the United Kingdom,
the, uh, Home Office, the extradition squad,
the Serious Crimes...SOCO...
Serious Organised Crime...
So basically a whole bunch of fucking people in America?
- Uh...
- Now, what about the rest of the world?
So in the rest of the world, there's...
The Australian government started out with what they called
a Whole of Government investigation
that included the internal intelligence agency, Asio,
the external intelligence agency, Asis,
- the, uh... Attorney General...
- OK.
- The Department of...
- So we've got the US, Australian...
- ..the Australian federal police...
- Where else?
- ..the Swedish prosecution authorities...
Swedish prosecution.
Uh, that includes the foreign ministry run by Carl Bildt,
the, um, some aspects of the...
- It's become a national issue now.
- So a lot of people.
- Well...
- Lot of systems.
- There's the Scientologists...
- There's a lot of friends of...
- The Scientologists, there's people...
A lot of friends of friends doing things to put you in this position
- that you are now in. Correct?
- Sure.
HEAVY RAINFALL, THUNDER
RAPID THUMPING
Five, four, three, two, one.
Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.
Quicker. Good.
Good.
Quick. That's good.
I've been contacted by an anonymous source.
He claims to have documents about illegal NSA spying.
I wonder if the FBI is trying to entrap me, Jake, or Julian.
Julian would be the likely target.
HE BREATHES HEAVILY
I haven't told him about the source.
BUZZING
OK, um, I need you to move the camera and stop filming.
Give me that bag?
- TV:
- 29-year-old Edward Snowden
blew open those secrets by leaking unprecedented details
of top-secret government surveillance programmes.
Julian contacted me
after I published the video.
He said Snowden isn't safe
in Hong Kong.
I told him I can't assist with Ed's asylum.
The risks are too high.
When they investigate this leak,
they will create a narrative to say it was all a conspiracy.
They won't understand what really happened -
that we all kept each other in the dark.
- TV:
- Breaking news this hour.
WikiLeaks claims one of its legal advisers
accompanying Snowden after the whistle-blowing organisation
- secured a safe exit...
- ..has Snowden aboard,
scheduled to land in the Russian capital within minutes.
As you may have heard, there is a CIA agent
who has revealed a lot of information
and he is now trapped in the, uh, the airport in Moscow.
We managed to get him out of Hong Kong,
but when he landed in the Moscow airport,
the American government had cancelled his passport
to try and grab him.
We're trying to arrange a private jet
to take him from Moscow to Ecuador
or perhaps maybe Venezuela.
Or maybe Iceland. Countries where he would be safe.
But there isn't much time, this is the problem.
We need to raise the money for the jet.
Well, the quote's coming back at somewhere between 120,000
and $300,000 for the... uh, for the private flight.
And one of our people is accompanying him.
- NEWSREADER:
- Today we've had information
from the official Russian news service, Interfax,
that at the Moscow airport, Edward Snowden applied for asylum there
with the help of Sarah Harrison - you see her there on the right.
- NEWSREADER:
- The British national
says that her lawyers have advised her not to return to the UK
because she risks arrest under the Terrorism Act.
Not guilty on aiding the enemy.
But specification 1, charge 2, unwanted publication, guilty.
Afghan war diary and espionage, guilty.
Spec 8 on the Gitmo files, guilty,
which is ten years max.
Cablegate, guilty.
Ten years. Reykjavik cable, two years max, guilty.
God.
It goes on.
10, 20, 30...
90...100...
102, 112...
Yeah. So far, 142 years maximum possible sentence.
I spoke to Julian for the first time in months.
He is furious, and feels betrayed.
He wants me to give him NSA documents,
and accused me of dividing the community
by not publishing with WikiLeaks.
I tell him I can't be his source.
I don't tell him that I don't trust him.
He's still yelling when I hang up the phone.
Testing, testing. OK.
OK, so, uh, there's a film-maker named Laura Poitras.
Laura Poitras is known through the defence community
as a documentary film-maker who's anti-US.
So she's known in the Wiki community,
the anti-US, anti-government monitoring community.
When we were pursing Snowden,
we went balls-to-the-wall to try and get this guy.
We were able to revoke his visa
the day before he boarded the plane for Moscow.
So they get the guy on the plane, he ends up in Moscow,
and then at that moment we realised,
we lost him, we're probably not going to get him back.
PHONE RINGS
Hi.
INDISTINCT REPLY
How's it going?
INDISTINCT REPLY
Mmm. Mmm.
It looks almost certain now
that it's going to be Hillary versus Trump.
Basically it will be Hillary versus Trump
unless one of them has a stroke or is assassinated.
Yeah.
So that's quite a bad outcome in both directions.
We have a definite warmonger in the case of Hillary,
- who's gunning for us.
- Yep.
Uh, and in the case of Trump,
we have someone who's extremely unpredictable.
- Yes.
- There's quite a lot of interesting stuff
- in relation to Hillary.
- Mm-hmm.
Uh, fortunately for Trump,
there's, uh, not so many known interesting documents.
Think of his business ventures all over -
there must be a whole bunch of stuff.
Mm-hmm.
After something like this happens in your community,
it kind of tears it apart.
You know, Tor is just kind of
the epicentre of this particular instance.
But I think there is kind of a...
You know, a degree of sickness within the community
that allows these things to happen,
and so I think we're still uncovering
and trying to make sense of what actually happened,
like, how did it process?
What were the mechanisms by which it was covered up or hidden
or enabled?
I have some comments, but I would like to actually not be on camera.
I'm a programmer, and all I would like to do
is to be able to contribute to radical projects.
But I knew that I wouldn't work with Tor ever because of Jacob Appelbaum.
And I was never directly affected by him,
but I just knew so many stories.
Jake often asked me,
what decision would I make in the Prisoner's Dilemma?
Would I stay silent, or betray him?
Jake sent me a text after the website went live.
We had been involved briefly in 2014.
After I ended things, he was abusive to someone close to me.
Jake was now worried about what I would say.
I asked to interview him for the film.
He said no. He wants the film to have a different ending.
So do I.
TYPING
CHEERING
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- WikiLeaks published a trove of hot, stolen DNC e-mails
and voice messages indicating efforts by party officials
to hinder Bernie Sanders's campaign
and assist Hillary Clinton's campaign.
US government sources strongly suspect
that Russian intelligence agents were behind the data breach.
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- The grand total of e-mails
pushed out there by WikiLeaks is now well over 10,000.
..progressives' concern that she was taking all this money
from Goldman Sachs and others.
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- Assange has given a series of interviews
in which he says that there's no proof whatsoever
that the e-mails that he's already released came from Russian sources.
Of course, WikiLeaks likes to create maximum ambiguity
about where its information comes from.
It's very hot on the protection of sources.
Does that not trouble you at all, if a foreign government is trying to
meddle in the affairs of another foreign government?
Well, it's...it's an interesting speculative question
that's for the press and others to...
But that doesn't bother you.
That is not part of the WikiLeaks, uh, credo.
Well, it's a... It's a metastory.
If you're asking, would we accept information
from US intelligence that we had verified
to be completely accurate, and would we publish that,
and would we protect our sources in US intelligence?
The answer is yes, of course we would.
- CHANT:
- Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
WHISTLING AND CHEERING
- TV:
- Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States.
Assange is obviously back in the headlines
after WikiLeaks released thousands of e-mails from the Democratic Party
in the lead-up to the presidential election.
The Department of Homeland Security
says the e-mails come from Russian hackers
backed by the highest levels of the Kremlin.
CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK
Could I get through?
Are you pleased the interview is finally taking place?
The Swedish Prosecuting Office will make a decision
as to whether to carry the investigation forth,
possibly bring charges against Julian Assange,
or perhaps drop the investigation altogether.
I have been authorised by the Department of Justice
to confirm that the FBI, as part of
our counterintelligence mission,
is investigating
the Russian government's efforts to interfere
in the 2016 presidential election.
And that includes investigating the nature of any links
between individuals associated with the Trump campaign
and the Russian government
AND whether there was any coordination between the campaign
and Russia's efforts.
Thank you, Mr Chairman. I just want to follow up with a few questions.
Director Comey, are you aware that Roger Stone played a role
- in the Trump campaign?
- I'm not going to talk about
any particular person here today, Mr Schiff.
I'm going to continue to ask these questions
because I want to make sure you are aware of these facts,
whether you're able to comment on them or not.
Are you aware that Mr Stone also claimed that he was in touch with
an intermediary of Mr Assange?
Same answer.
This question I think you CAN answer.
Do you know whether the Russian intelligence services
dealt directly with WikiLeaks
or whether they too used an intermediary?
We assess they used some kind of cut-out.
They didn't deal directly with WikiLeaks,
in contrast to Guccifer 2.0.
There is evidence, is there not,
of a break-in of the Democratic headquarters
by a foreign power using cyber means?
- Yes there was.
- And there was an effort by the Russians
to cover up their break-in
by using cut-outs like WikiLeaks to publish the stolen material.
Isn't that right?
Certainly to cover up that they were the ones releasing it.
MAN SIGHS
LIGHT SWITCH
Everyone who knows that I'm doing this,
they want to know why.
The motivation.
So if we actually... If I don't try and make an excuse,
- but rather...
- Or a sound bite or anything, but really what...
If I don't... Maybe close that door.
I don't feel there's even a choice in that.
I was in a lucky position
that the new thing, that is... It is...
That element which is really causing the world to globalise,
and that element which is, um, producing most of the changes
that we're seeing, including the bad ones,
I was an expert in.
If you...
..uh, see the global problems that we have as a global civilisation,
you actually see them and understand them,
then...acting locally is completely inconsequential.
Relative to what you understand.
So the only way to then act...
..to...
make the world the way you want it,
to remove those features which you do not like,
is to act globally.
'Cos the features that you are concerned about
are a global phenomenon.
I understand what you're saying on a tactical level.
But, like, really the motivation.
That IS the motiva... I mean, it's...
- But isn't it also something about power?
- Er...
If you're... Let's say
your perception was limited to your garden.
And so you spend your time going, "Oh, I don't like, um..."
"I don't like to have weeds, I like to have flowers in my garden.
"I like my garden to be healthy."
Then you spend your time doing that.
If your perception has been globalised,
then...
..this perception of your garden, I mean,
Perhaps I have a god complex, right?
The perception of your garden...
My perception of what my environment is...
..um, the area that I care about is the whole world.
(Laura Poitras speaks in the background)
Julian texted me after
I showed him a cut of the film.
He said...
Laura... I ask that you cease
putting into press releases
and interviews
that we have fallen out.
After the screening,
we will continue to try
to find a path
of mutual interest.
However, presently,
the film is a severe threat
to my freedom,
and I'm forced
to treat it accordingly.
WHIRRING
- NEWS PRESENTER:
- Efforts are now well under way...
to prosecute the founder of the group...
that Candidate Trump said he loved so much,
WikiLeaks.
The Justice Department are preparing
charges against Julian Assange.
The Attorney General said
he is focused on prosecuting leaks,
and the Justice Department
is taking steps to do that.
We are going to step up our efforts
on all leaks.
Whenever a case can be made,
we will seek to put some people in jail.