[00:00.000 --> 00:05.220]  Lending their support to the return of musical instruments to our classrooms.
[00:05.980 --> 00:11.060]  Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival in its 20th year is the forum.
[00:11.720 --> 00:14.780]  International Jazz Day is the day.
[00:15.160 --> 00:16.420]  Location for this event?
[00:16.800 --> 00:22.100]  Club Milk River, 960 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.
[00:22.420 --> 00:24.760]  That's April 30th, 2019.
[00:25.200 --> 00:27.260]  Doors open at 6 p.m.
[00:27.500 --> 00:29.820]  This is an early evening event.
[00:30.000 --> 00:32.340]  This is Dr. Mambo from the world of jazz.
[00:34.620 --> 00:38.400]  And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York.
[00:38.540 --> 00:42.240]  It's 7 o'clock time once again for Off the Hook.
[00:47.760 --> 01:00.340]  The telephone keeps ringing So I ripped it off the wall I cut myself while shaving Now I can't make a cough We couldn't get much worse
[01:03.550 --> 01:09.510]  We won't for the best, it's paid for worst I hope that's understood One day we know
[02:33.290 --> 02:34.950]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:35.070 --> 02:36.230]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:36.390 --> 02:38.050]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you tonight.
[02:39.150 --> 02:40.950]  Joined by Rob T.
[02:41.130 --> 02:41.610]  Firefly.
[02:42.030 --> 02:42.610]  Good evening.
[02:42.890 --> 02:43.270]  Alex.
[02:43.530 --> 02:43.850]  Good evening.
[02:44.010 --> 02:44.410]  And Kyle.
[02:44.950 --> 02:45.270]  Howdy.
[02:45.850 --> 02:46.570]  Back from Canada.
[02:46.790 --> 02:50.190]  All hell broke loose while we were away last week.
[02:50.630 --> 02:53.730]  Notre Dame burned down and Trump said that stupid thing.
[02:53.890 --> 02:57.450]  And of course, Julian Assange was dragged out of the embassy.
[02:57.610 --> 02:59.290]  We kind of knew that was going to happen.
[02:59.650 --> 03:06.270]  In fact, there was even a live cam set up outside waiting several days for that to happen.
[03:06.390 --> 03:11.910]  Ironically, all of the news teams left except for one that was sponsored by RT.
[03:12.350 --> 03:14.990]  And now they're selling the footage to anybody that wants it.
[03:15.110 --> 03:17.970]  So they're the only ones that have the footage of him being dragged out.
[03:19.270 --> 03:21.590]  It's really something.
[03:21.810 --> 03:24.450]  It's something to behold, something to discuss.
[03:24.590 --> 03:25.150]  That's what we're doing.
[03:25.350 --> 03:40.650]  This hour is analyzing what particularly happened with that development, what is happening with press freedom in general, what is happening with WikiLeaks and the hacking world and all sorts of other things.
[03:40.870 --> 03:42.290]  And we will be taking calls later on.
[03:43.630 --> 03:45.170]  Well, where do we begin?
[03:45.570 --> 03:50.370]  We have all sorts of of evidence, I think, to look at.
[03:50.810 --> 03:53.190]  We have the indictment against Julian Assange.
[03:53.350 --> 03:53.930]  Let's start with that.
[03:54.450 --> 04:02.590]  Because that is what was released right after he was dragged, kicking, screaming out of the embassy, almost literally.
[04:03.350 --> 04:08.670]  The United States government released a single charge against Julian Assange.
[04:08.770 --> 04:18.210]  Now, he was, first of all, arrested for violating his, what's the legal term, Alex?
[04:18.390 --> 04:18.670]  Bail?
[04:18.790 --> 04:19.250]  Probation?
[04:20.370 --> 04:23.910]  He basically skipped out on a court proceeding in the UK.
[04:24.030 --> 04:29.490]  So it wasn't necessarily bail, but he didn't appear for a court appearance.
[04:29.710 --> 04:30.210]  Okay.
[04:30.570 --> 04:36.470]  And then there are the charges in Sweden concerning a sexual assault.
[04:36.990 --> 04:43.890]  And then the, the one everyone is talking about is from the United States.
[04:43.950 --> 04:47.650]  We're going to be analyzing that, analyzing the case in general.
[04:48.150 --> 04:58.190]  We also have the chat logs that were obtained as, as evidence, which I think is, is quite interesting to, to look at that as well.
[04:58.450 --> 05:01.210]  Now, um, let's look at the indictment first.
[05:01.510 --> 05:13.710]  Um, that is something that, you know, I, I, I've, I've been going over this, uh, looking at the, um, the charges that are being, uh, filed against him.
[05:13.790 --> 05:14.850]  It's really just one charge.
[05:14.950 --> 05:15.470]  Is it not, Alex?
[05:15.670 --> 05:16.050]  It is.
[05:16.150 --> 05:22.670]  It's one charge, but it's a conspiracy charge that relates to several different, uh, criminal statutes under the US code.
[05:23.070 --> 05:23.690]  All right.
[05:23.870 --> 05:41.950]  Now, um, what they are saying here is that, uh, Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning to, um, uh, crack a, um, uh, a password, basically, that would allow, uh, for certain, uh, files to be accessed that weren't accessible at the time.
[05:42.390 --> 05:43.030]  That, that's right.
[05:43.170 --> 05:43.450]  That's right.
[05:43.510 --> 06:03.150]  And specifically, we're talking about the, these particular sections under the US code, 18 USC section 641, which has to deal with the theft of US records and property section 793 subparagraph C and E, which has to deal with gathering and transmitting defense information section 371,
[06:03.370 --> 06:18.710]  which is the general conspiracy statute to conspire against the United States and sections 1030 A1 and A2, which I'm sure we're all familiar with, which has to deal with the computer fraud and abuse act and, um, and, and, uh, accessing computers without authorization or exceeding authorization,
[06:19.050 --> 06:34.570]  which is what the indictment specifically states Assange conspired to do with Chelsea Manning and aided and, and, and abetted or, or, um, in furtherance of that conspiracy by, uh, assisting with the cracking of a hash password.
[06:34.950 --> 06:35.430]  Okay.
[06:35.510 --> 06:36.790]  That's what I want to focus on right now.
[06:36.830 --> 06:40.190]  And it, uh, shows up under manners and means of the conspiracy.
[06:40.830 --> 06:42.610]  Um, let's just look at this point by point.
[06:42.730 --> 06:48.330]  Assange and his co-conspirators used the following ways, manners and means, among others, to carry out this purpose.
[06:48.470 --> 07:05.530]  It was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used the Jabber online chat service to collaborate on the acquisition and dissemination of the classified records and to enter into the agreement to crack the password stored on United States Department of Defense computers connected to the secret internet protocol network.
[07:05.970 --> 07:08.610]  Well, uh, using Jabber is not a crime.
[07:08.850 --> 07:12.790]  Using Jabber is something that journalists do to communicate with sources.
[07:13.110 --> 07:18.090]  Uh, and, uh, as far as, as, um, an agreement to crack the password, we can, we can look at that.
[07:18.230 --> 07:21.370]  We can look at the evidence, uh, that indicates that was going on.
[07:21.470 --> 07:27.530]  But can we agree that, that using that particular method of communication is not really part of a conspiracy.
[07:27.710 --> 07:30.990]  It's a method that journalists use to communicate.
[07:31.250 --> 07:39.350]  Well, I, I think what they're doing in, in that portion of the indictment is setting the, the, the factual context here saying, look, they were communicating in this way.
[07:39.510 --> 07:51.830]  And, and it was through this means and medium of communication that they engaged in a conspiracy to crack this password, obtain defense information, et cetera, engage in, and violate, uh, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
[07:52.070 --> 07:52.650]  All right.
[07:52.770 --> 07:53.350]  Uh, moving on.
[07:53.450 --> 08:07.250]  It was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure of classified records to WikiLeaks, including by removing usernames from the disclosed information and deleting chat logs between Assange and Manning.
[08:07.390 --> 08:08.670]  Again, that's not a crime.
[08:08.790 --> 08:09.590]  There's nothing wrong with that.
[08:09.710 --> 08:11.210]  That is standard operating procedure.
[08:11.470 --> 08:13.930]  It's just the way they are laying this out.
[08:14.010 --> 08:15.530]  And I guess it's typical of indictments.
[08:15.950 --> 08:26.630]  They're trying to make it seem like people are up to no good, but what they're doing is simply showing the normal chain of events that any decent journalist would employ.
[08:26.950 --> 08:31.210]  Well, and I think it actually goes, goes further than that as well on this particular point.
[08:31.350 --> 08:34.450]  I think the, this fact is, is extraordinarily flimsy.
[08:34.630 --> 08:48.390]  If you look at the particular chat logs at issue, where they're discussing the removal of these usernames, Chelsea Manning, um, in response to Assange, noting that it appears that there's a username on some of the documents that were leaked, that, that she had leaked to Assange.
[08:48.710 --> 08:52.870]  Uh, he asked her specifically whether the username should be deleted.
[08:53.370 --> 08:55.150]  And Manning responded, yes.
[08:55.350 --> 08:57.350]  You know, in fact, you know, all usernames should be deleted.
[08:57.530 --> 09:08.110]  So it seemed like what Manning was up to was not some kind of nefarious or malicious anti-forensic behavior to cover up her tracks, but more about the protection of these particular usernames.
[09:08.590 --> 09:13.570]  So this in and of itself, I don't think is, is an act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
[09:13.730 --> 09:15.650]  I think that one is particularly flimsy.
[09:17.290 --> 09:17.850]  All right.
[09:18.110 --> 09:22.450]  Uh, continuing with, um, with the indictment here, we'll get back into the chat, chat log in just a second.
[09:23.150 --> 09:33.010]  Um, it was, um, part of the conspiracy that Assange encouraged Manning to provide information and records from departments and agencies of the United States.
[09:33.150 --> 09:34.030]  I don't even know what that means.
[09:34.650 --> 09:43.530]  Um, Manning is supplying information and records from departments and agencies of the United States and Julian Assange is receiving that information.
[09:43.530 --> 09:55.410]  So, uh, yes, as, as somebody receiving, um, leaked information, I guess by default, he's encouraging her to provide him with that information.
[09:55.410 --> 09:56.930]  Again, And not a crime.
[09:57.290 --> 09:58.750]  Well, no, not at all.
[09:58.930 --> 10:03.610]  And from a journalistic standpoint, this is the most problematic portion of this indictment.
[10:04.470 --> 10:06.550]  Because this is what journalists do constantly.
[10:06.750 --> 10:08.870]  They encourage their sources to give them more information.
[10:09.610 --> 10:19.750]  Whether Assange crossed the line when he made this pact, according to the US government, to crack the hash password that she had provided him in the chat logs as well.
[10:20.910 --> 10:24.010]  That's where I think the crux of this case is going to lie.
[10:24.370 --> 10:36.870]  Because encouraging a source, I don't think any reasonable jury is ever going to find somebody guilty of a conspiracy against the United States government to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or any of the other statutes that we had just identified,
[10:36.870 --> 10:40.130]  simply by a journalist encouraging a source to give it material.
[10:40.350 --> 10:41.750]  We work with journalists all the time.
[10:41.870 --> 10:42.390]  You're a journalist.
[10:43.490 --> 10:47.550]  Journalists encourage people to do things, but they don't encourage them to break the law.
[10:48.210 --> 10:51.450]  Now, here's where I think things get really interesting.
[10:51.750 --> 10:56.950]  And it makes more sense now why Chelsea Manning is in prison.
[10:57.410 --> 11:04.350]  And I think it's because what the US government realized is that this indictment doesn't have a lot of context here.
[11:04.470 --> 11:09.630]  That they need to add some meat to the bones, and they can add meat to the bones by having corroborating witnesses.
[11:09.950 --> 11:13.630]  And Chelsea Manning refused to be a corroborating witness for the US government.
[11:13.730 --> 11:20.390]  She didn't want to provide testimony to the grand jury that would be sworn testimony that could then be used in the trial.
[11:21.510 --> 11:29.270]  And that is tremendous courage right there to do that, to stand up to these forces and to pay the price like this.
[11:29.790 --> 11:30.830]  It is.
[11:30.930 --> 11:33.470]  But on the other hand, I think it's a little bit misguided.
[11:33.750 --> 11:40.110]  And I don't want to go completely off topic and talk about the grand jury issue, but I think it's... It's on topic, I think.
[11:40.270 --> 11:40.710]  Yeah, okay.
[11:40.910 --> 11:51.010]  Well, you know, my point of view on this is that there's a really important point for why grand jury testimony is in fact secret, because it relates to an ongoing criminal investigation.
[11:51.010 --> 11:52.770]  You can't release that to the public.
[11:53.010 --> 12:11.070]  So just by refusing to give testimony to the grand jury and putting yourself in contempt of court, it seems a bit naive to me in one sense, because it seems to evidence a lack of understanding of how the legal system actually works in a criminal context like this.
[12:11.490 --> 12:20.510]  I don't... You know, I think she gets it a lot more than we might be giving her credit for, because without that testimony, without her testimony, I don't think they have much of a case.
[12:20.710 --> 12:33.130]  Well, according to Chelsea Manning herself, you know, one of the other reasons why she didn't provide the testimony is because she already provided this testimony, and there's transcripts of that testimony that they could rely on, and there's chat logs and other things like that.
[12:33.190 --> 12:50.450]  But what I think is happening here, not only with Chelsea Manning, but if you look at the New York Times reporting from a couple of days ago, it's very obvious that the Department of Justice was seeking out other collaborators with WikiLeaks for potential criminal prosecution as part of this conspiracy against the United States government,
[12:50.450 --> 13:07.110]  and more likely to try to flip them against Assange to add further context to these particular chat logs, and in particular, what was going on behind the scenes with regard to how and what was going on for the unhashing of this password, the cracking of this particular hash password.
[13:07.590 --> 13:11.510]  You know, what I love about all this is that we're talking about how the U.S.
[13:11.610 --> 13:21.230]  government is trying to figure out all kinds of different ways to get Assange, get all these people to flip on him, and gather all this evidence nine years after the fact.
[13:21.930 --> 13:25.530]  What has happened to the people that killed all those civilians?
[13:25.750 --> 13:26.570]  What has happened to them?
[13:26.750 --> 13:27.970]  Has anything happened?
[13:28.050 --> 13:29.190]  Do we even know who they are?
[13:29.250 --> 13:30.390]  Have their names been released?
[13:30.850 --> 13:32.730]  Are their lives a living hell?
[13:32.990 --> 13:35.830]  You know, are they facing life in prison?
[13:36.130 --> 13:39.190]  Are they, are they racked with guilt for what they've done?
[13:39.430 --> 13:45.810]  You know, think about what came out in 2010, because we had it right here in the studio, a day or two after it happened, Julian Assange.
[13:45.950 --> 14:05.730]  In fact, I want to, want to play a clip from, from that show, when he came into our studios, uh, before a lot of people the way people viewed the American government, uh, that would get the truth out there.
[14:06.230 --> 14:07.390]  That is what this is about.
[14:07.630 --> 14:11.850]  It's about getting the truth out, you know, and I was taught that was a good thing.
[14:11.990 --> 14:13.250]  Telling the truth is a good thing.
[14:13.610 --> 14:23.490]  And when we massacre people without a reason, not that there ever is a good reason, the truth should be known now.
[14:23.790 --> 14:24.050]  Okay.
[14:24.070 --> 14:25.230]  I know what people are saying.
[14:25.330 --> 14:36.790]  I know what I've said about Julian, about things he's done in the years since, um, pissed off about the whole Trump thing and about, uh, the Clinton emails and how he appears to be one sided.
[14:37.210 --> 14:43.390]  But I also recognize that's irrelevant to this, to this particular issue that happened in 2010.
[14:43.510 --> 14:53.290]  It's irrelevant to protection of, of, of the, the basic tenants of journalism and things that will affect all of us in one way or another.
[14:53.410 --> 14:54.030]  We'll get into that.
[14:54.250 --> 15:03.390]  Uh, it, it may not seem like this is a charge, uh, that is, um, uh, aimed at journalism, but it will have a, a, a very chilling effect.
[15:03.490 --> 15:17.790]  But I want to play, um, an excerpt from, uh, uh, from the show, uh, when, uh, he first came into our studios, where basically he's, um, he's telling us, uh, about what he, um, what he had just done.
[15:18.590 --> 15:31.130]  Um, and we've, we've, we've faced many threats in our time, uh, uh, in, at 2600, at BAI and, um, so had Julian.
[15:31.630 --> 15:35.810]  And here we're talking about ways of dealing with those particular threats.
[15:36.050 --> 15:41.430]  You see, now every time at 2600, we've, we've gotten a, um, a lawsuit threat, we've printed it in the magazine.
[15:41.430 --> 15:48.730]  And that has always resulted in either the lawsuit being dropped or just so much unfavorable publicity being directed at the, uh, threatender.
[15:49.030 --> 15:54.470]  Uh, and it's, um, I, I think that, uh, public, uh, disclosure serves us pretty well.
[15:54.890 --> 16:01.310]  Um, one thing I want to read here, which is, uh, I think one of the most admirable things, uh, has, has to do with, uh, Scientology.
[16:01.770 --> 16:14.010]  Uh, on April the 7th of 2008, WikiLeaks reported receiving a letter, uh, dated March 27th from the Religious Technology Center claiming ownership of several recently leaked documents pertaining to OT levels within the Church of Scientology.
[16:14.230 --> 16:19.870]  Uh, the email stated, uh, the advanced technology materials are unpublished, copyrighted works.
[16:19.990 --> 16:23.870]  Please be advised that your customer's action in this regard violates the United States copyright law.
[16:23.990 --> 16:28.830]  Accordingly, we ask for your help in removing these works immediately from your service.
[16:28.990 --> 16:34.010]  Uh, the letter continued on to request the release of the logs of the uploader, which would remove their anonymity.
[16:34.350 --> 16:46.250]  WikiLeaks responded with a statement released on WikiNews stating, in response to the attempted suppression, WikiLeaks will release several thousand additional pages of Scientology material next week, and did so.
[16:46.690 --> 16:47.030]  Yeah.
[16:47.230 --> 16:48.250]  Hats off to you for that.
[16:48.310 --> 16:49.170]  That's, that's awesome.
[16:49.510 --> 16:56.410]  Also, uh, there was, uh, I think you're involved in every scandal going on, uh, the Sarah Palin Yahoo hack that we were talking about here a couple of weeks ago.
[16:56.770 --> 16:59.530]  Uh, what, what, how did, uh, WikiLeaks, uh, play a part in that?
[17:00.090 --> 17:09.430]  Well, we, um, for someone, uh, posted a brief bit of information to 4chan, um, about this.
[17:09.730 --> 17:18.690]  Um, the allegation is this is the son of a Democratic, uh, legislative member in Tennessee, um, uh, who is now being investigated by the FBI.
[17:19.110 --> 17:27.310]  But our source came across that information and, um, and forwarded, uh, to us, um, it was, uh, immediately.
[17:27.710 --> 17:32.750]  Um, and then we put that information up and other people took it from us and 4chan took it down quite quickly.
[17:33.430 --> 17:40.490]  Um, that then became, um, worldwide news because Sarah Palin was a very interesting, uh, figure in the U.S.
[17:40.850 --> 17:41.250]  primaries.
[17:41.430 --> 17:41.870]  Sorry, the U.S.
[17:42.170 --> 17:43.370]  election was, uh, in full flight.
[17:44.090 --> 17:56.910]  Um, interesting in her book, um, about, uh, her time as, as running for vice president, uh, Sarah Palin says that that was the single most destructive event of the entire campaign.
[17:57.290 --> 17:57.590]  Wow.
[17:57.970 --> 17:59.150]  Really a Yahoo hack.
[17:59.270 --> 17:59.690]  That's awesome.
[18:00.590 --> 18:01.710]  Uh, okay.
[18:01.890 --> 18:07.210]  So now, uh, well, as far as how that person got caught, it wasn't, it wasn't by, by publishing on, on WikiLeaks.
[18:07.350 --> 18:09.050]  It was through logs of some other sort, I believe.
[18:09.650 --> 18:16.370]  We don't, well, there's an allegation that the son of the Tennessee, um, legislative member is the person concerned.
[18:16.670 --> 18:18.690]  We don't know whether that's true or not and don't pass any comment.
[18:19.270 --> 18:33.170]  Um, but, uh, the police, the FBI in their statements, uh, have said that, uh, it was, we, the information they came across was they had used their names and handles on 4chan.
[18:33.170 --> 18:35.690]  Um, and so they left information.
[18:35.750 --> 18:39.550]  So if, if that was them, then that's, uh, they, they did themselves in by, by doing this.
[18:39.670 --> 18:45.450]  As far as when somebody, when somebody posts something, uh, to WikiLeaks, how, how secure is their anonymity?
[18:45.550 --> 18:49.030]  Are there logs of any sort that can be grabbed or stolen or anything?
[18:49.250 --> 19:03.710]  So, uh, we not only do not keep logs, but, uh, we pass everything through an encrypting network and make sure it goes through, uh, both Sweden and Belgium and another jurisdiction in order to pick up, um, the source protection laws in those, uh, jurisdictions.
[19:03.990 --> 19:18.470]  And we have, um, fully customized, um, very limited functionality web servers so that even in the event that, um, uh, so that those websites are very difficult to hack, um, from some sort of outside access.
[19:18.650 --> 19:27.250]  Uh, and then we have filters, uh, just in case they are hacked that there can't be any sort of JavaScript embedding to, to try and gain additional information.
[19:27.850 --> 19:28.330]  All right.
[19:28.390 --> 19:37.290]  That's from our April 7th, 2010 show, uh, where Julian Assange came by the studios shortly after the release of the collateral murder video.
[19:37.430 --> 19:39.490]  We'll get into, uh, the video in just a, just a moment.
[19:39.590 --> 19:45.350]  But Alex, I just want to ask you, uh, legally, do you see anything wrong with, uh, the stance he was taking at that time?
[19:46.370 --> 19:47.370]  No, not, not particularly.
[19:47.530 --> 19:51.670]  And I, I think you're right to focus on 2010 here because the indictment focuses on 2010.
[19:51.890 --> 20:06.330]  We're not talking about his conduct with regard to the Guccifer documents, the DNC, the Podesta hack, anything like that, which I think we, you know, can all agree was somewhat reprehensible because it, it caused in some either large measure or small measure,
[20:06.450 --> 20:10.250]  the election of this, you know, tyrannical despot that we have as president of the United States.
[20:10.390 --> 20:11.450]  It sounds like you're talking about it.
[20:11.690 --> 20:12.930]  Uh, yeah, a little bit.
[20:13.010 --> 20:13.710]  I'm getting a bit off.
[20:13.710 --> 20:14.730]  I understand too.
[20:14.990 --> 20:17.190]  And, and of course there's Sweden as well.
[20:17.390 --> 20:24.670]  And, and those are things that need to be confronted, but we're talking right now about what the United States is, is trying to get him on.
[20:24.790 --> 20:28.010]  And that is what I think we really need to focus upon.
[20:28.290 --> 20:28.430]  Yes.
[20:28.630 --> 20:31.450]  And so with regard to the leaks from Chelsea Manning, right?
[20:31.850 --> 20:40.990]  Now that this collusion aspect and, uh, with Chelsea Manning, that's what the, what the focus of these particular criminal charges are going to be on.
[20:41.090 --> 20:45.990]  It's all going to really focus on the hashing, uh, or rather on hashing of that particular password.
[20:46.670 --> 20:58.890]  And on, I believe, you know, how Julian Assange handled himself and handled these particular documents, you know, whether this is political or not, whether he's a journalist or not is definitely going to come front and center.
[20:59.050 --> 21:01.910]  I believe at the extradition hearing that's going to happen on May 2nd.
[21:02.650 --> 21:03.970]  And where's that hearing happening?
[21:04.190 --> 21:05.030]  It's going to happen in London.
[21:05.230 --> 21:05.430]  Okay.
[21:05.430 --> 21:08.650]  I'm not entirely sure exactly what court it's going to be in London, but it'll be in London.
[21:09.130 --> 21:24.150]  Um, but here's the issue that I have with this, and this is more of a, uh, an issue of morality and practice and less an issue of, of legality, but it's definitely going to come to the forefront of any criminal trial that happens in the United States and the extradition hearing in,
[21:24.150 --> 21:24.610]  in London.
[21:24.830 --> 21:28.150]  And that's the manner in which that he published the, the Manning leaks.
[21:28.550 --> 21:35.650]  And there's a big difference between dumping information, putting it all out into the public domain and actually reporting on it.
[21:35.790 --> 21:46.230]  If you think back to 2010, it could be considered completely irresponsible, uh, for him to just put all of this information out into the public domain.
[21:46.230 --> 21:52.590]  If you think about this in the context of what other fellow journalists, and if we're going to consider Assange a journalist, did.
[21:52.750 --> 21:59.870]  If you look at the New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, The Guardian, I believe there was a Spanish newspaper as well.
[22:00.910 --> 22:18.450]  All of those outlets opposed the, the manner in which Assange published the Manning materials, because they were revealing, uh, sensitive information about national security related issues and personal information that wasn't necessarily in the public interest.
[22:18.750 --> 22:22.810]  And in fact, it, it even caused an Ethiopian journalist to have to flee her country.
[22:23.110 --> 22:30.130]  So the responsibility of Assange for these particular actions and the damage to the United States, I think is really quite great.
[22:30.130 --> 22:41.450]  And it's all fun and good to take this, this notion of, you know, all information wants to be free and put it into practice in, in, in full swing or in full flight, as he had said.
[22:41.870 --> 22:46.170]  But in reality, I think there are good reasons why certain things remain secret.
[22:46.310 --> 22:51.270]  And I think there are good reasons why, uh, curation is a really important part of journalism.
[22:51.430 --> 22:53.630]  Alex, we've already had this discussion though.
[22:53.930 --> 22:57.130]  Chelsea Manning paid the price for this, for releasing the information.
[22:57.930 --> 23:00.830]  Um, it's, you know, it's, it's something that happened.
[23:01.090 --> 23:09.790]  Uh, WikiLeaks existed for this purpose, to leak information, to, to print information that was leaked to that organization.
[23:10.190 --> 23:16.450]  So it seems like we're just going back over something that already has been prosecuted, that we've already dealt with.
[23:16.450 --> 23:31.510]  And I, I'm, I'm just questioning other than having a chilling effect on, on journalists everywhere on people, um, um, printing leaked material or, or whistleblowing or all sorts of things like that, other than having a chilling effect on all those things.
[23:31.670 --> 23:33.330]  What is the point of this now?
[23:33.910 --> 23:41.070]  Well, the point is, yeah, the Department of Justice believes that Assange had a hand in this happening.
[23:41.370 --> 23:44.030]  And, and that's what I think is particularly flimsy here.
[23:44.030 --> 23:50.930]  That's why they're going after other people to try to get corroborating evidence, to try to get context and add context to this particular indictment.
[23:51.570 --> 24:03.110]  Um, here's what I think is the, is the real problem with this indictment, because they can't say, but for what Assange did in helping Manning, uh, this information wouldn't have come out.
[24:03.250 --> 24:09.470]  There's a, there's a lack of causality here between what Assange did and what Manning did.
[24:09.630 --> 24:12.890]  Manning leaked these documents essentially without Assange's help.
[24:13.410 --> 24:18.990]  Because if you look at the chat logs, I'm looking at them right now, he was unsuccessful at cracking that hash password.
[24:19.470 --> 24:29.350]  You know, they... Well, okay, let me, let me stop you right there because I'm looking at the chat and it reminds me of so many chats that we've seen, that we've had online, uh, with so many people just back and forth.
[24:29.490 --> 24:31.390]  I feel, I feel guilty looking at this.
[24:31.490 --> 24:33.310]  I feel like I'm intruding on their privacy.
[24:33.550 --> 24:39.550]  This is really, you know, between two people, even though neither person really knew much about the other person.
[24:39.730 --> 24:45.890]  Uh, it was just, this is how, how, how journalism works, how leaking information is, is, is done.
[24:46.310 --> 24:55.070]  So, um, uh, Chelsea is, is, um, known as dog network on Jabber and, uh, Julian is known as press association on Jabber.
[24:55.470 --> 25:01.310]  Uh, and, um, Chelsea is, is asking, uh, about, uh, donation wise, how are they doing?
[25:01.570 --> 25:05.850]  Uh, and then she asks, any good at LM hash cracking?
[25:06.070 --> 25:12.730]  Now LM hash cracking is, um, um, known as, uh, I believe land manager hash.
[25:12.890 --> 25:13.710]  It's land monitor.
[25:13.870 --> 25:14.230]  I think it was.
[25:14.430 --> 25:14.470]  Okay.
[25:14.510 --> 25:16.170]  It's, it's something it's, it's Microsoft, right?
[25:16.270 --> 25:18.310]  It's, and it's insecure as hell.
[25:18.770 --> 25:20.050]  It's, it was compromised.
[25:20.050 --> 25:24.110]  It's not a very good way to keep things, um, um, uh, secure.
[25:24.370 --> 25:25.690]  Um, at least not now.
[25:25.950 --> 25:26.450]  Yeah.
[25:26.590 --> 25:43.450]  The networks that were being deployed in, in the field in, or in this case, Iraq at the time were, um, first, I think quickly deployed, uh, and ramped up in, uh, an incredible haste, but also, um, the way SIPR net, uh, the access levels and the way it was structured was completely different.
[25:43.630 --> 25:47.450]  They actually, uh, changed a lot of it in a functional sense.
[25:47.570 --> 25:50.710]  They're at like, uh, subsequently after, uh, this particular incident.
[25:50.710 --> 26:08.230]  So it's probably not as susceptible now, but imagine a time where a, the network that they're, uh, that is tasked with handling all this kind of information internally for the military is not really well set up, uh, in layers and so on and so forth as far as access control,
[26:08.330 --> 26:10.350]  but it's also being deployed in the field.
[26:10.450 --> 26:18.790]  Uh, so you can be in a container or wherever in a tent in a desert and have as much, um, access as someone that's sitting in the Pentagon, for instance.
[26:18.990 --> 26:37.110]  Well, now if, if I'm not mistaken, this, this whole LM hash cracking thing, uh, was being attempted simply to give Chelsea cover to, um, uh, have another username instead of, uh, instead of the one that she was already able to access the material as.
[26:37.270 --> 26:37.390]  Yeah.
[26:37.430 --> 26:42.030]  This is distinct from like a video, for instance, that is an encrypted file.
[26:42.210 --> 26:43.430]  That's a standalone thing.
[26:43.530 --> 26:48.930]  This is a part of the infrastructure to access the network that hosts all of these files.
[26:49.110 --> 26:49.250]  Okay.
[26:49.250 --> 26:53.770]  So basically, uh, she asks Julian, any good at LM hash cracking?
[26:54.070 --> 26:56.690]  Uh, and, uh, Julian says, yes.
[26:57.090 --> 26:59.690]  Uh, and then goes back to the donations question.
[26:59.750 --> 27:00.750]  Donations, not sure.
[27:00.910 --> 27:02.650]  She had asked, where are you at donation wise?
[27:02.810 --> 27:09.670]  Uh, he continues somewhere, something in order of 0.5 million, uh, but we lost our CC processor, credit card processor.
[27:09.890 --> 27:12.170]  So, uh, this is making matters somewhat painful.
[27:12.270 --> 27:14.490]  In fact, when he came to our studios, he was discussing that as well.
[27:14.650 --> 27:21.490]  Uh, uh, as you can see, you know, he, um, um, uh, the, the first order of business for him was how are we doing donation wise?
[27:21.690 --> 27:26.150]  Uh, but then he, he came back to the, uh, the issue that Chelsea asked about, about the LM hash cracking.
[27:26.310 --> 27:29.150]  He says, um, we have rainbow tables for LM.
[27:29.630 --> 27:30.110]  All right.
[27:30.670 --> 27:38.910]  Um, um, then, um, Chelsea, uh, posts what, what looks like a hash because it's, uh, just a bunch of, uh, letters and numbers.
[27:39.270 --> 27:42.670]  Um, and then she says, I think it's LM plus LMNT.
[27:43.030 --> 27:45.630]  We don't need to get into all the technical things that are going on here.
[27:46.170 --> 27:48.310]  Um, anyway, need sleep, yawn.
[27:48.550 --> 27:51.230]  You know, this goes the way so many chats go.
[27:51.430 --> 27:54.650]  So, such, um, uh, such humanity here.
[27:54.850 --> 27:56.390]  Uh, not even sure if that's the hash.
[27:56.510 --> 27:57.090]  She wasn't even sure.
[27:57.330 --> 28:03.090]  I, I had to, uh, to hex dump a SAM file since I don't have the system file.
[28:03.170 --> 28:04.490]  It's sounding like Mr. Robot here.
[28:05.370 --> 28:09.970]  What, what, uh, and, and then Julian asked, what makes you think it's LM?
[28:10.330 --> 28:11.690]  Uh, it's from a SAM?
[28:12.350 --> 28:12.790]  Yeah.
[28:12.810 --> 28:16.230]  I prefer not explaining this because it just sounds more poetic this way, I think.
[28:16.750 --> 28:17.210]  Uh, yeah.
[28:17.530 --> 28:20.810]  And, and then Julian said, passed it on to our LM guy.
[28:22.190 --> 28:23.810]  And that was it.
[28:24.310 --> 28:25.070]  That's it.
[28:25.270 --> 28:26.830]  He doesn't revisit this.
[28:26.990 --> 28:28.810]  I don't know if there is an LM guy.
[28:29.430 --> 28:32.670]  Honestly, my instincts tell me there, there, there probably wasn't.
[28:32.750 --> 28:35.110]  And this is just a way to sort of move the conversation along.
[28:35.650 --> 28:35.810]  Yeah.
[28:36.070 --> 28:41.010]  And without getting, uh, technical, as you, you, uh, said, but it's, um, widely used.
[28:41.210 --> 28:46.410]  The, the rainbow table software is a project of the schmoo group that's accessible for anybody to use.
[28:46.550 --> 28:50.490]  Uh, so it didn't have to be their guy or Julian or anybody in particular.
[28:50.710 --> 28:53.630]  And, uh, it's basically for brute, brute forcing passwords.
[28:53.770 --> 29:00.750]  There's nothing in here in this entire chat log that, uh, has been, has been released that indicates that Julian was trying to do this.
[29:00.970 --> 29:02.610]  In fact, later on, he just says, no luck.
[29:02.790 --> 29:09.190]  Uh, and, and to me, that's just being kind of standoffish and not actually answering the question.
[29:09.190 --> 29:12.950]  And that, that is not, uh, outside the norm when dealing with an informant.
[29:13.050 --> 29:14.410]  I mean, I, I disagree, Manuel.
[29:14.510 --> 29:22.750]  I think the fact that he said this in the chat log, that he passed it on to the LM guy and tried to crack the password is enough of a predicate for them to bring this particular case.
[29:22.910 --> 29:25.990]  Well, just saying, pass it on to our LM guy, whoever that is.
[29:26.030 --> 29:27.490]  Do we even know who the LM guy is?
[29:27.630 --> 29:27.870]  Yes.
[29:28.050 --> 29:28.450]  We do.
[29:28.550 --> 29:37.990]  No, we don't, we don't necessarily know that, but I'm saying, yes, just passing it on, agreeing with the first part of your question, just passing it on to somebody is going beyond being a journalist and becoming an active participant in the crime.
[29:37.990 --> 29:40.430]  No, passing it on is different from saying he passed it on.
[29:40.530 --> 29:42.210]  Well, he passed it on for a specific purpose.
[29:42.350 --> 29:44.710]  Do you think he passed it on so he could get it tattooed on his arm?
[29:44.710 --> 29:49.270]  No, you're believing that he passed it on to anybody and didn't just simply say that.
[29:49.390 --> 29:50.710]  Well, he said that he did it.
[29:51.170 --> 29:53.530]  So let him go to court and claim that...
[29:53.530 --> 29:54.230]  On this, you believe him.
[29:54.370 --> 29:56.010]  This is the thing that you're going to hold him to.
[29:56.170 --> 29:56.710]  Yes, yes.
[29:56.710 --> 29:58.250]  That there's an LM guy and he passed it on.
[29:58.450 --> 29:59.670]  I don't even know what we're talking about.
[29:59.670 --> 30:07.530]  In a chat log that was deleted from Chelsea Manning's computer and forensically recovered, you know, this was recovered evidence that they were trying to conceal.
[30:07.530 --> 30:09.970]  That makes it more believable somehow that she deleted it from a computer?
[30:10.170 --> 30:12.610]  Yes, because that indicates that it was incriminating.
[30:12.810 --> 30:14.130]  I think this is a very...
[30:14.130 --> 30:15.330]  Any single word in here is incriminating?
[30:15.490 --> 30:18.030]  Not every single word, but this is a very damning statement for him.
[30:18.250 --> 30:24.610]  Because this one sentence could be where he crossed the line from being a journalist into being a criminal.
[30:25.110 --> 30:27.390]  That's what the Department of Justice is hanging their hat on.
[30:27.590 --> 30:28.850]  Okay, first of all, there's a lot here.
[30:29.030 --> 30:30.650]  He passed it on to the LM guy.
[30:30.730 --> 30:31.730]  Let's say there is an LM guy.
[30:31.830 --> 30:33.550]  Let's say he passed it on to the LM guy.
[30:34.310 --> 30:39.790]  Did he pass it on to the LM guy to crack the rest of it or to even identify what it is?
[30:39.930 --> 30:42.850]  Because, you know, a few lines earlier, they didn't even know what they were dealing with.
[30:42.950 --> 30:44.950]  They didn't know if it was an LM hash or not.
[30:45.050 --> 30:47.010]  They didn't even know what an LM hash was.
[30:47.230 --> 30:51.030]  So he passed it on to an LM guy who just happened to be standing around.
[30:51.330 --> 30:55.890]  And that guy is going to tell them what they have, or he's going to magically crack the rest of it.
[30:56.010 --> 30:56.910]  This is fantasy.
[30:57.250 --> 30:59.430]  Well, there might be more to this as well.
[30:59.630 --> 31:01.250]  Now, who the LM guy is, we don't know.
[31:01.310 --> 31:01.910]  There might be more.
[31:01.970 --> 31:02.730]  It's not in here, though.
[31:02.850 --> 31:04.470]  But the Department of Justice may know more.
[31:04.590 --> 31:07.390]  Because, again, we go back to the New York Times story from a couple of days ago.
[31:07.570 --> 31:24.010]  And we know that even after the indictment, and as recently as last summer, the Department of Justice was looking to speak to somebody by the name of David House, who was an MIT researcher who volunteered with WikiLeaks, and that House actually spoke with prosecutors and testified before the grand jury.
[31:24.190 --> 31:38.570]  They also sought to talk to somebody by the name, and this sounds like it should be a bad word in German, Daniel Damscheit-Berg, a WikiLeaks activist, who they intended to question him in relation to actual charges that he violated U.S.
[31:38.650 --> 31:40.670]  laws prohibiting the receipt and dissemination of...
[31:40.670 --> 31:41.450]  Daniel wrote a book.
[31:41.550 --> 31:43.150]  Daniel wrote a book about this whole thing.
[31:43.270 --> 31:45.370]  So he's already said quite a bit.
[31:45.590 --> 31:55.310]  And I understand why David House did what he did, because not everybody comes to the same conclusion as to whether or not they want to talk to a grand jury or not.
[31:55.710 --> 31:58.170]  I don't think we can judge people that easily.
[31:58.170 --> 32:06.690]  But we don't know what other evidence was presented to the grand jury in furtherance of this particular indictment, what other evidence would be presented at trial as well.
[32:06.810 --> 32:08.410]  I mean, all of that's a bit of a mystery right now.
[32:08.550 --> 32:09.910]  All we have is the chat logs.
[32:10.030 --> 32:22.290]  Now, to go back to my original point, though, and why I think that this could be somewhat flimsy is because there's no causal element between what Assange did, which was fail to crack a hash password, and what Manning did.
[32:22.810 --> 32:34.210]  So, I mean, even though just doing the act itself could be an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, even if it was an unsuccessful act, he can still be criminally prosecuted.
[32:34.350 --> 32:39.750]  But I think that, you know, it's going to be a tough sell to a jury to make that particular case.
[32:39.830 --> 32:48.070]  And again, can I just point out, we're talking about releasing information that we should know about in the first place that was being covered up about literally collateral murder.
[32:48.070 --> 33:07.270]  Yeah, I would just kind of say that it's adorable that we're considering this protection of this network in basically to see an end of covering up what is murder in a lot of ways, wholesale murder.
[33:07.470 --> 33:32.570]  And I think, Alex, where I'm coming from on this, and I hear what you're saying, is that as a taxpayer, as someone who is going to vote and going to act politically, and as an informed citizen, I want to know, and I want the rest of the populace to know how the authority and the powers,
[33:32.710 --> 33:39.170]  the awesome powers of the US government, and as a proxy of that, the military, how that is wielded.
[33:39.270 --> 34:02.250]  And if I'm misled, because while most of it is sending a bunch of cowboys to murder people with 30 millimeter cannons, like, I feel like the rest of my populace is at a place of a lack of power in directing the elected officials, and thus the military to act on our behalf.
[34:02.570 --> 34:27.970]  So as a taxpayer, and do I feel as though the rights of the military systems that we're sitting here arguing about and protecting through all of these adorable laws, I just don't feel it is as justified to the ends that are being covered up, and thus war crimes and whatever else it may be.
[34:28.030 --> 34:32.050]  They do not then have that authority if we're well informed as a populace.
[34:32.130 --> 34:34.790]  And that's kind of where I'm going with my thinking on it.
[34:35.290 --> 34:43.150]  Alex, I'm curious as to going back to this chat about the LM guy, where maybe the line of culpability would have been like, in an alternate universe?
[34:43.470 --> 34:50.070]  What would Julian have said to stay on the right side of journalistic, you know, impartiality?
[34:50.230 --> 34:53.150]  When when when Chelsea asked him, do you know an LM guy?
[34:53.270 --> 34:55.410]  Or do you do you know anything about LM hashing?
[34:55.410 --> 34:56.530]  That's a great question.
[34:56.690 --> 35:00.670]  I think what he should have said, in retrospect, would have been good luck with that.
[35:01.230 --> 35:02.670]  You know, I can't help you with that.
[35:02.850 --> 35:06.530]  This is a version of that, because he never came back and said, hey, LM guy says this.
[35:06.790 --> 35:08.410]  No, he said, I'll ask the LM.
[35:08.510 --> 35:09.510]  Who is LM guy?
[35:09.690 --> 35:12.310]  But he just said that WikiLeaks has half a million dollars.
[35:12.490 --> 35:14.330]  I'm sure if they wanted an LM guy, they could have gotten one.
[35:15.070 --> 35:16.350]  Well, that's a good point, too.
[35:16.450 --> 35:21.170]  I mean, they certainly had the means to to crack a hash password, I would think, right?
[35:21.250 --> 35:22.530]  But he came back and said no luck.
[35:22.810 --> 35:29.470]  But here is where, you know, offering that assistance to somebody who he knows is committing a criminal act.
[35:29.610 --> 35:37.670]  I mean, you'd have to be, you know, one of the dumbest people on the planet to not know that what Chelsea Manning was doing was a criminal act.
[35:37.830 --> 35:44.370]  And that if you were to help that person commit a criminal act, you would be engaging in a conspiracy against the United States.
[35:44.590 --> 35:51.910]  But Alex, if by existing, Julian was helping her commit a criminal act, because he was providing the outlet for the information to be published.
[35:52.150 --> 35:53.930]  Well, that's a different story, though.
[35:53.970 --> 35:54.550]  Why is that different?
[35:54.710 --> 35:58.410]  Because that has to deal with the publication of information that's newsworthy.
[35:58.590 --> 36:06.130]  Which, by the way, according to the statutes under which he was charged, I think it was 18 U.S.C.
[36:06.950 --> 36:16.810]  732, there is no distinction between a journalist publishing or disseminating information that relates to the national defense of the United States and an ordinary person doing it.
[36:16.810 --> 36:21.630]  However, here's a big difference between the Trump administration and the Obama administration.
[36:21.850 --> 36:31.470]  The Obama administration recognized this, and they decided that prosecuting Julian Assange for the publication of this information would have a chilling effect on journalism and our right to free expression.
[36:31.470 --> 36:32.750]  So they declined to do so.
[36:33.110 --> 36:50.210]  However, and I think we do have to be fair here, it doesn't seem like it was necessarily the Trump administration itself that was really pushing for this, but the Department of Justice, because the Department of Justice has latched onto this and continued to investigate Assange during that period of time,
[36:50.270 --> 36:53.290]  and ultimately brought this indictment.
[36:53.590 --> 37:09.310]  And therefore, you know, if you want to give context, and we want to be completely fair here, when Trump this past week said, you know, I don't know anything about WikiLeaks, he could have been talking about what was going on under, you know, under the table with the Department of Justice with regard to Assange for many years,
[37:09.610 --> 37:12.470]  starting with the Obama administration and going into the Trump administration.
[37:12.850 --> 37:16.730]  So, but that distinction does not exist in the criminal code.
[37:16.730 --> 37:18.630]  So anybody can be prosecuted for it.
[37:18.770 --> 37:22.770]  It's up to the prosecutors to choose whether they want to trample on free expression in so doing.
[37:22.930 --> 37:28.470]  But you think the Department of Justice is possibly acting without Trump's okay on this?
[37:28.790 --> 37:32.910]  No, I think they are acting with this okay right now, and especially the Attorney General, Mr. Barr.
[37:33.070 --> 37:34.930]  Exactly, who heads the Department of Justice.
[37:35.110 --> 37:35.370]  Certainly.
[37:35.630 --> 37:43.510]  Now, again, you know, let's focus on what's immediately going to happen to Assange in a few weeks in May 2nd, you know, which is extradition hearing in London.
[37:43.770 --> 37:53.750]  Another very interesting carve out for most of these extradition treaties that in particular the United States and the UK is that you cannot be extradited for political offense.
[37:53.970 --> 38:04.370]  And political offenses, you know, include treason, sedition, and espionage, by the way, of which this certainly, you know, falls into that category.
[38:04.370 --> 38:05.970]  Assange is not an American citizen.
[38:06.130 --> 38:07.230]  He's not an American citizen.
[38:07.450 --> 38:16.150]  And Chelsea Manning was charged under the Espionage Act and convicted and spent seven, nearly seven years in prison until her sentence was commuted by President Obama.
[38:16.350 --> 38:24.950]  So I think what's going to become front and center at the May 2nd hearing, this is my prediction, is that Assange is going to make this about a political extradition.
[38:24.970 --> 38:34.730]  And the fact that the United States Department of Justice is in complete disarray, and I'll use the term again, and appears to be run by a tyrannical despot we call, you know, Donald Trump these days.
[38:35.110 --> 38:47.810]  And if you look at what's about to happen tomorrow with the Mueller report dropping, all of this is going to weigh in favor of keeping Assange in the UK and not extraditing him to the United States.
[38:48.390 --> 38:50.910]  As far as I'm concerned, there are priorities here.
[38:51.010 --> 38:52.770]  Number one, he needs health care.
[38:52.950 --> 38:56.250]  He's been imprisoned for seven years by his own hand.
[38:56.370 --> 38:58.370]  Yes, but he's been in prison for seven years.
[38:58.730 --> 39:02.210]  And the effects are showing he needs to be taken care of.
[39:02.350 --> 39:03.750]  And that's first and foremost.
[39:04.390 --> 39:10.630]  Second, this whole bail issue that he reneged upon needs to be dealt with as well.
[39:10.750 --> 39:16.050]  I think, you know, a fair sentence for that his time served in the prison he made for himself.
[39:16.390 --> 39:19.890]  Most importantly, the Swedish charges need to be addressed and confronted.
[39:19.910 --> 39:21.150]  I've been saying this from the beginning.
[39:21.370 --> 39:23.490]  That is something that he needs to confront.
[39:23.870 --> 39:27.930]  That is the only thing I would consider to be a valid reason for extradition.
[39:28.230 --> 39:34.410]  The US charges, that is something that is way on the back burner and should be fought tooth and nail.
[39:34.570 --> 39:41.510]  I want to play another excerpt from Julian's appearance here on Off the Hook in 2010.
[39:41.730 --> 39:44.970]  This is where he's discussing the collateral murder video.
[39:45.470 --> 39:51.850]  Now, let's move on to the story that everyone is talking about over the last couple of days, front page of all the newspapers and websites.
[39:52.310 --> 39:55.590]  This video involving US military.
[39:56.390 --> 39:58.730]  First of all, why is it getting so much attention?
[39:59.950 --> 40:06.410]  Because it shows the slaughter of over a dozen people, up to 26 people.
[40:07.930 --> 40:10.770]  And two of those people are Reuters journalists.
[40:11.430 --> 40:21.990]  And it's the first time that such a video showing modern air-to-ground attacks has been shown.
[40:21.990 --> 40:28.330]  So it reveals what is going on with all these other Apache helicopter casualties, which have been many.
[40:29.470 --> 40:37.490]  Also, I mean, you can see that the tone of the pilots is, this is another day at the office.
[40:38.570 --> 40:45.110]  And why there's an initial confusion between a camera, whether a journalist is holding a camera or an RPG.
[40:45.830 --> 40:52.990]  Actually, the permission to engage is given before the Reuters journalist tries to take a photo.
[40:54.250 --> 41:03.070]  And then there's a really quite disgusting situation where everyone in the initial group, except one man, has been killed.
[41:03.250 --> 41:05.390]  And that is the Reuters driver.
[41:05.670 --> 41:10.870]  And he is crawling, wounded, prostrate in the gutter, crawling along.
[41:11.110 --> 41:14.450]  And some good Samaritans stop in a van.
[41:14.890 --> 41:16.630]  That van has two children sitting in the front street.
[41:16.750 --> 41:17.230]  They get out.
[41:17.370 --> 41:18.310]  They're completely unarmed.
[41:18.470 --> 41:19.430]  There's no arms around.
[41:21.290 --> 41:24.550]  And they go to lift him up and putting him in the van.
[41:24.790 --> 41:26.230]  They're looking at the helicopter.
[41:27.330 --> 41:32.030]  I assume they think that helicopter couldn't possibly fire on people who are rescuing a wounded man.
[41:33.130 --> 41:34.570]  And it does.
[41:34.930 --> 41:37.290]  And it does with permission from the commander.
[41:38.090 --> 41:43.370]  And then there's a hellfire missile attack later on, which blows up passing pedestrians.
[41:43.610 --> 41:47.690]  And we sent two people to Baghdad to discover what was in that house.
[41:47.890 --> 41:49.650]  And in fact, three families were in that house.
[41:50.030 --> 41:52.870]  At least two women were killed during that attack.
[41:53.110 --> 41:54.450]  And then the whole thing was covered up.
[41:55.730 --> 42:00.030]  And Reuters tried to get that video for the past two and a half years under the Freedom Information Act.
[42:01.330 --> 42:08.110]  The federal government is obligated to respond in some kind, at least within 30 days of lodging and application.
[42:08.350 --> 42:12.590]  There was no response even to an organization like Reuters for over one year.
[42:12.790 --> 42:20.090]  And now, just after releasing this video, the US military has said it can't find any copies of it.
[42:20.310 --> 42:22.490]  They appear to have all been deleted.
[42:22.870 --> 42:29.050]  And despite an existing Freedom of Information request being in for that video for the past two and a half years.
[42:29.230 --> 42:30.250]  So a definite cover-up.
[42:30.590 --> 42:30.710]  Yep.
[42:31.450 --> 42:35.650]  And statements made at the time like, we don't know how those children were injured.
[42:35.770 --> 42:37.890]  We don't know how the journalists were injured.
[42:38.070 --> 42:40.610]  Everyone's an insurgent except the two wounded children.
[42:40.810 --> 42:41.810]  Lie after lie.
[42:41.970 --> 42:46.690]  I imagine as soon as you got this video, you knew what you had to do with it.
[42:46.930 --> 42:51.410]  But did you have any doubts, second thoughts as to what would happen if you did release this?
[42:51.550 --> 42:54.930]  Well, when we first got the video, we weren't sure exactly what we had.
[42:55.030 --> 43:04.610]  We had a description that, it was significant and showed an Apache attack killing people, but we had to decrypt it.
[43:05.430 --> 43:06.470]  So it was encrypted.
[43:06.830 --> 43:07.890]  You had to decrypt it, huh?
[43:07.890 --> 43:08.190]  We had to decrypt it.
[43:08.190 --> 43:08.910]  How was it encrypted?
[43:09.370 --> 43:17.850]  So we don't, for source protection reasons, we don't want to say how it was encrypted, but we managed to decrypt it.
[43:18.850 --> 43:27.610]  And we put out a call, in fact, for volunteers in relation to another video that we had for decryption.
[43:27.850 --> 43:38.010]  And we, we had some very large organizations step forward, not supply agencies, but very large, very, very large research institutions.
[43:38.850 --> 43:47.610]  Their head system administrators stepped forward and said, hey, look, we have, you know, several thousand computers here.
[43:47.610 --> 43:48.870]  They offered to help you.
[43:49.210 --> 43:49.490]  Yep.
[43:49.890 --> 43:50.490]  That's amazing.
[43:50.750 --> 43:51.410]  That really is amazing.
[43:52.130 --> 44:08.210]  So here we have something very interesting from, from nine years ago, uh, when Julian was in our studios talking about the, the videos and how they, uh, relied on a community of people to decrypt those videos so that we could see exactly what happened,
[44:08.210 --> 44:08.970]  what the U.S.
[44:09.050 --> 44:10.210]  military was covering up.
[44:10.330 --> 44:15.130]  Now, Alex, I want to ask you as, as our resident attorney here, is that stepping over the line?
[44:16.110 --> 44:20.750]  No, no, certainly not, because it has nothing to do with the means by which the videos were acquired.
[44:20.970 --> 44:24.910]  You know, the, the, the encrypted files were in his possession already.
[44:25.170 --> 44:29.710]  So decrypting those files, I think, doesn't cross that line.
[44:29.710 --> 44:36.490]  And I, I think that particular clip, you know, really brings home Kyle's point that he made earlier that, you know, this is about transparency.
[44:36.490 --> 44:38.310]  It's about keeping our government accountable.
[44:38.310 --> 44:42.510]  It's about being, uh, an educated person when it comes to the U.S.
[44:42.870 --> 44:45.590]  military industrial complex, how things are going on in the ground in Iraq.
[44:45.750 --> 44:48.950]  All of that's really, really important to an educated populace.
[44:49.230 --> 44:55.950]  However, you know, to, to respond to that, it's not necessarily mutually exclusive with responsible journalism either.
[44:56.210 --> 45:01.490]  I think that the release of collateral murder was absolutely, you know, damn sure important.
[45:01.650 --> 45:06.250]  And I don't think any reasonable person would disagree with me that we had a right to know what was going on there.
[45:06.270 --> 45:07.050]  And the fact that the U.S.
[45:07.150 --> 45:12.970]  government was stonewalling the FOIA requests of Reuters for so long made it even more important to get that information out.
[45:13.490 --> 45:24.150]  However, to get that information out together with 250,000 diplomatic cables of the United States, a huge portion of which were not newsworthy and damaging to the foreign relations...
[45:24.150 --> 45:25.230]  Is that what we're talking about here?
[45:25.330 --> 45:26.350]  Was that in 2010?
[45:26.590 --> 45:26.890]  Yes.
[45:27.070 --> 45:29.230]  That was part of the, uh, the Manning Leagues.
[45:29.430 --> 45:32.150]  Yeah, that was, I believe, what, what she provided last to him.
[45:32.830 --> 45:37.610]  And, and all of that, you know, that it could compromise the position of the United States.
[45:37.750 --> 45:45.770]  And I think time and time again, Assange has presented himself as somebody who is, um, antithetical to the interest of the United States.
[45:45.910 --> 45:47.550]  We saw it in the 20...
[45:47.550 --> 45:49.890]  He doesn't have to be, uh, supporting the interest of the United States.
[45:50.010 --> 45:50.490]  He's Australian.
[45:50.770 --> 45:57.150]  No, I'm not saying he has to support it, but it seems like he's actively engaged in measures to undermine the United States.
[45:57.310 --> 46:00.470]  And I think he manipulated Chelsea Manning into giving him this information.
[46:00.470 --> 46:03.190]  When you look at those chat logs, I think it's actually really kind of sad.
[46:03.190 --> 46:04.650]  But where did you see manipulation?
[46:04.870 --> 46:07.050]  Because I didn't, I just saw a trap between two people.
[46:07.210 --> 46:30.590]  It seemed like he was, you know, trying to be a bit fatherly and friendly and, and, and school her on, on various components of how the world works and, and his, um, you know, and, and, and transparency about the, the importance of transparency and, and how he even told her at one point when she said that she was going to have to go into hiding after this for a number of years,
[46:30.770 --> 46:35.910]  he said to her in the chat logs, given the pace at which things are changing, I don't think it's even going to be that long.
[46:37.030 --> 46:37.090]  Interesting.
[46:37.350 --> 46:37.670]  Okay, Kyle.
[46:37.930 --> 46:52.090]  Um, I, I just wanted to add the, um, at the time, I think there were, there were not a lot of outlets for this kind of leaking, uh, anonymous, uh, uh, leaking and, uh, and being able, uh, to have a large number of journalists go over it.
[46:52.170 --> 47:05.890]  And I think you're absolutely right in that sense that, uh, WikiLeaks at the time being a one-stop shop and the only, uh, uh, uh, people looking at the documents, uh, for however long or however much time they spent going through them, redacting or not,
[47:06.030 --> 47:12.170]  I think that it was probably, um, too large a task for too small of a quote newsroom.
[47:12.490 --> 47:22.170]  And, uh, and anyway, I, I also, I just think that, uh, when you look at what Snowden did with their, the leaks there, there was several, uh, publications involved in that and it was wholly different.
[47:22.350 --> 47:24.970]  Although the Espionage Act again came up.
[47:25.150 --> 47:44.970]  And I think the, the, um, the ability, the, and understanding that, um, also the, uh, the facts of conscientious objection, uh, being extended that, that Chelsea Manning was in, I think realizing through their service and, and how that manifested is, is important to consider as well.
[47:45.130 --> 47:52.730]  And, and, and, in, in a sense that, that this, um, this ability, it just, there was not a whole lot of other solutions.
[47:52.750 --> 48:00.810]  If you look at Thomas Drake and, and Ellsberg and, and, uh, Binnie going through channels and doing the leaking the appropriate way is, is next to impossible.
[48:00.990 --> 48:01.890]  You end up being a target.
[48:01.890 --> 48:05.130]  And this was the only shop in town to do it anonymously.
[48:05.470 --> 48:10.110]  And, uh, and to that end, uh, there really, there wasn't much other, uh, recourse.
[48:10.410 --> 48:17.250]  Well, uh, we promised, uh, uh, we'd open up phone lines, uh, 212-209-2877 is our phone number.
[48:17.410 --> 48:20.030]  Let's play one more clip from, uh, from the show.
[48:20.190 --> 48:22.850]  I believe, Rob, you're asking, uh, Julian a question at this point.
[48:23.350 --> 48:23.670]  Yeah.
[48:23.770 --> 48:33.530]  I'd just like to add a comment to that, which is that, um, if you, if you take the, if you take the point of view that, okay, you're seeing this, but there, how much, how much out there is there that you're not seeing?
[48:34.010 --> 48:48.070]  And, uh, I think it's important to realize that if you're, if you're seeing this now and it took all this time and effort to get this one video file out or this one document out or anything else, you have to really sit back and, uh, wonder what else is out there that's similar or worse.
[48:48.970 --> 48:49.270]  Mm-hmm.
[48:50.110 --> 48:57.590]  Have, have you, um, um, been aware of other videos or other documents that you, uh, just can't get your hands on, but you know, they're out there someplace?
[48:57.970 --> 48:58.050]  Yeah.
[48:58.050 --> 48:58.090]  Yeah.
[48:58.330 --> 49:05.210]  Although we're, we're getting much better at going between realizing and having, um, in a, in a short period of time.
[49:05.530 --> 49:19.930]  Um, um, but yes, think, uh, think about this Iraq video that did actually exist somewhere in the bowels of some American military computer network, uh, for the past two and a half years, um, and not having a political impact.
[49:19.930 --> 49:32.370]  The rightful political impact that it should have had over that past two and a half years has been removed from our course of civilization and civilization would have been better probably, um, if it'd been available two and a half years ago.
[49:32.490 --> 49:34.790]  And there's no doubt that there's thousands of other things.
[49:35.110 --> 49:42.050]  Uh, we have, uh, in fact, over, um, 10 more, uh, similar videos, uh, that we are working on.
[49:42.170 --> 49:42.430]  Uh-oh.
[49:43.170 --> 49:43.470]  Okay.
[49:44.170 --> 49:51.430]  Maybe you don't want to say more than that, but, um, well, on a related question, since this was released personally, what have you had to deal with?
[49:51.570 --> 49:57.230]  Just coming here to New York, people recognize you on the street, uh, any, any threats or, or people hugging you or what?
[49:58.090 --> 50:01.550]  Well, I would love to say I've actually had time to be on the streets at all.
[50:01.810 --> 50:05.090]  Um, but no, just, just working in very little sleep.
[50:05.370 --> 50:09.150]  Um, but I mean, it's, it's kind of nice.
[50:09.290 --> 50:23.310]  WikiLeaks has shown, uh, over the past week that using sort of military terms that psychologically we are able to project force to Washington, to the press club, uh, and we are able to project force to Baghdad.
[50:23.450 --> 50:28.150]  And I think that's a very important statement for a transparency organization to be making.
[50:28.150 --> 50:31.530]  You weren't worried at all about coming to the United States when this happened.
[50:31.530 --> 50:37.910]  I would almost expect you to be somewhere else, maybe Iceland, Australia, any place else than here when, when such a thing happened.
[50:38.270 --> 50:49.350]  I think, um, having this video under my arm coming to the, uh, national press club, um, was the safest moment for me to come to United States.
[50:49.530 --> 50:55.130]  It would have been a, a, an instant career suicide for anyone, uh, in to try and prevent that.
[50:55.290 --> 50:57.210]  And that's probably why it was not prevented.
[50:57.570 --> 51:02.450]  Also, you know, there's a reason Guantanamo Bay is not in the United States mainland.
[51:02.850 --> 51:09.630]  It's because that there is a perception that how the law operates here is that it doesn't operate offshore.
[51:10.250 --> 51:12.310]  Uh, and so abuses are done offshore.
[51:12.510 --> 51:18.930]  So to some degree you are safest from American spying in the United States as opposed to out of the United States.
[51:19.570 --> 51:20.090]  Wow.
[51:20.290 --> 51:21.390]  We're back here in 2019.
[51:21.550 --> 51:31.830]  That blows me away because Julian back then in 2010 thought he was safe in the United States, having revealed this information, things about Guantanamo Bay, the collateral murder video.
[51:32.130 --> 51:33.770]  I think that just puts it into perspective.
[51:33.770 --> 51:42.050]  We see how much our country has changed in that period of time because back then he was, he was celebrated for, uh, for revealing this.
[51:42.130 --> 51:43.610]  And we're talking about the same material right now.
[51:43.710 --> 51:46.190]  We're not talking about what, what transpired in the years following.
[51:46.190 --> 51:48.770]  We can, we can address that at a future time.
[51:49.090 --> 51:54.350]  Uh, but, uh, that is something that I think really is, is a dramatic revelation.
[51:54.590 --> 52:04.510]  Now I know, uh, Kyle and I, we visited Julian in May of, uh, of 2012, um, to warn him because we had evidence.
[52:04.510 --> 52:12.430]  We had, uh, some of our contacts told us there was in fact, uh, a case brewing against him, a federal case.
[52:12.850 --> 52:20.790]  Uh, so we felt it was our obligation to let him know that and that he should do what he, what he wished with that information.
[52:21.250 --> 52:27.970]  I don't know if had anything to do with what he did the month after that, when he went into the embassy for the first time, but, uh, I would do it again.
[52:28.070 --> 52:36.650]  You know, when, when you hear somebody is being threatened with something, I think you have an obligation to tell them and to, uh, share that information.
[52:36.810 --> 52:39.550]  And I think all of this is about sharing information.
[52:39.730 --> 52:41.950]  And let me just say, uh, astoundingly, we have no calls.
[52:41.950 --> 52:44.950]  So, uh, we can continue the conversation here, Alex.
[52:46.050 --> 52:50.310]  I mean, I, I think what you did was really quite brave, frankly.
[52:50.530 --> 52:54.030]  And, and the fact that you're talking about it on the radio right now, I think is also quite brave.
[52:54.190 --> 52:59.650]  We definitely live in different times, but it wasn't universally, uh, lauded back in 2010.
[52:59.830 --> 53:07.850]  I think there were always people that considered this to be somewhat reckless and including, you know, fellow quote unquote journalists that, that believed this to be somewhat of a reckless act.
[53:08.290 --> 53:20.410]  And, and for me, I mean, putting aside the criminal component of it for a quick moment, as, as somebody who held a security clearance, I had top secret clearance with access to sensitive compartmented information.
[53:20.670 --> 53:22.630]  One of the highest clearances you can have in the government.
[53:22.790 --> 53:24.490]  And I also had another DOD clearance.
[53:25.510 --> 53:34.310]  I, I'm really kind of torn about this because like Kyle said, the information that came out, you know, it shed light on dark places that really needed light shedding on them.
[53:34.650 --> 53:36.070]  And I agree with that.
[53:36.270 --> 53:40.410]  I agree with the end result, but I tend to disagree with the means.
[53:40.750 --> 53:46.630]  And, and I disagree, you know, with what Chelsea Manning did to an extent that I disagree with what Snowden did.
[53:46.770 --> 53:53.990]  And I think there are big differences between Manning and Snowden in particular, in that Snowden handed over a huge tranche of documents to journalists.
[53:54.430 --> 54:03.370]  Uh, I find that even somewhat irresponsible because you're letting them determine what is, um, going to be released to the public.
[54:03.510 --> 54:05.390]  And that might not always be the right decision.
[54:05.550 --> 54:08.590]  But who, who else are we going to trust to do that?
[54:09.990 --> 54:15.170]  You know, the journalists have to make a decision on a case by case basis about this particular information, right?
[54:15.270 --> 54:16.550]  They always have to do that.
[54:16.650 --> 54:27.490]  But I think if I'm taking this position with regard to Snowden, by necessary implication, A4TRE as we call it in the law, I would have to take that position with regard to Assange and Manning in order to be consistent here.
[54:27.730 --> 54:33.410]  But it's a very, very difficult thing to do, but it requires careful attention to every single story.
[54:33.550 --> 54:41.090]  The wholesale release of documents the way that Assange did is going to forever change the course of the history of the United States.
[54:41.210 --> 54:42.150]  As it should have.
[54:42.270 --> 54:44.090]  As would keeping them secret, right?
[54:44.190 --> 55:02.830]  Because if that begets more war crimes and more murder, I mean, is, is the, the law you have to break to reveal, uh, other law breaking that might, um, uh, cut off, uh, the direction and the allowance of that and protection with these laws preventing that entire network from being accessed?
[55:03.130 --> 55:04.030]  Is that justified?
[55:04.190 --> 55:06.350]  I think it, it's, it's probably arguable.
[55:06.470 --> 55:14.390]  I mean, I, it's a scary to go up against that, but I think that it is worth it in the end because the truth is difficult, but it is the truth.
[55:14.390 --> 55:16.550]  They are the people that pulled the triggers.
[55:17.130 --> 55:21.770]  Well, why don't we, yeah, they're, why aren't we focusing as much of this anger on them?
[55:21.890 --> 55:23.750]  Well, they should be, and they should be subject to court martial.
[55:23.810 --> 55:26.210]  We keep saying they should be, but they never are.
[55:26.270 --> 55:29.790]  Well, we, I don't know if there were any courts martial that arose from that.
[55:29.930 --> 55:30.990]  I'd be surprised if there were.
[55:31.170 --> 55:33.730]  The fact that we don't know that tells me it was not much in the public eye.
[55:33.770 --> 55:37.730]  Look, here's the point I would like to leave our listeners with for, for the moment though.
[55:37.850 --> 55:46.110]  And it's, and I think it's about responsible journalism and I think you practice responsible journalism and it's that curation and moderation does not necessarily equal censorship.
[55:46.390 --> 55:53.070]  I think it's, it's, it's equatable with responsibility and understanding the real power of information.
[55:53.730 --> 56:04.290]  Discretion, I think is sometimes lost when we release all of this information that for good reason and for not so good reason, some of it may be kept secret and some of it may deserve to be out in the public domain.
[56:04.730 --> 56:08.190]  Getting the stories that you and Kyle had talked about were so incredibly important.
[56:08.230 --> 56:10.410]  And I think they changed the course of the United States for the good.
[56:10.890 --> 56:17.270]  But there's a lot out there in those leaks in those cables that certainly compromised our relationship with other countries unnecessarily.
[56:17.370 --> 56:20.430]  And certainly in my opinion and others were not newsworthy.
[56:20.550 --> 56:23.110]  And let me, let me save any, uh, anyone out there the trouble.
[56:23.290 --> 56:26.810]  We will not reveal the source of the information that we relate to Julian.
[56:27.410 --> 56:29.250]  Uh, that is what journalists do.
[56:29.630 --> 56:32.030]  Uh, so I hope we continue this discussion.
[56:32.030 --> 56:34.090]  I realize there's many points of view.
[56:34.150 --> 56:35.890]  And of course, now we have the full switchboard.
[56:35.890 --> 56:38.370]  Now that I chastise people for not calling, but we're out of time.
[56:38.670 --> 56:38.790]  Yeah.
[56:39.230 --> 56:39.930]  That's how it works.
[56:39.990 --> 56:40.850]  But you can still write to us.
[56:41.030 --> 56:44.850]  O th at 2600.com tweet at us on hacker radio show.
[56:45.430 --> 56:48.870]  And, um, otherwise, uh, accost us in the streets, I guess.
[56:49.030 --> 56:51.290]  And talking of leaks, what's the address of our secure drop again?
[56:51.790 --> 57:01.150]  What are you expecting that to, oh, it's, I don't know the onion address because it's all kinds of numbers and letters, but just go to 2600.com slash secure dropping and read all about it.
[57:01.190 --> 57:01.630]  That's right.
[57:01.630 --> 57:02.350]  All right.
[57:02.450 --> 57:02.450]  All right.
[57:02.470 --> 57:11.750]  We'll be back again next week with all kinds of other developments and, uh, information until then stay awake and, um, do some reading tomorrow.
[57:12.030 --> 57:14.310]  Look for the, uh, what's written between the lines.
[57:14.450 --> 57:15.270]  This is going to be fun.
[57:15.690 --> 57:15.910]  Good night.