Why the US Declared War on Wikileaks: The Origin Story

America declares war on Wikileaks they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to National Security Julian Assange fights back from his Enclave Wikileaks will continue its Publications the war the proper war is just commencing is WikiLeaks really a threat to US democracy they're a publisher and so the idea that a government is going after them if anyone's cheering that on they don't belong in a democracy what happens if it gets shut down I think there's going to be copycats it's like Hydra cut off one head more grow back fre [Applause] [Music] 5 years on and julan nange is still H up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London trying to avoid extradition to the United States but up until recently it hasn't been clear the US government is really after him then president Trump's new CIA director Mike Pompeo dropped a public bomb on Wikileaks it's time to call out Wikileaks for what it really is a non-state hostile intelligence service often embedded by state actors like Russia so I know what it's like to have the government attack you as a journalist and to see what's going on with Wikileaks and the CIA it's really troubling I know Glenn Greenwald who report on the Snowden leaks feels the exact same way and I'm about to talk to him greenwald's reporting on the Snowden leaks when his team and pulled surprise Glen hey great to meet you how are you when Mike Pompeo stood up and gave that 45 minute speech exclusively about Wikileaks the only purpose of that speech was to declare their intention as he said to put an end in his words to WikiLeaks his ability to use the First Amendment to continue to publish documents and what do you make about that CIA threat of non-state actor I mean that's that's a pretty harsh term I mean I'm a national security reporter non-state actor that's reserved for terrorist organizations yeah um you know if you think about what it means it's actually it actually gets more disturbing right they want to criminalize the publication of secret documents which is the heart and soul of what organizations do all of the time but because it is directed at Wikileaks an unpopular organization among mainstream media as opposed to insulting CNN or New York Times reporters journalists mainstream journalists seem to be indifferent to it if not outright supportive of it do you think Wikileaks is Julian Assange do you think without him there is no Wikileaks like let's say he goes to jail I mean is it over whatever else you want to say about Julian and his personal behavior and his choices um he's been a Visionary in terms of revolutionizing how transparency is effectuated in the digital age but over the years it's become an increasingly totalitarian organization in the simp by which I simply mean that there isn't much to WikiLeaks other than Julian there are much fewer people now who who he trusts and it's very hard at this point to separate the organization from from the person I'm in Berlin to meet one of the people Assange does trust ranata V is one of his lawyers in close confidants she believes that if the Americans are able to take down Wikileaks it will endanger democracy by stifling freedom of the press around the world that's uh that's not Julian is it no that good thing is that it could be anyone you know and it's um it's quite symbolic this is not only an American problem this is a global problem and if uh if a country that has preach uh to defend freedom of the press and freedom in general Liberty in general heads in this direction what can we expect for the rest of the people is an attack to my right to know and my right to truth but Julian Assange isn't stopping Wikileaks recently pissed the CIA off by releasing Vault 7 thousands of documents revealing the scope of the agency's Cyber Arsenal and it proves the American spies can hack into virtually anything that's connected to a computer the the Central Intelligence Agency lost control uh of its entire cyber weapons Arsenal this is a historic act uh of devastating incompetence VA s uh publication is I will say the one of the most interesting Publications for him as an editor because uh he's one of the few people in the world that can understand the impact of the and the technical aspects of that and do you think it was that publishing of the Vault 7 documents that that got the attention of the C I think that I think that was a trigger so when was the last time you saw J and how long do they can last in that Embassy I I usually we keep regular visits because there are many things that we cannot discuss by electronic means he's a very resilient person as long as he has access to the internet and he has a a ability to uh to continue uh his his role as editor uh even if his uh health is not optimal I'm confident that he can continue resisting as long as he is free to speak some consider Wikileaks a First Amendment Champion but to others it's a geopolitical pariah and I'm about to meet a man who was there at the very beginning the thing is Julian is an extremely and exceptionally intelligent person and I think partly that is his problem because uh he sometimes thinks that he's so much smarter than everybody else that he's the one playing everybody he's the one with the end game nowadays very few people get to meet Julie nange face to face but I'm in Germany with one of his former best friends who personally knows him and the way he thinks I want to know his opinion of WikiLeaks today Free Press Champion or anti- American spy tool Daniel doshite Berg was at Wikileaks from the very beginning and his story was even the subject of a Hollywood movie he very publicly left the organization when he felt it began drifting away from its original goals I'm in this really picturesque little German town outside of Berlin right now to meet Daniel dumet Berg former member of WikiLeaks he didn't want to give me his address so I'm meeting him here on this park bench Daniel hi I'm back good to meet you yeah how are you good this is like a really beautiful little town yeah that that's kind of why we're here yeah seriously in the first 2 and 1/2 years that I was there we were building a press organization and that's what changed at some stage and suddenly this became uh a project that was trying to exercise political influence I while he was there Dom shite Berg told me there were definitely times leakers used Wikileaks as a political weapon the most infamous incident is the so-called climate gate leaks where hackers handed over emails in order to cast doubt on the reality of climate change it was stuff that was essentially saying that climate change wasn't that bad right well the the the climate gate publication it was portraying climate change as let's say exaggerated in in the public opinion yeah so it was missing all the data or a lot of the data that was actually showing that climate change is a real thing and ultimately it went out anyway it wouldn't have made any sense to keep it back then actually you'd be missing maybe out on on the chance that the Whistleblower is giving Society did you get the feeling at a certain point when you were with Wikileaks that it became kind of Julian Assange angry at the American government well we were all angry at the American government I can say that very honestly cuz some people are saying it's really this is a now it's become a vendetta I'm not sure if that's the right conception actually it's too easy and there's more Shades of Gray so Julian has a very very strong sense of justice so it has nothing I think to do with being anti-American or so but it's rather he's uh he's applying this strong sense of justice to some of the actors out of that conflict and that's what what what I don't really get because I don't understand why you would support uh the Trump side of things it doesn't make any sense to me with all the criticism you can have about Hillary Clinton and I think there's a lot we need to criticize there I still wouldn't get why you you play the information you have rather than at least just release it mean the timing is very specific yeah that's what I mean you can't you can't say that there was no political motivation behind this it's it's obvious absolutely obvious doshite Berg acknowledges political Powers co-opt Wikileaks for information war and Jonathan Nichols agrees with his government Wikileaks is constantly weaponized against us interests he's a war on terror vet who wrote a secret report that appeared in the infamous Iraq war logs thousands of documents given to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning Nicholls worked on psychological operations scop for the US Military and was in Iraq at the time of the leaks um and everybody in Baghdad was uh concerned about where the data was coming from um and it quickly came out that uh about a half mile on my base there was uh somebody else guy named Bradley Manning at the time who uh who had done the leak and was arrested do you think Wikileaks has a vendetta against the US honest question has there been a Wikileaks dump that benefited America and allies at all there been even one every single one has been to the detriment of the countries that support free speech and have been to the advantage of the countries that don't like free speech in the name of free speech so I think the I think the bad guys kind of got to SP our balls here but in fact some countries that suppress free speech like Saudi Arabia and turkey actually have been damaged by we iak dumps what do you think the advantage is then to use something like Wikileaks as a disinformation platform if you're a foreign actor against the US so first I don't want to use the word disinformation um I haven't seen evidence that there's been there's been overt lying propaganda isn't about lying a lot of times it's about presenting The Narrative that you have in the most compelling light while undercutting The adversar Narrative so do you agree with that you know that's that that characterization of WikiLeaks as a non-state actor so yes the short answer is yes I agree with that characterization really the long answer is I'm concerned with using that specific language the only other time I'm familiar with the language non-state actor being used is in terms of terrorist organizations and I wouldn't go so far as to call Wikileaks a terrorist organization wikileak leag definitely isn't Al-Qaeda and Julie nange is no Bin Laden but one thing is for sure after the role he played in the 2016 election some Americans still see him as the enemy is WikiLeaks a tool used by Foreign governments to damage the United States or a crusading free speech publisher this is DC not far from the White House where Jen palmier a key member of Hillary Clinton's campaign expected her candidate to be right now palmier was the communications director for Hillary in 2016 when Wikileaks released hacked emails that were damaging to the campaign and what's really important about Wikileaks is that the Russian government has engaged in Espionage against Americans then they have given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the internet this has come from the highest levels of the Russian government the Russians may have done the hacking but many think that Assange published the leaks because of his well-documented personal Vendetta against Hillary Clinton I want to hear what paulm thinks about wikil leaks when I was at the White House I was always told just to be safe like assume the Russians and the Chinese are listening to everything you say but hadn't expected that Wikileaks would team with them is how the campaign campaign saw it was that it was a teaming between Wikileaks and yes it was obviously intended to hurt us each day at I think 8:00 a.m. they would you know put on online um a new batch of emails they seem to be strategically um curated and timed to inflict damage on our campaign and uh the Press would report on it we would get asked about it and Trump would pick it up at his rallies now this just came out this just came out Wikileaks I love Wikileaks campaign felt like a Batman movie version of a presidential campaign with overly stylized villains so why is WikiLeaks the villain they are the villain because they teamed up with a uh uh the leader of a country that wants our country to be weaker and uh teamed up with them to undermine this like very core principle of our Republic during the election campaign candidate Trump embraced Wikileaks then after taking power president Trump changed his tune essentially labeling Wikileaks An Enemy of the State it's a perfect example of how fast whistleblowers can go from being Heroes to villains depending on how the government wants to see them jessyn radak knows that feeling she's a lawyer and former whistleblower who went on to defend other leakers like Snowden hi hey how are you good to see hey chess nice me you meet you [Music] too labeling Wikileaks that way um it you know is similar to the to the overkilling going after whistleblowers and labeling them as Traders and turn coats that's exactly what I was called when I blew the whistle and really I was a a lawyer I was an Ethics lawyer for the ethics Office of the justice department you represent Edward Snowden and one thing that was interesting you know when he was first coming out with all the information he told the reporters you need to put this out there as fast as possible because if you don't one of the potential things on the table is to eliminate you to potentially kill you well Edward Snowden having worked for intelligence agencies and other clients of mine know what they're capable of if people think the CIA isn't knocking off people in other countries that that's never happened that's a really naive point of view how bad do you think it could get for an organization like Wikileaks right now I think the United States government and its allies are already doing everything they can to strangle Wikileaks FS is very powerful and has very powerful allies um Wikileaks on the other hand has the truth on its side it's a journalist it's a publisher which should really raise alarm belts no matter how you feel about Wikileaks or Julian Assange um in terms of a cult of personality at the bottom line they're a publisher and so the idea that a government is going after them if anyone's cheering that on they don't belong in a democracy I mean it's the most anti-democratic thing I can think of I mean the First Amendment which people in the US Trot out all the time protects speech that we hate the most but despite people like radak sounding the alarm the Trump Administration doesn't seem willing to protect what hates Wikileaks journalism and Julian Assange I want to talk to a member of One notorious activist group that's willing to step up if Wikileaks is taken down whether or not Wikileaks is actually an enemy of the United States the American government has decided that it is and that means the organization is under the real threat of Us action one classic activist group I'm acquainted with considers a world without Wikileaks not a good one at all so I'm in Berlin right now I'm going to meet discordian old school Anonymous member and he's never done an on camera in-person interview before but we're going to talk about Wikileaks and the relationship with the collective so what is so great about Wikileaks so um when you leak to WikiLeaks you are truly Anonymous the idea that you can just go to work put a USB stick in the computer leak the company's information if there's wrongdoing that's a very very powerful idea and have immediate impact well they're they're contracted with so many media organizations from all kinds of political spectrums so when you leak something to WikiLeaks you know the coverage is going to be broad but also diverse at first Anonymous and Wikileaks were natural allies but over the past few years the relationship kind of fell apart so tell me what's the current relationship right now between Anonymous and Wikileaks well you know it's very complicated because uh on one hand you have um Anonymous believing that they interfere with American politics uh in a way that is biased I mean do you think that he was played by Russia oh definitely how do you police something like that well in my opinion uh the information that got leaked is still valid and if more people leak information to them you get more information from both sides but at some point you start to see this just fueling conflict right because now the US and Russia are probably at their worst state of their relationship in since the Cold War that's scary it it is scary but um you know the idea is that if you know more information you vote with your brain and you get the right people elected but in this case Trump got elected which does definitely have negative impact on the International Community I mean what happens if it gets shut down I think it will send a message definitely um but I don't think it will scare that many hackers away because from hacking and leaking yeah from hacking and leaking because they will do whatever it takes to get that transparency in government if it gets shut down not only will the old Wikileaks archives be uh spread like wildfire through torent websites I think there's going to be copycats it's like a Hydra cut off one head more grow back as you can imagine Jen palmier former Clinton staffer isn't convinced Wikileaks is a tool of democracy or that it should be protected under the First Amendment What's Happening Here is things are being selectively put out with a with an intent to harm and an intent to persuade people but do you think if they were taken down prosecuted for what they did that actually could spell some pretty nasty things for freedom of press interesting nobody ever that's hasn't been a question right it was stolen material I don't know they didn't steal it they published it but they published it right but it was stolen jesselyn Rak on the other hand knows sometimes information needs to be stolen to be leaked and there's a proud American history of it the public does not realize how bad that would be for the public because if you can prosecute Wikileaks you can prosecute the New York Times you can prosecute the guardian you can prosecute any any paper no matter what I mean you're setting a horrible press um that if that if you publish classified information or information that the government deems damaging to its interest that that makes you fair game for prison I mean you're upending the entire First Amendment as the debate continues in the US the standoff in London hasn't changed and what do you think Jan's endgame is where is this all going I I don't think he quite knows which in in some sense is what makes what he's done admirable and courageous um I mean at any moment he could have just stopped so I don't think he really looks past his next step um if he did he wouldn't be in the situation that he's in in an age where the Trump Administration is actively finding ways to Outlaw leakers in journalism even going so far as saying they'd throw reporters in jail if need be this whole Wikileaks debate couldn't be more urgent The View Wikileaks and by default jwan Assange are enemies of Dem ocracy is dangerous to people like me journalists and the Trump administration of all groups once a beneficiary of WikiLeaks and its work is going after them regardless of the Constitutional consequences for now Wikileaks keeps on leaking and whatever the endgame is it looks like it may be played out sooner rather than later

Channel: VICE News

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Keywords: Wikileaks, Assange, Julian Assange, Cyberwar, Free Assange, Assange news, Assange case, Assange hearing, Whistleblowers, Chelsea Manning, Activist, hacktivist, US politics, journalism, VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2024

Id: JtCg_hRQvjw

Length: 22min 23sec (1343 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 09 2024