PassW0rd – 11th March 2020 (Assange)

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Speaker D: Hello and welcome to Password on Resonance FM. We all know Julian Assange, don’t we? He’s that Australian hacker who hid in London’s Ecuadorian embassy for years because two women in Sweden complained about sexual misconduct. And now he’s up in court. Shame, really. He invented WikiLeaks. Must be a genius with computers. Just a bit weird. Well, now it’s time to think again. The Password team’s been talking to Julian Assange’s supporters, to a senior British intelligence officer, and a retired US Air Force general about his case. And, although I’ve been writing about computer technology since the internet was invented, even I’ve had a few surprises. You might think Eileen Chubb, a 63-year-old unemployed care worker from Petswood in Kent, has little in common with Chelsea Manning, the former US Army private who leaked secrets of American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eileen Chubb’s story is very different. You may find this distressing if you have elderly parents or grandparents, because when Eileen saw frail old people being neglected, left to sit in their own mess, abused, tormented, and subdued with drug overdoses, she spoke out. She lost her job along with 6 colleagues. Then she formed the Whistler campaign with an investigative journalist, the late Gavin McFadgen, After campaigning for years for a new law to protect employees who reveal bad practices, Eileen Chubb knows how tough and lonely it is to be a whistleblower. Even with the support of the Center for Investigative Journalism, she’s got nowhere. That’s why she found herself outside Belmarsh Prison in Thamesmead making an award to Julian Assange. He is incarcerated inside and attending hearings that could see him extradited to the United States on spying charges.

Speaker E: This year’s award is unique because it pays tribute to one of the greatest journalists and publishers in history, Julian Assange. This man has committed no crime.

Speaker D: The award certificate was given to John Shipton, Julian Assange’s father, He’s championed his son’s cause as any father would, visiting him twice a week at Belmarsh. He chats about the family and tries to keep him positive because the thought of an American jail term makes him very, very depressed.

Speaker C: He’s in a dark place. He’s on medications for depression and his psychiatrist Well, 3 of them told me that he’s liable to commit suicide rather than go to America. So, uh, yes, in a dark place, I suppose. Do you— when the court is sitting, you’re there all the time? When the court sits, funny, the barristers must be mentally very fit because the process is quite tiring. So you get there pretty early on and sit there all day with a half-hour break for lunch. It’s pretty tiring. And it has been reported too that Julian is having tremendous trouble following all of this because of the pressure he’s been put under. The thing is that he’s not involved in the case, and due process requires equal armament of both sides. So the prosecutor has behind him 3 United States attorneys, and they are in constant constant conversation, whereas Julian is in a glass box at the back. He can’t hear the proceedings of the court, and he cannot communicate with his lawyers and is not allowed to pass notes. So it’s, uh, not due process. It’s not equally each side. An application was made to the judge to move Julian into the bottom of the court, as is common everywhere in the world. To sit with his barristers at the bar table, and that was refused without any argument by the judge. And you’ve been able to go and visit him though, have you? Yeah, yeah, so visits twice a week. So I’ll be there, so I’ll be there on Thursday for a morning visit. We worry a bit because prison populations are pretty vulnerable to the new flu, COVID-19. So we worry that the prison will be isolated and no visitors allowed. That’s our concern at the moment. Yeah, indeed. A fire was started in an Italian prison because of a breakout of the virus, so that must be an additional worry. And when you, when you see him, how is he with you? Well, you know, he’s warm and we chat about our children and brothers and sisters and friends, mostly their mothers, the children’s mothers, and gossip mostly is the warmest thing that we, this isolation requires. And then practical things like where have I been, so I went to Geneva a couple of days ago and met with the ex-president of Brazil, Lula, I tell him about that sort of thing, you know, and what happened in Austria and Berlin and so on. And presumably that buoys him up, does it? Yeah, yes, particularly when, you know, like the president of Mexico makes a very strong statement in support, and the ex-president of Brazil, Lula, receives me and makes a very strong statement in support. And Patrulha has photos embracing me. So gradually and systematically increasing the approbation of the court process, the court extradition process that’s been forced on the court by the United States. So, and so he’s receiving a lot of international support then from people like former President Lula? Obrador, the president of Mexico, is a sitting president, but the 13 ex-ministers of state signed an appeal letter in Germany, and no lightweights, ex-foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel. So, and the canton of Geneva, the cantons of power, they’re like state, offered a humanitarian visa which was passed by their assembly. Austrian government, their parliament passed a support motion, which was acknowledged by the Austrian government. The Council of Europe made a support statement that the exhibition ought to be dropped. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Council of Europe, made a similar statement. International Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, And the list is very long.

Speaker D: Meanwhile, in another high-security prison at The Hague in the Netherlands, a court case has just started putting the United States on trial for alleged war crimes committed by its military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. These acts were revealed when Private Chelsea Manning leaked video footage to the WikiLeaks secure online Dropbox. Created by Julian Assange. You may find this distressing. What you heard is an American helicopter crew targeting a group of people firing on them and celebrating a direct hit. The people they killed and injured were an unarmed Reuters news agency film crew and a number of civilians, including two children. The WikiLeaks team, led by Julian Assange, made this footage into a documentary called Collateral Murder. In those early days of publishing leaks, Assange’s right-hand man was German computer expert Daniel Ellsberg. Daniel Domscheit-Berg. He arranged for them to present WikiLeaks at the Chaos Computer Club conference, a global gathering of internet libertarians. Although he was later very critical of Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg remembers that time with particular pride.

Speaker A: Well, I think we became quite good friends over time. I mean, we spent a lot of time together. He was traveling a lot, but he also stayed at my place quite quite frequently. We traveled a lot together, we worked very closely with one another, so I think, yeah, there was quite a good mutual relationship there.

Speaker E: But it didn’t last. What happened?

Speaker A: I think ultimately at some stage towards 2010 it boiled down to the fact that we never discussed how we wanted to organize this platform. You could say that we were so busy dealing with all the stuff that was coming in that we never really took time in order to structure the organization, to find clear roles and responsibilities. So naturally, you know, the people you attract to this project, and that’s not just me at that stage, it’s not ordinary people, you know, running a 9-to-5 job or so, but it’s people working on this because they’re convinced it’s a good thing. So it’s not people following orders, maybe you could say that. As long as it worked as a team and we all took decisions that we discussed and that somehow we found an agreement upon, this all worked out. And then in 2010, suddenly all of that changed. So Julian took lots of decisions against recommendations of the rest of the team. Actually, we had agreements that we really agreed on that he didn’t stick to. We didn’t know what was happening in the team from one day to another. And that’s, I think, I don’t know, that’s a much, much bigger risk if you can’t trust the people you are working with anymore to stick to agreements. If all you have is the belief, the firm belief that what you do cannot be wrong, then I think sooner or later it’s gonna, you’re gonna run into serious problems.

Speaker E: Now Julian Assange has very serious problems. He’s set to be extradited to the United States on spying charges as well as computer misuse. What do you think of this case?

Speaker A: First of all, I’m really shocked about how this is all going down, you know. It’s, uh, there’s, this has a lot of levels for me, you know. There’s, um, lots of things I don’t get. It begins with the fact that for many years, you know, the press has written him into some kind of a new be a superstar, and now suddenly it seems like lots of press barely want to touch him anymore. They barely want to defend him. And I can understand that to the extent that, you know, if you break a lot of promises towards people, maybe, maybe they hold a grudge. But then again, this all now is not about him personally, it’s rather about his role as a journalist. So I think press organizations around the world, the public as well, need to understand that even if we despise him, even if we don’t like him as a character, then we still have to see beyond that because there’s more at stake right now than just his personality or his character that would be on trial. It’s not about this. It’s a question about press freedoms. Yeah, I’m not sure what’s going to happen out of this, but I I hope at least that the public and also the press and everybody else, they are waking up in defense of Julian. We can still agree on disagreeing later, but for now I think that this would be very important.

Speaker E: So what would you say should happen to him now?

Speaker A: This is a theater, you know, it’s a show somebody is putting on. With lots of subtle lies, with lots of strategy. It’s not clear, transparent, but it’s rather some people playing this game in order to extradite him. And I’m not entirely sure if he would ever be extradited. I can’t see how he would ever be having a fair trial. And that’s also another thing we need to be very concerned about, is to what extent can we trust the United States judicial system. And if you look at what happened after 9/11, the rights you have as a foreigner in the United States— I mean, in the worst case, you could be ending up in Guantanamo Bay. This is— this still exists today. There are people locked up in prisons that have never been accused of anything, that have never had access to a lawyer. So this whole idea that we have that the United States is some kind of a, I don’t know, a good legal environment. You know, this is not true anymore, and we have to acknowledge that in order to understand how careful we have to be for the fate of Julian.

Speaker E: If you could send a message to Julian Assange, what would it be?

Speaker A: Oh, there would be so many things to say, but for now, that he shouldn’t despair. Even though I can’t even— this sounds like it’s ironic because I wouldn’t know how in his situation you couldn’t despair. So yeah, but you know, the man I knew, he was probably the most brilliant thinker that I ever met. I’ve never met anybody who could so clearly understand what’s happening around him. You know, he’s like an analyst. In the purest sense of the word. And if you look at the court proceedings from the hearing a few weeks ago, when the judge asked him if he understood what happened in the courtroom and he couldn’t really say yes, you know, something is really off. So I don’t know, how can a person in that situation not despair? But, uh, That’s what I would wish for him, not to give up right now, because I still hope, you know, I’m probably the last optimist who will be leaving the stage. I’m still hoping that we as a society are better than it seems to be right now.

Speaker D: And even before WikiLeaks, Julian Assange was ahead of the curve in cracking passwords and codes to access secret files. Files. At this time, Julian Assange was also discovering the online world as a teenager in Australia. He collaborated with journalist Suelette Dreyfus on a book called Underground about the emerging hacker culture. Suelette Dreyfus says Julian Assange was different from the rest. He stood out because he was super intelligent and had a keen sense of justice. Partly This was shaped by his family background.

Speaker E: I think it had a profound impact. You know, he had a very difficult situation, a very abusive and stalking stepfather. That was pretty awful. You know, he talked to me a bit about it. It was pretty terrible. So he had a, you know, a number of formative things in his younger years. I think one of them was that he’s very gifted. And moving from school to school, in part trying to flee this abusive stalking partner, ex-partner of his mom, made it very difficult for him to get the educational grounding that any child needs, but especially a child with a very sharp mind. Also, he’s always been a little bit of an outsider. But one thing that I saw is that by virtue of living in a big island nation, kind of in the middle of the sea, quite isolated, there was not much internet connectivity early on. You have to develop a resilience and a resourcefulness and kind of do it yourself, problem solve yourself. So when you see that things don’t work, you can’t just leave it to somebody else. Head office isn’t going to solve it on Monday. So I think that had a profound impact on him. I think also he had seen— he’d lived outside of Adelaide for a while, and his Mom, I believe, had been involved in the community campaigning to expose the testing of atomic bombs in the outback in Aboriginal land, and the pressure that had been put on her to shut up about it or she would risk losing her two children. I think he saw the injustice of that pretty clearly and the cover-ups that went on. I mean, the other thing that influenced him, I think, somewhat is that he spent some of his childhood growing up in Queensland, where he was born. Queensland has a long history of really bad corruption. I mean, we’re talking about brown paper bags being handed to ministers of justice and correction so that people can get out of jail early.

Speaker D: Underground was published by Random House Australia, then at Julian Assange’s insistence republished as an ebook free to download. It’s been made into two TV drama documentaries charting the tribulations of Kristina Assange and her two boys on the run, and Julian’s first serious relationship at the age of 17 with the mother of his son Daniel. Apparently, it was the custody battle for Daniel that turned his hair white at a young age, but it was a battle he won, and he brought up his first son as a lone dad. Daniel is now a software developer. Assange has had a number of short-term relationships with women, including two one-night stands in Sweden, which became the focus of a legal battle. In the pro-Wikileaks documentary “We Steal Secrets,” it’s alleged that this was a so-called honey trap by one of the women, who it is claimed was a former CIA employee. So Julian Assange had a complicated love life, but that’s not illegal. And it’s not something that he is alone in. I, along with many people, could be accused of just that. The issue here, though, is did WikiLeaks commit crimes against national security? I’ve been talking to a former high-ranking British intelligence officer whose identity was exposed, not by WikiLeaks, but by Edward Snowden, the American National Security Agency contractor who leaked proof that Britain and its allies were spying on millions of ordinary people, not only enemies of the state. It was like being raped, the man told me, going on to add that he was very angry with the US about the incident because they’d allowed individuals access to such large amounts of information. The man said that as a result of his exposure, his life had changed. Now I know that there are certain parts of the world that I will never go to And I do feel vulnerable. After one investigation I carried out, I was approached in the court by one of the convicted men who told me that if he ever came across me again, he would kill me with a hammer. But he also said that the work that WikiLeaks did in revealing alleged war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq was morally right and commendable. The revelations in the video about the killings by the helicopter gunship were good, interesting journalism that exposed war crimes. That was a good thing to do. That’s not the view of retired United States Air Force Brigadier General Robert S. Spalding.

Speaker F: The bottom line is he didn’t steal the documents. Of course, he reposted them. Of course, that may not be legal in some countries. So it really isn’t according to where he is that the jurisdiction of the legal system that determines whether or not he broke the law.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker F: But you are correct in that essentially he wasn’t the one that took the documents. So it is the case that, you know, the legal system can prevent you from releasing documents that clearly aren’t your own. And these documents weren’t his. And so, you know, I can see a case where you would want to prevent people from being incentivized to release documents that they know that they don’t, that they don’t own. They may possess them. But they don’t own them. And so releasing documents that can be harmful to other people or other countries certainly can be viewed as untoward. Now, of course, we have in the United States a whistleblower system. So if it’s for the public good, and then there’s a process for going through to ensuring that you’re protected legally, doesn’t always work, but at least there’s a process. So it isn’t, it isn’t the case that you should just be allowed to release whatever you want if you come into possession of something that’s clearly not yours.

Speaker D: Sure. The most, one of the most famous cases going, Watergate, those leaked tapes were not the possession of the Washington Post, but clearly in the public interest. So everybody has always said that that’s, you know, a wonderful thing that happened. Or, you know, was good for the state. What you’re suggesting is that really there needs to be some system that you go through, a whistleblower system as you say, where you try to work out whether something’s in the public interest or not. But in the UK, that information from WikiLeaks was then passed to The Guardian, uh, and they would claim that they went through a filtering system. This is all— the whole thing is very confused.

Speaker F: Well, yeah, and I think— and I go back to Watergate, those— the Pentagon Papers, rather, I think is another good example. I mean, some of these documents certainly are for the public good. Some of them maybe aren’t. I think it’s up to the journalist, I guess, to determine whether or not they think what they’re doing is appropriate. That being said, They’re always subject to the rules and the laws of the countries in which they work. And so that’s just the nature of a system that has rules and laws.

Speaker D: What would you like to see happen? It’s almost become a wonderful former land that we inhabited where a newspaper was a newspaper, leaks came on paper. This is all about speed, as you’ve been pointing out.

Speaker F: Yeah, I’m very much for securing data. I think all data should be encrypted. It should be tied to the creator, and I think the creator should have the control over whether that data is released. And, and I think once we do that, it’s going to be— I think things are going to be much, much clearer. It’ll be much harder for people to steal millions and millions of records and then release them. So, but until we have that, I think that you’re just going to have to try as best you can as a citizen to try to pick through the noise to find what is ground truth. And I think that’ll continue to be the case until such time that things change.

Speaker D: Because I mean, we’re in this brave new world where the AI systems are going to come along and start picking through that data at even more speed. Being able to filter all of that information too for us. It’s almost as though we’re going too fast for ourselves.

Speaker F: Well, it already is starting to, and that should be another horrifying thought, that something is kind of curating your information for you, because if they can curate it, then they can curate it in such a way that it influences you in ways that are often imperceptible to you. This occurs today, and this is how is how, you know, the Russians create chaos, is how the Chinese are able to manipulate populations. It’s the power of big data. And tech companies do it quite well, but those authoritarian or totalitarian regimes have adopted all of those technologies and business models to really help create not just a muddled world in the free societies of the world, but also a world where the free societies, the populations of free societies are constantly influenced to denigrate their own open system in order to appeal to a more closed system, which essentially fulfills the mission of authoritarian or totalitarian regimes to express their principles into the world.

Speaker D: Chelsea Manning also leaked thousands of other military secrets. She is in jail in Alexandria in the Eastern District of the American state of Virginia, refusing to testify against Assange. Her revelations have had an effect. On the 5th of March, just a few days ago, the International Criminal Court opened its first ever case against the United States on crimes alleged to have been committed in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan since 2003. It’s a difficult case to prosecute. The ICC’s main business to date has been with warlords from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Mali, and those responsible for genocide in the Balkans. And the United States does not recognize the International Criminal Court. Here in London, the US case against Assange is led by James Lewis QC, a senior English barrister. There are 17 counts of espionage and 1 of computer misuse, also known as hacking. Veteran investigative reporter John Pilger is at pains to point out that leaking is not the same as computer misuse.

Speaker C: That wasn’t hacked. That was— Chelsea was an intelligence officer. Military intelligence, and she had access to these files and leaked the information. So, and leaked the information to WikiLeaks, and it was only her betrayal by a so-called friend of hers, some friend, that she was prosecuted. And WikiLeaks knew who it was. She retained, even when she was having contact with WikiLeaks, she retained her anonymity. But it wasn’t, again, it wasn’t hacking. Hacking opens up another area where, which, you know, is complex. But this, that’s what this isn’t. Although it’s interesting that in the early days In order to, I suppose, discredit Assange and WikiLeaks, they called it hacking. They don’t anymore. But this is also interesting too, isn’t it? Because the Chaos Computer Club, which was one of the originators of some of these, these methods of freeing up information for transparency, they actually did have hacked information that they did make available.

Speaker D: That’s why I’m saying that there are some slightly muddy grounds here, and I—

Speaker C: yeah, there are, there are muddy grounds, I agree. I think there are muddy grounds in, in hacking, and perhaps— and I don’t want to speculate, it’s something I don’t know much about— but in the same way that of gaining information from, from telephones, and you know, it from. But I mean, in the end, this is a very interesting, in time slightly esoteric discussion, but there is something, and this is where journalism has always pleaded this, and it would used to plead it under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. There is a greater good if you’re disclosing war crimes or malfeasance or crimes of corruption in government, then it’s going to upset a lot of people, but you’re doing your job.

Speaker D: Pilger has visited Julian Assange in prison and believes he is paying a terrible price for facilitating leaks.

Speaker C: When I saw him not long after he’d been dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy— that was in April last year— he looked pretty bad. He’d lost at least 10 kilos in weight and was, was confused. The extraordinary thing about this man is that he is able to regain his intellectual composure pretty quickly. He has a remarkable resilience. But that said, he— the regime in Belmarsh has isolated him, denied him basic, basic facilities and tools particularly those that would help him prepare his case, that would frankly drive anybody crazy. He hasn’t been driven crazy, but it’s had a very significant effect on him, I’m sure. Do you think this has been done for reasons of retribution? Yeah, I think there’s vindictiveness about it. I’ve had brushed with, with those who guard great power over the years, and I think I had to learn was that its ruthlessness was something most of us don’t really know about, I believe. Except those that are caught up in the web of power and the vindictiveness. And the vindictiveness is being played through in the courtroom. The 4 days of hearing from the 24th of February were a model of vindictiveness. Those who were there and those who followed it closely are left in no doubt about that. So, for example, one— there are many examples, but there is the court that he was appearing in, is Woolwich Crown Court, although it’s really just an extension of the prison at Belmarsh. And to reach it from the cells, there’s a long tunnel.. And on that tunnel, on that journey through that tunnel going to and fro his court hearing, he was strip-searched 3 times, he was handcuffed, his papers were taken away from him. This is the kind of stuff that you read about that nasty regimes do. Well, no. It’s not just nasty regimes, it’s just down the road. Okay, why do you think this case is important for democracy? Because first of all, there’s this injustice as number one. There’s a huge injustice against this individual, and the injustice leading to miscarriage of justice if it is allowed to succeed is always detrimental to democracy, detrimental to all of us. Number 2, if he is extradited to the United States, journalists like, like myself will be thoroughly deterred from doing normal journalistic work. That is, the few who still do it. But there are a few, and they will be deterred if they continue doing it. They are very likely to end up like Julian, with an extra judicial process used against them. If you can imagine the Chinese government don’t like something that has been written about them, and been written about them by, let’s say, an Australian national in, uh, in England, the same principle would be that they then could apply to extradite that person to China. It’s exactly the same. But the United States operates worldwide an extrajudicial power, completely arbitrary, ignoring sovereignty. And that’s what this is about. The case should not have been— all jurists, international jurists, international— they’ve signed so many petitions on this, have said so. This case should have been thrown out right at the beginning. It has no place in a court of law.

Speaker D: Assange was also visited last year by the United Nations rapporteur on torture, Nils Meltzer, professor of international law at Glasgow University. His report of Assange’s condition is damning. I quote, what we have seen from the UK government is outright contempt for Mr. Assange’s rights and integrity. And Meltzer told Password’s Jane Wyatt that the extradition case has no legal basis according to international standards.

Speaker G: It’s almost impossible to save this legal proceeding, the extradition proceeding, and make it lawful again, because for almost a year Assange has been without, you know, sufficient means to prepare his defense. We already are half into his first instance hearing. We can see the way he’s treated in court. So the British authorities are absolutely resilient, and to see them, the mistakes that have happened, and to actually provide remedy that would render this a lawful legal proceeding. Then also, there is no way, even in a fair proceeding, that he could be lawfully extradited to the United States, and that’s the the only thing that is at stake here. We have to remember that he has never been charged for a crime so far, except for the indictments in the US which relate to espionage, which is the quintessential example of a political offense, and UK law prohibits extraditions for political offenses. On top of it, if he gets extradited or transferred to the United States, he’s He certainly will not get a fair trial with the political opinion, the public opinion against him there, with the type of proceedings that he will be exposed to at the so-called espionage court in Alexandria, with essentially biased juries composed mainly of employees or people very close to the defense and intelligence establishment. This is a city a town very close to Washington, D.C., based on secret evidence behind closed doors. I mean, the proceedings in this court have been widely criticized by human rights lawyers also in other cases. And the conditions of detention he will be exposed to in the U.S. in supermax establishments are known to violate the prohibition against torture and ill treatment with prolonged to indefinite isolation incel shackling and all these types of draconian measures imposed by the US authorities for cases like this. So there’s no way he could be lawfully extradited, and the UK authorities, in my view, they should simply recognize this, you know, that there’s no point in having this proceeding. But if they want to have the proceeding, they have to give him the rights of defense and take him out of this high-security establishment establishment. He is not in a criminal punishment setting. He is being detained exclusively for preventive reasons to prevent his escape during the extradition proceeding. And you don’t need to be in a high-security prison for that, where access to lawyers and family members is extremely restricted. But he could be in a semi-open environment that simply prevents his escape. There are other models for that.

Speaker E: Now, you said that he’s never been accused of any crime, but he was accused of sexual offenses in Sweden, and one of the crimes that the American authorities want to try him for is computer hacking. So not all the charges are related to this political espionage act?

Speaker G: Well, I think we have to be absolutely clear that he’s never been charged in Sweden. There have been allegations allegations made against him, and there was a preliminary investigation that was dragged out to 9.5 years without ever any charges being pressed against him. So he was never accused formally of anything. And in the end of the 9.5 years preliminary investigation— so that’s a phase that should last maybe 3 months normally, not 9.5 the authorities admitted that they never had sufficient evidence to press charges in the first place. So I think we have to be very clear that the proceedings in Sweden are extremely problematic. The closer you look at them, the more problematic they become. But then the other thing, you are right that there is, of the 18 charges in the U.S., 17 relate to the Espionage Act and one relates to conspiracy, to hacking. Now we have to be clear though what this relates to. He’s accused basically of having tried unsuccessfully— I must underline, unsuccessfully— tried to help Chelsea Manning, Bradley Manning at the time, his source, the whistleblower, to decode a password of a different collaborator in order for to disguise her, cover her tracks in the computer system. It was not to access information because Manning had fully authorized access to all of this information that she leaked. It’s just that she violated obviously her duty of secrecy, but there was no hacking in the sense of stealing information or getting unlawful access to the information because her access was lawful, it’s just that the leaking was unlawful. So I think it’s important that we understand that the hacking charge did not relate to trying to steal information but to cover tracks, and again that it was an attempt, if ever it happened, I mean again these are allegations that are not proven, we have a presumption of innocence so far, but even if they happened, the maximum penalty of for this offense in grave cases that were successful and caused harm would be 5 years of prison. So in a case where you have an unsuccessful attempt that did not cause any harm, you know, you’d probably look at a couple of weeks in prison. And so that’s certainly not a realistic prospect that Julian Assange would be sentenced to 4 weeks in prison and then released. Least for this unsuccessful attempt. So I think we have to be realistic. What he’s facing in the US is more likely life in prison than— it’s not about this hacking charge.

Speaker D: The Eastern District of Virginia, remember, is where Chelsea Manning, the source of the military leaks, is held in jail after being pardoned by President Barack Obama and rearrested under President Donald Trump. The American Espionage Act of 1917, which governs most of the charges against Julian Assange, carries very severe penalties. If he is found guilty, the WikiLeaks founder could face 175 years in jail. So what is actually on trial here? Is it A danger to national security or the freedom of the press? Is, as some commentators have told us, democracy itself in the dock? WikiLeaks publishes damning evidence against all parts of the political spectrum, from American presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to Ecuador’s new leader Lenin Moreno. It’s not a campaign for particular political beliefs, but a clearinghouse for transparency in general. 1,300 of the world’s leading investigative journalists have joined a campaign to free Julian Assange, and Reporters Without Borders are monitoring the court case, just as they do for trials in repressive states like Turkey, where 115 writers and reporters are currently in jail after criticising the government. Rebecca Vincent is one of the trial monitors for Reporters Without Borders.

Speaker C: Well, when public opinion is against somebody like Assange, it allows these governments to continue and make an example of him because they’re not facing significant public pressure not to, right? He does also have a reputation for being a little difficult. Yeah, he does. I mean, the profiles written about him have been really unkind, and I don’t know him personally, I can’t comment on that, but what we say actually is it doesn’t matter what you think about him as a person, whether or not you like him, because that’s not what this is about, right? Has he done the things that he’s being accused of doing? No, he hasn’t. And, and should we all be concerned about the implications in this case? Yes, we should. So it’s about that. But it can be very effective when the public doesn’t care. The government is basically able to do what it wants.

Speaker D: This is Password on Resonance FM with me, Peter Warren. After this, you can hear A World in London with DJ Ritu. I am examining the background to the Julian Assange extradition case and what it means for us in the Information Age. The case has many weeks still to run, and Assange’s lawyers are racking up a bill of £10 million a year, with many expecting the case to last for between 2 and 3 years without appeals. And it’s possible that the judge Vanessa Baraitser will decide against extradition, but it’s not certain. Rui Pinto, the whistleblower who broke the Football Leaks international corruption scandal, was sent back from his hideout in Hungary to his native Portugal. That’s in spite of the fact that the leaks led to criminal investigations, one of which has seen Manchester City fined £25 million and given a 2-year ban from European competitions. Professor Tim Crook of Goldsmiths, University of London, is the new president of the Chartered Institute of Journalists and the author of a number of media law books. He says the Assange case has echoes of earlier politically motivated moves against whistleblowers and journalists.

Speaker B: He’s asked so many different questions. He’s asked questions of digital online power, the vulnerability of the individual, abuse of communications power and surveillance, and he’s asked questions of journalism. What is the purpose, the role of journalism in this new universe of postmodernist information digitization. And, um, that’s why I, you know, I think there are many journalists and many mainstream news organizations who are— I mean, to use a silly cliché— missing the trick, which is actually a trivialization of the issue. They have not understood what is going on here and what is at stake and what has happened. And Julian Assange’s relationships with mainstream media have broken down, and there is hostility and tension, and that complicates the terrible abuse of human rights that he’s undergoing and the terrible threat to protection of freedom of expression and protection of sources. And the the undermining and destruction of the public interest.

Speaker E: Just to play devil’s advocate here, Tim, the lawyer representing the United States at the extradition hearings said that he was a common criminal and what he was doing was stealing, using computers to steal.

Speaker B: Yes, so stealing information that the United States government wants to keep secret or confidential for what purposes? Military, political purposes. Well, states will always describe that as theft, and they will try and criminalize it. And that’s always going to be a problem for journalism. It’s interesting that there’s been a continuing debate within mainstream journalism about did Julian Assange and WikiLeaks do more damage than good? Is the damage and the theft being alleged a false chimera, a myth? There are people who are security experts and journalists who argue that what WikiLeaks released was known to up to a million people in the United States in intelligence network was not ultra-sensitive and has not led, directly led or indirectly led, to deaths, serious physical repercussions for individuals. Yes, no, I accept the devil’s advocate question. I just noticed the debate about whether it’s founded on evidence, and can the, you know, of the damage, of the actual damage, can the United States prove and demonstrate that? And as a historian, a media law historian, I’m reminded that this particular allegation and complaint is rather time-honored. One of the advantages of being old is that you can compare an expression of crime, theft, and challenge to national security with something that was defined like that, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. So, you know, in 1977, 1978, two journalists and a former soldier, signal soldier, were arrested and prosecuted under the United Kingdom Official Secrets Act for revealing the locations of GCHQ and what GCHQ does. Simply that. And that was seen not only to be a breach of the discredited Section 2 catch-all of the Official Secrets Act, in other words, you know, making a criminal offence just to release official information, but under the more serious Section 1, of dreadful espionage undermining the security and safety of the United Kingdom. We’re talking about Duncan Campbell, Crispin Aubrey, and the soldier Barry, known as the ABC Trial. The Section 1 charges were withdrawn. All three were found guilty of the discredited Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act and got non-custodial sentences. The language the British state was trotting out at the Central Criminal Court at the end of the 1970s was very similar. So the expression, you know, taking this with a pinch of salt, measuring the real proportionality, it may well be a similar situation with Mr. Assange. He hasn’t made many friends in the narrative, if you can call it that. But there’s an interesting pattern, isn’t there, about what he says is the threat and what turns out to be the threat. Women in Sweden accused him of criminal sexual misconduct, various serious allegations that have not been pursued because he holed up in the Ecuadorian Equatorian embassy, and under Swedish law it would now be too, too long from the, the time of the complaint. You know, that’s terrible for the women who made the complaints. He said he held up in the Equatorian embassy because the, the longer, the larger, longer-term threat and the bigger threat was not answering those allegations, but there was a plot and an intent by the United States to extradite him. And so, you know, the Swedish issue has now expired. He falls out with the Ecuadorian government and he’s no longer given sanctuary by them. And, and lo and behold, what happens? The United States government wants to extradite him on serious espionage charges from their 1917 legislation. So it turns out after all this time his fear was grounded. And that’s, you know, that is where we are. And yes, he’s not best friends with The Guardian, is he? And there are those people who lost a lot of money standing bail for him when it was forfeited. And it’s interesting now, I think, that non-government organizations fighting for freedom of expression, the protection of journalists, they all recognize and are now campaigning vigorously on behalf of Julian Assange. And you have to say it’s a a surreal narrative, bizarre. But the very idea that, um, somebody who wants the world to know more about what powerful states are doing wrong should be pursued in this way, become a political prisoner— it’s a, a man in the iron mask.

Speaker D: In Belmarsh jail, a murder inquiry is currently underway after a prisoner, Sandeep Gurman, aged 36, was apparently beaten to death by two other inmates two weeks ago. That has nothing to do with Julian Assange, but it’s an indication of the nature of the 909 other men held there, some on terrorism charges and other violent crimes. Assange was locked up there for skipping bail when he claimed asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. He hid in the Ecuadorian embassy for 7 years because he believed that if he went to Sweden to answer complaints of sexual misconduct, he would be extradited on espionage charges to the United States. That’s turned out to be true. The sentence for skipping bail was 15 weeks. He was due to be released on the 22nd of September 2019, but he’s still behind bars. These are the facts. Of course, there are also many opinions about Assange the man. Everyone we’ve spoken to, supporters and detractors, describes him as difficult. Still, being difficult is not a crime. Many of the people that we interviewed were pretty difficult. Using computers and cybersecurity to reveal leaked secrets is, as Brigadier General Rob Spaulding pointed out, a grey area. Spearheading the fundraising campaign to pay for his £10 million a year lawyers, Deepa Driver, a lecturer in governance at Reading University, doesn’t see it that way.

Speaker E: I’m more interested in the protection of our citizens and in, in ensuring that those who are releasing true information, which is 100% verifiable, 100% accurate, are not persecuted for doing so.

Speaker D: This issue about espionage— most of the charges that have been leveled against Julian Assange are for espionage. Are you worried about that?

Speaker E: Well, it’s, it’s an entirely disproportionate use of the Espionage Act. It has been used intentionally in order to take attention away from where the real crimes lie. It is being used in order to manipulate the trial into a situation where where things are heard in secret, where there is not enough transparency, and it is also being used to manipulate the discourse, to criminalise journalism. So yes, of course, any ordinary right-thinking citizen should be worried about it, and so should you.

Speaker D: For the generation of hackers that grew up believing the internet would liberate information and democratise data, Assange is a cult hero in a trinity with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. But his collaborator from those early days, Suelette Dreyfus, emphasizes that he is still just a man.

Speaker E: I’ve known Julian Assange, we’ve worked together on a set of projects for more than 20 years. At the end of this case, this dramatic case of press freedom and weapons of mass destruction that don’t exist, is one man, a human being, who is sitting in Belmarsh Prison and is very broken. His health is bad and deteriorating. You know, his memory is affected. It’s become clear from reports of his appearance in court to date that he’s not even able to fully assist in his own defense. This is a very broken person who has been effectively in detention in the Ecuadorian embassy and in prison and in house arrest for 7+ years. So there’s a humanitarian issue here as well. It’s not just a broader issue. He’s got a mum and a family who is desperate to have him come home to Australia where he belongs. So that they can take care of him and try and rehabilitate him back to health. So I think that’s really important to think about as well. And I hope that the British judges who sit on this case, or if it goes to appeal, the appeals case, understand the importance of the humanity at the end of the chain of all of this. Of the human being who is there. That’s all I want to say.

Speaker D: For those of us who don’t know him personally, this case shines a spotlight on our justice system and the way we treat those who report the inconvenient truth. We should all take a closer look at it. I’m Peter Warren with Password on Resonance FM. If you’ve just joined us, I’m afraid you’ve missed it. You can find full details of all our findings at the CSRI and Future Intelligence websites. Password is produced by Blue Buffery and Jane Wyatt, and we’ll be back next month with another edition.

Speaker C: Thanks for listening.

Speaker F: Goodbye.

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