 Hello and welcome to Newsclick. On April 11th, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was forcibly arrested from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Assange now faces extradition to the United States, where he may face a grand jury indictment on charges of espionage. To talk more about some of the developments in the case, we have with us Prabhuprabil. Prabhuprabil, so on the one hand this is initially of course a British police said that this was about jumping bail but later everyone involved accepted this was actually about the US expedition request and the US is clearly framing this as a case of espionage using the Computer Fraud Act and other instances. But I think one of the things that they're willing to ignore is the fact that this is also an issue of journalism and this is something that needs to be discussed in some way. First is let's look about where the legal case is. We have to see as we have discussed with Sudeh Vidranatha earlier that the case is not going to be that simple even if the US wants to get him back to the US, get him to the US in fact correctly or the UK wants to hand him over. There is going to be a legal issue over there, there's going to be proceedings. We'll see what is the extent or how it will actually happen, how what is going to take place. The second issue that you are raising that is it that apart from the issue of press freedom, the second issue that we are talking about is the what is the charge that has been framed and you are saying that it is a basically espionage versus computer fraud etc etc. Now it's linked really to the question that you're raising about press freedom. Did he conspire to hack into quote unquote US secret documents or did he accept what the whistleblower in this case Chelsea Manning was willing to hand over to WikiLeaks the documents which were there in the US government confidential repository whatever. Now all accounts it was Chelsea Manning who was the whistleblower, she was the one who had access and she is the one who handed over these documents to WikiLeaks for publication. Did the publication serve public good? Yes, it showed clear instances of war crimes, even clear videos which show how journalists were shot down on the ground, it shows civilians being killed and the wealth of documents, how different countries laws were violated and how war crimes were committed by US troops both in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan. So this were the nobody's questioning that this served a public purpose which was war crimes or crimes against the people of different parts of the world. So the question that arises should the what would be called the press freedoms be extended to WikiLeaks and there's been a whole argument saying that well you know it's really not press because it is not print, it is not television, we know that if that is an argument then a number of newspapers which have folded up today and are only have a digital presence would also be considered as not press that's not the argument anybody is giving. So digital platforms as press is now widely accepted there is no argument that if you are a media organization what form you practice your media presence whether it should be print television or it should be digital platforms that's really not the issue. The issue is are you really performing the traditional function of press of informing the people of what's the news and what's the wrong doing of those in power. And if we take that into account WikiLeaks certainly performed that role and therefore the argument that WikiLeaks is not press is a completely spurious one. So I think it's a new form of journalism which WikiLeaks is really brought about. It started with exposure of corruption in fact initial letter that Julian had written to different people in the world asking for the support talked about corruption in the developing countries because he didn't think that the problem was in the United States or in European Western European countries he thought this is a peculiarly third world problem the governments are corrupt they violate human rights and therefore they need to be exposed in fact it was his experience with what happened Iraq war particularly being an eye opener that forced him to rethink his politics and the understanding that the biggest violator of human rights is actually the United States and other NATO countries and the fact that a lot of this crimes happen in quote unquote third world countries or developing countries is because of the shall we say the direct interest of the US and the US big corporations or Western European big corporations therefore this is not a case of corruption of just simply third world dictators enriching themselves but it's a far bigger issue than that. And picking up on one of the points you said in terms of a new model of journalism so what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks actually brought was the possibility that information even raw information could actually be used as a weapon by people who either to have absolutely no access to it and that is actually in some senses created a revolution because after that Snowden came with his own bit of information and there have been many such instances across the world. It's not really a bit it's a huge cache of information out of which we don't know how much we have seen and how much we have still to see. You know there are I think two major issues or changes I would hesitate to use the word revolution because a much misused word which WikiLeaks really brings in. One is it makes the possibility of transmitting large amounts of information from the one who's a whistleblower to the one who is functioning as shall we say the press or the media to expose these documents to the public. Now this used to be as we know a very cloak and dagger operation. We have the Woodward and Bernstein case of the Watergate leaks with the deep throat Mark Felt who was associate director of FBI apparently communicating by Bernstein moving a flower pot in his balcony and Mark Felt then marking up the place they would meet on the copy of his New York Times the 20th page if I remember correctly. Now all of this was very very difficult and if you're going to supply bulk documents obviously this was not a very shall we say efficient use particularly with cell phones and all other means of surveillance today that we have this is increasingly a difficult way to operate. So what Julian did because he was a very high-end programming person he created a mechanism by which whistleblowers could transfer documents to WikiLeaks without actually WikiLeaks knowing about who the supplier of the information was. They of course had to do the due diligence was it true was it correct it's not every document which WikiLeaks got it published it didn't but after having done that they could say with confidence that we do not know who the person is who is center of these documents we've received the documents something that Bernstein always said that he didn't know who was the deep throat of course we know that he really did but he could have plausible deniability in this case you could have technological deniability because the secure dropbox kind of platforms the dropboxes that he engineered various other modes of communication that he really made popular at least the circuit made or as he puts it cryptography becoming democratic that others could use it it's just not just a state and you could also therefore communicate with the platforms like WikiLeaks without compromising who you are and of course if people are not careful then of course you still can get caught and surely if you take Chelsea Manning's case it was not the communication that became public and that of to said to WikiLeaks had made her that identified her but it was really her speaking to someone else who then acted as a snitch so it's also interesting because especially the Iraq and the Afghanistan cables were not a WikiLeaks operation alone it was the entire media ecosystem across continents even in India for that matter the cables that were released along with the mainstream media so we have also seen for instance the other papers paradise papers and various other things becoming used in a similar fashion so I think what has really happened is journalism has changed dramatically with WikiLeaks but this is something which you know is people are unwilling to admit because shall we say they don't like Julian Assange or what he was doing or if you're a Democrat in the United States you believe Assange helped Trump win and so on but the other thing was if you talk about the technological finesse that WikiLeaks showed it was an amazing one because they were sort of dropped from all the servers that are available commercially available money was stopped and so on and they may created huge number of instances through which WikiLeaks still was available to the people and therefore they're able to beat what people thought would be a very difficult exercise being able to function without the US stopping them so all the attempts that US made to stop them actually they could not help they could really stop it because of the technical finesse or the technical capability the WikiLeaks has it had or Julian had and so you would see for instance the attack on WikiLeaks as a fundamental attack on the freedom of press and the media expression across the world I have no doubt that it is because what we are talking about is something which is exposed by exposed by Chelsea Manning she served a sentence in jail for this if anybody can be accused by the United States of having breached their security to Chelsea Manning she was a whistleblower and she was punished for this and that could be argued was the only person the government can hold responsible can the press be held responsible for publishing it I think the answer is clear in that or so Washington Post New York Times Guardian all of them should also be put to jail why is it that only only WikiLeaks what's the specific crime that WikiLeaks has committed which Washington Post New York Times or a Guardian has it and Washington Post as you know was the Watergate case so why is it that we are saying well that was different but this is not after all you are talking of crimes committed by the US and Iraq and Afghanistan these are war crimes thank you that's all we have time for today keep watching